§ DR. CAMERON (Glasgow, College)I beg to ask the hon. Member for Walsall, (Sir C. Forster), as Chairman of the Committee on Public Petitions, whether his attention has been called to the fact that certain Petitions, the bodies of which are written by a type-writing machine, have been returned to the Members presenting them, with an intimation that, being informal, they would not be submitted to the Committee, and whether the Committee has ever 1322 decided the question as to whether typewritten Petitions should or should not be considered as regular; and, if not, whether, considering the inexpediency of unnecessarily restricting the right of public petitioning, he will use his influence with the Committee to accord to type-written Petitions the same treatment as to written ones?
§ SIR C. FORSTER (Walsall)stated that certain Petitions had been returned to the members who had presented them, under the Standing Order against Petitions "in print or lithograph," the clerk to the Committee being of opinion that the Petitions in question were not written in the sense required by the Orders of the House, and that he could not, therefore, submit them to the Committee-In answer to the further question of his hon. Friend, he had to state that the Committee had determined that these Petitions were not regular, and could not be received, but that it was competent to him to move a modification of the Standing Order in a future Session.
§ DR. CAMERONI beg to give notice that next Session I will move to amend the Standing Order to which the hon. Member refers.