§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILL (Donegal, S.)I desire to call attention, Mr. Speaker, to what I regard as an abuse of the practice of this House. On Tuesday last* the hon. Member for Middlesbrough essayed to move the adjournment of the House on a definite matter of urgent public importance. You considered that the motion
* See page 455 of this volume.681 was not definite enough to justify you in submitting it to the House, and suggested that the hon. Member had better give notice for another day.
§ MR. SPEAKERWhat is the point of order the hon. Member wishes to raise?
§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLMay I explain? I have no interest in this matter, and have not consulted the hon. Member for Middlesbrough. What I seek is to safeguard as far as I can the rights——
§ MR. SPEAKERWhat is the point of order? The hon. Member has not yet indicated it.
§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLIt is not so much a point of order as one of practice. My hon. friend, acting on your suggestion, gave notice that he would move the adjournment to-day.
§ MR. SPEAKERI did not suggest he should give any notice, but that he should bring the matter forward on another day.
§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLAnd he intimated he would do so to-day. But on the Order Paper of to-day there appears a notice of motion by the hon. Member for Argyllshire in relation to the same matter—the presence of foreigners on transports carrying men and stores to South Africa—which is manifestly intended to prevent the hon. Member for Middlesbrough from bringing on his motion for the adjournment of the House.
§ MR. SPEAKERThis is quite irregular. The hon. Member objects to the hon. Member for Argyllshire having exercised his undoubted right to put down this notice of motion.
§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLYes, Sir.
§ MR. SPEAKERThere can be no objection taken to that. There is no point of order.
§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLWith every respect to you, Sir, I would suggest it is an abuse of the practice of this House. I want to know whether, when a notice of motion is put down which is declared in the public prints to be for the sole purpose of preventing—
§ MR. SPEAKERThe hon. Member is not entitled to state that. No point of order arises.
§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLWith great respect, Sir, the point I wished to raise was whether it was not an abuse of the practice of the House.
§ MR. SPEAKERThere is no point of order, or abuse of practice. The hon. Member for Argyllshire had an undoubted right to put down this motion.
§ MR. JOHN REDMOND (Waterford)May I ask whether there is any remedy for meeting a case of this kind, where, at the suggestion of the Chair, the moving of the adjournment was postponed for a couple of days?
§ MR. SPEAKERThe suggestion of the Chair was simply that the hon. Member was out of order, and that if he wished to put himself in order he would have to bring the matter forward in an amended form another day. I might have simply pointed out that the hon. Member's motion was not in order, and have called upon the Clerk to proceed to the Orders of the Day. But I did suggest to him that he might move it another day.
§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLMight that not be regarded as part and parcel of a continuous transaction?
§ MR. SPEAKERNo.