§ SECOND READING.
§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
*LORD BALFOURMy Lords, I ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading to this Bill. If I were to detain the House with a speech, in proportion to the length of the Bill, I am afraid I should detain your Lordships for a considerable period, as there are 516 clauses in the Bill; but it has been before Parliament for more than ten years, and it has been sifted by a Select Committee both of this House and the House of Commons. The Bill is now presented to the House, practically, in the same shape in which it passed a Committee of this House seven years ago. Since that time some Amendments have been made in it, and some alterations which are rendered necessary in consequence of intervening legislation, but the structure and general provisions of the Bill remain as they were then settled. There will, I am hopeful, be very few 1677 Amendments to be proposed in Committee, and I ask your Lordships to give the Bill a Second Reading.
§ Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Balfour.)
§ Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next.