(NO.164.) COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 22 June 1886)

LORD DENMAN

said, he felt bound to vote against the suspension of the Standing Orders proposed in order to permit the Session to be wound up in a violent hurry, as was the case on July 10, 1884, when three measures in their Lordships' House were stopped, and one also in the House of Commons. That measure—the Law of Evidence Further Amendment Bill—was further postponed in December, 1884. Their Lordships might recollect that the Representation of the People Bill was delayed going into Committee by the intervention of the noble Marquess the then Leader of the Opposition for four days; and on December 4, that he (Lord Denman) had brought forward his Amendments, for which, including the extension of the franchise to women, he would have remained until December 19—a time in which a Parliament of Queen Elizabeth had been prorogued. It was said that this was a people's Dissolution; but he believed the people had no wish for it. The "People's Will," named in the Epistle Dedicatory to the Queen by Tennyson, and the will of the people, were very different, and it was the Prerogative of the Crown to dissolve Parliament. A Dissolution would interfere with the season in London, with trade, and with the harvest; and there was no intelligible issue before the country, as was the case in the House of Lords in 1713, as to the repeal of the Scotch Union; and in 1833, when Mr. O'Connell's Motion was rejected by 428 votes to 40; and in 1844, when Lord John Russell's Motion for an inquiry into the state of Ireland was rejected by a majority of 99. There were several questions which affected women and which ought not to pass till a Woman's Suffrage Bill was carried. The only objection made to it in their Lordships' House was that it had not been fully discussed, and no time remained for its discussion through the advice of the Ministry in advising a Dissolution.