§ "WE, the undersigned, do hereby declare, That we respectively intend during the present Session of Parliament to practise as Parliamentary Agents in the prosecuting, promoting, and opposing Private Bills in the House of Lords, and we severally and respectively do hereby engage to observe, submit to, perform, and abide by all and every the Orders, Rules, Regulations, and Practice of the said House, now in force or hereafter from time to time to be made in relation thereto, and also to pay and discharge from time to time when the same shall be demanded all fees, charges, and sums of money due and payable in respect of any Petition, Bill, or other proceeding or matter in or upon which we shall severally and respectively appear as such Agents as aforesaid."
| DATE. | NAME. | RESIDENCE and House of BUSINESS. | WITNESS. |
§ These Rules had long been adopted by the other House of Parliament, though their Lordships had never before had any Orders on this subject, and it would be well to adopt the same Rules, so that both Houses might stand on the same footing until some further regulations were made in accordance with the Report of the Select Committee. Solicitors throughout the country seemed to wish it to be understood that anybody might undertake the duty of conducting a Private Bill through Parliament. Now, that was the greatest possible mistake. The special knowledge and training of a solicitor afforded very little guide in the work of a Parliamentary Agent. It was 1064 necessary that a man should have studied and should be accustomed to that work. Up to 1837 the duties of Parliamentary Agents were performed exclusively by the clerks of both Houses. During the railway mania the private business of Parliament increased so much that it became impossible very largely to leave it to the clerks, who accordingly received the option of remaining as clerks or of taking the separate office as Parliamentary Agents. Many of them accepted this office and most efficiently had they performed their duties. Not one of these gentlemen was a solicitor, and but for the special knowledge they possessed, it was impossible that the enormous private business could have been properly got through. He wished it to be understood that Parliament had no object in wishing to limit the number of Parliamentary Agents, or to restrict admission to the Roll, except the object of facilitating the work which came before Parliament, and especially of benefiting the suitors. There was no greater mistake in Parliamentary business than to entrust it to inexperienced agents. The expense to suitors was thereby enormously increased, while the trouble to both Houses was also increased, and the duty was in every way inefficiently performed. Only those who were accustomed to Parliamentary business could express a trustworthy opinion on this point; and though he did not like to claim any knowledge which was not shared by other persons, he thought that a quarter of a century's experience entitled him to express the opinion that, for the sake of suitors in Parliament, it was of the greatest possible importance that Parliament should, if they could, create a body of competent persons to transact the private business, leaving it open to others to come in if they qualified themselves for the work. He did not like to see the belief spread that the proposals of the joint Committee on this subject were hard and objectionable. There was no wish to propose hard rules. The object was that suitors in Parliament might know to whom they could properly entrust their work, and he hoped that next Session both Houses would come to some Resolution which would put the matter upon a proper footing.
§ Question put thereupon? Resolved in the Affirmative, and Ordered accordingly.