BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE-COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY. (Hansard, 25 February 1890)

§ (4.12.) MR. LABOUCHERE (Northampton)
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman upon the early zeal he has shown in taking private Members' days, and still more on the astuteness with which he has arranged business in this House in order to suit the exigencies of his position. For my own part I fully admit that the difficulties of the right hon. Gentleman's position are, to some extent, his excuse for the action he has taken. The right hon. Gentleman is at the head of a majority of this House, but of an exceedingly composite majority, with no constructive cohesion, the only desire being to keep out the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. Gladstone), and to prevent Home Rule from taking place in Ireland. ["Hear, hear!" from the Ministerial Benches.]Hon. Gentlemen opposite, I see, agree with me in that. Perhaps they will go further, and agree with me that it is wise for the First Lord of the Treasury to limit the action of the House to discussing Government Bills, the details of which have been carefully arranged between the different 1171 sections that support the right hon. Gentleman. I can see why the right hon. Gentleman objects to Private Members' days; there are so many rocks ahead for the vessel which the right hon. Gentleman navigates. The hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division of Glasgow (Mr. Provand) has a Motion on the Paper with reference to the obnoxious taxes on tea, coffee, and currants, which would have put the Liberal Unionists in a difficulty as to how they were to vote, and they naturally looked to the right hon. Gentleman as the pilot to get them clear of that difficulty. It cannot be said that the debate on the Address has been long. It has only occupied seven days, for I exclude the two Wednesdays, the first of which was occupied by the Gentlemen in uniform who usually perform on such occasions, and the second only began at two o'clock, owing to right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite desiring to spend their morning in prayer. It is said that the Motions brought forward on the Address justify the Government in proposing to take away private Members' days. That is mistaking the cause for the effect; it is because hon. Members have had experience and know that their days will be taken away, that those Motions are brought forward on the Address. No sooner did the right hon. Gentleman hear that the House was willing to close the debate on the Address on Monday than he put down a wishy-washy Motion on the Report of the Special Commission for the following Monday. Next day the right hon. Gentleman said he must have a little money, and a day afterwards he said he must have Tuesday to get his money, and so the trick was done. Why the right hon. Gentleman should have added Friday it is impossible to say. Friday has always been sacred to private Members, even at the end of the Session, by means of morning sittings. I am sorry to say it appears to me that, to the right hon. Gentleman, there is nothing sacred. I know what the reply will be. The right hon. Gentleman will get up and say that he owes a duty to his God, his Queen and his country, and that notice has been given in the Queen's Speech of very valuable Bills with which it is desirable to proceed. But what are those Bills? There are only two of any importance—one to get hold of a certain 1172 amount of money for the Irish landlords' and the other to facilitate the clergy in their marauding efforts to get hold of the tithes. After what happened last year about the Tithes Bill the right hon. Gentleman has no right to expect aid from the Opposition in passing that sort of predatory Bill, or in enabling the Liberal Unionists to avoid the embarrassment of voting against Liberal Motions. I hope I shall get the support of hon. Members below the Gangway opposite in the Division which I intend to take on the Motion.

§ (4.21.) MR. PICTON (Leicester)
If the right hon. Gentleman is to conduct the business of the House in this manner I imagine that private Members will cease to be of any use, and all he will have to do will be to introduce a system of proxies, such as formerly prevailed in another place, but has now been abandoned, and allow us to go about our business. The right hon. Gentleman, when my hon. Friend below me (Mr. Labouchere) alluded to the brevity of the debate on the Address, smilingly shook his head with as near an approach to satire as was possible. Let me remind the right hon. Gentleman that of late years the debates on the Address have been necessarily very long. In 1887 the debate lasted 16 days—17 if the day occupied in considering the Report is included—and in 1888 11 days, and last year about the same time. I can find no precedent for a Minister, immediately after the Address has been voted, proposing to take away private Members' days. The fact is that the old practice of the House of Commons is being destroyed, and it is becoming an assembly of mere ciphers waiting on the dictation of the head of the Government. No serious debate takes place in this House, and the discussion of public affairs is transferred to the newspapers and the constituencies.

§ (4.30) MR. J. LOWTHER (Isle of Thanet)
There are many hon. Members on this side of the House who would like to hear some good reason from the Government for the course they now propose to take, and who are inclined to protest against the principle of taking away the time belonging to private Members for the purpose of voting Supply. I would also say that it has been the practice of the House in times past willingly to afford 1173 facilities to Her Majesty's Government when the necessities of Supply were pressing, or when any real emergency arose. Is there emergency now? No doubt the debate on the Address has not been unduly curtailed, to say the least of it, and we must also bear in mind that the Government have placed a considerable portion of their time next week at the disposal of the House. I recognise the situation, but I wish to elicit from the First Lord of the Treasury that this practice of taking the days of private Members is not going to be made a precedent. I also want to have an assurance that the application made by the Government to the House is founded upon bonâ fide public requirements, and that the time to be taken from private Members is to be devoted to the specific object of considering urgent Votes in Supply.

§ (4.33.) THE FIRST LORD OF IHE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,) Strand, Westminster
I trust that hon. Members will feel it their duty to accept the Motion I have already submitted to the House. The only precedent which I could ask the House to lay down is a precedent declaring that the necessities of the public service must be provided for. It has been the practice in the last two or three years to discuss Supply at great length. In those years every Government day might have been devoted to the consideration of Supply, to the exclusion of other business. The hon. Member for Leicester says that the old practice of the House of Commons is being destroyed. I agree with the hon. Member. Hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House are destroying that practice, which was to vote the Address in one night, or in two nights at the most. This year the debate on the Address has occupied a fortnight, and we have arrived at the 25th of February, a date when it is usual for the Government to proceed with Supply. We can not expect the debate on the Report of the Special Commission to occupy less than the whole Government time next week, and in these circumstances it becomes imperative to devote this evening and Friday next to Supply. Friday, however, might be preserved to private Members if the House will grant previously all the Supply for which it is necessary to ask. The hon. Member for 1174 Northampton has given me credit for great astuteness. I do not claim to be astute; all I claim is this, that I pay regard to the business of the House and seek to render its transaction possible. If the consideration of that business excludes the consideration of Motions and Bills in which hon. Members are interested, I regret the fact, but I contend that the Government are not responsible. We are anxious that private Members should enjoy the opportunities which the rules of the House intended them to have, and if hon. Members would only revert to the ancient practices and customs which enabled them to enjoy those opportunities nobody would be more delighted than myself and my Colleagues. I am most anxious to revert to the Parliamentary practices which prevailed before the introduction of that extreme heat which now is manifested in political affairs. If we can but resume those practices the political interests of the country will be greatly advanced and also the interests of the different political parties in this House. I may point out, before sitting down, that the first notice of Motion on the Paper relates to a subject which can be discussed exhaustively on the Budget.

§ (4.38.) SIR W. HARCOURT, (Derby)
I was very glad to hear the right hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet maintain a doctrine which I have held ever since I have sat in this House. The right hon. Gentleman has not taken the best means to avoid heat in this discussion by casting an explosive bomb across the House and accusing the Opposition of being the cause of all the evils of which he complains. It is quite true that the practice of the House has very much changed, and that protracted debates on the Address are of comparatively recent date. The practice, as far as I know, began in the years between 1880 and 1885. There was a debate in one of those years which lasted 11 days, and the questions discussed, such as the affairs of Egypt, were raised by Gentlemen who then sat on the front Opposition Bench. I do not, however, want to indulge in recriminations. In this matter the right hon. Gentleman must take the responsibility of having introduced this topic to-night, but, comparatively speaking, in former years such occasions were very rare, although it has now become 1175 almost a regular practice to debate the Address at very great length. Why? Because Members of this House know that if important questions are not debated on the Address, opportunities for discussing them will never be obtained. Let this be understood when charges of obstruction are brought. In old days the Government were content with the time appropriated to them by the Standing Orders of the House. In the present Parliament, the Government has thought it right, for one reason or another, to appropriate almost the whole time of the House from the very beginning of the Session. The result is that no question of general public interest can be discussed in the House, unless it is discussed on the Address. The consequence of this state of things is extremely injurious to the House of Commons, for, excepting the topics which the Government choose to select for consideration, all the discussion of matters in which the country is interested takes place outside the House instead of inside. This is a very serious evil. I think it is reasonable to expect, from what has happened during the last three years, that the Government will soon ask for all the time of the House. There is, therefore, no opportunity except upon the Address or upon Motions for Adjournment—which is also a new practice and an undesirable practice if it can be avoided—of bringing these matters under the consideration of the House. The time of private Members has, to a large extent, been taken away in recent years. It is urged that the Government have made a present of next week to the House. But the subject for next week is really Government business of the first importance. The Attorney General and the latest Member of the Cabinet have taken pains outside the House to explain that the Report is Government business. It is a Government Report and a Government Motion, and it is for the Government that this debate is to be held. The Attorney General posted off to Oxford, and he has been followed up by the new Minister of Agriculture, who backed him up in the ceremony. What are the next items of the bill of fare? We are to have the plan of Irish land purchase, on which from the nature of the case there will be a protracted discussion, and then there is 1176 the Tithe Bill. These are to exclude all other topics which Members of the House and people outside may desire to have discussed in Parliament. I do not believe it is for the advantage of the country that we should discuss nothing-but the Commission Report, land purchase in Ireland, and tithes; and these constitute the programme of the Government. There are a great many other questions which ought to be discussed. But I venture to say, from what I have seen in recent years, that these subjects will use up the whole time of the House, and all other topics which interest the country will be excluded. I thought it necessary to make these observations because the new methods of raising discussions to which I have referred have been rendered necessary by the new claims of the Government. Take this question of the tea duties. The right hon. Gentleman opposite asks why my hon. Friend did not wait for the Budget. But everybody knows, who is acquainted with the practice of Parliament, that it is idle to wait for the Budget, because when once it is introduced, and the Government are pledged to their proposals, no discussion or Motion has any chance of success. The only way in which influence can be brought on the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or a reform of this character can be promoted, is by a debate before the Budget is-introduced. I agree with the right hon. Member for Thanet that the House ought to listen to Government claims of a financial character, to enable them to meet their statutory obligations; and Parliament has always given time, and always will give time, to the Government in order that they may discharge these requirements. But the right hon. Gentleman has no such case as that today. The right hon. Gentleman has said that discussions on Supply would probably be extremely protracted, and that he will therefore have to take the time of private Members. But it is not the time of private Members. It is the time for discussing public topics other than those introduced by the Government. I confess I have not heard any answer from the right hon. Gentleman to the appeal of the Member for Thanet in justification of so extraordinary a demand at so early a period of the Session. No urgent necessity has been 1177 shown and no such case has been made out as is ordinarily made when a demand is preferred by a Government for taking from members the time assigned for the discussion of matters of public importance.