§ VISCOUNT HALIFAXMy Lords, before moving that the House do adjourn, I think I ought to mention to your Lordships that I understand that certain Orders under the Government of India Act will be considered by the Indian Orders Committee to-morrow. We hope to have the Report of the Committee and, if your Lordships would allow it, to be in a position to deal with these Orders on Thursday afternoon, if they are found, on the Report of the Committee, not to raise matters of great moment or controversy. It is important that they should be got through the House at the earliest moment. On their passage depends, I understand, finance arrangements in some of the Provinces of India.
§ EARL PEELCould the noble Viscount tell us when we shall know whether any controversial question has arisen?
§ VISCOUNT HALIFAXI understand that these Orders come before the India Committee to-morrow, and I should hope it would be possible, perhaps, to give some indication whether any momentous matters were found to arise before the end of the sitting to-morrow. I would make that my endeavour.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYMay I ask my noble friend when we shall have these Papers? Are they to be circulated? How does he propose to deal with them? The Committee will deal with the matter to-morrow—is that so?
§ VISCOUNT HALIFAXThat is so.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYAssuming they accept the Orders, will they be laid before Parliament? Will they be presented by the Committee?
§ VISCOUNT HALIFAXThey will, I understand, be laid on the Table as soon as available. The Lord Chairman is, as the noble Marquess knows, Chairman of the Committee, and as soon as the Committee has finished its work the Orders will be laid on the Table and become available.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYOf course, it may be they are merely formal matters, but if they really raise questions of substance, I should be sorry that the precedent should grow up that these things can be dealt with without giving time to your Lordships to consider the Papers, though they agreed to them. They may be matters in which everybody would only be too ready to facilitate the business of the Government and get them through, but I should be very sorry if my noble friend thought he only has to mention that these Orders are to be laid before the Committee and presented to Parliament and we should agree to them in a hurry. But I do not wish to interfere with my noble friend at the present time.
§ VISCOUNT HALIFAXIf I may say so, what my noble friend has said seems to me to be entirely reasonable, and it was for that reason that I, in making the announcement to the House, said that I hoped, if the Report shows that the Orders raise no matters of moment, the House might allow them to be dealt with. I shall be perfectly willing, here and now, to give my noble friend the assurance that if it is found the Orders do in fact raise matters of greater moment than the 532 House ought to be asked to decide at short notice, I should be willing, on behalf of my noble friends, to ask that they should be postponed and taken one day early next week. I hope it will be found, as was found in another place, that they do not, in fact, raise any matters of that kind.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYThank you very much.