§ MR. STANSFELD (Halifax)With your permission, Sir, I should like to put a question as to the order of our Proceedings. I have been proposing to move the Adjournment of the House to-night, in order to call attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance—namely, the immediate duty of Her Majesty's Government with regard to certain practices in Indian Cantonments, as being in my view contrary to the Resolution of the House of Commons of June 15, 1888. I notice to day for the first time—having been absent from town—that there appears on the Paper a Notice of Motion by the hon. Baronet the Member for the Kingston Division (Sir R. Temple), who proposes to draw attention more or less, though not entirely so, to the same subject, but without assigning any definite occasion or date. I wish to ask you, Sir, whether I shall be in Order in making the Motion I had proposed?
§ MR. SPEAKERI also noticed the Motion which stands in the name of the hon. Baronet, and it would clearly act as a block upon the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman if the latter had proposed to move his Resolution to-day. Unless the hon. Baronet removes that block, it will not be competent for the right hon. Gentleman to move the Adjournment, even to-morrow. If there be a legitimate occasion on which the right hon. Gentleman may take that course, it will be on the Question that I leave the Chair on going into Committee on the Indian Budget. That is the state of the case.
§ MR. WALTER M'LAREN (Cheshire, Crewe)Would it be possible for the House to discuss this question on the Indian Budget without a Motion?
§ MR. SPEAKERNo; I do not think that would be in Order. The right hon. Gentleman asked me whether the fact that no day had been given for the discussion of the Motion by the hon. Baronet precluded the bringing forward 1580 of his own proposition. It is constantly held that a Motion which is down on the Paper, but for which no day has been fixed, acts as a block on the discussion of the question with which it deals before the date at which it is ultimately proposed to take the Motion on the Paper.
§ MR. WALTER M'LARENIf the hon. Baronet would withdraw his Motion at the end of Question time, I presume the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax could go on with his Motion?
§ MR. SPEAKERThe Motion of the hon. Baronet cannot be moved to-day. It would come on to-morrow, on the Motion that I leave the Chair.
§ SIR J. GORST (Cambridge University)As this is a matter connected with the administration of the Indian Budget, would it not be in Order to make speeches upon it, and to discuss it when the Indian Budget is under consideration without any definite Motion?
§ MR. SPEAKERThat would be anticipating the discussion to which the Notice on the Paper relates.
§ MR. STANSFELDI do not quite understand whether I should have been in Order in moving the Adjournment of the House for the purpose I intended if the hon. Member for Kingston had not put a Notice on the Paper.
§ MR. SPEAKERThat raises another part of the question. I think that as a legitimate opportunity for the right hon. Gentleman to take occurs on the Question that I now leave the Chair, it would not be permissible for him to raise the question on the Motion for an Adjournment of the House, the more especially as only a short time—only a few hours—will elapse before the subject can be legitimately discussed in the ordinary way.
§ MR. J. STUART (Shoreditch, Hoxton)I beg to give notice that next Session I will call attention to the Report laid on the Table of this House by the Departmental Committee respecting cantonments in India, and move a Resolution.