§ Amendments reported (according to order).
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid that this was a yet further example of the remarkable manner in which business was done in respect of this Patents Bill. One of the invariable rules in respect of Consolidation Bills was that they should be sent to be considered by a Select Committee; but this Consolidation Bill, involving matters of tremendous importance and interest, had never been considered by a Select Committee either of their Lordships' House or of the House of Commons. It had been pushed through in a hocus-pocus manner, and Amendments without the least possible kind of supervision were to be stuck in at the last moment altogether.
90 He presumed that was the manner in which the Government put the Amendments. He advised them to do so because there was no time to do it otherwise, but he desired to enter his protest against the manner in which the Bill was being carried through.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORWill your Lordships allow me to point out that I think the noble Marquess on this occasion is a little mistaken? I do not think it is the case that every Consolidation Bill should go to a Committee. On the contrary, Consolidation Bills are always treated in a quite exceptional way. They are taken on the faith of the officers and Parliamentary draftsmen, and the Minister is expected to see that they have been carefully considered, but, being Consolidation Bills, they do not affect more than the putting together of things Parliament has obviously already agreed to. That course has been adopted in regard to this Bill. I will not deny, if the noble Marquess insists, that he is right about the Select Committee.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYI only spoke according to the information that has been given me. I cannot pretend to have first hand knowledge of the subject.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORI will not affirm any more than the noble Marquess. Now let me explain what this Bill is. It is proposed now to bring the Bill which your Lordships have just read a second time, and which was amended in Committee, into the Consolidation Bill, and there is not a single novel point in the whole Bill. I have felt it my duty to inquire whether everything proper has been done. The Parliamentary draftsmen have been carefully through the Amendments to see that they are correct. They have also been checked by the clerks in the Parliamentary Office, and they have been examined by two of the Comptroller's Examiners. The Bill is purely a Consolidation Bill, and I hope under these circumstances we shall be allowed to have a Third Reading.
§ Amendments moved en bloc, and agreed to.
91§ Then (Standing Order No. XXXIX. having been suspended), Bill read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.