COLONEL NOLANI beg to ask you, Mr. Speaker, why a certain class of questions is not allowed to appear on the Paper? I wish to ask you if you have ruled that it is not in Order for a Member to place on the Paper questions which name the old railway rates which Railway Companies charge and the new rates the companies are now charging?
§ MR. SPEAKERThe hon. and gallant Member handed in a question yesterday which contained a request for information as to whether a great number of specific rates were charged by a particular Railway Company. I informed him that I thought it was a very dangerous precedent to set, inasmuch as any hon. Member might thereafter ask whether such and such were the rates charged by a particular company, and that it would be far better for him to submit a specific case to the Government who had the matter in hand, when, no doubt, the facts would be inquired into. Of course, if the hon. and gallant Gentleman wishes to put a question of that description the whole of the rates of a Railway Company, as to the carriage of coal and iron from the North, might be set out and inquired into in the form of a question. The purpose of a question is to ask for information, and not to supply it to the House.