§ MR. JOHN REDMOND (Waterford)MR. Speaker, I wish to ask a Question with reference to order and procedure. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board has placed on the Paper a notice of a Resolution dealing with the question of Redistribution. That Resolution is a long and complicated one and contains within itself a scheme of Redistribution, and it is put forward with the intention of founding a Bill upon it if passed. I wish to ask you whether in cases such, as this the invariable precedent has not been for the Government to move that the House do resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole House for the purpose of considering such Resolutions, the object being, of course, that on that Motion the general discussion shall take place. Then, when the House went into Committee on the Resolutions, they could be dealt, with clause by clause, just as on the Committee stage of the Bill. I am 574 aware there is no exact precedent, and I that the action of the Government in this matter is, in fact, unprecedented; but the nearest precedents I am aware of are, first, one in 1858 with regard to the Government of India Bill, when, under the Government of Lord Derby, a Resolution was moved that the House do resolve itself into a Committee to consider certain Resolutions upon which it was intended to found a Bill. Secondly, in 1868, in reference to the disestablishment of the Irish Church, Mr. Gladstone's procedure was to move that the House do resolve itself into a Committee to consider several Resolutions, which were taken up seriatim..The particular point I have in my mind is this, that if the present unprecedented procedure is adopted it is quite conceivable that, after a general discussion on, say, the first Amendment possible, it may be impossible afterwards to take up the clauses of this long and complicated scheme in the Resolution clause by clause and discuss it, as we should in Committee on a Bill. I submit this, Sir, as a question of order and procedure and ask your guidance.
§ *MR. SPEAKERI was not aware that the hon. Member was going to raise this point, or I would have fortified myself with full information in advance. The rule of the House in dealing with Resolutions is quite clear—that is to say, the ordinary rule obtains, that each Member can only speak once, and no Amendments are reserved. The only cases in which Amendments are reserved are the cases of Bills in Committee, Bills on Report, or Resolutions dealing with the procedure of the House, taking the time of the House, so-called guillotine Resolutions, and the like. Therefore, if an Amendment were put down to leave out all the words after the word "That" in order to insert some reasoned Amendment against the Resolution, and if that Amendment were negatived, then the whole of the Resolution would stand, and no Amendments would be possible. That is the ordinary rule of procedure. Of course it is open to hon. Members whether they choose to take that particular method of meeting the Resolution or other methods. With regard to the question whether the Resolutions should be referred to a 575 Committee or not, I am afraid I have not got the first precedent which the hon. Member cited in my mind; but with regard to the second precedent—namely, the referring of the Resolutions relating to the Irish Church to a Committee—that was done under the old Standing Order which compelled all questions which dealt with religious matters to be considered in Committee of the Whole House. That Standing Order is now abolished, and for that reason it would not be compulsory, if any similar Resolutions were introduced, to discuss them in Committee.
§ MR. JOHN REDMONDI ought to apologise for not having given you notice, Sir, but it was impossible to engage your attention during Questions. My point is, not that it is compulsory—I do not say at all that it is compulsory—on the Government; but I hope to elicit an expression of opinion from you that to follow a procedure which, according to what you have now said, will preclude the possibility of dealing in Committee with the complicated details of this scheme, and which will confine the discussion to a general Second Reading discussion, is a procedure not suited to a case of this kind, and one which ought not to be followed. Perhaps the Prime Minister will say something to relieve the House from the apprehension, which I think now will be general, that this House after a Second Reading discussion will have forced upon it, perhaps by the closure, a Resolution which is in effect a long and complicated scheme the details of which have not been considered.
*MR. GIBSON BOWLESOn the point of order, Sir, if this Resolution be presented to the House, I submit to you that by the rules of the House it will have to be broken up into eleven separate Resolutions—for there are in it eleven separate, distinct propositions. This is according to the ancient rules of this House, beginning with the time when the Speaker himself formulated the Question and put it in his own words to the House. The same question arose, only in a much less acute form, with reference to a Resolution which my right hon. friend the First Lord of the Treasury proposed in January, 1902, and which embodied two 576 distinct, separate propositions. I then appealed to the Speaker, without any notice, and claimed that the Resolution must be divided into two, inasmuch as it contained two separate propositions, and Mr. Speaker Gully ruled that I was right. Accordingly he did divide the Resolution into two, and he did put it in two Questions. I submit confidently that when there are separate and distinct propositions in a Resolution, the Resolution must be divided into as many Resolutions as there are in it separate and distinct propositions, and that each must be put separately to the House, in order that the House may be enabled to exercise its undoubted right to assent to one alone while dissenting, if it so desires, from all the others.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI am not unwilling, of course, that there should be a general discussion on the Resolution. But I am unwilling that the forms of the House should be used to prolong that discussion to an impossible length.
§ MR. JOHN REDMONDI did not say that.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI am not making any charge against the hon. Gentleman. I am only explaining my own position. I should be glad to come to an amicable arrangement with hon. Gentlemen opposite if such an. arrangement is possible.
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN (Stirling Burghs)That hardly meets the point, which concerns us all. The right hon. Gentleman is willing, apparently, to make some arrangement whereby there should be no undue curtailment of the general discussion upon the Resolution as a whole. But what we require is the power, after such general debate, of discussing, if necessary, the details of the Resolution; because we are told that the Resolution will practically be a Bill, and that we shall be short of a large amount of our powers, when a further Bill is introduced to carry it into effect if we have committed ourselves to this extremely detailed Resolution. I join most cordially in the appeal to the right hon. Gentleman that, in a matter so enormously important as 577 this, so urgent and complicated, he should perhaps between this and Monday think of some way to give the House that liberty to which it is entitled, and which, in one form or another, it will insist upon having.
MR. A. J. BALPOURI think the right hon. Gentleman is under some misapprehension. He supposes that it would be impossible for the House to discuss the subject of this Resolution in detail when the Bill to be founded on it is introduced. The House will have absolute freedom to deal with the derails of that Bill. No power is taken away from the House by this Resolution. All we seek now is the power to give such instructions to the Boundary Commissioners as that they will be able to prepare a Bill for the consideration of the House, and the House will have full freedom to reject that Bill or amend it or do anything they like with it. As regards the particular procedure to be adopted in the case of the Resolution, I am quits willing to see by Monday if I can meet the views of the House. I do not know with what kind of opposition the Resolution is to be meet. But I suggest that it is hardly fair, if I am to give up every instrument which I possess to press on the business of the Government, hon. Gentlemen opposite are to retain every weapon which they possess.
§ MR. JOHN REDMONDWe will give up no weapon, any way.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI am not complaining. I am only saying that it is somewhat unreasonable that the hon. Gentleman should come forward and state publicly that there is no weapon of delay which he is prepared to give up, but I am to give up any weapon which I may possess for expediting business.
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANI thought the right hon. Gentleman was Leader of the House. He speaks now of the weapons he possesses as against the House. I am obliged to remind the right hon. Gentleman that, great as his position and powers are, the House is greater; and the House in a case like this, where we have a great constitutional change to consider, is entitled not only 578 to all the latitude of discussion and the powers of criticism which the rules allow but even to any extension of those rules that may be necessary in order to give us the power required.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThe right hon. Gentleman has reminded me of some thing. I will remind him of something It was only two days ago that he reproached me with not having forwarded the business of the House with more rapidity, by which, of course, he meant and could only have meant, that I had not used all the powers which, according to him, I possess.
§ MR. JOHN REDMONDI have made no request to the right hon. Gentleman to give up any weapon, as he calls it; but I have asked that this Resolution should be treated, according to precedent, in such a way as that the House can discuss its details. It is no answer to tell me that the details can be discussed on the Bill next year. My objection is against the passing of a Bill in the form of a Resolution this year without discussion. The hon. Member for King's Lynn has made, as he always makes in these matters, a good point. He has submitted the question whether it is competent in the form of one Resolution to put to the House a number of separate and different propositions. Therefore, Sir, I have to ask you, on a point of order, whether these eleven propositions will be put separately from the Chair, or whether they will be put, according to this method, as a weapon in the hands of the Government in one Motion, thereby precluding the possibility of discussing the details. One word more, I did not use the words "weapon of delay" which the right hon. Gentleman put into my mouth. The phrase I would wish to use is "weapon of defence." The right hon. Gentleman's weapon is a weapon of aggression.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOUROn the point of order. Is it not the fact that, in the case of the Resolution alluded to by my hon. friend behind me, there were two-quite separate and distinct proposals therein contained, whereas in the scheme of the Government the general plan hangs together, and it is impossible to divide it?
§ *SIR CHARLES DILKE (Gloucestershire, Forest of Dean)May I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that instead of answering immediately this very grave point, in which I entirely agree with the hon. Member for King's Lynn, you should take steps to inform yourself from any memoranda existing of the private rulings on this question which have been given by previous Speakers? This is a matter which has seldom been ruled on publicly, because such points in doubtful cases have been submitted to the Chair in advance. I am aware of two cases, in one of which I was personally concerned, and in the other Mr. Gladstone, in which the Resolutions were divided, and in regard to which I know private rulings were given. Will you take steps to inform yourself of those private decisions?
§ *MR. SPEAKERThis obviously is a very important question, and I think, if the House will permit me. I would rather take time to consider it. As the Question stands on the Paper it would seem to impose upon me, if I were to accept the suggestion which has been made, the necessity of drafting some ten or twelve fresh Questions. That is one of the points which I must consider, and I will take every available means of discovering what has been done when similar questions have arisen in the past.
*MR. GIBSON BOWLESMay I remind you, Sir, that Sir Erskine May on this point says that, although one individual Member cannot perhaps claim to have a complicated Question divided into its component parts, the House can always order it to be so divided?
§ The incident then terminated.