SECOND READING. (Hansard, 16 August 1887)

LORD DENMAN
, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, it would very considerably shorten some speeches in that House at least. There were some noble Lords who had a great facility of expression—the only compliment ever bestowed on him by Earl Granville; but for his own part, when he advocated a cause in which he was greatly interested, he published documents on which he based his case in order not unduly to detain their Lordships' House by quoting the facts in his speech. It had been stated that only the big men spoke in that House, and that, as soon as they had finished, the whole Assembly turned out and went to dinner, or to dress for dinner. The only effect of their Lordships commencing Business at an earlier hour was to enable them to get away sooner.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord HALSBURY)
I would draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that the noble Lord appears to be infringing a Standing Order of this House as old as the 17th of May, 1606, which provides that when a Bill has been brought into the House and rejected, no Bill of the same character and argument can be begun in the same House during the same Session.

LORD DENMAN
said, that this was the same Bill. After having obtained the first reading of it, he had postponed the measure because the newspapers made his speech towards all those likely to be affected by it extremely insolent and offensive. He could not face the public before his speech had appeared in Hansard. It had been commented on in The Scotsman, and there had been a most able leading article upon it. His proposal was that Parliament should follow the example of Diocesan Conferences and Social Science Congresses, where 20 minutes were allowed to readers of papers, and only six or 10 minutes to any other speaker. 656 The provisions of his Bill were as follows:— (1.) "From and immediately after the Royal Assent shall have been given to this Act no Privy Councillor in either House of Parliament shall speak above one hour before a notice here-under described shall have been given him, and in the case of Members of either House not being Privy Councillors the time before the same notice shall not exceed a quarter of an hour. (2.) The Clerk of each House shall record by writing the commencement of each speech, and at the end of one hour for Privy Councillors, and of a quarter of an hour for all others, the Clerk shall sound such a Bell as is used at Diocesan Conferences. (3.) In case, after the sounding of such Bell, no other Peer or Member of Parliament shall rise to speak, the Peer or Member of Parliament who may have paused in his speech may resume his speech for either an hour or a quarter of an hour, according to the above regulations. He thought that the principle should be affirmed that it was desirable that Members of both Houses of Parliament should be informed when their speeches were getting to an undue length. He had never made a long speech himself, and he trusted that he never might do so. He was sorry that he should have seemed to have been out of Order, and in conclusion he begged to move the second reading of this Bill.