LICENSING BILL—ALLOCATION OF TIME.

HC Deb 17 July 1908 vol 192 cc1231-323

THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. ASQUITH,) Fifeshire, E.

said: The Motion I am about to submit to the House naturally and necessarily raises the constantly recurring protest against the use and abuse of the guillotine. I do not propose to enter to-day upon the vexed historic question, which, perhaps, only the historian can justly decide, as to which party in the State is entitled to the larger share of credit or discredit for the invention, development, and bringing to perfection of this new Parliamentary instrument. It is sufficient to put on record the undoubted fact that during the last ten years, and I think I might even go further back, apart from the annual Finance Bill, there is hardly any legislative measure of the first class and at the same time of an elaborate and contentious character which has been carried through the House of Commons without at some stage recourse being had to this expedient. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that, unless the majority for the time being is to be placed at the mercy of the minority, unless, which is still more important, the strenuous hours and days and weeks which we give to the manufacture of legislation are to lie doomed to futility, the closure, which is now everywhere regarded as a normal and indispensable part of the Parliamentary machine, must be supplemented from time to time by the definite and compulsory allocation of Parliamentary time for the Committee and later stages of almost every considerable and disputable measure. I have often expressed the opinion, and I still hold it, that, given the necessity for the guillotine, it would he very desirable that its application to any particular case should be determined by some tribunal less open to the suspicion of partiality and arbitrariness than the Government of the day, subject always, of course, to the final judgment of the House. But I am afraid that is almost as munch a counsel of perfection as the guillotine itself is regarded by many people as the counsel of despair. At any rate, not only is there nothing like unanimity, but we do not seem within measurable distance of agreement as to the constitution and functions of such a body as I have described. So long as that is the case the responsibility for initiating the guillotine must rest with the Government of the day. That being so, there are, as each arises, two questions which present themselves. The first is what is the aggregate amount of time that can really be given to any particular measure, and the second, how that time ought to be apportioned having regard to the relative importance and interest of its various provisions and clauses. In this matter, which is a delicate one, both sides of the House will agree with me that one who is both head of the Government and Leader of the House has a double set of not very easily reconciled duties to perform. On the one hand, he is bound to do all he reasonably can to promote the legislative work of the Administration. On the other hand, he is equally bound, and in some sense as trustee of the liberties of this House to maintain its right to free discussion and to see that any unnecessary encroachment upon or curtailment of that right is adequately and jealously safeguarded. I can assure the House that, in the Motion I am about to propose, I have honestly endeavoured to keep both those objects equally in view. I venture to claim for this guillotine Resolution that in its class—an unhappy class, if you like, of necessary Parliamentary evils—it is at any rate not less scientific in form, and I think far more considerate in operation, than any of its predecessors. Let me ask your attention for a few moments when I examine the Resolution itself. I will first of all deal with the question of the aggregate time we propose to give to the remaining stages of the Licensing Bill. And let me say that in our opinion experience has shown it to be desirable that that question should be determined before we enter upon the Committee stage. Everyone who has heard discussions on the guillotine will agree that if you allow the Committee stage to begin before you propose and carry your timetable the inevitable result is that the earlier clauses of the Bill are over-discussed and the later clauses are under-discussed; and furthermore—a thing which is to be deprecated—the whole matter is inevitably embittered by controversy as to whether or not there has been obstruction. Again, may I say—and here, I think, I shall command general assent—you must determine the length of time to he given in proceedings of this sort, not altogether by reference to the number of clauses in the Bill. The Licensing Bill contains a very considerable number of clauses, some of which, I agree, bristle with contentions and most disputable matter. But there are others, and not an inconsiderable number, which affect administration or minor changes in the law, or small requirements which are practically a subsidiary, though not an unimportant, part of the sphere of licensing legislation, as to which there is something like general agreement in all parts of the House. In these circumstances, we are bound to have regard I will not say to the necessity, but to the extreme desirability, of the Bill reaching the House of Lords at a time in the autumn sittings when they could take it into reasonable consideration, and should have no ground of complaint that they were being hustled in the matter. Add to those considerations the fact which stares us in the face that, although we are now only in the middle of July and three months remain during which the fabricators of Amendments can exercise their ingenuity and zeal, there are now fifty-two pages of Amendments, or in number 980 Amendments on the Paper. The House will, therefore, see the impossibility of the task we have set before us, if some definition be not made by the House itself of the total amount of time to be expended on the Committee and Report stages of the Bill. We have already spent on the general discussion of the Bill five days, and if the Government Resolution is adopted we shall, in addition to these five days, spend nineteen days in Committee, five on the Report stage, one on the Third Reading; that is twenty-five more days, or, in other words, we shall have spent thirty days in all on the discussion of the Bill in this House. In our opinion that is a reasonable time to devote to the measure. Now I come to another point, which, in some respects, is more difficult to deal with satisfactorily and fairly than even the question of the aggregate amount of time. I mean the allocation of time as between different parts and clauses of the Bill. Here, let me say that we have taken a great deal of pains to do justice, as far as we could, to the various important points in dispute. Our object has been to secure that all the most important and contentious provisions should be discussed; and, ill endeavouring to carry out the object, we have been guided partly by our own knowledge of the subject and partly by the number, class, and character of the Amendments upon the Paper. I am not going through the whole of the timetable, but I will give a few samples to show how it will work out in practice. The first two days in Committee are given to Clause 1, the clause which provides for the statutory reduction of licences on a fixed proportion to population, within a specified term of years; a most important clause, no doubt, but one which we think can be well discussed on Monday and Tuesday next. I come to a still more important clause, Clause 3, which fixes the question of the time-limit and the legal position of existing licences on its expiration. To the discussion of that subject we give the fourth, fifth, and half of the sixth day in Committee—that is to say, two and-a-half days—so that there can be no question whatever that this, which is in many ways the most thorny section of the Bill, will be satisfactorily traversed. To Clause 9, which provides for local option in Wales as to reduction of licences beyond the statutory reduction prescribed in Clause 1, we give a whole day. The next contentious point, and one, I admit, of serious importance, is raised in Clauses 10 and 11, and relates to the amount and division of the compensation fund. To these clauses we have given two days. Other very important, though I hope not equally contentious points, are raised in Clauses 18, 19 and 20, which deal with Sunday closing, the exclusion of children from licensed premises, and the power to attach conditions to the renewal of existing licences. To these clauses we give two days. Finally, there is the highly contentious principle of the treatment of clubs, which will be found in Clauses 36 to 40. To these we propose again to give two days. These, I think, are the most disputable points in the Bill. It follows from what I have said that, if a fair use is made of the allotted time, every highly important or contentious proposal may be amply discussed. At the same time we recognise that accidents are very likely to occur, that with the best goodwill in all quarters material and important topics may not fall within the time allotted to the Bill on the Committee stage. Accordingly, we have proposed what, I think, is an innovation in these guillotine Resolutions with regard to the Report stage. We do not propose that the House should proceed to determine in advance how the five days we propose to give to the Report stage should be allotted. We think it a more satisfactory arrangement that the precise allocation of those days should be deferred until the Committee is over, so that important points which have escaped discussion or may not have been adequately discussed will secure priority on the Report stage. I do not think it is possible to go further than we have gone in reconciling what I admit is the crude, and in some respects inevitably harsh, requirements of the guillotine Resolution to the requirements of free discussion and fairness to all sections of the House. I have only to add that the Resolution has been drawn with these considerations in view, and I believe that if the House will assent to it it will be found that we can reasonably and adequately discuss all the provisions, numerous and contentious as they are, of this most important measure. I beg to move.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Committee stage, Report stage, and Third Reading of the Licensing Bill, and the necessary stages of the Financial Resolution relating thereto, shall be proceeded with as follows: (1) Committee stage.—Nineteen allotted days shall be given to the Committee stage of the Bill, and the proceedings in Committee on each allotted day shall be those shown in the second column of the table annexed to this Order, and those proceedings shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion at the time shown in the third column of that table. (2) Report stage.—Five allotted days shall be given to the Report stage of the Bill, and the proceedings for each of those allotted days shall be such as may be hereafter determined in manner provided by this Order, and those proceedings, if not previously brought to a conclusion, shall be brought to a conclusion at 10.30 p.m. on each such allotted day. (3) Third Reading.—One allotted day shall be given to the Third Reading of the Bill, and the proceedings thereon shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion at 10.30 p.m. on that day. On the conclusion of the Committee stage the Chairman shall report the Bill to the House without Question put, and the House shall then proceed to consider the proposals made by the Government for the allocation of the proceedings on the Report stage of the Bill between the allotted days given to that stage. The proceedings on the consideration of those proposals may be entered on at any hour, though opposed, and shall not be interrupted under the provisions of any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House, but if they are not brought to a conclusion before the expiration of two hours after they have been commenced the Speaker shall, at the expiration of that time, bring them to a conclusion by putting the Question on the Motion proposed by the Government, after having put the Question, if necessary, on any Amendment or other Motion which has been already proposed from the Chair and not disposed of. After this Order comes into operation, any day shall be considered an allotted day for the purposes of this Order on which the Bill is put down as the first Order of the Day, or on which any stage of the Financial Resolution relating thereto is put down as the first Order of the Day, followed by the Bill. Provided that 5 p.m. shall be substituted for 10.30 p.m. as the time at which proceedings are to be brought to a conclusion under the foregoing provisions on any allotted day which is a Friday, but Friday shall not be considered an allotted day for the purpose of the sixth or seventh allotted days. For the purpose of bringing to a conclusion any proceedings which are to be brought to a conclusion on an allotted day, and have not previously been brought to a conclusion, Mr. Speaker or the Chairman shall, at the time appointed under this Order for the conclusion of those proceedings, put forthwith the Question on any Amendment or Motion already proposed from the Chair, and shall next proceed successively to put forthwith the Question on any Amendments, new clauses, or schedules moved by the Government of which notice has been given, but no other Amendments, clauses or schedules, and on any Question necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded, and in the case of Government Amendments or of Government new clauses or schedules he shall put only the Question that the Amendment be made or that the clause or schedule be added to the Bill, as the case may be, and on the Committee stage of the Bill the Chairman, in the case of a series of clauses to which no notice of Amendment has been given by the Government, shall put the Question that those clauses stand part of the Bill without putting the Question separately as respects each clause. A Motion may be made by the Government to leave out any clause or consecutive clauses of the Bill before the consideration of any Amendments to the clause or clauses in Committee. The Question on a Motion made by the Government to leave out any clause or clauses of the Bill shall be put forthwith by the Chairman or Speaker without debate. Any Private Business which is set down for consideration at 8.15 p.m. on any allotted day shall, instead of being taken on that day as provided by the Standing Order "Time for taking Private Business," be taken after the conclusion of the proceedings on the Bill or under this Order for that day, and any Private Business so taken may be proceeded with, though opposed, notwithstanding any Standing Order relating to the Sittings of the House. On any day on which any proceedings are to be brought to a conclusion under this Order, proceedings for that purpose under this Order shall not be interrupted under the provisions of any Standing Order relating to the Sittings of the House. On an allotted day, no dilatory Motion on the Bill, nor Motion to recommit the Bill, nor Motion for Adjournment under Standing Order 10, nor Motion to postpone a clause, shall be received unless moved by the Government, and the Question on such Motion shall be put forthwith without any debate. Nothing in this Order shall: (a) Prevent any business which under this Order is to be concluded on an allotted day being proceeded with on any other day, or necessitate any allotted day or part of an allotted day being given to any such business if the business to be concluded has been otherwise disposed of; or (b) Prevent any other business being proceeded with on any allotted day or part of an allotted day ill accordance with the Standing Orders of the House after the business to he proceeded with or concluded under this Order on the allotted day or part of the allotted day has been disposed of.

Table.
Committee Stage.
Allotted Day.	Proceedings.	Time for Proceedings to be brought to a Conclusion.
First	Clause 1	—
Second	Clause 1	10.30
Third	Clause 2	10.30
Fourth	Clause 3 to the beginning of subsection (2)	—
Fifth	Clause 3 to the beginning of subsection (2)	10.30
Sixth	Clause 3, subsection (2)	7.30
Clauses 4 and 5	—
Seventh	Clauses 4 and 5	7.30
Clauses 6, 7, and 8	10.30
Eighth	Clause 9	10.30
Ninth	Clauses 10 and 11	—
Tenth	Clauses 10 and 11	10.30
Eleventh	Clauses 12, 13, and Committee stage of Financial Resolution	10.30
Twelfth	Report stage of Financial Resolution and Clauses 14 to 17	10.30
Thirteenth	Clauses 18 and 19	10.30
Fourteenth	Clauses 20	10.30
Fifteenth	Clauses 21 to 35	10.30
Sixteenth	Clause 36	10.30
Seventeenth	Clauses 37 to 40	10.30
Eighteenth	Clauses 41 to 47, and new Clauses	10.30
Nineteenth	Schedules, and any other matter necessary to bring the Committee stage to a conclusion	10.30

MR. A. J. BALFOUR (City of London)

Mr. Speaker, in the observations which I propose to make on the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman I shall not dwell at any length upon what occupied, naturally enough, most of his speech—namely, the details of the Resolution whose terms you have just read from the Chair. I will content myself on that branch of the subject with saying that there are in this Resolution two novelties. One is that there is to be a second discussion, apparently after the Committee stage, upon the amount of time to be allotted to the various topics, on the Report stage. I think it possible that that innovation may work well, although I confess I do not clearly apprehend precisely how the Government mean to approach the subject. Whether they mean to come down to the House after having heard all that has passed on the Committee stage and make proposals for allocation, and ask the House to discuss those proposals, or whether they mean to leave the subject more at large, I know not; and I prefer to leave any discussion on that point until we come to a later stage in the afternoon's discussion. I think there are Amendments on the Paper which will raise it. I will only say now that I cannot imagine a worse time for having a second discussion than the moment immediately succeeding a heated debate on the Committee stage. The right hon. Gentleman knows enough of the House of Commons to be aware that when the last guillotine falls on a hotly debated Bill which excites violent passions outside, which naturally, and even necessarily, have an echo within the walls of this House, that is not a good moment to enter into a calm and cool survey of what has gone on in Committee, or to make proposals adequate for the Report stage. I think an hon. friend of mine has an Amendment on the subject, and I dwell on it no longer at the present moment. I turn, as the House will expect me to turn, to the more general Considerations involved in the right hon. Gentleman's proposal. He began his speech by telling us that only history could decide as to what party in the State is more responsible for the use, for the abuse, and for the perfection of this particular means of cutting short Parliamentary discussion. I think I can aid the historian at all events in coming to a fair conclusion on that subject, and I think it is the more necessary to do so because I have observed in the debates we have had on this subject that there appears to be a large section of the House who seem to think that the proposals made by the Government, and their general mode of conducting Parliamentary business, are really on all fours with those of their predecessors, that they are doing no more either in degree or in kind than those who came before them in office, and that the only difference is that the right hon. Gentleman is now making the same sort of speech that the late Leader of the House made when in office, and that the late Leader of the House now in Opposition is making the same sort of speech that the right hon. Gentleman opposite made when he occupied his position, and that, as we have exchanged benches, so we have exchanged arguments and speeches and policies — that is the general position taken up by some hon. Members on this particular topic. Nothing in the world is further from the truth, and in order that this may be established let me remind the House of what I am convinced many hon. Members have either forgotten or never known, of what has actually taken place with regard to closure by compartments since closure by compartments was used in this House just about twenty years ago. It was first used in the Parliament of 1886 to 1892, and in that Parliament it was used twice. That was a Unionist Parliament. It was then used in the Parliament which lasted from 1892 to 1895—a Radical and Home Rule Parliament, and in that Parliament it was again used twice. In the Parliament of 1895 to 1900 it was not used at all. In the Parliament of 1900 to 1905 it was used three times in regard to Bills. In other words, from 1886 until the right hon. Gentleman came into office at the end of 1905, closure by compartments was used in regard to Bills in all seven times. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite have now had control of the business of the House for two sessions and a half, and as against the seven times in which closure by compartments was used for Bills during the four preceding Parliaments of the preceding nineteen years the present Government have already in two sessions and a half used it in regard to ten Bills. That is a difference in amount which everybody will admit amounts to a difference in kind. Nobody will pretend, or can pretend, to say that it is the same thing as when, for example, Mr. Gladstone brought forward closure by compartments to bring to a termination a great controversial measure like the Home Rule Bill, or when the Unionist Party brought it forward to deal with an Education Bill which had dragged its weary length through forty days, I think, in Committee—nobody would pretend that there is the smallest analogy between occasional and guarded use of this measure on those occasions and the perpetual application of it to every measure in turn. I confess I never heard from the present Government a justification of this wholly new method of dealing with current Parliamentary business. The general Parliamentary management of the Government is and remains to me a profound mystery. In the first session of this Parliament they had an autumn session. I ventured at that time to warn the Government that an autumn session was almost fatal to the work of the Government Departments themselves, whether you regarded the work of those Departments as being the work of the permanent officials or of their Parliamentary chiefs. The work could not be done if you were going to make the House sit through not only six months of the year, but all through the autumn as well. I preached in vain in 1906, but in 1907 I found, as I thought, converts on the bench opposite. I found the late Prime Minister and some of his colleagues repeating, naturally without acknowledgment, the words I had ventured to use when I said I thought the business of the country could not be carried on under the strain of these autumn sessions, not merely in the House, but on responsible authorities outside. The lesson taught in 1906 and learned in 1907 is forgotten in 1908. The right hon. Gentleman comes down and proposes as a matter of course not only that we should have an autumn session, but that all the important business of that autumn session should be carried on under this new and now habitual method of Parliamentary procedure. I must frankly say, still guiding the historian, that when that gentleman comes to deal with the speeches made for or against the closure he will find that the substance of those speeches differs as completely as the general policy which those speeches were intended to support. Of course, I agree it would not be fair, either to the right hon. Gentleman or to anybody else, to quote as necessarily applicable to existing situations speeches made in this House in the earlier period of this movement, because the matter was then undeveloped. The House had not had time to look round, and I quite agree that both the Leaders of the Opposition and of the Government for the time being, to whichever side they may belong, cannot and ought not to be bound to the views which were necessarily subject to modification, not because they had changed from one side to the other of the House, but because their Parliamentary experience had been enlarged by the progress of time. But let us consider the Prime Minister's last utterance when he was in opposition. I confess I had forgotten it, but some friend suggested that I should look through the speech just before I came down to the House. I have done so, and although I do not know that I have had time to give it full and mature consideration, I have done so, I may say, with enormous interest, profit, and I will add, amusement. This speech was delivered upon a Motion made by the late Government of closure by compartments on the Licensing Bill. The Motion for closure by compartments then moved by myself from that bench was debated by the House for two days and a half, which is, if I heard the right hon. Gentleman aright, the exact amount of time that he thinks is necessary and proper to devote to the discussion of the portion of this measure which is to take away the whole of the profits of the licensed trade of this country at the end of fourteen years. It may be a small matter, but the view of the Leader of the present Government and of the late Opposition is that the same amount of Parliamentary time as was taken to consider the Resolution for closure by compartments in 1904 is now sufficient to discuss a proposal which is to take away the whole of the property of the publicans of this country in fourteen years. How were those two and a half days occupied? I confess my researches have not gone much beyond the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. He moved an Amendment to the Motion; he began by expressing his horror at the late stage in the session at which the Bill was brought forward. It appears that the Second Reading was not passed until 9th May, and that by 1st July, 1904, we had only had six days in Committee on the Bill. This is the way the right hon. Gentleman discussed it— It is this tardy and delaying treatment of subjects which the Government asked the House to believe to be of capital and national importance—it is that, far more than prolixity or exuberance of speech on one side of the House or the other, which has brought Parliamentary business into the intolerable muddle which the right hon. Gentleman comes here to-day to confess, and from which he asks the House to provide him with arbitrary means of escape. That was a speech made when we had been already six days in Committee on the Bill, and the right hon. Gentleman does not now propose to get into Committee until after 20th July, on a Bill dealing with the same subject, but of much greater importance and more far-reaching significance, and he proposes to defer practically the whole discussion, except on the first clause, until the autumn session. The right hon. Gentleman, having said it was entirely due to the muddle of those then responsible for the conduct of business, proceeded to discuss the justification for the course we were then proposing. He said there was no colour or pretext for our proposition. In every case, he pointed out, where the closure was asked for, except the Evicted Tenants Bill, the Bill under discussion had been in Committee for twenty or thirty days. He goes on to say— But there is not a single case in which a Minister has come to this House to ask for such powers without any attempt to prove that there has been something in the shape of organised obstruction. The right hon. Gentleman, oblivious to these recent utterances of his, claims it as a merit that he is not going to act like those belated and benighted Ministers in the past. He is not going to wait, until obstruction has been proved. He is not going to carry out his own doctrines which he preached in opposition now that he has got into office. He is going to anticipate obstruction and to take care from the very beginning that the House shall discuss this great matter in fetters. The whole speech is really worth careful consideration. There is one extract which I hope the House will allow me to give, although it is lengthy; it is really so admirably put that I will not call it troubling the House. Although I think I can sometimes improve on the right hon. Gentleman's argument, I am quite conscious I can never improve on his language. The Prime Minister, referring to myself, said— The right hon. Gentleman at the close of his speech made some remarks about measures of this kind being necessary for the dignity and efficiency of the House of Commons. I confess I think political cynicism has rarely reached a higher level. I say so because this is only the latest, though I hope it may be the last, of the attempts which have been made under the right hon. Gentleman's initiative or patronage—I care not which—in the last two years to stifle the voice and paralyse the action of the House of Commons. Parliamentary majorities come and go, and Ministers come and go, but there is one thing which hitherto, at any rate, has persisted through all these chances and changes of party fortunes, and that has been the authority and the freedom of the House of Commons. That is a great permanent asset in our national balance-sheet, and it will be an evil day for the future of democracy in this country when the House of Commons comes to be regarded as a mere automatic machine for registering the edicts of a transient and perhaps a crumbling majority.

MR. ASQUITH

When the right hon. Gentleman has finished, perhaps he will let me have the volume. I want to read the right hon. Gentleman's speech.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I hope the House will be as much entertained by my speech as by the right hon. Gentleman's. These are not ancient, musty criticisms, but a speech delivered by the right hon. Gentleman at a time when he anticipated, and rightly anticipated, that he was going to be called, at no very distant date, to a most important position on the front bench opposite. They were made with the responsibility of one who anticipated being in the forefront of administration within a very brief period. I do not think there has ever been so violent a change. The right hon. Gentleman has referred to the views I expressed when I was in the Government. I have not taken the same pains to read my own speeches as I have to read the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman. I am sure they are very much less worth a careful and critical perusal. But of this I am fairly confident, that you will find that during the long period that I was responsible, either on one side of the House or the other, for dealing with these matters, at any rate since 1895—I think you will find that the doctrine I persistently laid down was that these Motions in the first place should only be made when there have been evident signs of obstruction with regard to the measure itself; and, in the second place, they should not be used to pass a vast number of unconsidered measures. They are only justified by occasional necessities. I have always held, and still hold, that the Government cannot be precluded by time, by anything in the nature of obstruction, or, indeed, by fair debate from passing their great controversial measures. This I admit and have maintained. But from these principles is it possible to deduce any justification for trying to pass ten Bills in two and a half years by this means? Neither the practice of the late Government nor the speeches made by members of the late Government can afford any justification for so violent a change in our procedure. If you take a particular closure Resolution you may very likely find a particular phrase as precedent; but you cannot find a precedent for your practice. I am bound to say that the way the present Government have treated the liberties of this House, their reckless interference time after time, on all occasions, and for all purposes, really does justify the phrase used by the right hon. Gentleman four years ago that— We are taking a step on the road to humiliation and impotence. And, if the House gives way, not to this or that particular Motion with regard to closure, but to the general habit of putting on closure whenever the Government are embarrassed in the conduct of business, they will, indeed, be guilty of "an ignominious surrender." For these reasons, although I do not think it worth while to put down an elaborate Amendment to this Resolution, my friends and I will certainly divide against it as a whole, when we have dealt with such Amendments in detail as we think necessary; and I shall do so fully assured that all those who have gravely taken into account the present position of Parliamentary discussion, if they look at the question as a whole and concentrate their gaze not merely upon this or that Parliamentary episode, but at the general conduct of business under one or other Administration, will be driven, inevitably to the conclusion that this Government have initiated a new and most baneful practice. They have initiated for the first time—absolutely for the first time—the habit of dealing with every Parliamentary difficulty by one method and one method alone, not argument, not persuasion, but the crude and coarse method of the guillotine.

LORD R. CECIL (Marylebone, E.)

rose to move as an Amendment: "That this House declines to continue the practice of passing procedure Resolutions to deal with the later stages of particular Bills, and calls upon the Government to lay before it proposals for settling the procedure of this House on a permanent basis." He would not, he said, now enter into detailed examination of the proposal or repeat what had been said by his right hon. friend as to the history of this matter. The House would agree that an impartial view of that history would show that there was a distinct tendency in these closure Resolutions to remove the consideration of legislation from the House of Commons and to hand it over to the Government of the day. These Motions had been submitted over and over again, and he need not go back to twenty years ago, because they had seen what had occurred in the case of the Old-Age Pensions Bill; lie need not ask the House to carry its recollection back to four years ago, but to only a few days ago. What happened on the Old-Age Pensions Bill? They had discussed it five days in Committee, and an immense portion of the Bill was never considered at all. It was a measure which was undoubtedly of vast importance to the social conditions of the country, and yet an immense number of the most important principles raised by the Bill were never considered by the House at all He did not think that any Members on the benches opposite—and he wished there had been more of them present to hear what he had to say—would assert that there had been an attempt, a wicked and determined attempt, to concentrate the attention of the House on unimportant matters. He did not believe that that was true a bit. He believed that the hon. Member for Blackburn was far nearer the truth when he pointed out that there had been no attempt on the part of the Government to reach important matters under the guillotine Resolution. But as far as he and that House was concerned, it mattered nothing, when they were considering this general procedure, whether the failure of the House to discuss the Old-Age Pensions Bill was due to the wicked conduct of members of the Opposition, or to the ingenious evasion of their responsibilities and difficulties by the Government of the day. The point was that the attention of the House was removed from the consideration of a number of very important principles of the Bill; in other words, there was never a proper and real discussion of the measure in the House. The Bill went forth with the authority in many important respects, not of the House, but merely of the Government. He had ventured to say once or twice that if that went on and if every first class measure was to be removed from the consideration of the House, it meant the destruction of the House of Commons. Let there not be any mistake about it—that was the real issue they had to face. They were threatened with the destruction of the House of Commons by this method of procedure. Was it to be supposed that gentlemen of ability and experience would continue to devote their time and attention to the service of their country in that House if they were to have no real share in framing the legislation put before it? It meant that they would get nobody but professional politicians to come into the House; it meant a general degradation of the whole temper and tone of the House, inevitably accompanied by a degradation of its position and prestige; in other words, the House of Commons would cease to be what it had been in the past, and what it must be under our constitution, if our con- stitution was to work at all. He thought that that was a matter for very serious consideration, and one to which the House as a whole, and not only those sitting on the front benches, ought to give their careful attention. It was really a matter beyond all party considerations; it was a question which touched the very constitution of the country, and he invited the attention of the House to the constitutional question. He did not venture to say that they could do without any artificial assistance in legislation. He quite admitted, and he did not think that anyone could doubt, that, when the Government, whether Unionist or Radical, came down and said that they must get through this or that piece of legislation, that they regarded it as of vital importance to the country, and that they could not get it through without some modification of the rules of the House, they made what must be felt to be a very strong observation. If they had really to deal with that question, then they must consider what was the proper remedy for the difficulties of getting legislation through that House. A very large number of remedies had been suggested. It was not that there was any want of suggestions. Many of them thought that one remedy was not to try to do so much as had been tried by the present Government. He felt very strongly that it was a great delusion to suppose that the principal function of the House of Commons was to pass measures. The principal function of the House of Commons was to discuss measures. They must frame their legislation in such a way as to enable its main principles to be properly and efficiently discussed. Not merely the general principles on the Second and Third Readings of a Bill, which was really a very ineffective form of discussion, but also the actual details of the proposals made. Therefore, to a certain extent, he shared the views of many of his friends, that a remedy was to be found in less legislation. But he did not think that that was the chief remedy, and he recognised most fully that the Opposition would always have a different view of the amount of legislation that ought to be carried by the Government of the day from that which prevailed on the benches behind Ministers. The hon. Member who sat below the gangway voiced what was constantly said by his friends, that the true remedy was Home Rule and devolution. He thought that five minutes consideration or less would show that that was no remedy at all. Supposing that they had Home Rule in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, what difference would it make? Why, scarcely any difference at all. What were the Irish and Scottish Bills of this session? They had the Irish University Bill, which had occupied one day in that House. They had the Scottish Education Bill, which he thought had occupied rather less than one day in that House. He did not recall at that moment any other measure of legislation which had occupied any considerable time, and which applied to Ireland and Scotland. Yes, there were two or three days on the Scottish Land Bill before Easter; he had forgotten that.

MR. BYLES (Salford, N.)

said the noble Lord had also forgotten that during one part of the session they had five consecutive days on Irish affairs.

LORD R. CECIL

said they were not legislative days. He would be exceedingly loth that they should not give a portion of their time exclusively to Scottish affairs or Irish affairs, but even assuming that they gave a fortnight of their time, what difference would it make? Exceedingly little. Everybody must see that. Devolution was not a remedy; besides which, even if it were, it could not be adopted by the present Parliament, because the Government had said that they were not prepared to propose it. That, therefore, was not a practical remedy, though it might be theoretically a matter for discussion. That must be admitted by every fair-minded Member of the House who had considered the matter. He would put aside those two remedies as not practicable. What other remedies were there? He remembered that the hon. Member for Appleby on one occasion proposed with fine enthusiasm that they should sit up all night and every night, in order to pass the Licensing Bill. He was sorry to say he took precisely the opposite view. Of all the remedies suggested he thought that of all-night sittings was the very worst. He did not wish to be unduly generous to the Government, but he did wish to say that he was personally grateful to the Prime Minister, who had certainly made a change in that respect. The right hon. Gentleman had not asked the House to sit up all night at all this session; he had set his face against those all-night sittings, and preferred any other remedy to that. He had sat up all night himself, and he was quite satisfied that the House was never worse than it was at an all-night sitting. It did not make any real attempt to consider the legislation before it, and regarded an all-night sitting as a kind of middle-aged lark in which third-rate jokes were bandied about from side to side of the House amidst rather empty laughter. The real and serious debate which went on was not worth considering for a moment. Personally he rejected all-night sittings as a possible remedy. That did not mean that they were driven back to some form of the regular guillotine, which the Prime Minister thought was inevitable. He ventured to ask the Prime Minister to reconsider that opinion. He did not think that there was any form of guillotine which was really tolerable. The guillotine meant that if there was any question that the Government did not want to have discussed on a Bill they merely had to arrange that the discussion on other matters should take place at such a time as would force the decision of that question outside any debate by the House. That was from the point of view of the Opposition. But from the point of view of the Government it meant that they practically left the Opposition, or not the Opposition only, but groups of ten or twenty Members, to decide what should be discussed or not by the House. He personally did not think that a tolerable position. Nor did he himself think that any form of business Committee, or anything of that kind, would be any very effective improvement of their procedure. He rejected the guillotine as a possible remedy. The remedy which attracted him much more was the plan of selecting Amendments. He would allow the House to discuss a Bill quite freely, subject to this, that by some means or other the really vital Amendments should be selected for discussion.

MR. ASQUITH

By what means?

LORD R. CECIL

said that one of the means suggested was, he feared, impracticable, because nobody would carry it out, and that was the appointment of an impartial Committee which should select the Amendments to be discussed. He did not think that that would be an impossible proposal, but he recognised that it would be very difficult indeed to appoint the impartial committee. He had made the suggestion himself on the occasion of the last, guillotine Motion, that it should be done by the leaders of the various parties, with their responsibility to the House at large and to the public, and in that way he believed that they would get a fairly impartial committee. But the Prime Minister and his right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition would not serve on such a committee, and no doubt they had excellent reasons for that decision, which, however, put an end to his suggestion as a practical one. Another proposal which had always seemed to him to be worthy of consideration was that the House itself should select what Amendments should be discussed. That could be done by applying the principle of proportional representation in the selection of Amendments. Supposing that they had this rule, that no Amendment should be discussed unless it was proposed by a certain number of Members, say ten Members, and that no Member of that House should be allowed to propose more than one Amendment, the result would be that each Party in the House would select for themselves what Amendments they really desired to discuss. They would then arrange with their friends, which could be easily done, that certain Amendments should be put down, each of them proposed by, say, ten Members. The result would be, for instance, that the present Opposition would be entitled to fifteen or twenty Amendments, and the Irish Party to eight.

AN HON. MEMBER

To each clause or to the Bill?

LORD R. CECIL

said to the Bill. It might be settled by the Resolution how many Amendments should be allowed, and they might be allotted among the different parties. In that way they would really confine the discussion to those Amendments which the parties really desired to discuss, and which were really thought of importance. There was a good deal to be said for that suggestion. He was not satisfied that even that exhausted the possible remedies for the present state of things. He should himself desire to see considered carefully a proposal for a greatly in-increased power of closure. The ordinary closure—on the Second Reading of a Bill, for instance—worked exceedingly well. It was very rarely applied till a proper discussion had taken place, and it worked as well as any proposal for the limitation of debate could work. He acknowledged the difficulty of applying the closure to proceedings in Committee, especially when, as in this case, there were 1,000 Amendments, but he was not satisfied that that could not be done. He hoped that anybody whose duty it was to lay proposals before the House would consider some such plan as to allow the Member in charge of a Bill, provided a Resolution of urgency had been carried, to propose the closure on his own responsibility without requiring the assent of the Chairman at all, at any time, about any Amendments. On the whole he believed it was much better now that they had got as far as they had to put the responsibility directly on the Government for limiting each particular debate. Ho did not believe that any Minister would venture to propose the closure on an Amendment which was unfair or contrary to the general sense of the House. It would not be safe for him to do so. The way it would work would be that when an Amendment which was not worth serious discussion was proposed, the Minister would reply very shortly and would instantly propose the closure. That would be carried and they would pass on. When they got to a serious Amendment which the House generally desired to see discussed, and which raised a really serious question, the Minister would be bound to allow it to be discussed properly. He would like to see the matter considered, but he recognised that the difficulty that they laboured under—and he thought it very serious and very dangerous—was that the House was losing its self-respect. He believed the future historian of the Constitution would find no more interesting topic than the gradual decay of the corporate self-respect of the House of Commons. It was deliberately, intentionally, and avowedly begun by the late Mr. Parnell, who openly set himself to destroy the House of Commons and render it impossible, as a means of putting pressure on the House to grant Home Rule for Ireland. He profoundly regretted it, but he thought any impartial student of history must admit that what Mr. Parnell attempted to do had been very largely accomplished. They cou'd not now trust to the common sense and common feeling of the House of Commons to put a stop to undesirable discussion. The real problem which ought to be considered was whether there was not some means by which the self-respect of the House of Commons could be restored. It would not be restored now, whatever it might have been, by the exile of the Irish Members from the House. The matter depended on the whole feeling of the House, and unless it was predominant in every quarter of the House they could not rely on the feeling of the House putting an end to what was roughly called obstruction, or undue debate. He had served a good deal on the Grand Committees during this year and had been struck immensely with the very different feeling that there was in these Committees. He was dealing, of course, with non-controversial measures. The object of everybody who spoke was genuinely to convince the Committee.

MR. WILLIAM REDMOND (Clare, E.)

Did the noble Lord attend the Committee on the Irish Universities Bill? There never was such obstruction as obtained there.

LORD R. CECIL

said he was referring to non-controversial measures. The Children Bill for instance, was a measure of great complication and difficulty, and it was discussed very thoroughly, honestly, and fairly right through, and the speeches were made in order to put forward some view which the speaker thought the Committee ought to consider, and which might have an influence on the Committee's decision. He would not say that no useless speech was made, but he believed it would be nearly true to say that no consciously useless speech was made. Why was that? Partly, no doubt, because it was a non-controversial measure, but very largely because the speeches were made to the people who had to give the decision. One of the great difficulties of the House was that the speeches were made to one set of people and another set of people decided, and it was absurd to suppose that there could be any real objection in making an obstructive speech if, in point of fact, however much they Parliamentarily behaved themselves, the decision would not rest with those who were there but with others who were on the Terrace or in the smoking-room. He was not satisfied that it would not be a very desirable change to assimilate the procedure of the House to procedure in Grand Committee, and say that only those who had heard the debate should take part in the divisions, or only those present when the question was put from the Chair. He would deplore it if the House generally adopted the view of the Prime Minister that the guillotine was absolutely inevitable and that there was no other alternative. He believed that was untrue, and that proper consideration of the matter would reveal some other method of dealing with the difficulties under which they laboured. This perpetual resort to the guillotine in order to get through one particular measure had all the evil of an Act of Attainder. Let Members express in some way which would bring it home to the Government that it was essential that they should have a real permanent settlement of the question, and that it was the duty of the Government to present some permanent settlement of the difficulty, that if they passed this Resolution they must do so with clear notice to the Government that this kind of thing could not go on, and that they must have a settlement which would meet not temporary difficultiés or assist party legislation, whether Unionist or Liberal, but do something to restore to the House of Commons its liberties, and still more its reputation, which he feared had been gravely compromised by the proceedings of the Government.

*MR. BOTTOMLEY (Hackney.S.)

, in seconding the Amendment, said he had never yet taken any part in any discussion having reference to procedure. But as a private Member, and perhaps the most unattached private Member on that side of the House, he could not sit still and watch the growth of a system which, to his mind, was reducing the position of private Members to that of Parliamentary marionettes. He did not speak in any spirit of hostility towards the Prime Minister or this particular Government. The evil had been growing for the last twenty years and was undoubtedly on the increase. The obvious answer might be that under the present Government a good many more Bills had been introduced than was the case under the last Administration. But these were matters of domestic interest and did not concern the private Member. What did interest him was the amazing apathy of the ordinary private Member to his privileges, rights, and duties, and also to his dignity and self-respect. Every private Member was entitled to look upon himself as a potential occupant of the Treasury bench. It was supposed to be their duty to scrutinise every Estimate which came before the House, but when he saw year after year fifty or sixty millions of money voted without a word of discussion he began to ask himself whether or not the institution of representative government had not become a farce. The scrutiny of the national expenditure was one of the special prerogatives of the House. The present system was a violation of the first principles of popular government. He was not going to follow the noble Lord in the very interesting proposals he had made for removing the present deadlock, but if he might be allowed to throw out one suggestion it was that the Prime Minister should refer the whole subject to half-a-dozen business men, who in half a day would formulate proposals which would relieve the House from the conditions under which it worked, and the indifference with which it was regarded by numbers of people outside. The Prime Minister had introduced a measure of first-class importance, so important that he told them only a week or two ago that although, it might involve the fall of his Party it would be well worth the sacrifice. Therefore, according to the Prime Minister they had before the House a Bill which involved the very existence of the present Government. He would not now encroach upon the privilege of debate by discussing the merits of that measure in any way, because that was quite beside the mark, but by this Resolution the Prime Minister was, by inference, saying to the House of Commons: "I have reason to believe that unless I make provision in advance there will be such an abuse of the rules of our procedure in this House that we shall not be able to pass this measure during the present session." Surely such a Resolution constituted a very grave reflection upon the power and dignity of the Chair. What right had the Government to come forward and by artificial means of this kind endeavour to prevent them exercising their rights? He found that Standing Order No. 19 provided that— Mr. Speaker or the Chairman, after having called the attention of the House, or of the Committee, to the conduct of a Member who persists in irrelevance, or tedious repetition of his own arguments, or of the arguments used by other Members in debate, may direct him to discontinue his speech. That being the rule, he asked the House to say that that was a sufficient protection against the abuse of the rules of debate, and every hon. Member had a free and unfettered right to express the views of his constituents. He thought the time had arrived when private Members, irrespective of party, should insist upon their right to have their proper share in shaping the legislation of the country. No doubt party loyalty was a desirable thing, and it might be a virtue, but it had now degenerated into a fetish, involving the sacrifice of their self-respect. Although he was reluctant to be constantly uttering discordant notes from that side of the House, he could not help feeling that if they could only throw off the sense of slavery to the official Parties and Whips they would all join in urging upon the Prime Minister that the proper solution of this question was to appoint a small Committee of the House to deal with the whole question of procedure. He wondered when any Government would be sufficiently courageous to say: "We will introduce no legislation for one session; we will deal with the business of the country." The noble Lord had said that the function of the House was to discuss measures, but in his opinion its function was to do the country's business. It would be an enormous relief to the country if some party in appealing to the electors would undertake that for one session at least they would introduce no new legislation at all, but would devote themselves, if returned, to the financial business of the country. He believed a party which promised to do that would come back with a striking majority. He thought such an innovation would come with enormous relief to the country, for we had too much legislation. He did not intend to put any obstacle in the way of the right hon. Gentleman carrying his Resolution if it was absolutely necessary, because he was not in favour of wasting time in taking divisions simply that hon. Members might have the privilege of telling their constituencies that they had taken part in so many divisions. He was anxious that every private Member should realise that he was gradually becoming a mere automaton in the House and that he might just as well sit at home and register his vote by telephone. He hoped that the result of the discussion would be that the Prime Minister would assure them that if they allowed this wretched proposal to go through once more the time was very close when they would be invited to see if they could not find some remedy for the present deadlock. He was utterly opposed to the proposal of the hon Member for Appleby that they should have all-night sittings. Indeed, he was surprised at such a proposal from such a quarter, for he could not help remembering that upon the occasion of the only all-night sitting which he had himself attended—and the only one which, for that matter, he intended to be present at—most of the temperance Members were hors de combat at an early stage in the proceedings, owing doubtless to the absence of the artificial stimulant which they were prevented by conscientious scruples from availing themselves of during the silent watches of the night. He also strongly objected to the system under which Members were invited to pair "for" or "against" the Govern- ment, irrespective of what particular measure might be under discussion. Indeed he regarded the signing of those sheets which were always exhibited in the lobby as inconsistent with the self-respect and independence of a Member; and he urged the Prime Minister to consider the importance of at once devising some means of relieving the House from the tension under which its work was at present carried on. He begged to second the Amendment.

Amendment proposed— In line 1, to leave out all after the words 'That,' and to add the words 'this House declines to continue the practice of passing Procedure Resolutions to deal with the later stages of particular Bills, and calls upon the Government to lay before it proposals for settling the procedure of this House on a permanent basis.'"—(Lord R. Cecil.)

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out, to the end of line 4, stand part of the Question."

MR. ASQUITH

The noble Lord at the beginning of his very interesting speech declined to go into the question which was raised pointedly by the Leader of the Opposition, and which I myself brushed aside as irrelevant to this discussion—namely, which of the two Parties in the House was the more responsible for what he regards as the degradation of our procedure. I will not accept the invitation offered by the Leader of the Opposition, and go into that question. I do not think either Party would come out extremely well if the test of their merit were a test of absolute consistency. I cannot, however, deny myself the pleasure of making one quotation. The right hon. Gentleman quoted some language used by me in the year 1904—a very recent date, a date so recent that it seems almost impossible that any one could, I will not say change but modify his opinions in so short a time. But let me see what was the opinion expressed in this House on 5th July, exactly a year after my speech, by the right hon. Gentleman on the Aliens Bill—perhaps, the worst of all instances of the abuse of our procedure. The right hon. Gentleman said, — I myself hold the view that such Resolutions as that which I am now proposing, and which have been proposed by me on previous occasions and by my predecessors, are an inevitable part of the present machinery of Parliament, and that their adoption will be found necessary by my successors as they were found necessary by me. We are only fulfilling that prediction, and justifying the prophecy of the right hon. Gentleman himself. He said something as to the comparative number of the occasions upon which this principle had been resorted to under one Government or another. Yes, but in these matters non numerandum sed ponderandum est. You have not to consider the exact number of the occasions, but the justification for them. I am quite content to rest my justification for this proposal on the comparison of what the House is asked to do to-day when the House is being given ample time for the discussion of every one of the contentious points which are likely to arise on every stage of this Bill, with what was done on the Licensing Bill of 1904. I will summarise what was done upon that occasion. I am quoting from my own speech on the Third Reading. I said— There are 264 lines in the Bill as it appears after consideration on Report. Of these 264 lines, fifty-four only have been discussed either in Committee, or on the Report stage. That is to say, 210 lines out of 264, or four-fifths of the entire Bill, have been left completely un-discussed, and in these 210 lines Government Amendments have been introduced without consideration or debate to the amount of 105 lines, or exactly one-half. That is what I call an oppressive use of the guillotine, and it justifies the language of the noble Lord when he said that such Resolutions might be used to withdraw from the consideration of the House matters on which they are entitled to express an opinion. I have endeavoured to show that on these two occasions, one after another, we are obviating the possibility of any such abuse as took place in 1904. The noble Lord made an interesting and ingenious speech, but what is the conclusion the House is to draw from it? No one admires these guillotine Resolutions. Everyone would like to get rid of them and see some other method adopted which would result in reasonable and not excessive discussion with regard to the really important points in connection with Bills. May I say here parenthetically that one of the reasons why there has been a more frequent resort to this method of procedure, since the present Government has come into power, is that we are really making a serious attempt to overtake arrears of legislation? It is a very easy thing, when you are introducing a small number of Bills each session, to claim credit for having abstained from any drastic measures to secure the passing of those Bills into law. But when you have a majority in the House of Commons who are earnestly intent on carrying into effect as much legislation as time and strength will allow, it is inevitable that you will have to resort to the guillotine, which under conditions of more sterile legislation would not be needful. I assure the noble Lord that I do not under-value in the least either the strength of his objections to the existing system or his desire to improve it, if we can come to some general agreement on the point and provide a more desirable substitute. But when you come to look at the substitutes which the ingenious mind of the noble Lord himself could suggest, is there a single one or a combination of them which, in the opinion of the majority of the House, would not be worse than the guillotine? I confess I think so. He suggests an impartial, disinterested tribunal, which is either to determine the question whether there is to be an allocation of time at all or to pick and choose by some process of discrimination between the relative importance of different Amendments. That is a body the composition and setting up of which is, so far as we can see, a counsel of perfection, and an unattainable ideal. Nobody has ever been able to give effect to this suggestion. The noble Lord suggests a far more arbitrary interference with the rights of private Members than any guillotine I have ever heard of. He actually suggests that a Member should receive priority according to the number of people who back him. I do not know whether I am quite accurate in stating that no Amendment under his proposal should be considered which had not ten people behind it, and not one of those ten people would have the right to move any other Amendment. That is an interference with the rights of private Members and with the rights of minorities. There was a time when Mr. Gladstone on two or three occasions in connection with the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill in 1851 stood against both front benches. Everybody now knows that he was right, but the noble Lord would not allow a single Amendment in such a case. I do not think that is a practical suggestion, and I doubt very much whether, if he were to canvass his own friends, he would find substantial support of it. My hon. friend who has just sat down has an ineradicable idea that Members should not take part in a division unless they take part in the debate. That is a still more flagrant attempt to deprive Members of the privileges of this House. The hon. Member for Hackney supplements it by a further proposal that the arrangement of pairing for and against the Government is unworthy of the self-respect of Members. Yet, in the days of Charles 1. and a good deal earlier, and during the palmiest days of this Assembly, the habit of pairing was already well established, and I do not believe that the House is in the least degree likely to discontinue it. The truth is that the more you examine, scrutinise, and analyse these variously competing and mutually destructive suggestions, the more you realise—what everybody who knows anything about procedure knows—that there is no more heavy task than that of adjusting the ancient machinery of a House like this to modern requirements. For my part, I have witnessed a great many attempts now for more than twenty years, by statesmen of the greatest experience and responsibility, and all of them a like devoted to the dignity and self-respect of this House, which I do not think has in the least degree suffered in our time. Having seen many attempts made, none of them wholly satisfactory, most of them highly unsatisfactory, I come back to this, that with the conditions under which we live, the only practical way is that you must definitely allocate the time as between the different parts of a Bill and establish a proportionate distribution of the time so allocated. If you do that with a scrupulous regard to the rights of minorities and with an honest desire to see that the points on which the majority of the House are interested are adequately discussed, I believe we have done all we really can do to make the legislative work of the House really effective. I trust the noble Lord will not press his Amendment to a division. I am not at all surprised that it is hailed with enthusiasm by the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London, who really honestly believes that this House comes here not to legislate, but to abstain from legislation, and he welcomes any attempt, from whatever quarter it comes, to carry out that view. [An HON. MEMBER: What about his Wild Birds Bill?] Happily none of us is absolutely consistent in this imperfect world. Even the hon. Baronet nods sometimes. But with the exception of his view as to a Bill for the protection of the dumb creation, the hon. Baronet's ideals of the House of Commons are that we should pass no laws of any sort or kind. That is not the view of the present Government, and therefore, if we are to be a really efficient law-making Assembly, I think I must ask the House on this occasion to reject the Amendment.

MR. WALTER LONG (Dublin, S.)

The right hon. Gentleman began by telling us that he did not rise for the purpose of continuing the discussion of the question raised by the Leader of the Opposition. I was rather disappointed when I discovered that the right hon. Gentleman had been engaged in a laborious study of the volumes of Hansard since the Leader of the Opposition spoke, and that all he was able to produce was one quotation from a speech made by my right hon. friend in 1905. That quotation does not in any way alter or detract from the statement of my right hon. friend, namely, that the use of the guillotine as part of our procedure ought not to be followed except under certain conditions and circumstances. The right hon. Gentleman has ignored altogether the elaborate statement made by the Leader of the Opposition in which he explained that during our tenure of office it was only under certain conditions, where there were clear and manifest indications of obstruction, that these measures for dealing with it were adopted. The Prime Minister said that under the proposals of the Government there would be ample time for the discussion of the provisions of the Bill, and he defended the Government on the extraordinary ground that they were making for the first time practically a serious attempt to deal with the arrears of legislation. I venture to say that, however successful the legislative proposals of the Government may be, they will not exceed either in merit or in quantity, unless we sit continuously, the legislation for which my right hon. friend and the Unionist Government were responsible between 1895 and 1900, during which time these closure Resolutions were not adopted on one occasion. If the Prime Minister were to refresh his memory he would find that the legislation passed during that period has been effective, and it is news to be told that there is too little of it. We were constantly told when we were in office that the House was being forced to do too much work, and that in the circumstances it was impossible to do it satisfactorily. There are two novel changes in the policy of the Government which ought not to escape the attention of Parliament. One is that under this system it becomes the business of the Minister in charge of a Bill, and in a certain degree of the draughtsman of a Bill, to prolong the length of clauses, and to put into one clause what on previous occasions would have been put into two or three clauses. The only precedent which the Government can give us is a Bill which was passed in our time, and for which I was responsible In that Bill there was one clause of eight or ten sections. But if anyone will impartially examine the Bills of to-day as compared with those of previous years, he will find that the tendency is to make clauses longer. That naturally follows from the wholesale system of closure by compartments. It is easier to get through a Bill under this system when the clauses are long. The Prime Minister says that ample time is given, and a fair distribution made, but he has ignored altogether that the Government, for the first time under this closure Resolution, and in the preceding one in regard to the Old-Age Pensions Bill, have taken power to compel the Chairman to put to the House not separate clauses, as used to be the practice, but groups of clauses, thereby placing the Opposition and private Members in an extraordinary and novel position, and, as I think, a most unfair position. A group, containing as many as four or five clauses, is to be put from the Chair. There may be one or two of these clauses to which hon. Members are strongly opposed. The new procedure of the Government compels Members to vote against a group of clauses en bloc though they may only object to one of the clauses, or part of a clause.

MR. ASQUITH

I am quite prepared to abandon that provision. It is only intended to apply to clauses to which there are no Amendments, and in order to save the House unnecessary divisions; but if the right hon. Gentleman objects to it I will abandon it, and each clause will be put separately by the Chairman.

MR. WALTER LONG

I am very much obliged to the Prime Minister. I am sure that the concession will be very greatly appreciated by my friends on this side of the House. I will say no more on that matter, but add one word as to what fell from the Prime Minister with regard to the Amendment of my noble friend. The Prime Minister pointed out, what was obvious, that the the adoption of the Amendment would postpone the decision of the House on this particular Bill to a time so distant as compared with the present that it could hardly be regarded as practical, and he appealed to the House not to divide; but I would point out that this is the only opportunity we have of expressing our general view, held largely on this side, and I believe more largely held by hon Gentlemen opposite than would appear from any debate on the subject, viz., that the present position is wholly unsatisfactory. If we are to abridge debate and to pass a large measure by closure by compartments, we must have a different method of dealing with it than that which enables the Government not merely to fix the time, but to apportion that time among the different parts of the measure. On a similar Resolution dealing with the Old-Age Pensions Bill, I said that the Government must have the control of its own time if it is to be responsible for its own business, and, therefore, it was for the Government to say how much time ought, in their judgment, to be given to particular measures; and having done that, if the House disapproves of them, it can get rid of them. But it is a very different thing when we come to the distribution of the time which the Government allows to be taken in this particular case. At present, having decided that twenty-five days shall be given for the remaining stages of the Bill, they proceed to allot the time themselves and how that time shall be given; and that is where the weak points of the practice come in. It is consequently necessary that the House should affirm some such proposal as that made by my noble friend. I largely agree with the Prime Minister in what he said in regard to that Amendment. I was somewhat startled by some of the suggestions of my noble friend; for it appeared to me that they interfered with the rights of debate in a more drastic manner than at present exists. Hon. Members opposite, with their large majority, cannot be expected to vote against the Government; and although they would not adopt the Amendment of my noble friend, I am sure that his Amendment ought to be considered, because it is the only opportunity we have of saying, in whatever quarter of the House we sit, that this method cannot be continued. My noble friend showed that under the strain of this Parliament closure by compartment has been used to an enormous extent, and more frequently than ever before. However clamorous hon. Gentlemen opposite are for legislation, and anxious that Bills should be passed rapidly, they cannot desire to turn the House into a mere machine of which the handle is turned in order that a large number of measures may be passed without a due regard to the qualities of those measures, and without adequate consideration. I sat through the debates on the Old-Age Pension Bill, and I venture to say that no Bill has ever left this House bearing upon it more strongly the imprint of want of time for its consideration. We know that the Government themselves were prevented by the operation of their own Order from dealing fully with some of the points raised in the debate. On one occasion the closure fell when the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself was explaining some of the difficulties in which he found himself. It was only during the progress of the debate that the Government themselves realised the full force of some of their proposals, and the absolute necessity of some alteration. If that were the case in regard to the Old-Age Pensions Bill, how much more certain it will be with regard to the Bill we are now considering, some of whose clauses deal with matters and make proposals which ought legitimately to form the subject of quite separate enactments? Some of the clauses deal with eight or nine different subjects which entirely alter the law, and give wide powers to magistrates and other bodies like the New Commission; several clauses deal in the most drastic way with certain reforms; and yet we are going to deal with them under conditions which make it impossible to have free debate. I have been responsible myself in more than one Department over which I have presided for much legislation, and I say without hesitation, that it is possible and easy to carry many Bills through the House without any such pressure as that imposed by the motion submitted to us to-day by the Prime Minister. The present position is due to the desire of the Government to pass more legislation than any House of Commons can be reasonably called upon to consider in one session, and also, I believe, to the fear that this Bill will meet with such violent opposition as will make its passage impossible. What I say is, that if it is inevitable that some means must be found in order to expedite our business, and give the Government full control over the time of the House, the Government ought to be confined to the selection of the time, and should leave it to some other tribunal to decide what time was to be given to the respective parts of the Bill. I believe there is no body appointed by this House which has done its extremely difficult work with so much satisfaction to all parties as the Committee of Selection. It is appointed in a peculiar way, and is drawn from men of great experience; and up to the present time they have felt themselves bound in the exercise of their powers to forget altogether party ties and party considerations, and to do their lest to administer their responsible duties to the general satisfaction of the House. I cannot believe it is impossible for the House to find some more satisfactory machinery for the disposal of its time, either by the Committee of Selecttion, or by some other body. It cannot be impossible to devise some method by which the allocation of the time of the House can be made in the general interest of the House. That cannot be done by the Government. How can the Government do it? They think that their legislative children are better than other people's children, and they wonder that there should be any objection to them on the part of the Opposition. I venture to say that no Minister has ever introduced into the House a controversial Bill, a Bill of difficulty—I do not refer to small Bills—however much time and attention he and his colleagues may have given to its preparation, without realising, as it went through, that there were many things which had been overlooked, that there were many new aspects in which it should be regarded, and that there was a great deal to be said in justification of the views of the Opposition. It is not impossible, in my opinion, that the ingenuity of Parliament and of Ministers should find some procedure by which the time of the House may be allocated more satisfactorily than the Government can do it. If something of the sort is not done there will not only be a revolt in the House against an oppressive tyranny, but the people outside will held that we are betraying their are asking them to which are passed without due consideration.

Mr. BYLES (Salford, N.)

said there had been many interesting speeches, and he was in agreement with a great deal that had been said by the Leader of the Opposition, by the noble Lord, and even by the hon. Member for Hackney. But he was going to vote against the Amendment of the noble Lord, and in favour of the Allocation Motion before the House. He did that with great reluctance. Nobody in the House disliked and hated the guillotine more than he did; but he wanted to get on with the business of the House and the country, and was told by both sides that there was no other way of doing it than by the use of the guillotine. Mutual recriminations and reciprocal quotations cast across the table by past and present Ministers, showed that the weapon of the guillotine had been adopted by both sides of the House. Without attempting to apportion the exact degree of responsibility or the blame of resorting to the guillotine, they might consider it not as a party question and not by quarrelling with one another as fools, but as Members of the House of Commons. Hon. Members opposite, above and below the gangway, were, after all, his colleagues in the House. He hoped that all Members respected and loved the House of Commons and desired to maintain its best traditions; and, if it had deteriorated in late years, to restore if possible the character and power it had formerly possessed. He, therefore, would invite his colleagues on both sides of the House to consider whether this instrument which they all disliked could not be put an end to, and an alternative devised which would make it unnecessary. The right hon. Gentleman who had just spoken had suggested the appointment of a Committee, similar to the Committee of Selection, which should allocate the time of the House; and the noble Lord the Member for Marylebone had made proposals which appeared to him to be novel, and, notwithstanding the source from which they had emanated, revolutionary. He was reminded that this instrument about which they were all talking had originated with an enemy of the House of Commons—with his friend Mr. Parnell, a man for whom he had profound respect, and with Mr. Biggar. Whatever their share in the authorship of the closure, these two men were avowed enemies of the House of Commons. They came there for the purpose of destroying its influence as a legislative Assembly; and they had largely succeeded by methods of obstruction ingeniously invented and persistently pursued. Both those Members had passed away, but their methods had remained and were practised, he admitted for the sake of argument, with equal reluctance by both parties in the State when in opposition. He had never been in opposition; but he promised the House that ever he was in opposition, which was very unlikely—[OPPOSITION cries of "No"]—he was very glad to have that encouraging cheer from some of his opponents who thought that they on the Ministerial side were going to come back again to that side of the House. If ever he were in opposition, he promised he would not resort to this weapon of obstruction, because he believed it to be inimical to the welfare and reputation of the House of Commons. After all, they were there sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other, but it was the House, its character, its traditions, and its future, they were concerned with. The only remedy for obstruction was not in those devices of the noble Lord, not in the methods suggested by the Prime Minister, but to get to where they were before the days of Mr. Parnell; once more to respect themselves and the House of which they were Members. After all, that was a great deliberative Assembly. They came there to discuss and try to persuade one another on subjects in which they were interested, and it was the business of men who were loyal to the House of Commons, loyal to their own self-respect, and loyal to their duty, to assent to the decision to which the House of Commons came. He believed it would be better if hon. Members on both sides were to try to put away from them the bad traditions introduced by the Irish Party in the days to which he had referred, when that party were trying to destroy the House of Commons and to prove that it was no place for them. He dared say that if he had been an Irishman he would have been one of them. He did not blame them in the least for doing what they did from their point Of view. But hon. Gentlemen now in the House were friends of the House of Commons, and it was their duty to try and restore its character as a deliberative Assembly, and a place for full, free, and ample discussion of any subject brought before it. Another subject was referred to by the hon. Member for Hackney upon which he wished to touch. On the only occasion on which he had ever before taken part in a debate of this character, he was brought to book by the Speaker himself. He thought then, as he thought now, that a great deal of irrelevant matter and repetition was indulged in by hon. Members in their speeches, and with great respect to the Chair, he thought Mr. Speaker might be rather more severe and drastic in his attitude towards Members in that regard. Coming back to the Motion before the House for the allocation of time, he submitted that after the Government's promise that after impartial consideration in Committee they would seek out what was most controversial to deal with in the Report stage, and although this was a matter of great magnitude and importance to the country, nevertheless the allotment of thirty days for the discussion of this measure was not an ungenerous amount of time to give to it.

MR. LAURENCE HARDY (Kent, Ashford)

said the speech of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down was an earnest one and one to which the House had listened with considerable advantage. The only fault in it was that the remedy they looked for could hardly be found in anything which the hon. Member suggested. Although they might hope to get back to the almost pre-historic days of free speech so far as that House was concerned, they could hardly hope to get back to them in that way. He regretted that the Prime Minister seemed to object in the last words of his speech more decisively than he had done on previous occasions to any alternative proposal. On previous occasions he had given hope to the House that although he had been obliged to use closure by compartments as a temporary measure, he was turning over in his mind some better scheme of dealing with these matters. From what he had said that afternoon he appeared to have come to the conclusion that the guillotine was the only means by which he could hope to deal with the matter. The moment was favourable for an effort to find some better method, because at no time could it be proved that under the guillotine had the House worked well. At that moment there was a great opportunity for the Government to take the matter up. If that debate was compared with that for the allocation of time for the discussion of the Licensing Bill of four years ago, it would at once be seen how much greater was the advantage of the Government for dealing with the question. In 1904 great anger and acrimony were displayed, and the Very first page of the report of that debate showed that Mr. Speaker had to intervene to calm the feelings of hon. Members. On this occasion everyone, from all quarters of the House, had debated the question coolly and calmly with a desire to find some better means of dealing with the matter. That being the case, it was a great opportunity for the Government to consider some other way of carrying on the discussions on large measures which came before the House. It would also be remembered that the Government were pledged to such a course. Two years ago the House debated the proposals of the Government with regard to procedure. They pointed out then that in all the ordinary cases the business of the House should be carried on by means of Grand Committees, but that the large and important measures should be reserved for the consideration of a Committee of the Whole House, That being so, it was a breach of the pledge given by the Government on that occasion if, whenever great and important measures came before the House, they, by means of the guillotine, cut off discussion. That left the House in a worse position than if these measures were discussed before Grand Committee. If the Government considered it right that these large measures should be considered by the House as a whole, then the House had a right to insist that the Government should keep to their pledge, and that they should not be allowed to interfere with the proper discussion of these great measures by the adoption of the guillotine rule. He did not think there could be greater proof of the necessity for proper discussion than the condition of things under the Old-age Pensions Bill. He was glad to see that the Government had receded from the position they took up in the Motion brought forward then. They brought in the Motion on that occasion before they had seen what Amendments had been put down to the Bill, but they had receded from that position, because, before bringing in this Motion, the Prime Minister, as he had stated, had considered the weight and importance of the Amendments on the Paper. Everybody must admit that no Bill brought forward by the Government as a first-class Bill—and, the Old-age Pensions Bill was not even opposed in principle by any party in the House—had received greater changes in the short time it was in Committee than the Old-age Pensions Bill. If that was the result of its discussion under the truncated conditions under which that discussion took place, they could only imagine what would have been the result if it had been discussed without the guillotine. When they came to the time which had been allocated in advance by this Resolution, the Prime Minister had rightly admitted that he could not defend his allocation of time unless he could prove that he had given a proper time to arrive at a decision upon all the important points raised in this Bill. But a very little consideration of the Resolution would show that, though the Prime Minister believed he had allocated the time so as to provide for the proper discussion of all important Amendments, he had not succeeded in carrying out his purpose. He would point out two or three instances to prove that. On the Monday they were to enter upon the discussion of Clause 1, which was to be concluded in two Parliamentary days. In that clause cropped up the question of the fourteen years limit which must be dealt with in connection with the time-limit in Clause 3. The two things were closely connected and it was extremely difficult to dissociate them. The discussion of and decision on Clause 1 in this Way must greatly interfere with the discussion on Clause 3. It was not on those two clauses specially that due consideration was not given by the Prime Minister to the time allowed. The Under-Secretary to the Home Department was shortly going to take part in the debate. He would call that hon. Gentleman's attention to the thirteenth day on which Clauses 18 and 19 were to be considered. Clause 18 dealt with Sunday closing. What time would be left after the discussion of that clause for the consideration of Clause 19 which dealt with the exclusion of children from public-houses? The hon. Gentleman was an expert and judge upon this matter. He had been conducting the Children Bill through Grand Committee. On more than one occasion he said he had left out this matter in dealing with the children because it was of a controversial character, and therefore he had decided to omit it as he desired to make the Children Bill an uncontroversial measure. He appealed to the Grand Committee to allow the question to be discussed in the House as a whole when it could be brought up in the form of a new clause. He desired to point this out, as it was so controversial a question that the hon. Gentleman would not discuss it in Grand Committee, and yet they were expected to deal with it in one day under the time-limit proposed by the Government. A still more striking instance was Clause 34 which was to be discussed on the fifteenth day. On that day they were to start with Clause 21 and to consider, all the intervening clauses before they reached Clause 34, which had created as much excitement as any of the many clauses in the Bill. He pointed out these instances to show that in the attempt of the Prime Menister to arrive at a satisfactory time-table there were many cases which it would be impossible properly to discuss, because they would be ruled out for want of time. He was extremely glad to hear from the Prime Minister that he was in favour of accepting the Amendment on the Paper with regard to the proposal to put all the clauses together, because if they were put together it would raise a considerable amount of feeling in the House. He would like to hear from the Undersecretary for the Home Office what the Government's proposal with regard to the proceedings on Report really meant. As he read the Resolution, although it was suggested that they should have some power to decide how the time should be devoted on Report, as a matter of fact, the House would be merely called upon to consider another proposal of the kind that was now before them, and they would have no real power of indicating to the Government how they would like those five days allotted. He thought the Motion as to Report should only be taken on a subsequent day after the Government had had an opportunity of considering, through the usual channels, the opinions of the House generally, otherwise the new departure had no real advantage. The determination of the proceedings at half-past ten still further curtailed the opportunities for discussion, and he suggested that the Government might consider the desirableness of altering the hour, if not to eleven, at all events to a quarter to eleven.

*MR. C. B. HARMSWORTH (Worcester, Droitwich)

said he would have supported the Amendment of the noble Lord except for the reason that he had no wish to postpone the discussion on the Licensing Bill. Indeed it might have been better for every one if a discussion of the measure had taken place before now. Neither did he wish to seem to be ungrateful to the Prime Minister, because if the House was to have a guillotine system, the right hon. Gentleman had made the most generous allowance in his power in respect of this particular Bill. But surely the House had arrived at the conclusion that a guillotine system was not only objectionable in itself, but a total failure as far as legislation was concerned. This had been demonstrated beyond question by their proceedings under the guillotine system in its application to the Old-age Pensions Bill. In common with the great majority of hon. Members, he was in favour of the old-age pensions scheme looked at in its broader aspects, but every hon. Member knew, and especially the Labour Members, that some of the more important considerations connected with that Bill had not been discussed and would not now be discussed before it became law. The question of the guillotine, indeed, was of first class importance, It touched more than any other question the vital interests of the House as a deliberative assembly. Everyone declared that the present system was intolerable, and every one agreed that it was shameful. But no practical suggestion had been made by the Prime Minister or by the other members of the Government to rid the House, of the intolerable nuisance attaching to the use of the guillotine. The newer system of closure was better than the old; the go-as-you-please system was an even greater failure than the present system, leading to the interminable discussion of minor points and to the neglect of some of the most important clauses of a Bill. If they were to have closure by compartments it ought not to rest with the Government of the day to allocate the time, for he could imagine that a tyrannical Government in a degenerate age might choose what clauses it would have discussed or would not have discussed. He was glad to think that whatever party might be in power in the near future they were not threatened with that contingency, but it was possible that if the House of Commons continued to lose its self-control as it was now doing they might live to see a Government in power which would use the guillotine in that manner. He thought the solution suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Dublin deserved far more consideration, than it had received. He was not himself familiar with the work of the Committee of Selection, but he thought it was the experience of all the members that the Committees of that House were singularly impartial, and he was not at all sure that a Committee of that House, having a due proportion of Members of all parties, might not be able to settle this difficulty or at all events to render it low intolerable. It stood to reason that the Government would command the majority on such a Committee, but there again he appealed to the experience of hon. Members that even a powerful majority on a Committee was very chary of acting in anything like a harsh or arbitrary manner. Some fanciful suggestions had been made in order to relieve the House of Commons of the excesssive amount of oratory that fell to its lot. There were two fanciful suggestions that were perhaps worthy of some consideration. He was given to understand that in the United States Senate the speeches of members might in certain circumstances be taken as read and printed in the records of the House. He had none of his hon. friends in mind at that moment, but they had most of them heard speeches in that House that might well receive immortality in that way without making any tax on the time and attention of hon. Members. He had often thought, too, that those Members who wished to address their constituents through the newspaper Press might have one of the Grand Committee rooms allocated to them for that purpose. Sitting up there under the genial speaker-ship of the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London, they might address their constituents without occasioning unnecessary fatigue to other Members. But seriously, there were some practical considerations that were surely worthy of attention. He was in agreement with the hon. Member who said that in any given year they had too much legislation in that House. He was himself, as a supporter of the Liberal Party, a glutton for legislation of the right kind, but he thought they had all had experience this year of too many first class Bills before them, and that was practically the only reason why so little time was allocated to the Old-age Pensions Bill. It had been suggested that Bills should be carried over from one session to another. There was also the greater solution, of which he did not despair, of the delegation of some of the legislative duties of that House to minor Legislatures in Ireland and Scotland. He thought that that would tend enormously to diminish the work in that House, because there had been sessions when practically the whole time of the House had been devoted to the affairs of Ireland and in some sessions a considerable time to the affairs of Scotland. Surely that was a practical solution. Was there no means by which the number of speeches that any Member might make might be curtailed? The hon. Baronet the Member for the City was not the only Member who favoured them too constantly. He thought some limit might be put under the Standing Orders to the number of times a Member might address the House on any clause or part of a Bill. He desired to make another practical suggestion, and that was some curtailment of the length of speeches. They were all unconscious obstructionists, because the House had drifted into a habit of loose and very often incoherent speech, and even right hon. Gentlemen did not always know exactly at which of their various perorations they ought to resume their seat. In the Second Reading of the Licensing Bill, five hon. Members in one afternoon, following one another, spoke an average of an hour and five minutes apiece. He was not saying that those speeches were not all worth the making, although, he wished at the time that they had been made somewhere else, but what would they think of a parson if he preached a sermon of sixty-five minutes? He believed the only dignitaries of the Church of England who were by tacit consent allowed their hour, were the Canons of St. Paul's. It meant that those five Gentlemen occupied a time that might have served for the speeches of at least fifteen or sixteen Members, and he suggested that under Standing Orders some curtailment or restriction should be put on speeches. He was not in agreement with some hon. Members that further responsibilities should be placed on the Chair. He thought it would be an extremely invidious thing if the Chair were called upon to exercise such powers. One hon. Member had referred to the fact that there was under Standing Orders a power given to the Speaker or the Chairman to ask a Member who was indulging in tedious repetition to resume his seat, but the fact that that power was never exercised, or at all events, not in the last two and a half years, was proof positive that the Chair did not wish for such discretion. In conclusion, he thought the time had come when the Government of the day, acting with the full concurrence of the Opposition and other Parliamentary groups, should devise some means whereby they might rid themselves of this intolerable nuisance which they called the guillotine.

MR. JAMES HOPE (Sheffield, Central)

said the Prime Minister had declared that these Resolutions were inevitable. If they were inevitable the right hon. Gentleman must accept the inevitable consequences of them, and by curtailing the powers of the House of Commons give greater power to the other branches of the Constitution—the Crown and the House of Lords. Hon. Members opposite must remember that some day there would be a great temptation for a new Government to improve upon the example they were setting. For instance, he believed that the carrying of a new Customs tariff would be a difficult thing, but what could be easier than to do so by simply putting the question "That this be the schedule to the Bill," and passing it through in a single day? He did not say that they would succumb to such a temptation, but they would have a distinct temptation to enforce their will and then dance a war dance over the prostrate body of a moribund Cobdenite minority. The Licensing Bill, less than any other, should be made the subject of such drastic closure proceedings. Here were a few of its most important points—the relation of the magistracy to the people, the relations of the magistracy to the Government, the power of local majorities to coerce minorities, the responsibility of Parliament for engagements entered into by their predecessors, the definition of property and valuable consideration in reference to taxation and expropriation, the limitation of the power of association, the differential treatment of different parts of the United Kingdom, the question of Sunday-closing, differential treatment between man and woman, and the position of the State as a monopolist purveyor. What would happen if a small local authority attempted to get these powers within its area. Take Cleckheaton in the Spen Valley division for instance. Supposing they were to emulate the Gothenburg system, and provide that the State should be the monopolist of the liquor traffic in that town, notices would have to be served, there would be a minute investigation by an impartial authority as to whether the Standing Orders had been complied with, there would be a Second Reading in that House, where the Bill might be thrown out on principle, then a Committee would be appointed to examine witnesses, including the local Member, who might be cross-examined as to his facts, and finally there would be the Third Reading. To their grandfathers, who framed their private Bill procedure, the principles of liberty and individual right were very dear, and any precedent which tampered with either was watched with the most jealous scrutiny; but now the Government in the course of twenty-five days proposed to set a precedent in public legislation which would not be possible in private legislation—a principle which would strike a deadly blow at the principles of liberty and property alike. This would probably [...] the greatest controversial Bill during this Parliament. The greatest controversial Bill of the last Parliament was the Education Bill, which occupied thirty-eight days in Committee. The then Prime Minister was never absent; he took an interest in every clause, and mastered every detail, and he got through the whole of the controversial part of the Bill without the use of the guillotine, and when it was brought into operation the present Prime Minister congratulated him on the way in which the discussion had been conducted, admitting that one clause on which eight days had been spent showed a remarkable improvement as a result of the debate. But the right hon. Gentleman did not give anything like eight days for any clause under the present Resolution. The policy of the Government was founded upon distrust of free speech and a wish to enhance the powers of the executive, and in this Bill he was afraid he could see a special animus in their procedure. There was a story of a late eminent Judge that he had no sense of right and wrong, but that he liked to see his bird rise fairly before he put up his gun to bring it down. In restricting this Bill the Government did not see their way to give a fair chance to those they wished to injure to bring forward all the arguments at their command. He had travelled in the East, and had heard stories as to the method of procedure adopted with regard to taxation by governments there. A Grand Vizier, or some other high authority, might say: "Here is a class—they are rich, they are powerless, they are unpopular, they are accursed in the sight of the mullahs, let us take their property, enrich ourselves with their spoil, and gag all those who would speak in their behalf." He was afraid that that was somewhat of the nature of the procedure of this Government. If this Bill was a measure of their charity the hon. Member for South Hackney would walk before them through the Celestial gates. Was this Resolution a necessity? A similar Resolution in 1904 was described by the present Prime Minister as an outrage. It could only be described as a necessity on one condition, namely, that they supposed that all Governments were dependent for their majority on the support of different sections who demanded as a right every year something or somebody to eat. That was not a good system, but it had advantages because each anthropophagous section would write to rim down the quarry in anticipation of the following meal. Supporters of the Government realised that they must unite because they had a fear of a common death at the polls, and as the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said of the followers of the late Government, the result of that fear was that they huddled together in the lobbies for shelter, and when they were there they buoyed themselves up with an heroic determination that they would really hurt someone before they died. No doubt they had their moments of exaltation, when they admired the qualities of their leaders, the special gift of metaphor of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the adaptibility of the President of the Board of Trade, and the genial bonhomie of the Prime Minister; but for all that they knew their sun was past its noon, that the clouds were gathering over their horizon, and that if they had to make their hay they would have to make it quickly. He thought this Resolution would be carried by a large majority, because there was a stimulus behind it more potent than conviction, and that stimulus was the necessity of obedience to those to whom they owed obedience. That would influence the voting that day, because it was as true now as when Lord Salisbury said it from his place in Parliament in 1894, that hon. Members opposite were the slaves of a cruel organisation, and that as the ancient Persians fought of old, so would they vote that day—wider the lash.

*THE UNDER - SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL,) Yorkshire, Cleveland

said that one would gather from the speech of the hon. Member that they had gagged their opponents and were only anxious for their blood in order to satisfy the cannibalistic propensities of their followers. If they took into account the time already given for the First and Second Reading stages of the Bill, and then the time to be provided for the Committee stage and the Report and Third Reading, from first to last the time of the House which would be given to this Bill would be the whole time of the House for six Parliamentary weeks. Surely a period of that extreme length should be ample even for the discussion of the many points of large importance which the Government fully agreed were included in this measure. Among the questions raised in the course of the discussion was that of the allocation of the five days which it was proposed to give to the Report stage, which was a new proposal and he thought would be regarded generally as an improvement. The Leader of the Opposition had suggested that their proposal that as soon as the Committee stage came to an end they should allocate the five days in the Report stage, was inadvisable, because at the end of a heated debate on a controversial Bill the House would not be in a position calmly to review and to realise the necessities of the Report stage. He could hardly imagine, however controversial the Bill might be, that after seventeen days discussion, de die in diem, in the months of October and November, the House would be in a condition of heat on any subject whatever. The last days of the Committee stage would be devoted to the more non-controversial matters included in the schedules, and he could not imagine that there would be any difficulty at the close of those proceedings in giving a calm and discriminating consideration to the allocation of the time on the Report stage. The hon. Member for the Ashford division of Kent had suggested that there would be no time to ascertain the feeling of the House as to the manner in which those five days should be distributed, but during the long weeks in which the Bill would be under discussion there would be ample time for the Government, through the ordinary means of communication, to gather views from the various quarters of the House as to which clauses Members desired should have preference on Report, and from that point of view the proposal of the Government for a new allocation on Report was not open to objection or criticism. The Government would put down a Resolution in good time in the last stages of the Committee stage for the allocation on Report. The hon. Member for the Ashford division had raised certain objections to the compartments into which the time had been divided by the Resolution. He dis- agreed with him entirely in thinking that on Clause 1 the Committee should desire to enter into the question as to what should be the number of years to be provided in the time-limit clause. Clauses 1 and 3 were wholly separate and completely different in that particular. There was no reason in the nature of things why precisely the same number of years should be inserted in Clause 1 for the reduction period as should be inserted in Clause 3 for the time-limit. The Government would very much deprecate any attempt being made to regard these two questions as necessarily identical or even necessarily connected, or any claim for unduly long time to be spent upon Clause 1, because the question of the number of years of the time-limit was one to which the House would desire to give special attention. The hon. Member had raised objection to the allocation of time on Clauses 18 and 19, pointing out that only one day was given to them, and that it was exceedingly likely the children's clause might be crowded out on the Committee stage. That was an eventuality which was, of course, possible. He hoped it would not take place; but, if it did, it was precisely one of those eventualities which they desired should be met by the allocation of time on the Report stage. He agreed that it was desirable that some time should be given to the discussion of the children's clause, and he had no doubt the Government would agree to make some alterations in its details; but he did not agree that there would be any drawback in including Clause 34 with a number of others on the fifteenth day. It was the one which dealt with the sale of liquor on passenger vessels, but its application could not be properly discussed on the clause itself. It must necessarily be discussed on the schedule which attached to the clause, and, if the hon. Member had any complaint to make in regard to that clause, it should rather be that the time given to the schedule was too short than that the business of the fifteenth day was too much. He thought it was desirable, on this matter, to state that the Government hoped to remove from the region of controversy Clause 34 and the schedule which attached to it, and before it was reached to be able to agree with the shipowners and others interested, in a reasonable settlement of the points in dispute. This had already been stated by the Home Secretary to a deputation of those concered. He found that they did not object to reasonable restrictions being imposed on the sale of liquor on passenger vessels, and on the other hand the Government agreed that some Amendments might be desirable in that schedule. There was hope, therefore, before they came to that in Committee that such a settlement might be arrived at. If not, it was perhaps one of the matters which might have to remain open till the Report stage. He did not think it was desired that there should be a very prolonged sitting on the proposal before the House to-day, and he ventured to express the hope that they might soon come to a decision on the first Amendment.

*MR. CHAPLIN (Surrey, Wimbledon)

said that the hon. Member, in reply to the complaint which had reached him from that side of the House that inadequate time was permitted to the discussion of the Bill in Committtee, had called attention to the allocation of time as provided in the schedule to the Resolution. He (Mr. Chaplain) had two things to say on this point. First of all, he desired to call attention to the very unusual method of procedure which had been adopted by the Prime Minister in laying the Resolution upon the Table. A more inconvenient time could not have been selected if it had been the desire of the Prime Minister to prevent hon. Members on that side of the House from having an edaquate opportunity of comparing the Resolution with the Bill and the Amendments which were upon the Paper. The Resolution was only issued yesterday, and for Members who, like himself, had an engagement to speak in the country yesterday afternoon, it had been absolutely impossible to give the necessary time to the study of the Resolution and to compare it with the Bill. Even supposing the hon. Member was right in his assertions and that the time permitted amounted to six ordinary Parliamentary weeks, it was by no means too much, and he would say it was quite little enough for the consideration of the Bill, which was no ordinary measure and which he did not hesitate to say was not one but two or three and probably four or even six Bills in one. It was idle and ridiculous to complain because they said that the time allotted for a Bill of this magnitude, involving such a great variety of issues, was by no means too much; indeed, in their opinion, it was not adequate for a proper Parliamentary consideration of a measure so intricate and involved and which raised such enormous issues. One thing was absolutely certain, and he challenged any hon. Gentleman opposite to deny it. There must and would be a number of the most important questions which Would not only not be discussed, but would never even be reached at all. This was an intolerable position, and it had existed now for a considerable time. It seemed to him curious that under Resolutions of this kind submitted by the right hon. Gentleman some of the most important questions concerned in the different Bills with which they had to deal were invariably those which were never reached. His noble friend the Member for Marylebone earlier in the debate had called attention to the fact that this was shown most clearly in the Old-age Pensions Bill, forced through the House only the other day. Of the three questions of supreme importance in connection with that Bill, two were not only never discussed, but they were never even reached. They were not within two, three, or even four clauses of reaching them; and, upon the most important question of all in connection with the Bill, viz., whether the scheme should be contributory or non-contributory, the closure fell, after two speeches from that side of the House and one from, the other side, and just as the hon. Member behind him was asking for some reply to the remarks of the previous speaker. Under these circumstances right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite could not be surprised if they stated, as their deliberate opinion, that the method adopted by the present Prime Minister with regard to the guillotining of measures was absolutely destructive of debate and was reducing legislation to nothing but an absolute farce. He was quite ready to admit that in these days some alteration in procedure was necessary and sooner or later inevitable, but he did not think it was for them on that side to point out what was most desirable in their opinion. They objected to the guillotine as applied by the present Prime Minister, and, after the speech of his right hon. friend, no one could have any doubt—it was absolutely undeniable—that the principle adopted now and as practised by the Prime Minister was totally distinct from the principle as practised by his right hon. friend. The guillotine had now become part of the ordinary procedure of the House without waiting to see what Amendments were placed upon the Paper. Without knowing whether Members on that side of the House intended to he obstructive or not in their opposition, the Prime Minister placed upon the Paper Motions, which, as he had said, reduced work and debate to a real farce. One reason why he said so was this. Whenever a Minister now was confronted with a particularly awkward question, and he found it difficult to answer—for instance, the other day when extraordinary want of information was displayed by the Treasury Bench with regard to the German system of old-age pensions—was any answer given or any attempt made to reply to the charge made against them? Nothing of the kind. A Motion for the closure was made. That was the way in which business was conducted in these days under the guillotine Resolution. The time had come, he thought, when all sides of the House acknowledged—and he had been delighted to hear the remarks of hon. Gentlemen opposite—that this procedure was becoming every day more and more injurious to the character and reputation of the House of Commons. Then, he supposed, they would be asked, what was the remedy for all this? The remedy, of course, was at once to devise some method of procedure less objectionable than that with which they were confronted. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite, unless his memory deceived him, were all parties to the pledge given to that House by the late Prime Minister not very long ago. The late Prime Minister had undertaken, on one occasion, to examine with the greatest care the whole of this question, acknowledging himself that the present system could not be permanent and was most undesirable, and that he would submit in due course some other method of procedure for the consideration of the House. Why had that never been done? In the general conduct of their business the present Government had not given the smallest indication that anything of that nature had ever been tried or attempted by them. ["Hear, hear."] The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, said "Hear, hear." He thought that they had reason to complain, and to complain very greatly, and the House of Commons had reason to complain, after what they had heard from the Government's own supporters that afternoon, that no serious effort appeared to have been made at all in that direction up to the present time. Had the Government come to any conclusion or had they not? If they had, what a confession of impotence it was, and what a reflection it was upon the present House of Commons, constituted as it was to-day, Liberal Members being two-thirds of the whole House, that they were so incapable of either guidance or control, that the conduct of their business or the only means by which it could be carried out was by the use of the guillotine. That was what it really came to. Here they had the most powerful Government of modern days, supported by the largest majority in that House on record, yet the only way in which they could conduct their business, or get Bills through the House at all, was, as his right hon. friend remarked, by abandoning all safeguards and by making use of this most objectionable and, he would say, most detestable procedure now proposed by the Government as part of the ordinary and habitual procedure of the House. It was not for the Opposition to propose remedies to-day, but he would say this, that if they were to be driven to the guillotine at all, there would be no difference in the opinion of both sides of the House that it would be far preferable to have the principle of action adopted by his right hon. friend, the Leader of the Opposition, in the past, than to have this practice, which, as he gathered from the Prime Minister to-day, was to become their habitual procedure for the future. Under his right hon. friend it was not habitual; it was only put in force when experience had shown that it was absolutely impossible to pass a great and necessary measure without resort to some practice of that kind. Could not right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite perceive where all this was leading them? As, he was sorry to say, one of the oldest Members of that House, and absolutely devoid of party feeling in this matter, he desired, if possible, to maintain and preserve their old traditions. Hon. Gentlemen opposite were always saying that they were in favour of the democratic principle. Could they not see that this practice of guillotining debate, if it became habitual in the House of Commons, would not only injure but destroy that principle? Every Resolution of this kind that they carried in the future would be neither more nor less than another nail in the coffin of the reputation and traditions of that House, whose dignity and prestige, since first he became a Member of it, he had always desired to see maintained in their old and full integrity.

MR. J. MACVEAGH (Down, S.)

said he did not propose to follow the right. hon. Gentleman through the speech which he had just delivered, but he might be allowed to express his regret that the right hon. Gentleman had not afforded them this treat in the last Parliament, when some of these closure Resolutions were being proposed, and that he should have reserved to the present occasion his eloquent, virile, and full blooded protest against the guillotine. He rose especially for the purpose of referring to some of the remarks which the noble Lord had made in moving his Amendment. Like the rest of his colleagues, he approached this subject, as all other subjects, largely from the Irish standpoint. The noble Lord early in his speech had dismissed the idea that they would find a solution of all the troubles complained of to-day in Home Rule, by stating that it was not a practical remedy; and the only reason which he advanced in support of that contention was that only a fortnight had been given this session to Irish and. Scottish business. He ventured to submit that the noble Lord was not applying the true test in that matter. This was the Imperial Parliament, and how much time had it given to Imperial affairs this session? Take for example the enormous dependency of India. India was in a state of chronic famine, and to-day in a state of profound disaffection, according to some critics being almost on the verge of revolution. But how much time had been given in this session to the affairs of India? Then as to Scotland, he had heard Scottish Members complain in the past few weeks that only two days this session had been given to Scottish affairs, and certainly if he were a Scottish Member he would enter his most emphatic protest against such neglect of his country's interests. But the noble Lord, when he mentioned that fact, instead of advancing his argument in favour of the system which he advocated was advancing a conclusive argument against it. The fact of the matter was that the Parliamentary machine was clogged, and more time could not be given to the discussion of Bills until many of the powers now held by Parliament were delegated to other assemblies. There were Votes in the Estimates which, as every Member of that House knew, had not been discussed in that House for a period of ten years, and, that being so, it must be obvious to every student of Parliamentary procedure that some devolution was necessary. The delegation of the work of that House against which the noble Lord had protested had, as a matter of fact, proved very successful in this very session. The establishment of Grand Committees was intended for the delegation of business, and if the House would only consider for a moment what had gone on before those Grand Committees this session, they would receive an excellent object lesson in the necessity for the delegation of their powers. He had sat for sixteen days on the Scottish Grand Committee for the consideration of the Scottish Education Bill. The eloquence of the Scottish members had been inexhaustible. He never was associated with a wiser lot of men, but he did not want ever again to be on a Scottish Grand Committee. Supposing all these floods of Scottish eloquence had been let loose in the House, they would have got through nothing this session except the Scottish Education Bill. Then, again, he had the misfortune to be a member of Standing Committee C, which was considering the Irish Universities Bill. They sat there for twenty days listening to a most interminable flow of talk.

MR. WALTER LONG (Dublin, S.)

Chiefly from the Chief Secretary.

MR. J. MACVEAGH

said the right hon. Gentleman was entirely wrong. The Chief Secretary never spoke except under provocation, and he got a great deal of it, because they had a long succession of speeches from two brothers, and as soon as one sat down the other bobbed up, and the Chief Secretary had to reply to the duet. Nobody could complain that the right hon. Gentleman the member for South Dublin talked much. He did not obstruct, and was so thoroughly ashamed of what was going on that he stayed away nearly all the time. He had to suffer on both those Committees, but he was too humane a man to desire to inflict the same suffering on the whole body of Members. If this delegation of powers to Grand Committees had not taken place the House would have done practically no business this year at all. Ho did not know how long the Children Bill occupied in Committee, but he knew there was no obstruction there. They could have supplied the right hon. Gentleman with a number of the most loquacious gentlemen from the Irish Universities Bill Committee. But further delegation of the work of the House was absolutely inevitable. The Mother of Parliaments could be better occupied than it had been on the past few nights in discussing the best methods of eradicating the bee pest in Ireland and how to catch whales off the Irish coast. An hon. Baronet entertained them for three quarters of an hour at midnight in describing how people were in the habit of catching whales on his estate in Scotland. He assumed it must have been a submarine estate. The noble Lord also complained that the manners of Parliament had considerably deteriorated because his great countryman Mr. Parnell had initiated obstruction. But he seemed to have heard of a Fourth Party in which one of the shining lights was a kinsman of the noble Lord himself—now the Leader of the Opposition. He proved himself a most apt pupil and displayed great capacity in obstruction. He was inclined to agree with the noble Lord that even in those dim and distant days when the Tory Party returned to power they were not likely to see any improvement in the methods of procedure. Imitation was the sincerest form of flattery, and he supposed the inheritors of the traditions of the Irish Party and its obstructive policy ought to feel flattered by the imitation which had been practised by successive parties since that time. He did not complain of obstruction. It would ill become him as a member of the Party which patented the system to protest against the obstruction which they witnessed now. But he complained of the clumsy, inartistic, and inefficient obstruction which was practised by hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway. He said nothing about the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London. He did it all right. When he got up they knew exactly why he got up, and he had certainly proved the validity of the claim which he advanced to the electors of the City of London as a reason for electing him, that he could talk on any subject at any time and at any length. But he did not weary the House and did not get called to order. He was afraid he could not say that about some other Members who supported him in his crusade. He had watched some obstruction performances with positive pain and with a feeling of shame at the degradation of an art which was once respectable. It had often occurred to him that it would be an excellent idea on the part of some of his colleagues to establish a night school to teach Members above the gangway the rudiments of obstruction. He had listened to the debate as to previous debates on guillotine-resolutions, with mingled feelings. They had heard the same old arguments advanced, the same endless cycles of tu quoques from Members of the two front benches. They seemed to instruct their secretaries to ransack Hansard every time a motion of this kind was coming up and to get out everything said by members of the present Government against the guillotine and by those on the front Opposition bench in favour of it. There was one portion of the House which at least could claim to have been consistent, no matter what party was in power, in protecting free speech and In doing its best to defend the rights of private Members, and that was the party to which ho belonged. He agreed with the noble Lord that Parliament now practically did nothing but register the decrees of the Government. They had had many alterations in procedure from year to year, but he doubted very much if they were any better off to-day in regard to progress in legislation than they were before all these innovations were introduced, and he was inclined to think there was as much legislation carried through the House when it was a free House as was carried now. He would be glad to believe that this would be one of the last of those Motions which would be submitted to the House. The time limit had its advantages. He did not agree with the hon. Member who had suggested as a remedy for this deadlock that they should have shorter speeches and fewer. Until they had Home Rule he was in favour of as many and as long speeches as could possibly be delivered, and he was not disposed to vote for putting the slightest check on the loquacity and garrulity of Members. But if a permanent system of guillotine or closure was to be established, or if it was sought to make this temporary expedient permanent, private Members would be fully justified if they insisted on the restoration to them of sonic privileges of which they had been deprived by preceding Parliaments. In his judgment the greatest blow that was ever struck at the freedom of the House was in the abolition of the right to move the adjournment of the House on any day on any question of public importance, and he did not think private Members had any right to be grateful to the Leader of the Opposition who was the inventor of that system. It was quite true that the privilege still lingered in an attenuated form, and Members who desired to raise a question of urgent public importance were free to do so at a time when the House was empty and everyone was away at dinner. If he were an Englishman ho would take this point of view, that if they ceased to make the House interesting they weakened its influence and its prestige. The House was never more interesting than when any subject of public importance could be sprung upon it at any time without asking the consent of the Government in power. In the last Parliament the House was reduced to such a position of impotence and powerlessness that it actually was not allowed during the last few years of its life to discuss the one question above all others that was agitating the country, was being proclaimed and debated from every platform, and was forming the staple subject for every debating society in the three kingdoms. The one place where they could not mention protection or free trade was the House of Commons. He could not imagine that that was a dignified position to be occupied by the Mother of Parliaments. They had had many sets of new rules passed and many other changes had been effected. Did anyone think any private Member had a chance now of carrying any Bill or effecting any reform in which ho was personally interested? Unless it was a Government measure he had practically no chance of seeing any social reform in which he was interested. It was his deliberate judgment that a member of a poor law board or a borough council had more power to advance the total sum of human happiness than any Member of the House of Commons. If they were to give away more rights they should insist on getting back some of the rights they had lost, and the most important of them all was the right to arraign this or any other Government at any time and upon any topic. The front benches were all the same. They both wanted to victimise the private Member. Whatever else they might differ upon they were agreed on that. If they were out to-day they expected to be in to-morrow, and they wanted to preserve all the privileges of front benches. Be the cause what it might, the proceedings of Parliament were beyond any doubt gradually losing interest in the country. It might be due in large part to the influence of the halfpenny newspapers which had set the custom of not reporting the proceedings in Parliament but of confining themselves to giving what was called a descriptive sketch. They had now reached such a stage that a great many of the newspapers would give a column any day to the recital of the views of Black Rod on the wearing of the kilt, but if the Leader of the Opposition made a speech of profound importance, giving his real views upon tariff reform, they would dismiss him with half a column. But whatever influence the halfpenny newspapers might have had in weakening the interest of the public in the proceedings of the House, above all other causes it was due to the automatic procedure which had been established, because everyone outside the House of Commons knew now that when a Bill was introduced, that on a certain day and at a certain hour the House would proceed to a division, and that it would be carried by approximately the majority which the Government of the day happened to have. If he were an Englishman he would feel it his duty to aim at making the House in fact as it was in name, the Imperial Parliament.

*MR. CLYNES (Manchester, N.E.)

endorsed that part of the hon. Member's speech which referred to the attitude of the occupants of the front benches upon this subject. The debate was itself a further cause of sonic reproach in respect of gentlemen who occupied the two front benches, and from whom they had already had six speeches. This monopoly of the time of the House was the greatest affront that could be offered to what was termed the dignity of Parliament, and to the privileges and rights of private Members. He had seen the comparison made that the Leader of the Opposition had covered, by his speeches in the first session of this Parliament, 511 columns of Hansard, something like 100 columns more than was occupied by the whole of the speeches of the whole of the Labour Members. The frequency of speeches from the front benches tended to exclude those who had some right to take a small part in the general affairs of the Chamber. Soon after entering the House he had expressed his amazement to a distinguished member of the Government at the way in which time was wasted, and speeches made to no purpose but that of obstruction. To his greater amazement the right hon. Gentleman said, "But that is nothing to what we did in the last Parliament." So it appeared to him that the chief inspiration of many Members who were there to represent the interest of their constituencies was that party inspiration which inclined them to seek merely the triumph of their side regardless of the common interest and good of the community. Did anyone believe that the Old-age Pensions Bill, if they had had more time to talk about it, would have emerged from Committee a better Bill than it was? He did not believe it. It was not that they wanted more time to talk; they wanted a better disposition to do something for the common good. There were between sixty and seventy Amendments to the Finance Bill on the Order Paper, not one of which was carried. Did anyone believe that if they had had sixty days to discuss these Amendments the result would have been different? He was unconvinced upon the point. He accepted the principle of the guillotine because he felt that, whatever course they took to rearrange the procedure of the House, this limitation of time and allotment of given portions of time to given clauses of Bills was in itself a defensible and proper provision, and he did not believe it would he better to leave the House to a time of unrestrained talk on the questions before them. If they did so they assisted the triumph of the Opposition—of the minority in the place of the majority—and whether he was opposed to the minority or not for the time being, they must accept the decisions of the elected majority. He was not so much a respecter of Parliamentary form as to say they should have these frequent debates. Personally he was prepared to accept this view, that inasmuch as it was understood that they were there with their minds unalterably made up, and as the mere creatures of party machinery, they might be better occupied elsewhere than in delivering speeches which had been so often delivered to their constituents and to The Times. The principle of the guillotine Motion was already in practice in a somewhat limited and defective form in regard to the financial affairs of the country. So many days were allotted to Supply every year, and if it was proper for previous Parliaments to have recourse to the closure in respect to financial matters it could hardly be argued that it was improper to apply the same principle to, licensing legislation. He thought that some portion of the available time should be given to all the Votes and all the Departments of State. It bad been alleged that the House was attempting to do too much, and that seemed to be the chief peg upon which the Opposition were hanging their complaints. He supposed the Opposition were contrasting the legislation of the present Government with their own legislative inactivity during their long period of office: but in view of the, great arrears of social and industrial, legislation and the demands for improvements in the conditions under which the industrial classes worked, it could hardly be alleged that the House of Commons. was attempting too much. He endorsed what had been said as to the trivial character of many of the things which were discussed, but the remedy for that was that all those little village-green topics should be removed to other bodies better fitted to deal with them. His view was that until they delegated many of those functions they would have to press even further the principle of this Motion and allot the time in a proper proportion to the different measures with which they would be called upon to deal.

*MR. EVERETT (Suffolk, Woodbridge)

said he was glad that the Prime Minister had made this Motion. He agreed with the statement quoted by the Prime Minister from the Leader of the Opposition that the guillotine arrangement must become more and more a part of the procedure of the House. This necessity arose from the very position in which they were placed. The House of Commons consisted of 670 members, most of them practised speakers, and some of them very fond of hearing themselves speak. The processes through which Bills very rightly had to go as the result of the experience of many generations, afforded a practically unlimited opportunity for obstruction by much talking. When they considered the great issues which wore at stake in matters that came before the House they could understand that any weapons which Parliamentary usage allowed were quite legitimate to be used by those who were opposing the particular measure before the House. They could not blame the Opposition for trying to prevent the passage of measures embodying principles which were quite opposed to what they believed was for the good of the country. Not only that, but there were many great prizes attached to those in office. The occupants of the Ministerial benches divided many tens of thousands of pounds amongst themselves in the shape of salaries; but that was a small thing compared with the vast amount of patronage which attached to the Government of the day. Under those circumstances, it was perfectly certain that the more interest people took in public affairs the more decidedly and energetically would the minority, whichever side they belonged to, use every Parliamentary weapon available to thorn to prevent the pro- gress of business and to discredit the Government. Under those circumstances the majority could not carry out its will unless they had some arrangement such as that which the Government were now asking the House to adopt in regard to this particular measure, and only in that way could the will of the majority be carried out. They looked to the Government of the day to carry out the wishes the people had formed. It was quite right that the Government should have the authority to assign the period of time during which a Bill should be discussed. If that power was used to carry through measures which were opposed to the wishes of the people, as was the case with the last Government, then they would be brought to judgment at the next election. That was what happened in the case of the last Government. They carried through some of their measures in the teeth of the wishes of the people, and they carried theca through with the assistance of the guillotine. They were then put upon their trial before the country, and the people condemned them by returning a sweeping majority against them. The present Government wore now trying to carry out the wishes of the enormous majority who were behind them, and they were pledged to the reversal of many things done by the late Government as well as to the introduction of many other new measures like old age-pensions. He thought they might depend upon the Government giving a proper amount of time to the discussion of measures before they passed them into law. One of the reasons why the guillotine was more necessary now than formerly was that a larger number of Members had been returned to the House prepared to take an active part in its business and in speaking, and therefore it had become more necessary to restrict the unlimited power of talking which was impeding progress. Mr. Gladstone in the great Parliament of 1868, the most fruitful Parliament of our time, used to force some of his measures through by sitting up all night. Mr. Gladstone's Administration was followed by the Conservative reactionary Parliament of 1874, and there was then no need for restrictive measures, because the aim of the Government was to do comparatively little. In 1880 when Mr. Gladstone again came into power, the Irish Party found in the forms of the House an instrument which they could use and which they used most skilfully by obstruction to render the carrying on of the business of the House impossible, and they used this instrument to call attention to the need of Ireland's having her Parliament restored. The result was that Mr. Gladstone was forced to introduce coercive measures in order to be able to go forward with his legislation. At the present time the country desired progressive measures, and in view of the unlimited power of obstruction which the rules of the House placed in the hands of the minority, it had become absolutely necessary to propose Resolutions of the kind they were shortly going to vote upon. Apart from that, there were some things that could be done to save the time of the House. [OPPOSITION cries of "Hear, hear."] The hon. Member for Chelmsford had introduced into the House a Bill for the shortening of speeches, and that was one of the things which he hoped would be done in this Parliament. They might save much time too by a quicker method of taking divisions. They might decide questions by standing up or having a show of hands, and then they would not waste such a vast amount of time going through the lobby. It was impossible, in his opinion, to carry out the wishes of the majority in the House and the country without such a Resolution as that of the Prime Minister, and with his whole heart he should go into the lobby in its support.

MR. KEIR HARDY (Merthyr Tydvil)

said he was in complete sympathy with the Amendment of the noble Lord. But the Labour Party were placed in the dilemma of having to choose between curtailment of speech, in which they believed, or curtailment in the output of legislation. Placed in this dilemma they chose the lesser of two evils by supporting the closure Resolution, which was a distinct improvement upon anything they had hitherto had. They were groping their way by experience towards some better form of procedure for the regulation of their debates. He had, however, intervened for the purpose of raising a

special and particular point. He had an Amendment down to limit the Committee stage of the Licensing Bill to seventeen days, which meant the saving of two days, his reason being the fear that in the autumn session some measures would be crushed out. In addition to the Licensing Bill there was the Scottish Education Bill, the English Education Bill, the Housing Bill, the Children Bill, and the Miners' Eight Hours Bill. The total amount of time available in the autumn was only forty-five days. In the event of its being found necessary to postpone any Bills, he asked for an assurance that the Miners Bill would not be sacrificed, promising in that event not to move his Amendment.

MR. ASQUITH

said the Eight Hours Bill was, to a large extent, dependent on the progress made in Grand Committee before the adjournment. He hoped the Bill would go there next week, so that some substantial work might be done upon it before the House adjourned for the autmn recess. If the progress was satisfactory, there would be quite sufficient time left in the autumn session to pass it through its remaining stages. He could not give any definite pledge at present, but that was the hope and intention of the Government. On the other hand, he could not undertake to revise the whole of the time-table by substituting seventeen for nineteen days for the Licensing Bill. The Government did not think seventeen would be an adequate number of days to give to the Committee stage. He hoped the hon. Gentleman, after what he had said, would not press his Amendment.

Several Members rose to continue the debate, whereupon—

MR. ASQUITH

rose in his place and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question put, "That the Question be now put."

The House divided:—Ayes, 226; Noes, 101. (Division List No. 198.)

AYES.
Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.)	Alden, Percy	Balfour, Robert (Lanark)
Acland, Francis Dyke	Asquith,Rt. Hn.Herbert Henry	Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)
Ainsworth, John Stirling	Astbury, John Meir	Barnes, G. N.
Barran, Rowland Hirst	Gulland, John W.	O'Brien, Kendal(TipperaryMid)
Barry, Redmond J.(Tyrone, N.)	Gurdon, Rt Hn. Sir W.Brampton	O'Brien, William (Cork)
Beale, W. P.	Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.	O'Grady, J.
Beauchamp, E.	Harcourt, Rt.Hn L.(Rossendale	O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)
Bell, Richard	Harcourt, Robert V.(Montrose)	Parker, James (Halifax)
Bellairs, Carlyon	Hardie, J.Keir(Merthyr Tydvil)	Paulton, James Mellor
Benn, W.(T'w'rHamlets,S.Geo.	Hart-Davies, T.	Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)
Bennett, E. N.	Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)	Pearce, William (Limehouse)
Bethell, SirJ.H.(Essex.Romf'd	Haworth, Arthur A.	Phillips, John (Longford, S.)
Bethell, T. R. (Essex. Maldon)	Hemmerde, Edward George	Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.
Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine	Henry, Charles S.	Priestley, W.E.B. (Bradford,E.)
Boland, John	Herbert, Col.Sir Ivor(Mon.,S.)	Pullar, Sir Robert
Bottomley, Horatio	Higham, John Sharp	Rainy, A. Rolland
Boulton, A. C. F.	Hobart, Sir Robert	Raphael, Herbert H.
Bowerman, C. W.	Hobhouse, Charles E. H.	Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro'
Branch James	Hodge, John	Redmond, William (Clare)
Brocklehurst, W. B.	Hogan, Michael	Rees, J. D.
Brooke, Stopford	Horniman, Emslie John	Richards,T.F.(Wolverh'mpt'n)
Brunner, J.F. L. (Lancs.,Leigh)	Howard, Hon. Geoffrey	Ridsdale, E. A.
Brunner, Rt Hn SirJ.T(Cheshire	Illingworth, Percy H.	Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)
Bryce, J. Annan	Isaacs, Rufus Daniel	Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)
Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn	Jackson, R. S.	Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)
Buxton, Rt. Hn.Sydney Charles	Jackson, Sir James Alfred	Robinson, S.
Byles, William Pollard	Jones, Leif (Appleby)	Robson, Sir William Snowdon
Cameron, Robert	Jowett, F. W.	Roe, Sir Thomas
Carr-Gomm, H. W.	Joyce, Michael	Rose, Charles Day
Cawley, Sir Frederick	Kearley, Sir Hudson E.	Rowlands, J.
Chance, Frederick William	Kekewich, Sir George	Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)
Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.	Laidlaw, Robert	Samuel,Herbert L. (Cleveland)
Cleland, J. W.	Lambert, George	Scarisbrick, T. T. L.
Clough, William	Lamont, Norman	Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde)
Clynes, J. R.	Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis	Schwann,Sir C.E.(Manchester)
Cobbold, Felix Thornley	Leese, SirJoseph F.(Accrington)	Scott, A.H(Ashton-under-Lyne
Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)	Lehmann, R. C.	Sears, J. E.
Collins, Sir Wm.J.(S.PancrasW	Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich)	Seaverns, J. H.
Cooper, G. J.	Lewis, John Herbert	Seddon, J.
Corbett, C H (Sussex, E.Grinst'd	Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David	Seely, Colonel
Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.	Lundon, W.	Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)
Cotton, Sir H. J. S.	Luttrell, Hugh Fownes	Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.
Cox, Harold	Lyell, Charles Henry	Sherwell, Arthur James
Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)	Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)	Shipman, Dr. John G.
Crooks, William	Macdonald, J.M.(Falkirk B'ghs	Silcock, Thomas Ball
Crosfield, A. H.	Mackarness, Frederic C.	Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John
Curran, Peter Francis	Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.	Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie
Dalziel, James Henry	MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down,S.	Spicer, Sir Albert
Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan	Mac Veagh,Charles (Donegal, E.	Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph(Chesh.)
Davies, Timothy (Fulham)	McCallum, John M.	Steadman, W. C.
Devlin, Joseph	McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald	Stewart, Halley (Greenock)
Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)	McLaren, Sir C. B. (Leicester)	Strachey, Sir Edward
Dickinson, W.H. (St.Panrcas,N	McLaren, H. D. (Stafford, W.)	Straus, B. S. (Mile End)
Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.	Maddison, Frederick	Sutherland, J. E.
Donelan, Captain A.	Mallet, Charles E.	Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)
Duckworth, James	Manlield, Harry (Northants)	Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)
Duncan,C.(Barrow-in-Furness)	Markham, Arthur Basil	Tennant, Sir Edward(Salisbury
Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)	Marks, G. Croydon (Launcestn)	Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)
Dunne, Major E. Martin(Walsall	Marnham, F. J.	Thorne,G. R. (Wolverhampton)
Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward	Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry)	Torrance, Sir A. M.
Erskine, David C.	Massie, J.	Ure, Alexander
Esmonde, Sir Thomas	Meehan, Francis E.(Leitrim, N.)	Verney, F. W.
Essex, R. W.	Menzies, Walter	Vivian, Henry
Evans, Sir Samuel T.	Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)	Wardle, George J.
Flynn, James Christopher	Morrell, Philip	Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.
Fuller, John Michael F.	Morse, L. L.	Wason, Rt. Hn. E. (Clackman'n
Fullerton, Hugh	Morton, Alpheus Cleophas	Wason, John Cathcart(Orkney)
Gladstone, Rt.Hn.Herbert John	Murphy, John (Kerry, East)	Waterlow, D. S.
Glendinning, R. G.	Nicholls, George	Watt, Henry A.
Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford	Nicholson. Charles N.(Doncast'r	Weir, James Galloway
Gooch, George Peabody (Bath)	Norton, Capt. Cecil William	White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire
Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)	Nussey, Thomas Willans	White, Luke (York, E. R.)
Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward	Nuttall, Harry	Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)
Whittaker, RtHn. Sir Thomas P.	Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank.
Wiles, Thomas	Wood, T. McKinnon
Wills, Arthur Walters	Yoxall, James Henry
NOES.
Arkwright, John Stanhope	Gardner, Ernest	Percy, Earl
Ashley, W. W.	Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol. West)	Ratcliffe, Major R. F.
Balcarres, Lord	Goulding, Edward Alfred	Rawlinson, Johnn Frederick Peel
Balfour, Rt Hn. A. J. (CityLond.)	Gretton, John	Remnant, James Farquharson
Banbury, Sir Frederick George	Hamilton, Marquess of	Renton, Leslie
Banner, John S. Harmood-	Hardy, Laurence (Kent. Ashford	Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)
Baring, Capt. Hn. G.(Winchester	Hay, Hon. Claude George	Ronaldshay, Earl of
Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks	Helmsley, Viscount	Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)
Beckett, Hon. Gervase	Hill, Sir Clement	Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert
Bignold, Sir Arthur	Hills, J. W.	Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)
Bowles, G. Stewart	Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)	Sheffield, Sir Berkeley George D.
Bridgeman, W. Clive	Houston, Robert Paterson	Sloan, Thomas Henry
Bull, Sir William James	Kennaway, Rt.Hon. Sir John H.	Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)
Butcher, Samuel Henry	Keswick, William	Stanier, Beville
Carlile, E. Hildred	Kimber, Sir Henry	Starkey, John R.
Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.	Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.	Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh.
Castlereagh, Viscount	Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich)	Stone, Sir Benjamin
Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)	Lockwood, Rt. Hn. Lt-Col. A. R.	Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)
Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey-	Long, Col. Charles W.(Evesham)	Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G.(Oxf'dUniv-
Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)	Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Dublin, S.)	Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark)
Chamberlain, Rt Hn. J.A.(Wore.	Lonsdale, John Brownlee	Thornton, Percy M.
Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry	Lowe, Sir Francis William	Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire)
Clark, George Smith	Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred	Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid)
Clive, Percy Archer	MacC'aw, William J. MacGeagh	White, Patrick (Meath, North)
Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H.A.E.	M'Arthur, Charles	Williams, Col. R (Dorset, W.)
Craig, Charles Curtis(Antrim, S.	Meagher, Michael	Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
Craik, Sir Henry	Mildmay, Francis Bingham	Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.)
Crean, Eugene	Morpeth, Viscount	Winterton, Earl
Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred, Dixon	Morrison-Bell, Captain	Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm
Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-	Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield	Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George
Du Cros, Arthur Philip	Nield, Herbert	Younger, George
Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan	Nolan, Joseph
Faber, George Denison (York)	Oddy, John James	TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Viscount Valentia and Mr. Forster.
Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.)	O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens
Fell, Arthur	Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

Question put accordingly, "That the words proposed to be left out, to the end of line 4, stand part of the Question."

The House divided:—Ayes, 221; Noes, 101. (Division List No. 199.)

AYES.
Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.)	Bowerman, C W.	Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstd
Acland, Francis Dyke	Branch, James	Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.
Ainsworth, John Stirling	Brocklehurst, W. B.	Cotton, Sir H. J. S.
Alden, Percy	Brooke, Stopford	Cox, Harold
Asquith, RtHn. Herbert Henry	Brunner, J. F. L. (Lanes., Leigh)	Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)
Astbury, John Meir	Brunner, RtHn Sir J. T(Cheshire	Crooks, William
Balfour, Robert (Lanark)	Bryce, J. Annan	Crosfield, A. H.
Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)	Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn	Curran, Peter Francis
Barnard, E. B.	Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles	Dalziel, James Henry
Barnes, G. N.	Byles, William Pollard	Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan)
Barran, Rowland Hirst	Cameron, Robert	Davies, Timothy (Fulham)
Barry, Redmond J.(Tyrone, N.)	Carr-Gomm, H. W.	Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh. S.)
Beale, W. P.	Cawley, Sir Frederick	Dickinson, W.H. (St. Pancras, N.
Beauchamp, E.	Chance, Frederick William	Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.
Bell, Richard	Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.	Donelan, Captain A.
Bellairs, Carlyon	Cleland, J. W.	Duckworth, James
Benn, W.(T'w'r Hamlets,S.Geo.	Clough, William	Duncan, C.(Barrow-in-Furness)
Bennett, E. N.	Clynes, J. R.	Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)
Bethell, Sir J. H. (Essex, Romf'rd	Cobbold, Felix Thornley	Dunne, Major E. Martin(Walsall
Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)	Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)	Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward
Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine	Collins, Sir Wm. J.(S. Pancras, W	Erskine, David C.
Boland, John	Condon, Thomas Joseph	Esmonde, Sir Thomas
Boulton, A. C. T.	Cooper, C. J.	Essex, R. W.
Evans, Sir Samuel T.	Mackarness, Frederic C.	Rowlands, J.
Everett, K. Lacey	Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.	Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)
Flynn, James Christopher	MacVeagh, Jeremiah(Down, S.)	Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)
Fuller, John Michael F.	MacVeigh, Charles(Donegal,E.)	Scarisbrick, T. T. L.
Fullerton, Hugh	M'Callum, John M.	Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde)
Gibb, James (Harrow)	M'Kenna, Rt.Hon. Reginald	Schwann, Sir C. E.(Manchester)
Gladstone,RtHn.Herbert John	M'Killop, W.	Scott,A.H.(Ashton-under-Lyne
Glendinning, R. G.	M'Laren, Sir C. B. (Leicester)	Sears, J. E.
Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford	M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.)	Seaverns, J. H.
Gooch,George Peabody(Bath)	Maddison, Frederick	Seddon, J.
Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)	Mallet, Charles E.	Seely, Colonel
Grey, Rt Hon. Sir Edward	Manfield, Harry (Northants)	Shaw, Rt. Hon.T.(Hawick,B.)
Gulland, John W.	Markham, Arthur Basil	Sherwell, Arthur James
Gurdon, RtHn.SirW. Brampton	Marks,G.Croydon (Launceston)	Shipman, Dr. John G.
Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.	Marnham, F. J.	Silcock, Thomas Ball
Harcourt,Rt.Hn.L.(Rossendale	Massie, J.	Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John
Harcourt,Robert V.(Montrose)	Meagher, Michael	Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie
Hardie,J.Keir(Merthyr Tydvil)	Menzies, Walter	Spicer, Sir Albert
Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)	Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)	Steadman, W. C.
Haworth, Arthur A.	Morrell, Philip	Stewart, Halley (Greenock)
Hemmerde, Edward George	Morse, L. L.	Strachey, Sir Edward
Henry, Charles S.	Morton, Alpheus Cleophas	Straus, B. S. (Mile End)
Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon.,S.)	Murphy, John (Kerry, East)	Sutherland, J. E.
Higham, John Sharp	Nicholls, George	Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)
Hobart, Sir Robert	Nicholson,CharlesN.(Doncast'r	Taylor, Theodore C.(Radcliffe)
Hobhouse, Charles E. H.	Norton, Capt. Cecil William	Tennant,Sir Edward(Salisbury)
Hodge, John	Nussey, Thomas Willans	Tennant, H.J.(Berwickshire)
Hogan, Michael	Nuttall, Harry	Thorne, G.R.(Wolverhampton)
Horniman, Emslie John	O'Brien,Kendal(Tipperary,Mid	Torrance, Sir A. M.
Howard, Hon. Geoffrey	O'Brien, William (Cork)	Ure, Alexander
Illingworth, Percy H.	O'Grady, J.	Verney, F. W.
Isaacs, Rufus Daniel	O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)	Vivian, Henry
Jackson, R. S.	Parker, James (Halifax)	Wardle, George J.
Jacoby, Sir James Alfred	Paulton, James Mellor	Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.
Jones, Leif (Appleby)	Pearce, Robert (Staffs,Leek)	Wason,Rt.Hn. E(Clackmannan
Joyce, Michael	Pearce, William (Limehouse)	Wason, John Cathcart(Orkney)
Kearley, Sir Hudson E.	Philips, John (Longford, S.)	Waterlow, D. S.
Kekewich, Sir George	Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.	Watt, Henry A.
Laidlaw, Robert	Priestley, W.E.B.(Bradford,E.)	Weir, James Galloway
Lambert, George	Pullar, Sir Robert	White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)
Lamont, Norman	Rainy, A. Rolland	White, Luke (York, E. R.)
Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis	Ralphael, Herbert H.	Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)
Leese,Sir JosephF.(Accrington)	Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro')	Whittaker,RtHn.Sir ThomasP.
Lehmann, R. C.	Richards, T.F.(Wolverh'mpt'n	Wiles, Thomas
Lever,A.Levy (Essex, Harwich)	Ridsdale, E. A.	Wills, Arthur Walters
Lewis, John Herbert	Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)	Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)
Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David	Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)	Wood, T. M'Kinnon
Lundon, W.	Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)	Yoxall, James Henry
Luttrell, Hugh Fownes	Robinson, S.
Lyell, Cliarles Henry	Robson, Sir William Snowdon	TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank.
Macdonald, J. M. (Leicester)	Roe, Sir Thomas
Macdonald, J. M.(Falkirk B'ghs	Rose, Charles Day
NOES.
Arkwright, John Stanhope	Castlereagh, Viscount	Fell, Arthur
Ashley, W. W.	Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)	Gardner, Ernest
Balcarres, Lord	Cecil, Lord John P.Joicey-	Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)
Balfour,Rt.Hn. A. J. (CityLond	Cecil, Lord R.(Marylebone,E.)	Goulding, Edward Alfred
Banbury, Sir Frederick George	Chamberlain,Rt Hn.J.A(Worc.	Gretton, John
Banner, John S. Harmood-	Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry	Guinness, Walter Edward
Baring,Capt.Hn.G(Winchest'r	Clark, George Smith	Hamilton, Marquess of
Beach,Hn. MichaelHughHicks	Clive, Percy Archer	Hardy,Laurence (Kent,Ashf'rd
Beckett, Hon. Gervase	Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.	Hay, Hon. Claude George
Bignold, Sir Arthur	Craig,Charles Curtis(Antrim, S.	Helmsley, Viscount
Bottomley, Horatio	Craik, Sir Henry	Hill, Sir Clement
Bowles, G. Stewart	Dixon-Hartland,Sir FredDixon	Hills, J. W.
Bridgeman, W. Clive	Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-	Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield
Bull, Sir William James	Du Cros, Arthur Philip	Houston, Robert Paterson
Butcher, Samuel Henry	Duncan, Robt. (Lanark,Govan)	Joynson-Hicks, William
Carlile, E. Hildred	Faber, George Denison (York)	Kennaway, Rt.Hn. Sir John H.
Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.	Faber, Capt, W. V. (Hants,W.)	Keswick, William.

Kimber, Sir Henry	O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens	Stone, Sir Benjamin
Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.	Pease, Herbert Pike(Darlington)	Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)
Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich)	Percy, Earl	Talbot, RtHn. J.G.(Oxf'd Univ.
Lockwood, Rt Hn. Lt.-Col. A.R.	Ratcliff, Major R. F.	Thomson, W. Micthell-(Lanark)
Long, Col. Charles W.(Evesham)	Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel	Thornton, Percy M.
Long, RtHn. Walter (Dublin, S.)	Remnant, James Farquharson	Walker, Col. W.H.(Lancashire)
Lonsdale, John Brownlee	Renton, Leslie	Warde, Col. C.E.(Kent, Mid)
Lowe, Sir Francis William	Roberts, S.(Sheffield, Ecclesall)	White, Patrick (Meath, North)
Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred	Ronaldshay, Earl of	Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)
MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh	Rutherford, W. W.(Liverpool)	Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
M'Arthur, Charles	Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert	Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.)
Mildmay, Francis Bingham	Scott, Sir S.(Marylebone, W.)	Winterton, Earl
Morpeth, Viscount	Sheffield, Sir Berkeley George D.	Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm
Morrison-Bell, Captain	Sloan, Thomas Henry	Younger, George
Nicholson, Wm. G.(Petersfield)	Smith, Hon. W. F. D.(Strand)
Nield, Herbert	Stanier, Beville	TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Viscount Valentia and Mr. Forster.
Nolan, Joseph	Starkey, John R.
Oddy, John James	Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh.

Question put, and agreed to.

MR. LAUREXCE HARDY moved an Amendment with the object of providing that the guillotine closure should not begin on the days allotted for the Report stage of the Bill at 10.30 p.m., as proposed in the Motion of the Prime Minister, but at 11 o'clock. He said that 10.30 was a most inconvenient hour at which to end the debate. The Government might surely give this extra time to private Members on the discussions on the Bill. If the closure was not taken I until 11 o'clock on each of the twenty-five days they would gain twelve and a half hours extra discussion. It might very well be the case that on the Report stage there would be only one or two divisions, and therefore he thought it was quite reasonable to expect that this Amendment would be accepted.

SIR F. BANBURY (City of London)

seconded the Amendment. He did not anticipate that the Government would object to give this extra half hour. It in no way interfered with the Government's plans, and did not encroach on their time.

Amendment proposed—

"In line 15, to leave out '10.30,' and insert '11.0.'"—(Mr Laurence Hardy.)

Question proposed, "That '10.30' stand part of the Question."

MR. ASQUITH

said he did not think it was the general wish of the House that this Amendment should be adopted. The Government followed the precedent set by all previous Resolutions fixing the hour at which divisions should take place, namely, half an hour before the formal rising hour. That had been the invariable rule when such Resolutions had been passed. In consequence of the concession he had already made to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Dublin, whereby clauses instead of being put en bloc would be put seriatim, they might carry on divisions till two or three in the morning.

SIR F. BANBURY

No, no.

MR. ASQUITH

said he was not at all sure the hon. Member would be in that amiable frame of mind when they came to the divisions. Past experience did not justify the supposition. It would be better to adhere to the invariable practice of the past, and allow the divisions to take place at 10.30.

SIR F. BANBURY moved to omit the following paragraph:—"One allotted day shall be given to the Third Reading of the Bill, and the proceedings thereon shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion be brought to a conclusion at 10 30 p.m. on that day." He said the object of this Amendment was to remove the operation of the guillotine upon the Third Reading. It might be that one day would be quite sufficient for the Third Reading. On the other hand, no one knew yet what would take place in Committee and on Report, and in view of the fact that, with all the goodwill in the world, the Government might have so allotted the time as to prevent hon. Members from dealing with points they wished to discuss, it might be necessary to have a certain amount of discussion on these points on the Third Reading.

*MR. SPEAKER

The House has decided by passing the first paragraph that the Committee stage, the Report stage, and Third Reading "shall be proceeded with as follows." The hon. Member proposes to leave out the paragraph as to the Third Reading. That would leave the first paragraph of the Resolution in the air. I do not think he can propose to strike out the paragraph relating to the Third Reading, because that depends on the first paragraph.

SIR F. BANBURY

said he would move to omit "one" and insert "two." That he thought, was a very modest request. The Licensing Bill was the most important Bill of this Parliament, and it was not immoderate to ask that the Third Reading should be given two days. There was no reason to anticipate obstruction on the Third Reading, indeed, there would be no object in anyone wishing to obstruct. In view of the fact that they were limited in all the other stages it was only reasonable that this very small extension should be conceded.

MR. PIKE PEASE (Darlington)

seconded the Amendment. He did not think that hon. Members opposite fully realised the magnitude of the present Bill. Clause 20, for instance, which was to be discussed in Committee on the fourteenth allotted day, dealt with the employment of women and children on licensed premises, access to premises sale of liquor on Sunday, the closing of premises during the day of polling for Parliamentary or Local Government Board elections, and other matters. All this was to be dealt with in one day. By the time the Third Reading was reached, there would be a great deal to discuss which had not been discussed on the previous stages.

Amendment proposed—

"In line 18, to leave out the word "One," and to insert the word "Two."—(Sir F. Banbury.)

Question proposed, "That the word "one" stand part of the Question.

MR. ASQUITH

said the remarks made by the hon. Member would be quite appropriate to a demand for the extension of the time for the Committee stage or the Report stage of the Bill, but not the Third Reading stage. When the Government came to the conclusion, after careful consideration, that twenty five days was the maximum time which, in view of the requirements of public business in the House of Commons and in another place, could be given to the various stages of the Bill, they proceeded to allocate that time in the manner they thought would be most convenient. Of all stages of a Bill the Third Reading was the simplest and least important. The Bill bad been through Committee then, and it had been put in its final shape on Report, and all that could be done on the Third Reading was to repeat arguments which had already done service in Committee and on Report. As they could not give more than twenty-five; days he thought the House would agree that one day was the maximum that, ought to be allowed for Third Reading.

MR. LAURENCE HARDY moved an Amendment with the objection of providing that, instead of proceeding to discuss the proposals of the Government for the allocation of the proceedings on the Report stage on the night that the Committee stage was finished, the discussion should be taken on "a subsequent day." He was convinced, he said, that the procedure on this particular matter for the allocation of the proceedings on the Report stage was a proper one. He understood the object of the two hours debate which was to take place was to discover the opinion of the House as to what clauses were to be considered on Report. He suggested that in the interest of the proposal itself, and in the interest of ascertaining what would be the best way to carry on the Report stage, it would be better to take the discussion on a subsequent day. This was a new departure and it was one well worth trying. He moved the Amendment for the sake of peace.

LORD R. CECIL

seconded the Amendment, which he hoped the Government would see their way to adopt. He would point out to the Prime Minister that the effect of the Resolution as it stood might be that the proposals to allot the time for the Report stage might come on at midnight or at one o'clock in the morning, because it would come on after the final decision in Committee. They were all agreed earlier in the afternoon that nothing could be gained and that nothing could be worse for the calm consideration of a proposal than that they should be up all night. He suggested that if the Amendment were accepted it would only have the effect of taking two hours of the Government's time on a subsequent day, and that the Government could put down some other business to occupy the rest of the sitting. It was very unusual, and he thought improper, to take the Report stage the day after Committee was finished. The proposal was a very reasonable one, and He hoped the right hon Gentleman would accept it.

Amendment proposed—

"In line 22, to leave out the words 'then proceed to,' and insert the words' on a subsequent day."'—(Mr. Laurence Hardy.)

Question, "That the words 'then proceed to' stand part of the Question," put, and negatived.

MR. ASQUITH

said he thought the apprehensions of the noble Lord were somewhat alarmist and unnecessary. As a matter of fact, the last day in Committee would be devoted to the consideration of the schedules, an exceedingly unexciting topic. (Opposition cries of "No.") The last schedule, at least, only repealed sections of other Acts of Parliament, and he would hope that the House would be in a thoroughly calm and sane condition of mind under the influence of that sort of discussion. He did not, however, wish to press matters of this kind against the general convenience of the House, and as there was some point in the noble Lord's remarks that they might be kept up late, he would agree to take two hours on a subsequent day intervening between the conclusion of the Committee stage and the Report.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

Proposed words there inserted.

MR. FELL (Great Yarmouth) moved to leave out the words "moved by the Government." The point which he wished to raise arose in the discussions on the Old-Age Pensions Bill. On that Bill Amendments were not only not reached for discussion, but divisions were not allowed to be taken on them—however important those Amendments might be. There were two cases on which he thought it was very desirable that a division should have been but was not taken—the question whether the age should be sixty-five instead of seventy, and the question whether the Pensions Bill should apply to aliens who had become naturalised. The Prime Minister had said that there were a thousand Amendments to the Licensing Bill, but the great bulk of these would be ruled out of order, and he thought it would be a great hardship if none but Government Amendments could be divided upon. He begged to move.

MR. CARLILE (Hertfordshire, St. Albans)

seconded.

Amendment proposed—

"In line 49, to leave out the words 'moved by the Government '"—(Mr. Fell.)

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

MR. ASQUITH

said that, of course, he could not possibly accept the Amendment. It would limit the guillotine Resolution needlessly and would only lead to wearisome and fruitless divisions. The Government must be assumed to know on which Amendments it was absolutely necessary to take a division.

Amendment negatived.

MR. LAURENCE HARDY

said that as the Prime Minister had graciously accepted his Amendment he moved his next Amendment in order to give effect to it: "To leave out from the second 'be" in line 54, to end of line 58."

Amendment proposed—

"In line 54, to leave out from the second 'be,' to end of line 58.'"—(Mr. Laurence Hardy.)

Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Resolution," put, and negatived.

Main Question, as amended proposed.

MR. MITCHELL-THOMSON (Lanarkshire, N.W.)

rose to move a new Amendment, when

MR. ASQUITH

rose in his place and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put." [OPPOSITION cries of "Oh" and "Shame."]

Question put, "That the Question be now put."

The House divided:—Ayes, 209; Noes, 88. (Division List No. 200.)

AYES.
Abraham,William(Cork,N. E.)	Fuller, John Michael F.	Meagher, Michael
Acland, Francis Dyke	Fullerton, Hugh	Menzies, Walter
Ainsworth, John Stirling	Gibb, James (Harrow)	Micklem, Nathaniel
Alden, Percy	Gladstone,Rt.Hn.Herbert John	Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)
Asquith, Rt.Hn. Herbert Henry	Glendinning, R. G.	Morton, Alpheus Cleophas
Asbury. John Meir	Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford	Murphy, John (Kerry, East)
Balfour, Robert (Lanark)	Gooch, George Peabody (Bath)	Nicholls, George
Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)	Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)	Nicholson, CharlesN.(Doncast'r
Barnard, E. B.	Greenwood, Hamar (York)	Norton, Capt. Cecil William
Barnes, G. N.	Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward	Nussey, Thomas William
Barran, Rowland Hirst	Gulland, John W.	Nuttall, Harry
Barry. Redmond J.(Tyrone.N.)	Gurdon,RtHn.SirW.Brampton	O' Brien,Kendal(Tipperary Mid
Beauchamp, E.	Harcourt,Rt.Hn.L.(Rossendale	O'Brien, William (Cork)
Bell, Richard	Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose	O'Grady, J.
Bellairs, Carlyon	Haidie,J.Keir(Merthyr Tydvil)	Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)
Benn,W.(T'w'r Hamlets. S.Geo.	Hart-Davies, T.	Pearce, William (Limehouse)
Bennett, E. N.	Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)	Pearson,W.H.M. (Suffolk, Eye)
Bethell,SirJ.H.(Essex,Romf'rd	Haworth, Arthur A.	Philips, Owen C. (Pembroke)
Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)	Hemmerde, Edward George	Phillips, John (Longford, S.)
Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine	Henry, Charles S.	Pickersgill, Edward Hare
Boland, John	Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor(Mon., S.)	Rainy, A. Rolland
Boulton, A. C. F.	Higham, John Sharp	Raphael, Herbert H.
Bowerman, C.W.	Hobart, Sir Robert	Rea, Russell (Gloucester)
Branch, James	Hobhouse, Charles E. H.	Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro'
Brocklehurst, W. B.	Hodge, John	Redmond, William (Clare)
Brooke, Stopford	Hogan, Michael	Rees, J. D.
Bryce, J. Annan	Horniman, Emslie John	Richards, T. F.(Wolverh'mpt'n
Byles, William Poliard	Howard, Hon. Geoffrey	Ridsdale, E. A.
Cameron, Robert	Isaacs, Rufus Daniel	Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)
Cawley, Sir Frederick	Jackson, R. S.	Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)
Chance, Frederick William	Jacoby, Sir James Alfred	Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)
Churchill. Rt. Hon. Winston S.	Jones, Leif (Appleby)	Robinson, S.
Cleland, J. W.	Joyce, Michael	Robson. Sir William Snowdon
Clough, William	Kearley, Hudson E.	Roe, Sir Thomas
Clynes, J. R.	Kekewich, Sir George	Rose, Charles Day
Cobbold, Felix Thornley	Laidlaw, Robert	Rowlands, J.
Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)	Lambert, George	Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)
Condon, Thomas Joseph	Lamont, Norman	Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)
Cooper, G. J.	Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)	Scarisbrick, T. T. L.
Corbett,CH(Snssex,E.Grinst'd	Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis	Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde)
Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.	Lehmann, R. C.	Schwann, Sir C.E.(Manchester)
Cotton. Sir H. J. S.	Lever, A. Levy (Essex,Harwich	Scott, A.H.(Ashton-under-Lyne
Cox, Harold	Lewis, John Herbert	Seaverns, J. H.
Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)	Lloyd-George. Rt. Hon.David	Seely, Colonel
Crooks, William	Lundon, W.	Shaw, Charles Edw.(Stafford)
Crosfield, A. H.	Luttrell, Hugh Fownes	Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.)
Curran, Peter Francis	Lvell, Charles Henry	Sherwell, Arthur James
Davies, M. Vaughan (Cardigan)	Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)	Shipman, Dr. John G.
Davies, Timothy (Fulham)	Macdonald, J..M.(Falkirk B'ghs	Silcock, Thomas Ball
Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)	Mackarness, Frederic C.	Sinclair, Rt. Hon, John
Dickinson,W.H. (St.Pancras,N.	Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.	Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie
Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.	MacVeigh, Charles(Donegal,E.)	Spicer, Sir Albert
Donelan, Captain A.	M'Callum, John M.	Stanley, Hn. A.Lyulph(Chesh.)
Duckworth, James	M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald	Steadman, W. C.
Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness	M'Killop, W.	Stewart, Halley (Greenock)
Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)	M'Laren, Sir C. B. (Leicester)	Strachey, Sir Edward
Dunne,Major E.Martin(Walsall	M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.)	Straus, B. S. (Mile End)
Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward	Maddison, Frederick	Sutherland, J. E.
Erskine, David C.	Mallet, Charles E.	Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)
Esmonde, Sir Thomas	Manfield, Harry (Northants)	Tennant, Sir Edward(Salisbury
Essex, R. W.	Marks,G.Croydon(Launceston)	Thomasson, Franklin
Evans, Sir Samuel T.	Marnham, F. J.	Thorne, G. R, (Wolverhampton
Everett, R. Lacey	Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry)	Torrance, Sir A. M.
Flynn, James Christopher	Massie, J.	Verney, F. W.
Wardle, George J.	White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)	Winfrey, R.
Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.	White, Luke (York, E. R.)	Wood, T. M'Kinnon
Wason,Rt.Hn. E(Clackmannan	Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)	Yoxall, James Henry
Wason, John Cathcart(Orkney)	Whittaker,Rt.Hn.Sir Thomas P.
Waterlow, D. S.	Wiles, Thomas	TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank.
Watt, Henry A.	Wills, Arthur Walters
Weir, James Galloway	Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.)
NOES.
Arkwright, John Stanhope	Gardner, Ernest	Rawlinson,John Frederick Peel
Ashley, W. W.	Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)	Remnant, James Farquharson
Balcarres, Lord	Goulding, Edward Alfred	Renton, Leslie
Balfour,RtHn.A.J.(City Lond.)	Gretton, John	Roberts, S. (Sheffield,Ecclesall
Banbury, Sir Frederick George	Guinness, Walter Edward	Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)
Banner, John S. Harmood-	Hamilton, Marquess of	Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert
Baring,Capt.Hn.G.(Winchester	Hardy, Laurence(Kent,Ashf'rd	Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)
Beach,Hn.Michael Hugh Hicks	Helmsley, Viscount	Sheffield,SirBerkeleyGeorge D.
Beckett, Hon. Gervase	Hill, Sir Clement	Sloan, Thomas Henry
Bignold, Sir Arthur	Hills, J. W.	Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)
Bowles, G. Stewart	Hope, James Fitzalan(Sheffield)	Stanier, Beville
Bridgeman, W. Clive	Houston, Robert Paterson	Starkey, John R.
Bull, Sir William James	Joynson-Hicks, William	Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh.
Carlile, E. Hildred	King,Sir Henry Seymour(Hull)	Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)
Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.	Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.	Talbot,Rt.Hn.J.G. (Oxf'd Univ
Castlereagh, Viscount	Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich)	Thomson,W.Mitchell- (Lanark)
Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)	Lockwood, Rt.Hn.Lt.-Col.A.R.	Thornton, Percy M.
Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)	Long,Col.Charles W.(Evesham)	Walker, Col. W.H.(Lancashire)
Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. A.(Worc.	Long, Rt.Hn.Walter(Dublin, S.	Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid)
Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry	Lonsdale, John Brownlee	White, Patrick (Meath, North)
Clark, George Smith	Lowe, Sir Francis William	Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)
Clive, Percy Archer	Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred	Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.	MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh	Wilson,A.Stanley (York, E. R.)
Craig,Charles Curtis(Antrim,S.)	M'Arthur, Charles	Winterton, Earl
Craik, Sir Henry	Mildmay, Francis Bingham	Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm
Dixon-Hartland,Sir FredDixon	Morrison-Bell, Captain	Younger, George
Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-	Nicholson, Wm. G.(Petersfield)
Du Cros, Arthur Philip	Nolan, Joseph	TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Viscount Valentia and Mr. Forster.
Faber, George Denison (York)	O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens
Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.)	Pease,Herbert Pike(Darlington
Feil, Arthur	Percy, Earl

Main Question, as amended, put accordingly.

The House divided—Ayes, 209; Noes, 89. (Division List No, 201.)

AYES.
Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.)	Brocklehurst, W. B.	Davies,M.Vaughan- (Cardigan
Ainsworth, John Stirling	Brooke, Stopford	Davies, Timothy (Fulham)
Alden, Percy	Bryce, J. Annan	Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)
Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch)	Byles, William Pollard	Dickinson,W.H.(St.Pancras,N.
Asquith,Rt.Hn. Herbert Henry	Cameron, Robert	Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.
Astbury, John Meir	Cawley, Sir Frederick	Donelan, Captain A.
Balfour, Robert (Lanark)	Chance, Frederick William	Duckworth, James
Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)	Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.	Duncan,C.(Barrow-in-Furness)
Barnard, E. B.	Cleland, J. W.	Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)
Barnes, G. N.	Clough, William	Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward
Barran, Rowland Hirst	Clynes, J. R.	Erskine, David C.
Barry, RedmondJ.(Tyrone,N.)	Cobbold, Felix Thornley	Esmonde, Sir Thomas
Beauchamp, E.	Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)	Essex, R. W.
Bell, Richard	Collins,Sir Wm.J.(S.Pancras,W	Esslemont, George Birnie
Bellairs, Carlyon	Condon, Thomas Joseph	Evans, Sir Samuel T.
Benn,W.(T'w'r Hamlets,S.Geo)	Cooper, G. J.	Everett, R. Lacey
Bennett, E. N.	Corbett,C H (Susssex,E.Grinst'd	Flynn, James Christopher
Bethell,Sir J. H.(Essex,Romf'rd	Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.	Fuller, John Michael F.
Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)	Cotton, Sir H. J. S.	Fullerton, Hugh
Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine	Cox, Harold	Gibb, James (Harrow)
Boland, John	Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)	Glendinning, R. G.
Boulton, A. C. F.	Crooks, William	Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford
Bowerman, C. W.	Crosfield, A. H.	Gooch, George Peabody (Bath)
Branch, James	Curran, Peter Francis	Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)
Greenwood, Hamar (York)	M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford. W.)	Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde)
Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward	Maddison, Frederick	Schwann. Sir C.E.(Manchester)
Guiland, John W.	Mallet, Charles E.	Scott,A. H.(Ashton-under Lyne
Gurdon, Rt Hn SirW.Brampton	Manfield, Harry (Northants)	Seaverns, J. H.
Harcourt Rt. Hn. L.(Rossendale	Marks,G.Croydon (Launceston)	Seely, Colonel
Harcourt, Robert V.(Montrose)	Marnham, F. J.	Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)
Hardie, J.Keir (MerthyrTydvil	Massie, J.	Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick, B.)
Hart-Davies, T.	Meagher, Michael	Sherwell, Arthur James
Haworth, Arthur A.	Menzies, Walter	Shipman, Dr. John G.
Hemmerde, Edward George	Micklem, Nathaniel	Silcock, Thomas Ball
Henry, Charles S.	Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)	Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John
Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon.,S.)	Morrell, Philip	Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie
Higham, John Sharp	Morton, Alpheus Cleophas	Spicer, Sir Albert
Hobart, Sir Robert	Murphy, John (Kerry, East)	Steadman, W. C.
Hobhouse. Charles E. H.	Nicholls, George	Stewart, Halley (Greenock)
Hodge, John	Nicholson, CharlesN.(Doncast'r	Strachey, Sir Edward
Hogan, Michael	Norton, Capt. Cecil William	Straus, B. S. (Mile End)
Horniman, Emslie John	Nussey, Thomas Willans	Sutherland, J. E.
Howard, Hon. Geoffrey	Nuttall, Harry	Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)
Isaacs. Rufus Daniel	O'Brien,Kendal(Tipperary Mid	Tennant,Sir Edward (Salisbury
Jackson, R. S.	O'Brien, William (Cork)	Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)
Jacobs, Sir James Alfred	O'Crady, J.	Thomasson, Franklin
Joyce. Michael	Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)	Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton
Kearley, Sir Hudson E.	Pearce, William (Limehouse)	Torrance, Sir A. M.
Kekewich, Sir George	Pearson, W.H.M. (Suffolk,Eye)	Verney, F. W.
Laidlaw, Robert	Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke)	Wardle, George J.
Lambert, George	Phillips. John (Longford, S.)	Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.
Lamont. Norman	Pickersgill, Edward Hare	Wason.Rt.Hn.E (Clackmannan
Law. Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)	Rainy, A. Rolland	Wason.John Cathcart (Orkney)
Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis	Raphael. Herbert H.	Waterlow, D. S.
Lehmann, R. C.	Rea, Russell (Gloucester)	Watt, Henry A.
Lever. A. Levy (Essex.Harwich)	Rea,WalterRussell(Scarboro')	Weir, James Galloway
Lewis. John Herbert	Redmond, William (Clare)	White. J. D. (Dumbartonshire)
Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David	Rees, J. D.	White, Luke (York, E. R.)
Lundon, W.	Richards. T. F.(Wolverh'mpt'n	Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)
Luttrell, Hugh Fownes	Ridsdale, E. A.	Whittaker,Rt.HnSir Thomas P.
Lyell, Charles Henry	Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)	Wiles, Thomas
Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)	Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)	Wills, Arthur Walters
Macdonald, J.M.(Falkirk B'ghs	Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)	Wilson. P. W. (St. Pancras. S.)
Mackarness, Frederic C.	Robinson, S.	Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)
Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.	Robson, Sir William Snowdon	Winfrey, R.
Mac Veagh, Jeremiah (Down,S.)	Roe, Sir Thomas	Wood, T. M'Kinnon
MacVeigh.Charles (Donegal,E.)	Rose, Charles Day	Yoxall, James Henry
M'Callum. John M.	Rowlands, J.
M'Kenna, Rt. Hon, Reginald	Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank.
M'Killop, W.	Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)
M'Laren, Sir C. B. (Leicester)	Scarisbrick, T. T. L.
NOES.
Arkwright, John Stanhope	Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)	Hamilton, Marquess of
Ashley, W. W.	Chamberlain,Rt Hn J.A.(Wore.	Hardy,Laurence (Kent.Ashf'rd
Balcarres, Lord	Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry	Helmsley, Viscount
Balfour,Rt.Hn.A.J.(City Lond)	Clark, George Smith	Hill, Clement
Banbury, Sir Frederick George	Clive, Percy Archer	Hills, J. W.
Banner, John S. Harmood-	Cochrane. Hon. Thos. H. A. E.	Hope,JamesFitzalan (Sheffield)
Baring,Capt.Hn.G.(Winchester	Craig,Charles Curtis (Antrim,S)	Houston, Robert Paterson
Beach.Hn.Michael Hugh Hicks	Craik, Sir Henry	Joynson-Hicks, William
Beckett, Hon. Gervase	Dixon-Hartland,Sir Fred Dixon	King,Sir Henry Seymour(Hull)
Bignold, Sir Arthur	Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-	Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.
Bowles, G. Stewart	Du Cros, Arthur Philip	Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich)
BridgeMan, W. Clive	Faber, George Denison (York)	Lockwood, Rt.Hn.Lt.-Col.A.R.
Bull, Sir William James	Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.)	Long,Col.Charles W.(Evesham
Burdett-Coutts, W.	Fell, Arthur	Long, Rt.Hn. Walter (Dublin,S.
Carlile, E. Hildred	Gardner, Ernest	Lonsdale, John Brownlee
Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw, H.	Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)	Lowe, Sir Francis William
Castlereagh, Viscount	Goulding, Edward Alfred	MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh
Cave, George	Gretton, John	M'Arthur, Charles
Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)	Guinness, Walter Edward	Mildmay, Francis Bingham

Morrison-Bell, Captain	Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)	Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid)
Nicholson, Wm. G.(Petersfield)	Sheffield,Sir Berkeley George D.	White, Patrick (Meath, North)
Nolan, Joseph	Sloan, Thomas Henry	Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)
O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens	Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)	Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
Pease, Herbert Pike(Darlington)	Stanier, Beville	Wilson, A. Stanley (York,E.R.)
Percy, Earl	Starkey, John R.	Winterton, Earl
Rawlinson,John Frederick Peel	Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh.)	Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm
Remnant, James Farquharson	Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)	Younger, George
Renton, Leslie	Talbot, Rt,Hn.J.G.(Oxf'd Univ
Roberts, S. (Sheffield,Ecclesall)	Thomson,W.Mitchell- (Lanark)	TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Viscount Valentia and Mr. Forster.
Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)	Thornton, Percy M.
Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert	Walker, Col. W.H. (Lancashire)

Motion made, and Question, "That I report progress and ask leave to sit again," put, and agreed to.

Ordered, that the Committee Stage, Report Stage, and Third Reading of the Licensing Bill, and the necessary stages of the Financial Resolution relating thereto, shall be proceeded with as follows:—

1. Committee Stage.

Nineteen allotted days shall be given to the Committee Stage of the Bill, and the proceedings in Committee on each allotted day shall be those shown in the second column of the table annexed to this Order, and those proceedings shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion at the time shown in the third column of that table.

2. Report Stage.

Five allotted days shall be given to the Report stage of the Bill, and the proceedings for each of those allotted days shall be such as may be hereafter determined in manner provided by this Order, and those proceedings, if not previously brought to a conclusion, shall be brought to a conclusion at 10.30 p.m. on each such allotted day.

3. Third Reading.

One allotted day shall be given to the Third Reading of the Bill, and the proceedings thereof shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion at 10.30 p.m. on that day.

On the conclusion of the Committee stage the Chairman shall report the Bill to the House without Question put, and the House shall on a subsequent day consider the proposals made by the Government for the allocation of the proceedings on the Report stage of the Bill between the allotted days given to that stage. The proceedings on the consideration of those proposals may be entered on at any hour, though opposed, and shall not be interrupted under the provisions of any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House, but if they are not brought to a conclusion before the expiration of two hours after they have been commenced, the Speaker shall, at the expiration of that time, bring them to a conclusion by putting the Question on the Motion proposed by the Government, after having put the Question, if necessary, on any Amendment or other Motion which has been already proposed from the Chair and not disposed of.

After this Order comes into operation, any day shall be considered an allotted day for the purposes of this Order on which the Bill is put down as the first Order of the Day, or on which any stage of the Financial Resolution relating thereto is put down as the first Order of the Day, followed by the Bill. Provided that 5 p.m. shall be substituted for 10.30 p.m. as the time at which proceedings are to be brought to a conclusion under the foregoing provisions on any allotted day which is a Friday, but Friday shall not be considered an allotted day for the purpose of the sixth or seventh allotted days.

For the purpose of bringing to a conclusion any proceedings which are to be brought to a conclusion on an allotted day, and have not previously boon brought to a conclusion, Mr. Speaker or the Chairman shall, at the time appointed under this Order for the conclusion of those proceedings, put forthwith the Question on any Amendment or Motion already proposed from the Chair, and shall next proceed successively to put forthwith the Question on any Amendments, now clauses, or schedules moved by the Government of which notice has been given, but no other Amendments, clauses, or schedules, and on any Question necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded, and in the case of the Government Amendments or of Government new clauses or schedules he shall put only the Question that the Amendment be made or that the clause or schedule be added to the Bill as the case may be.

A Motion may be made by the Government to leave out any clause or consecutive clauses of the Bill before the consideration of any Amendments to the clause or clauses in Committee.

The Question on a Motion made by the Government to leave out any clause or clauses of the Bill shall be put forthwith by the Chairman or Speaker without debate.

Any private business which is set down for consideration at 8.15 p.m. on any allotted day shall, instead of being taken on that day, as provided by the Standing Order "Time for taking private business," be taken after the conclusion of the proceedings on the Bill or under this Order for that day, and any private business so taken may be proceeded with, though opposed, notwithstanding any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.

On any day on which any proceedings are to be brought to a conclusion under this Order, proceedings for that purpose under this Order shall not be interrupted under the provisions of any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.

On an allotted 1 day no dilatory Motion on the Bill, nor Motion to recommit the Bill, nor Motion for adjournment under Standing Order 10, nor Motion to postpone a clause, shall be received unless moved by the Government, and the Question on such Motion shall be put forthwith without any debate.

Nothing in this Order shall—(a) prevent any business which under this Order is to be concluded on an allotted day being proceeded with on any other day, or necessitate any allotted day or part of an allotted day being given to any such business if the business to be concluded has been otherwise disposed of; or (b) prevent any other business being proceeded with on any allotted day or part of an allotted day in accordance with the Standing Orders of the House after the business to be proceeded with or concluded under this Order on the allotted day or part of the allotted day has been disposed of.

Table.
Committee Stage.
Allotted Day.	Proceedings.	Time for Proceedings to be brought to a Conclusion.
First	Clause 1	—
Second	Clause 1	10.30
Third	Clause 2	10.30
Fourth	Clause 3 to the beginning of subsection (2)	—
Fifth	Clause 3 to the beginning of subsection (2)	10.30
Sixth	Clause 3, subsection (2)	7.30
Clauses 4 and 5	—
Seventh	Clauses 4 and 5	7.30
Clauses 6, 7, and 8	10.30
Eighth	Clause 9	10 30
Ninth	Clauses 10 and 11	—
Tenth	Clauses 10 and 11	10.30
Eleventh	Clauses 12, 13, and Committee stage of Financial Resolution	10.30
Twelth	Report stage of Financial Resolution, and Clauses 14 to 17	10.30
Thirteenth	Clauses 18 and 19	10.30
Fourteenth	Clause 20	10.30
Fifteenth	Clauses 21 to 35	10.30
Sixteenth	Clause 36	10.30
Seventeenth	Clauses 37 to 40	10.30
Eighteenth	Clauses 41 to 47, and new Clauses	10.30
Ninteenth	Schedules, and any other matter necessary to bring the Committee stage to a conclusion	10.30