§ MR. MACNEILLI beg to ask the Patronage Secretary of the Treasury, or in his absence the First Lord of the Treasury, whether it is intended to persist in the nomination of Sir James Fergusson as a Member of the Select Committee on Telephones, he being a director of the National Telephone Company and as such an interested party, and when the Motion will be taken.
§ MR. SPEAKERI think the proper mode of raising that question is to take objection to the name when it is called out, but the honourable Member will be perfectly in order in asking when the motion will be taken.
§ SIR J. FERGUSSON (Manchester, N. E.)Perhaps, as this is a personal matter, the House will allow me to say a word or two. My name was proposed in consequence of a request made to me by the Government—by more than one Member of Her Majesty's Government. I hesitated very much, and did not accept for some days. On second consideration I think that it will not be desirable that I should serve, and I should have been in my place when this question was put had it not been for the fact that I was looking for the Minister in order to ask him to excuse me from serving.