§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
§ Moved—That the Bill be now read 2a; agreed to.
§ Bill read 2a accordingly; Committee negatived: Standing Orders, Nos. 37 and 38 considered (according to order), and dispensed with on the Bill; and
§ Bill read 3a, and passed.
§ Subsequently,
LORD CAMPBELLsaid, he should have supported it if he had been present when the second reading was moved, though he should have objected to the wording of the title and of the preamble. The measure professed to be a Bill to prevent doubts respecting the validity of certain proceedings in the House of Commons. Now, there was no doubt on the subject, for they certainly were illegal and void; and it was a dangerous precedent to allow the matter to be described as a matter of doubt. The Act of Parliament required that, before Members of the House of Commons took their seats, certain oaths should be taken by them, the Speaker being in the Chair. The House of Commons, 2014 however, passed a Resolution appointing an hon. Member of the House to act as Deputy Speaker, in the absence of the right hon. Gentleman who occupied that office. It was, no doubt, highly proper that there should be a Deputy Speaker in oases of emergency; hut, the law of the land having required certain things to be done by that great functionary, the Speaker himself, the Legislature alone could alter the law. It was right that such a proceeding on the part of the House of Commons should be watched with jealousy, because it might be proposed to admit the Jews to Parliament by a Resolution of the Commons, though a proposed enactment to that effect had been rejected by their Lordships. It was net right that one branch of the Legislature should attempt to do that which could only be properly done by Lords and Commons conjointly.