§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILL (Donegal S.)asked permission to call Mr. Speaker's attention to a matter regarding the practice of the House which affected every Member on either side. It would be in the recollection of hon. Members that that 1255 very day a Question down in the name of his hon. friend the Member for the College Green Division of Dublin was not put because his hon. friend complained that crucial words had been eliminated without any reason having been given to his hon. friend by the clerks at the Table. His hon. friend had told him that he received no communication whatever from the clerks at the Table about the elimination, of which he certainly ought to have had notice. He did not wish to show any personal disrespect to the learned gentlemen at the Table, but he desired it to be perfectly understood that Questions were not to be edited by the clerks except with the permission of Mr. Speaker.
§ * MR. SPEAKEROrder, order! The hon. Member is not entitled to make a speech. He is not asking my ruling; he is giving his own ruling.
§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLsaid he was endeavouring to give Mr. Speaker's ruling in his own words. Perhaps he was putting it too enthusiastically. But he would put himself in order by asking a Question. He wished to know whether the clerks at the Table had any light to alter a Question without Mr. Speaker's permission, and whether if they did alter a Question, it was not their duty to ask the hon. Member putting the Question whether he approved of the alteration. In this particular case the fact that the words omitted were crucial words was proved by their insertion in the typewritten answer which had been supplied.
§ * MR. SPEAKERsaid that when any substantial alteration was thought necessary it was the duty of the clerks to communicate with the hon. Member putting the Question, and they always endeavoured to do so. It was often very difficult to communicate with an hon. Member about his Question, but he was told that this Question had been in print for some days in the form in which it now stood on the Paper, and if the words left out were so crucial he should have thought the hon. Member for College Green would have called attention to it before. He assured the hon. Member that there was no attempt on the part of the clerks at the Table to assume any undue-authority.
§ * MR. NANNETTI,as a matter of personal explanation, said another Question of his received similar treatment the week before, and was rendered ridiculous by having the very kernel taken out of it. In declining to put the Question under discussion he did not intend to be either rude or discourteous to the House, but as a protest against the way in which his Questions had been frequently treated at the clerks' Table.