§ Order for Second Reading read.
§ Mr. SPEAKERWith regard to this Order, the Standing Orders Committee have reported that the Standing Orders ought not to be dispensed with. Therefore this Order must be discharged, under Standing Order No. 200a.
§ Mr. MAXTONI understood that that would be the ultimate fate of this Measure if the House accepted the Report of the Standing Orders Committee, but I was assuming that, on some appropriate occasion, I should have an opportunity of moving that the Report of the Standing Orders Committee should not be accepted.
§ Mr. SPEAKERI am afraid that the honourable Member is wrong in that. I have looked carefully at Standing Order 200a, and it definitely directs the Chair to rule that the Order shall be discharged. On the 26th May, 1901, there was a similar case.
§ Mr. MAXTONWhen this Bill was dealt with in the House you, Mr. Speaker, told me that I had a right to go before the 210 Examiners. I went there and was received very courteously, but I was toad that the Examiners had already made up their mind. I then raised the matter before the Standing Orders Committee and I found that their mind was also made up, and now I come before the House and I am told that the Order must be discharged. I have been to the various offices about the building, but I always seem to have arrived too late, and I find that my right as a member of this House has been taken away from me completely and that I can make no really effective protest anywhere, or put forward the case for my Bill. I also learn that I shall have the privilege of paying £12 12s. for trotting round the building to see all these various people. While I accept the meaning of the Standing Order and your interpretation of it, Mr. Speaker, I hope you will allow the death-knell of this Measure to be postponed until the 24th March, in order to allow me to raise a question of Procedure.
§ Mr. SPEAKERI have every desire to meet the hon. Member, but I myself am bound by the Standing Orders of the House. I have to administer them.
§ Mr. MAXTONI do not gather that you, Mr. Speaker, are compelled to discharge this Order to-night.
§ Mr. STEPHENIs the Report of the Examiners of Private Bills an official Report? Has the House no opportunity of revising or discussing the Report of the Examiners?
§ Mr. SPEAKERThe Examiners act quite independently. With regard to the Standing Orders Committee, it may be that the hon. Member (Mr. Maxton) might be able to devise a Motion, but I do not express any opinion upon that point. It is, however, clearly my duty to carry out the Standing Order, and I am bound, both by the Standing Order and by precedent, to take this action to night.
§ Mr. STEPHENIs the decision of the Examiners on this Bill one that is not capable of revision by the House, and, if so, is there any possibility of discussing on any vote the position occupied by the Examiners of Private Bills?
§ Mr. SPEAKERI think not. The Examiners are appointed to us? their own 211 independent judgment. With regard to Bills before the House, that is a different matter.
§ Mr. MAXTONIf I take the necessary steps to comply with the Standing Orders, as I presume I am entitled to do, and conform to the Standing Orders which are applicable to Hybrid Bills, can this Bill remain on the Order Paper while those necessary steps are being taken?
§ Mr. SPEAKERCertainly not. The Order must now he discharged, and the 212 hon. Member can, if he likes, table a Motion to restore it.
§ Whereupon the Order was discharged.
§ The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
§ It being after half-past Eleven of the clock upon Monday evening, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
§ Adjourned at twenty-four minutes after Twelve o'Clock.