§ Order for Committee read.
An hon. MEMBERI hope the President of the Board of Trade will give us some assurance that this Bill will be pushed forward as rapidly as possible.
§ * SIR MICHAEL HICKS BEACHI will do my best to get it forward.
§ MR. SEXTON (Belfast, W.)I need scarcely remind the right hon. Gentleman of the replies he made to me on the 8th March and the 6th April last, in regard to the deputation that waited on the Board of Trade in reference to this Bill, and when he pleaded for help to enable hint to get the Bill through. He admitted the urgency as well as the importance of the question, and pledged himself to use every exertion to pass the Bill. Now, I think it is obvious that if the House parts with the control of the Bill, and sends it to the Grand Committee on Trade, the little chance of its passing into law this year will be seriously jeopardized. The right hon. Gentleman says he will do his best. Well, his best is able to accomplish a great deal more than that, and all I ask him to do is to give us some proof of his earnest desire to get this Bill through, and to see that when the Grand Committee of Trade meet on Thursday next, the Bill goes before them. It is only the phraseology of the Bill that is complex. The matters at issue are few and are well understood, and I have no doubt that the Committee will be able to decide upon them in the course of a sitting or two, 630 and the Bill be ready for progress in the House immediately after the holidays. I think it will not be a credit to this House if we fail to get the Bill through this Session.
Order for Committee, read and discharged.
Bill committed to the Standing Committee on Trade, &c.