§ MR. BARTLEY (Islington, N.)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the Orders of the Day sent to each Member each morning now amount to and even exceed one pound in weight, the whole House thereby receiving some six hundredweight of printed matter a-day; whether he is also aware that of this over 50 pages a-day sent to each Member, or about 35,000 foolscap printed pages sent to the whole House, are Amendments to the Government of Ireland Bill issued over and over again, thus rendering it almost impossible to find out which are now Amendments; and whether he can arrange that only new Amendments shall be issued daily, with a weekly edition of the whole Amendments, or some other arrangement, in order to save this large expenditure of printing and stationery and the inconvenience which the distribution of this great amount of printed matter involves on hon. Members?
§ MR. LODER (Brighton)Before the right hon. Gentleman answers the question, may I suggest whether it would not be desirable to print the actual clause under discussion at the head of the Amendments?
§ SIR J. T. HIBBERTThe printing of the Notice Paper is under the control of the Speaker, who will, no doubt, consider the suggestion of the hon. Gentleman. As to the question of the hon. Member for North Islington, no doubt the weights of the Orders of the Day and the number of printed pages are as stated by my hon. Friend. In reply to the concluding paragraph of the hon. Member's question, it may be remarked that when a Bill does not stand for Committee upon the Notice Paper of the House for that day's Sitting, it is only-new Amendments to the Bill, of which notice has been given at the previous Sitting, which are printed and circulated with the morning delivery of the Notice Paper, but that whenever a Bill stands for Committee upon the Notice Paper, all the proposed Amendments to the Bill must be circulated in each morning's delivery of the Notice Paper, 1542 and that the cost of that circulation is only the cost of the paper on which the Amendments are printed.
§ MR. LODERThen if it is deemed necessary to issue all the Amendments each morning would it not be as well that the new Amendments should be printed in a different typo?
MR. T. M. HEALYI hope that the hon. Member who has just sat down will, in the interests of economy, use his influence to induce hon. Members near him to refrain from putting down so many Amendments to the Government of Ireland Bill.