wished to ask the Speaker a Question with reference to the putting-off of Bills till the 20th of June —namely, whether Notice ought not to be placed on the Paper that the postponement of Bills was to be proposed?

If an hon. Member be desirous of postponing a Bill of which he has charge, it is the ordinary practice to allow him to move its postponement without Notice.

asked the Postmaster General, Whether he can hold out any hopes of an early reduction in the present rate of charges for Post Office Telegraph messages?

I am afraid that I cannot give an answer to the noble Lord's Question which will be entirely satisfactory. The strain upon the Telegraph Department has been very great. The number of messages continues to increase rapidly, and the demands for additional, or for extended accommodation are urgent. In the last three years 10,000 miles of line, with 50,000 miles of wire, have been laid down. No reduction in the price of telegrams could be made without a large increase of plant and staff. Calculations are being made as to what increase a sixpenny rate would necessitate, but they are not yet completed. Until they are, it is impossible for me to form an opinion as to the expediency of soon reducing the present rate of charge or to submit my views to the Treasury, with whom, as a financial question, the decision would ultimately rest.

asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether it is the intention of the Government to propose in this Session of Parliament any measure dealing with the redistribution of seats in Ireland, or whether they propose to fill up the vacancies arising from the disfranchisement of the boroughs of Sligo and Cashel before the next General Election, either by giving representation to two of the larger towns now unrepresented or in any other manner?

The Government are of opinion that a measure dealing with the redistribution of seats in Ireland is required, and I hope it may be possible for the present Parliament to consider such a measure before its dissolution. We do not, however, see any hope of being able to give sufficient time to the consideration of that measure during the present Session. As we think that if the thing is done at all it should be done in a complete manner, we do not propose to make any suggestion to the House as to the disposal of the two vacant seats arising from the disfranchisement of the boroughs of Sligo and Cashel.

asked the Secretary of State for War, If it is true that the facings and buttons of the Regiments in Her Majesty's Army are to be assimilated; and, whether Regiments which have been granted badges or marks of distinction for conspicuous gallantry in the field or for other reasons are to be deprived of them?

The facings of regiments are not to be assimilated. The regimental button for infantry has been abolished, and one pattern with the Royal arms adopted. There is no intention of depriving regiments of badges or marks of distinction, which will continue to be worn on the collars instead of on the buttons. This change was determined upon in 1870 in consequence of the difficulty which occurred in clothing the Army during the Franco-German War, owing to the variety of patterns, and His Royal Highness the Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief proposed—1, to abolish regimental buttons, and to substitute for them an universal pattern, the regiments to receive a money allowance for the purpose of providing and maintaining regimental distinctions which, borne hitherto on the button, would be worn in future on the collar; 2, to abolish regimental drummers' lace, and to adopt one pattern for the whole Army; 3, that all badges with regimental distinctions should be provided and maintained by regiments out of a money allowance. Previous to this arrangement there existed the following numbers of different patterns:—Buttons, 269; drummers' lace, 180; badges, 250;—total, 699. Upwards of 650 patterns have been abolished, and the Clothing Department simply provides an uniform to make the soldier effective, leaving the regiment to supply, out of a money allowance, any badge or distinction granted for service in the field, or for any other reasons.

asked the First Commissioner of Works, What is the cause of the delay in the construction of the. New Courts of Justice, and when the building will be commenced?

in reply, said, that at the beginning of last year he had stated that sketch plans and designs for the New Law Courts had been some time before approved by the Treasury and had been returned to Mr. Street, the architect appointed to carry out the work, in order that he might prepare contract plans and drawings. He was then under an engagement to prepare those plans and drawings within a period of six months; but it turned out that a great deal more time was required than had been anticipated, and though Mr. Street had, he believed, worked very diligently to fulfil his engagement, he had not completed the contract plans and drawings until a short time ago. They in fact amounted to no less than 300 drawings on a large scale, and it was necessary after they had been furnished that the surveyors should perform the operation known as "taking out the quantities" to enable the contractors to tender. That work appeared to be one of great magnitude, and had occupied more time than had been anticipated, and was spread over a great many hundred pages of foolscap. The result was, however, now in the possession of Mr. Street, and the tenders for contracts would, he hoped, be received on the 5th of March. If the tenders were satisfactory, the contracts would be made on one of them for the construction of the new buildings.

asked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, If it is true that a sentence of death passed in the Criminal Court of New South Wales, on the 20th of November last, on Joseph Armstrong and Charles Dowden for crimes described by the Judge on passing sentence as "of such a terrible nature as to be hitherto almost unknown to civilized men," has been commuted for a milder punishment; and, if so, if he can state the reasons for such commutation?

in reply, said, that he had, in common with the hon. and gallant Admiral, seen a telegram in the newspapers stating that the sentences on the persons to whom he referred had been commuted, but that he had received no official tele- gram or despatch on the subject. He was, therefore, unable to state officially whether the sentence had or had not been commuted.

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether the entire omission in Her Majesty's Speech of any reference to the completion of recent sanitary legislation by a consolidation of the numerous existing Acts giving powers to the authorities now constituted, implies that the Government do not intend to introduce any measure this Session for effecting such consolidation?

said, it was not the intention of the Government to take any immediate steps for the promotion of sanitary legislation.

asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, When the Returns relating to the Queen's Colleges in Ireland, ordered on the 26th July 1872, will be presented to the House; and also whether it is his intention to introduce during the present Session a Bill to amend the Grand Jury Laws of Ireland?

in reply, said, the Returns relating to the Queen's Colleges were of a somewhat complicated character, and that it had been found necessary to send them back for correction in consequence of a considerable number of inaccuracies. He was, however, informed that they were now ready, and they would, probably, be laid on the Table in the course of the week. A Bill to amend the Grand Jury Laws (Ireland) had been brought in last Session, and it was ready now to be reintroduced with some not very important modifications. He had, however, some doubt with respect to the expediency of proceeding with such a measure immediately, as the reform of the Grand Jury Laws was only part of the very large subject of local administration and taxation, which was likely to receive a considerable amount of attention during the next few months. He would be able to state in a few days whether the Government proposes to go on with the Bill, in whole or in part, during the present Session.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether his attention has been called to the omission of Church Service at the Chapel of the Embassy at Vienna; and whether, especially in view of the approaching Exhibition, arrangements will be made that in case of the illness of the Chaplain another clergyman should supply his place?

I am aware that on a few occasions, owing to the illness of the chaplain, there has not been Divine service at the British Embassy at Vienna, and it is not always easy to procure a substitute at very short notice. There is no regular chapel at the Embassy, and as the room in which service is performed, through the courtesy of the Ambassador, is only about 30 feet in length, I fear it may not accommodate as large a congregation as might wish to attend during the Exhibition. Sir Andrew Buchanan has suggested that an arrangement should be made with some Protestant Church in Vienna for English services being celebrated in it on Sundays by English clergymen.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to fix some definite time for bringing on the Resolution with respect to the Business of the House which stood on the Paper in his name. It was undesirable that it should be taken at the dinner-hour or very late in the night.

said, he hoped the discussion would not come on during the dinner-hour; but he was sorry to say he must bring on the Question whenever he found an opportunity to do so.

In pursuance of the Notice which I gave on Friday I beg to lay on the Table a copy of the substituted Rules under the Parks Regulation Act, and it would, perhaps, be convenient to the House that I should state the substance of those Rules.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to Order. I wish to ask you, Sir, whether it is open to the right hon. Gentleman to enter on this subject, seeing that there is no Notice with respect to it on the Paper.

The right hon. Gentleman stated in his place last week that he intended to lay on the Table of the House the new Rules with reference to the Regulations for the Parks. In pursuance of that Notice he is now, as I understand, about to move that those Rules lie upon the Table. The proceeding is quite regular.

The statement that the right hon. Gentleman is about to make is likely to lead to a debate, and therefore I wish to know whether he intends to conclude with a Motion?

It is not my intention to make any Motion. All that I desire to do is to state the substance of the new Rules that we are about to lay upon the Table of the House.

Then, Sir, in that case, I must object to the right hon. Gentleman making any statement whatever.

The right hon. Gentleman must necessarily conclude with the Motion "That these Rules do now lie upon the Table." Upon that Motion a debate may arise.

It was not my intention to bring on a debate at this moment; but, at the same time, I think that it is for the public convenience that the new Rules should be laid before the public at the earliest possible moment. The former Rules were issued upon the 1st of October last, and the House is aware that under them it was provided that when it was intended to hold a meeting in the Park notice of such an intention must be given by two householders.

I beg to ask whether the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Osborne) was not perfectly right when he interrupted the right hon. Gentleman. Is the right hon. Gentleman right, without concluding with a Motion, in making a statement which the Rules of the House will prevent any other hon. Member from replying to?

I have already stated that the right hon. Gentleman must necessarily conclude by moving "that these Rules do lie upon the Table," and that the Rules of the House will permit a debate to take place upon that Motion.

I should have been glad to lay the new Rules upon the Table of the House without making any Motion, because I am quite sure that it will not be for the convenience of the House that a debate should be brought on when the House is not prepared for it. Under these circumstances, I shall content myself by moving that these Rules do lie upon the Table of the House without making any comment upon them. The new Rules are as follows:—

"No Public Address shall be delivered, except in the open part of the Park which is bounded by the horse-ride running from the Marble Arch to Victoria Gate, and thence to the Powder-Magazine, and by the carriage drive running from the Powder-Magazine along the Serpentine to Hyde Park Corner, and thence to the Marble Arch; and no such Address shall be delivered in any place where the assemblage of persons to hear the same may cause obstruction to the use of any road or walk by the Public, or to the use of the Park by the Military or Volunteers, or to the use of the Park under any of the reservations contained in the above-mentioned Act; and no such obstruction shall be wilfully caused by any person forming part of any assemblage which may have met to hear any such Address.

No Public Address of an unlawful character, or for an unlawful purpose, may be delivered.

No assembly of persons is permitted in the Park unless conducted in a decent and orderly manner."

I beg to move that these Rules do lie upon the Table of the House.

who had given Notice to move "That this House disapproves of the course taken by the First Commissioner of Works in respect of the Parks, as being calculated to weaken the authority of the law," said, he rose for the purpose of expressing his satisfaction at the course which, it had just been announced, Her Majesty's Government intended to pursue in reference to this matter. It must be very satisfactory to the House generally to find that Her Majesty's Government have thought fit to withdraw the very extraordinary Rules which had been issued during the Recess by the First Commissioner of Works under circumstances which amounted to a positive breach of faith not only as regarded the public, but also as regarded many hon. Members of that House, who had accepted the measure on the clear understanding that no Rules were to come into force for the regulation of the Parks until they had been laid upon the Table of that House for a certain definite time. Without entering into any matters personal to himself that had occurred in communications between himself and the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Ayrton) and the Government, he felt bound to state that the issuing of these Rules during the Recess amounted to a positive breach of the pledge given on the part of the Prime Minister that they should be laid upon the Table of the House before they were put into force. It would be in the recollection of hon. Members that the Prime Minister had said that, unless unforeseen circumstances of an exceptional and temporary character should arise, no new Rules would be issued without they had obtained the previous sanction of that House. It was quite clear that by issuing the Rules now set aside just after the Prorogation of Parliament, Her Majesty's Government had broken their pledge to leave this subject under the control of that House, and therefore it was highly satisfactory to find that they had now withdrawn the Rules so issued by the First Commissioner, and that they intended for the future to lay upon the Table of the House any new Rules which they might think fit to draw up for the regulation of the Parks. He had now to consider what course he ought to adopt with regard to the Motion of which he had given Notice for to-morrow —a Motion which practically amounted to a Vote of Censure upon the First Commissioner of Works. He had given that Notice under the impression that the Rules issued during the Recess were to be maintained, and had they not been withdrawn he should have felt it to be his duty to have proceeded with it. Before he intimated the course he intended to pursue in reference to the Motion, he might state that a first set of Rules had been prepared in July last, but that they were so absurd that they were not even placed upon the Table of the House. He did not intend on the present occasion to discuss the merits of either the first set of Rules or of those which had just been abrogated; but he should content himself with expressing the pleasure he felt at the withdrawal of the latter Rules, and the placing of the new Rules upon the Table of the House. Under these circumstances, he doubted whether any practical good would result from his proceeding with his Motion to- morrow, and therefore he did not intend to trouble the House with it. He must, however, remind the House that these Rules, for which the First Commissioner was responsible, had been unanimously condemned by the leading organs of opinion in this country. Thus, The Times, The Daily News, and The Standard had in an especial manner expressed their condemnation of these Rules, and, consequently, the course that had been taken by the right hon. Gentleman. The Rules themselves, on becoming known to the public at large, were received with mingled ridicule and contempt; and now the official superiors of the right hon. Gentleman had, by withdrawing them, passed a Vote of Censure upon the right hon. Gentleman which was even more weighty than if it had been passed by the House itself. If, under these discreditable and humiliating circumstances, the right hon. Gentleman was content to hold the office which, in reference to these transactions, it could scarcely be said he had adorned, he (Mr. Rylands) was afraid he should fail in producing any effect upon his mind by proceeding with his Motion to-morrow. He trusted, however, that the right hon. Gentleman had been taught a severe lesson, and that the public would, therefore, be saved from a repetition of such conduct. He hoped, moreover, that what had occurred had maintained the dignity of the House, and had taught the Members of the Executive that they must not rashly attempt to take upon themselves to deal with matters which the House had advisedly retained under its own control. He begged, in conclusion, to give Notice that it was not his intention to proceed with the Motion standing on the Paper for tomorrow in his name.

said, he did not wish to add to the difficulties of the situation: —he rose for the purpose of asking whether the hon. and patriotic Member who had just thought fit to make so pointed an attack upon the First Commissioner of Works had ever inquired whether, in using the Rules complained of, the right hon. Gentleman had not been acting under the direct instructions of the Cabinet. He had not the slightest desire to provoke a debate on this subject; but he wished to give notice of his intention to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he, having with- drawn these obnoxious Rules, which had been issued nominally by the First commissioner of Works, but which, it might be assumed, had received the sanction of the Cabinet before they were issued by the right hon. Gentleman, it was his intention to withdraw from the prosecution which had been instituted against the persons who were stated to have broken those Rules; and whether the money would be returned to the unfortunate gentleman who had been already fined under those Rules?

would not say whether the Rules were wise or not, but he was sure it was the wish of the House that the blame should be placed upon the right shoulders. It might be perfectly true that these Rules were issued by the Chief Commissioner of Works; but that was no reason for assuming that they had been drawn up by him. He wished to know whether the original Rules were drawn up by the First Commissioner with the approval of the Government before they were issued; and whether the Rules which had been substituted to-night were Rules drawn up by the Cabinet or by the First Commissioner and approved by the Government? He thought that, in justice to the First Commissioner, these facts should be known to the House and the public.

also wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the objectionable Rules were withdrawn so far as the other Parks, as well as Hyde Park, were concerned? The Rule that two days' notice should be given to the authorities applied not only to Hyde Park, but to six other Parks. One of the Rules applied also to Primrose Hill, which was at one time thought a most proper place for the meetings of the working classes; but now all public meetings there were prohibited.

Sir, I have been for some time connected with the subject of this Bill, and whatever anybody may think of this matter, we should all be of one opinion, that this may be the last time we may hear anything of what we must all feel as being, from first to last, an ignominious transaction. I do not think that the scene which has taken place to-night—the shouts of laughter with which the last edition of the Rules has been received by the House of Commons—are likely to inspire deep respect for the enforcement of the law in this country. Now, a wiser thing—I am afraid we shall not do the wiser thing in this House—but the wiser thing to do would be to repeal this foolish Act. For 200 years the English people have been left alone; the English people have done very well; and it was not until you unnecessarily and foolishly endeavoured to meddle with things which would have been better left alone that you produced mischief in public order; and the greatest of all mischiefs which can ever occur in this country is disrespect to the law and contempt of the action of Parliament. Now, Sir, why these words "public addresses?" and these geographical limitations, which we have heard of to-night? These words "public addresses" make a man laugh to hear of them. We have not yet begun to legislate for private addresses in the Park; perhaps we shall come to that when constructive legislation has reached its full development. This Bill and its consequences are a monument of modern legislative sagacity and of administrative capacity. I do not know whether the Prime Minister wishes to repeal the provision against using soap in bathing. Sir, the House of Commons has come to this—that it belongs to its dignity and majesty to prohibit people who bathe in the Parks from using soap. There is legislation, also, which we are asked to enact, prohibiting fishing in the Serpentine. That is a very innocent amusement; it does not very often succeed. It is generally attended with the pleasures of hope, and seldom with the pleasures of memory. I have seen boys derive great pleasure from it; and here Her Majesty's Government come forward and prohibit boys from fishing in the Serpentine as a thing that belongs to the enlightened legislation of modern times. Now, look at these Rules; why they would make any author jealous. They have gone through four editions in six months. I do not think that anyone who has not studied this literature as carefully as I have done knows what they are. You have four sets of Rules all contradictory. Before my right hon. Friend at the head of the Government answers the Questions put to him, I think it well that my noble Friend opposite (Lord Elcho) and my hon. Friend the Member for Waterford (Mr. Osborne) should specify which of the four sets of Rules they mean. The first set of Rules came forth like Minerva, full armed, from the head of the Jupiter of the Board of Works. The Board of Works has been an unlucky failure from the beginning. The first form of Rules was stillborn. We have had Papers presented to us; but they begin like that story which commenced in the middle, because the first Paper begins with the statement that the Rules of 11th July, 1872, are thereby cancelled. Where are these Rules? Parliament has never seen them. I am one of the few persons who possess a presentation copy of the Rules with the compliments of the author. I shall preserve them as long as I live as the suppressed Rules of the Parks Act. They belong to a well-known chapter in the history of the Curiosities of Literature, and I am sure that in a few years hence they will be worth £50. I shall bind them up and keep them in my library as a specimen of the great men of former times, and to show what the statesmen of the latter end of the 19th century could do. These Rules were issued on the 11th of July. I will tell you why they were issued on that date—because it was known that Parliament would rise on the 10th of August, and therefore a month would not be left between their issue and the rising of Parliament, which was reserved to consider the Rules under the Act. If they had been issued contemporaneously with the Act on the 27th of June, the power of Parliament, which it had reserved, would have been exercised. Therefore, it was necessary not to issue them on the 27th of June; so they were reserved until the 11th of July, which, as you will see, just wanted a day of the time which would have given Parliament the proper period to consider them. Now, my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington (Mr. Rylands) two or three days after—on the 1st July—asked when those Rules would be issued, in Committee of Supply, and he was informed by the First Commissioner of Works that they would be issued within a week. They were not issued within a week; they were not drawn up for 11 days afterwards, because had they been so drawn up Parliament would have been able to consider them. They were drawn up and sealed on the 11th of July. The Act of Parliament says that they should be laid on the Table of the House forthwith; but they were not laid on the Table of the House forthwith. They were kept back for six days, because even then there would have been time enough left for Parliament to consider them. They were laid on the Table on the 16th of July; but they were not circulated among the Members of the House of Commons, although they were circulated among the Members of the House of Lords. Now, about the 19th of July, having heard the assurance of the First Commissioner of Works that they would be prepared within a week, I asked to see these Rules; and I intimated that if the Rules were persisted in I should put a Notice on the Paper, whatever period of the Session it was and if necessary, on consideration of the Appropriation Act, and at the very last hour of the Session resist them. A communication was made to me that if I would desist from this proceeding these Rules would be cancelled; and on the 26th of July, 1872, the following document appeared:—"The Rules dated the 11th of July, 1872, and sealed by the Commissioner of Her Majesty's Works and Buildings, are hereby cancelled." That was a perfectly full and fair performance of the promise, made to me and to my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington. [Mr. GLADSTONE: By whom?] If the right hon. Gentleman wishes me to say I shall have no objection to do so. If the right hon. Gentleman addresses himself to a Colleague who sits on one side of him he will perhaps give the right hon. Gentleman a full explanation.

Which side?

The hon. and learned Member refers to the person who sits on the right side of the right hon. Gentleman—that is myself. The hon. and learned Member is not quite right in his statement. It is quite true the hon. and learned Member showed me the Rules; but I told him afterwards that they were cancelled.

I accept the correction of the right hon. Gentleman. I do not lay any stress on that part of the transaction; but this is a material part—What were the new Rules which took the place of those suppressed Rules which we never saw? The new Rule laid on the Table of the House was this—

"The Park may be used and enjoyed in the same manner, so far as consistent with the statu- tory regulations, as it was used and enjoyed before the passing of the Act."

Now, that was what I distinctly understood was to be done. We were satisfied with that; it was a reductio ad absurdum of the Parks Act. It was that everything was to remain as it was before. Well, nothing could be more satisfactory. I saw these Rules posted up in the Park with the greatest satisfaction, and I went away to Scotland. We had finished the Parks Act and the Licensing Act, and we went away happy. I went away, but I went away deluded, as I have been on many points; because I took for granted that when the Rules were issued by the Office of the Commissioner of Works, under instructions of an Act of Parliament that these Rules should be laid on the Table of Parliament forthwith, if Parliament was sitting —that the instructions of the Act of Parliament should be obeyed. Well, we live and learn, and I have learnt that the time has arrived when a Minister of the Crown would disobey an Act of Parliament. This is a very grave matter. I see the hon. and learned Attorney General present, and I appeal to him—if he will take in his hand the Parks Act, and will look at the clause to the effect that the Rules should be laid forthwith on the Table of Parliament—to say whether to disobey the orders of an Act of Parliament is not a misdemeanour on the part of a Minister? The Journals of the House show that the Rules in this case were not laid on the Table, and I will therefore ask the hon. and learned Gentleman whether he intends to proceed against the offender or offenders as he would against any humbler person, or if the offender is to escape scot free in a country which professes to administer the law with impartiality? I would ask the Attorney General—supposing, in his opinion, it is not a misdemeanour, and if the Act of Parliament has not been disobeyed—whether he intends to proceed against all classes of Her Majesty's subjects for breach of the law? This is a great matter, concerning the dignity of Parliament; because if Parliament is to pass Acts of this kind and to reserve to itself certain matters, and for that purpose should order Rules to be laid on the Table when it is sitting, then it is a high contempt for the authority of Parliament to disobey that order. I must not be told that some intimation was given during the sitting of the House that some Rules would be issued. I am not to be told that then there was some misunderstanding. The House of Commons has no power to remit an Act of Parliament of its own accord; that power belongs to the three Estates of the realm, and the language of an Act of Parliament cannot be answered in the Court of Queen's Bench by quotations from Hansard. I should like to know, therefore, what course the Government mean to take in order to vindicate the law in this matter. I pass now from the second and come to the third edition of the Rules. The history of this point is a curious one. I understand that in the case of the first set of Rules they were issued by the First Commissioner of Works, without the knowledge of the Government or any Member of it. I understand that to be correct, but we shall see. We are now living in the "Palace of Truth," and we shall hear the truth of it. Well, I heard that the Cabinet censured the First Commissioner of Works and overruled the Rules. The next stage of the proceedings is that Parliament rose, and the First Commissioner of Works, after being overruled by the Cabinet, proceeds in turn to overrule the Cabinet. Of course all this is susceptible of a different explanation. So far as I understand it is a Comedy of Errors from beginning to end. One part of the Government overrules the other, and then the other part overrules it again in turn—until we come to the statement we have heard to-night. The question is, what are we to do under these circumstances? I think the hon. Member for Warrington (Mr. Rylands) has taken a very judicious course. It is impossible to look at the thing seriously. It is past the point of seriousness, and I think we may apply to the First Commissioner the well-known words, "Solvuntur risu tabulæ tu missus abibis." Well, there were two courses before us, and if the hon. Member for Warrington had not taken the course he did, I should have taken it, for I hold it to be a canon of Parliamentary honour that no man should make a statement out of this House which he cannot justify within it. I never have made a statement unless I have been prepared to come forward and defend it. The hon. Member for Warrington had a very definite object, and that object was to take out of the control of a person whom we consider unfit the government of a very delicate and important matter. That might be accomplished either by taking the Commissioner from the Office of Works, or the Office of Works from the Commissioner. The Government have adopted the latter course, the Home Secretary having undertaken the conduct of these affairs instead of the First Commissioner. Upon the whole, I should have preferred the former course, for the result of what has been done is to create a new sinecure in the shape of the Office of Works which no longer had any duties to perform. If, however, the right hon. Gentleman is satisfied with his position, I do not see why Members should be dissatisfied with it. Every man must be the judge of his own honour. We have taken the measures which were necessary to vindicate our own, the right hon. Gentleman will take care of his, and we may part from the right hon. Gentleman with perfect good humour. I am glad that the matter has fallen into the hands of the Home Secretary, who is sure to treat it with good temper, good nature, and, above all, with good faith. If the Home Secretary will allow me I will make one suggestion with reference to the new geographical Rules. At the beginning of this Parliament we set to work to make the Cab Regulations—admirable measures, full of philanthropy and wisdom, but somehow unsatisfactory to all the cab-going public. Cab-drivers did not like them, cab-riders did not want them, the police did not insist on them, and the magistrates did not enforce them. So they quietly dropped out of sight. Now, if Parliament will not take the reasonable course of repealing the Parks Act, let them make a clean sweep of the Parks Regulations as was done with the Cab Regulations. Our national habits make it essential that some such course should be taken. Every year Parliament passes hundreds of statutes which would be intolerable if anybody even thought of carrying them out. A friend of mine, an admirable artist, has published a "Book of Nonsense." But Parliament publishes every year a much more celebrated "Book of Nonsense," called the Statute Book. It perplexes the Judges and annoys the public; nobody can make head or tail of it; but, luckily, common sense comes to the rescue, and it is not enforced. Allow the Parks Act to become a dead letter, and no mischief will come of it. If effect be given to all this vexatious, annoying legislation, we shall have to emigrate in order to seek for liberty in some despotic country. The habits of English people, however, prevent English law from being so intolerable as it might otherwise be. I venture to recommend the precedent of his own Cab Regulations to the Home Secretary, who now has charge of the Parks vice the Chief Commissioner retired, and the abandonment of these Rules, though not a dignified course, will at least be a sensible one.

Sir, considering the zeal my hon. and learned Friend who has just sat down has expended during the Recess for the interests of the metropolis, I am not surprised that he should be unable to contain himself on this occasion, and I should hardly venture to rise to offer any apology for the course I have taken if I did not observe that the House of Commons is equally the subject of his denunciations—that all the proceedings of Parliament are equally obnoxious, equally foolish, equally ridiculous, and equally to be disregarded. And in point of fact it is quite evident that—especially since the Reform Act of 1832—Parliament has been from year to year meeting and acting under a complete delusion, and that it is still under the hallucination that its proceedings are in some way for the benefit of the public. They are now treated to one of the lectures of my hon. and learned Friend on the philosophy of legislation, and should he so affect the minds of Members of Parliament and the public in general that he may some day conduct the proceedings of Parliament according to his own dictation, I hope, Sir, I shall not live to see that clay. If I understand the speech of my hon. and learned Friend by the philosophy he expressed in a place which is devoted to the study of the habits of the ancients—of Greece, of Rome, and of the Holy Land, and of this land in the time of the Druids—if I understand what he means, it is that all legislation of a specific and precise character for the purpose of regulating in detail any of the actions of men is wrong, and that the true principles on which we ought to proceed are those prevailing when the Druids had their settlement in these places, with which he is doubtless acquainted. In the times to which the hon. and learned Member alludes, when Parliament first assembled, the industry of the country was small, the population was small, and the wants and requirements of the country were small; but as society has grown, and its relations have become more and more intricate, legislation has had to follow. The Acts of Parliament of this country are nothing more than the journals of the exigencies of the country from day to day, for which we have from time to time to provide a proper remedy. That is the principle upon which we proceed, though the hon. and learned Member has not yet discovered it. In accordance, therefore, with the growing calls for legislation, we have been accustomed to pass Acts of Parliament authorizing municipal and other bodies to make rules to regulate the details of affairs, when these details were too small in their character to engage the deliberation of Parliament. Parliament has stopped short in these Acts precisely at that point where it has indicated for what purpose and in what manner those rules were to be made; and there are abundant instances in the statute book, especially in recent times, of powers of this kind being delegated, and not a few instances of powers being delegated for the express purpose of enabling the inhabitants of particular localities to derive real enjoyment from the Parks and open spaces placed at their disposal—an enjoyment which they could not have unless there were certain rules to regulate the relations of one person to another, and preventing selfish men claiming for themselves, in the very worst spirit, something inconvenient to others. That is a very simple principle, and it was the principle upon which I proceeded. I was not in a hurry to enforce my views upon the House, because the subject has much engaged the attention of the House in times gone by, and it has also in years gone by engaged the attention of Metropolitan Members. How different was the conduct pursued in former years, when they approached the question with a sense of responsibility, from that of the hon. and learned Member during the Recess. Then, when people thought they had a right to go into the Parks and appropriate them to their own purposes, they asked the Metropolitan Members to meet them that they might be sustained in their assertion of right. They were asked upon what grounds they based their views; and when no sufficient ground was stated, it was said—" We are quite ready to assist you in ascertaining the grounds upon which you claim; if you can get any learned counsel to advise you that you have the smallest legal ground to justify you in what you are doing, we shall be ready to support you. You must, however, understand that our view, is that the Parks are the property of the Crown, and are administered by officers of the Crown, and if you want to go into them for purposes of your own you must go for permission to the officers of the Crown, who are responsible to Parliament and not to you." That was the advice we gave them, and after that I never heard any more of the grounds or of any legal opinion to justify the right to go into the Parks, and to dispose of them at the "will of the people," as it is called —which seemed to be a resolution come to by half-a-dozen people in an obscure pot-house. That being so, I brought in this Bill. I said—"I do not pledge myself to any of the Rules, because there is great difference of opinion as to how the Parks should be managed." I sent the Bill to a Committee upstairs, one-third of whose Members represented metropolitan constituencies, and I invited free discussion upon what should be the scope of the regulations in the Bill. The Committee settled it, after full and free discussion, and the clauses were unanimously agreed to except one, upon which there was, I may say, a political difference of opinion. I brought the Bill, as the Committee reported it, under the consideration of the House, and I invited the attention of the House to the facts. A controversy in a Committee of the Whole House undoubtedly arose in reference to the particular regulations to be made, and especially in reference to one that no addresses should be delivered in the Parks, except in accordance with the Rules to be made. This rule was in accordance with that adopted in general by local authorities throughout the country, who had limited the use of their Parks in this same way. I stated myself in the House what were the Parks to which it was proposed to extend the Rules, and I stated especially what were the Rules which I intended to make if the Act passed. I gave the heads of the Rules, so that there might be no mistake. After I had done that, what happened? What said the hon. and patriotic Member (Mr. V. Harcourt) who has addressed us with such force and feeling just now? He said that he could not help stating that if the First Commissioner of Works had two months ago made the statement that he had just then made, he would have saved a great deal of time and unnecessary discussion; and, thereupon, lie mitigated his hostility to the measure, and, finally, said that after the concession that had been made he should no longer oppose the Bill. After that, what right can the hon. and learned Member have to say that lie is greatly disconcerted that I should have issued Rules entirely in accordance with the assurances that I had before given to the House during the passage of the Bill? ["No, no!"] Yes, in entire accordance with the assurances that I then gave. My statement was only shortly reported; but if it had been reported in full, the hon. and learned Member would see that it was as clear as possible that the Rules for allowing meetings would be confined to five Parks and to the four topics respecting which they had been issued. I am now quite at a loss to know how the hon. and learned Member can object to the steps taken to give effect to the views I expressed on that occasion, or charge me with a want of good faith in dealing with the matter, since the whole House, with one or two exceptions, accepted my programme? Another topic launched by the hon. and learned Member is this—that if the Rules were made in good faith, still they were not issued in good faith. But this charge seems the result of a want of attention on the part of those who have undertaken on this matter to know more than anybody else, and have made it their special study to enlighten the public, and especially the working people of this metropolis. But what are the facts? The question whether the present Rules should be made on the authority of the Crown, or upon the joint authority of the Crown and the Houses of Parliament, was fully discussed during the progress of this Bill. Nothing could have been put before the House more clearly. It came about thus: the hon. Member for Warrington (Mr. Rylands), who is so aggrieved that the Rules had been put in force without the express sanction of the House of Commons, himself placed upon the Table a clause to be engrafted into the Bill, that the Rules should be issued by the Crown and should afterwards be laid on the Table of the House, and that they might be disallowed if both Houses agreed to the disallowance. I should like to know if that proposal had been carried what would have become of the contention that the House of Commons should be consulted before the Rules were put in force? Under his own proposal the Rules to be made by the Crown could not have been touched unless both Houses agreed to a Resolution that they should wholly or in part be rescinded. Seeing this, I moved a similar clause, but modified it to this—that either House of Parliament should have power, after the Rules had been laid upon the Table, by resolution to disallow those Rules. During the discussion an hon. Member moved an Amendment that the Rules should not conic into force until they had been approved by the Houses of Parliament, and the House discussed that Amendment, and, by an overwhelming majority, rejected it. And yet now we are told that the Government should have respected—not the decision of the House, but rather what some hon. Members thought more desirable for the public interest. That would be a strange mode of conducting Public Business. The statements that were made, not only by myself, but by the Secretary of State and by others, were conclusive. In the course of the debate the hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Mr. V. Harcourt) himself said that if the construction put upon the clause by the Secretary of State was the true one, it would have this result—that the Rules could be in force six months while Parliament was not in Session, and it was only when Parliament reassembled that it would have an opportunity of expressing its opinion upon them. How could he after that say that the understanding was that the Rule should be exactly the reverse?

I never said anything of the kind.

It now comes to this —that the hon. and learned Member is satisfied that it was quite understood when the Act passed that the Rules should be made by the Crown, and might be enforced six months before Parliament happened to meet.

The right hon. Gentleman quite misunderstands me. I have never said that the Act prevented the Rules from coming into force during the Recess. The charge that I have brought against the right hon. Gentleman is that this Act having passed the House of Commons on the 19th of April, he deliberately kept it and the Rules back, so that the power of investigating these Rules by Parliament could not come into operation.

I am very much obliged to the hon. and learned Gentleman for his explanation; but when the hon. and learned Member is always giving utterance to his opinions both inside and outside of the House, one is apt to confound what he has written outside with what he has said inside. The House would remember the great indignation which, based upon the letter of the hon. and learned Gentleman, during the Recess ran through the Press and through some of the taprooms of the metropolis at what was termed the ill-faith of the Government in inducing Parliament to assent to this clause. It was stated that the Government had represented that in so doing the Rules would first be approved by Parliament. That was what was stated during the Recess; but now we are agreed that nothing of the kind occurred. It is now understood that the Rules might be enforced during the Recess upon the authority of the Crown, though that was not the view which the hon. and learned Gentleman took in his correspondence which appeared in The Times.

I must rise to Order; the right hon. Gentleman has stated—["Order, order!"]

The right hon. Gentleman, being in possession of the House, is in Order: it will be open to the hon. and learned Member, when he has concluded, to make any explanation which he thinks proper.

My hon. and learned Friend has now taken up new ground—namely, that the statute having been passed in the sense in which I have explained it, and the conduct of the Government having been perfectly in ac- cordance with the intention of Parliament when they passed the Act, yet, notwithstanding, something wrong had been done, because there was delay in laying the Rules before the House. I will address myself to that charge. What happened was this. The Bill took some time in passing through this House: it then went to the other House; and there it was amended, and from various causes connected with the progress of business there was delay before the Act, as amended, came under the consideration of this House. When we were about to pass the Bill I detected a flaw in it, the effect of which would have been that the Bill would have come in force immediately, whilst a considerable time was required after the passing of the Act to make the Rules and put them in force. I therefore procured the Bill to be amended in the House of Lords in order to get over this difficulty, so that the Rules should not come in force until a month after the Act passed; and no one had any part in that Amendment in the other House except myself and some of those who manage the business of the Government there—the Amendment was made for purely administrative purposes, and when it came back to this House it was printed and circulated, and the House accepted it without the smallest suggestion of anything wrong; and I want to know how public business is to be conducted if hon. Members are to be allowed to say—"It is true I never said anything about it, but I had a very great latent objection," and bring it forward six months afterwards. But that my hon. and learned Friend says is a misconception, and has no reference to the business that actually occurred last Session. That delayed the Bill some time. As soon as the Bill was passed I urged on the making of the Rules. The House must not suppose that I do all the business of the Office of Works myself; there are lawyers and others to be consulted, and all I could say was that I desired that these Rules should be completed as soon as possible. When I got the Rules they had to be submitted to the Ranger in this particular Park and in some others, and there were other arrangements to be made before they could be sealed. As soon as they were sealed, or within a very few days afterwards, they were brought before the House. The hon. and learned Member said that it became a misdemeanour to let the Papers lie in the Office for six days before they were laid on the Table—[Mr. VERNON HARCOURT: I said nothing of the kind.] When the hon. and learned Member comes to have experience of official life, he will find that often sixty days instead of six will be no very great delay —in fact, I take credit for the expedition which was used. In fact, they were presented before they were put in force. The hon. and learned Gentleman, in the course of his speech, appeared to pride himself upon his ignorance on a point with which he ought to be acquainted. That point is that when an Act of Parliament provides that a Minister shall lay certain Papers on the Table of the House, the Minister who lays the Papers on the Table has no further duty to perform, and it is not incumbent upon him to urge on their printing; and I am happy to think that Papers laid upon the Table very often are not printed. I myself, and also other Members, pointed out two or three years ago how desirable it was that no Papers should be printed unless some hon. Member moved that it be so, with a declared intention to bring the subject-matter of them before the House. That rule has been largely acted upon. If any hon. Member wished to have a discussion upon these Papers, then it was his duty to go to the proper authority and get them printed as soon as possible. I did more than I could be expected to do in moving that the Papers be printed by order of the House; but when they were before the House they were entirely out of my hands. A few days afterwards the hon. Member for Warrington (Mr. Rylands) got up in the House and asked me whether the Papers were to be distributed, or rather laid upon the Table of the House; and I then told him that they had been already laid upon the Table, and would soon be printed; although it had not been intended that they should have the Rules before they could be put in force under the Act, so clear was it to my mind, and in the mind of the House, that it was the duty of the Government to put the Rules in force before they could come under the cognisance of this House. That shows that I did not take advantage of the Act as it stood to keep back the Rules, but that I anticipated the time when the Rules should be laid on the Table. The hon. and learned Member (Mr. V. Harcourt) seems to think that I am responsible for his not having now in his hand a copy of the Rules, except what he calls a "privileged copy." But to show how far I was from preventing discussion, immediately after I was asked for the Rules I directed him, and also any other Member of the House who desired it, to be supplied with a copy. A copy was given to the hon. and learned Member himself, and also to the hon. Member for Warrington, and copies would have been given to any other hon. Members who asked for them. Could anything more be done to satisfy the wishes and desires of hon. Members, and to give the fullest opportunity for criticising my acts? The hon. and learned Member says that he has not yet officially got a copy; but does he not know what took place in the House? Does he not know that standing here I stated in the most explicit terms that the Government had thought fit to cancel those Rules, and that in consequence of that step I proposed that those Rules should not be further proceeded with, but that the Order for laying them upon the Table should be discharged? The hon. and learned Member admitted that he knew of this announcement, and does he pretend that he does not know that what I have stated was part of it? If he did not recollect it, really he had only to look at the newspapers of the day or at the ordinary records of this House, where he would have found it fully reported. But, not to deprive my hon. and learned Friend of the opportunity of impugning my conduct as much as he pleased, though the announcement was made on the 25th of July, the Order was not discharged till the 1st of August, and during the whole period that elapsed it was competent to any hon. Member to give Notice of any Question—or of his intention to censure the Rules and their framers—or that the Motion for the discharge of that Order would be resisted, and to raise a debate thereupon. Nothing of the kind was done; with the consent of the House the Order for presenting these Rules and laying them on the Table was discharged, but the Act had been completely complied with by laying them on the Table. The Rules had, therefore, been brought forward in regular course, and were disposed of by the Order of the House. The hon. and learned Gentleman says that something very wicked has been done in reference to these Rules. On the same occasion I announced that the general rule would be put in force by Her Majesty's Government until they could issue the new Rules in substitution of those which had been cancelled; and yet the hon. and learned Member said that he was under the impression that the general rule was to remain in force until next Session. Now that is just the reverse of the announcement I made—and which I purposely made—to prevent any misapprehension on the subject. I said distinctly that the general Rule was only to remain in force and was only temporary until the Government issued new Rules in the manner prescribed by Parliament. I went on to explain to the House that those new Rules would not be laid upon the Table during that Session—that they would not be laid on the Table until the beginning of this Session, when the House would have the opportunity of criticising them according to the terms of the Act. The hon. and learned Member now says that I have been guilty of an offence in the course which I have taken. That course, however, was assented to by the House, and no one expressed the least dissent. It appears to me that not only has the law been fulfilled, but that the wishes and inclination of the House have been followed. The two hon. Members (Mr. Harcourt and Mr. Rylands) evidently did not understand, like a great many other people in this respect, what is the nature of the office of the First Commissioner of Works. It is not an office that is involved in the perplexities of remote tradition, like that of a Secretary of State. It is an office created by statute, and I have never, standing here, claimed to possess any more power, or authority, or position than what that statute confers upon me. It would be ridiculous had I pretended to do so. I have again and again endeavoured to explain the position of the office of First Commissioner. It is what was described by the noble Lord ray predecessor (Lord John Manners)—that whenever the Government thought fit to interfere the First Commissioner of Works has really no more power than a Treasury clerk. That is the height of his dignity. The truth is that there has been a great deal of confusion because Gentlemen who undertook to enlighten the world did not take the preliminary step of enlightening themselves. The whole power of the Office is by law vested in the Commissioners of Works, and not in the First Commissioner. These Commissioners consist of the First Commissioner and all Her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State. But the Commissioners have in fact no powers in themselves if another power interpose — namely, the Treasury. The Treasury have actually absolute power to control the power of the Commissioners. There is a clause in the Act that if none of these greater Powers took upon themselves any duty or responsibility, then the First Commissioner was at liberty to exercise the office of the Commissioners. If neither the Treasury nor the Secretaries of State who may be said to represent the Government interfered, then the First Commissioner can perform the duties of the office. The moment, however, they interfered, he has nothing more to do than to see the corporate body and the establishment carry out the instructions they have received. It has happened again and again that the First Commissioner has taken a step of which the Government had subsequently disapproved or rescinded. They are quite at liberty to do so. There is nothing in it. The First Commissioner is bound to obey the law. I cannot insist on doing as I please, for the law would not have been passed if it were supposed that the First Commissioner was to do everything without the interposition of the Government. On the contrary, it was presumed that the Government would interpose when necessity required it. The practice has been in accordance with the law. I may remind the House that more than one Secretary of State has used this very power over the Parks in entire supersession of the authority of the First Commissioner. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Morpeth (Sir George Grey) interposed in this way, and took the matter into his own hands. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. S. Walpole) interposed in the same way; so had the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Hardy); all in their turn have done the very thing which has now been done, and which the House has a right to have done. Do not let any hon. Member express surprise at this. When this Bill was under consideration of the Committee of this House it was asked—Are you going to give up the Parks to a Ranger, and to the First Commissioner of Works, who is not even a Cabinet Minister? I then pointed out that the House had really a practical guarantee in the whole of the Ministers, because both the Ranger and the First Commissioner were absolutely at their disposal; for they could interpose whenever they pleased, and they could take upon themselves the whole responsibility of any Rules or Regulations either by cancelling them or by upholding them. It is therefore futile to talk of these public rights being given up to a subordinate of the Government or to an irresponsible officer, because the House could always fall back upon the Government in the last resort, and make them responsible for what he had done. Therefore, the moment any intimation is given that the Act of the First Commissioner is to be challenged it becomes the business and duty of the Government to say that they will either stand by his act or take their own course. That has been done again and again. It has been done on this occasion. There is no novelty in it. All I can say is if any Gentleman having to perform the various duties which I am called upon to discharge, with reference to the various departments of the Government and an infinite variety of topics, were to set himself up on an official pedestal and say "I am so perfect in my judgment that if the Government questions it I feel I am no longer fit to hold my office," there would be no one either in or out of this House who could hold my office for a month. I have not the advantage of a Cabinet Minister in having my act considered by the Cabinet, and hearing their views upon it. I act under the statute and independent of the Cabinet until the Cabinet assume the responsibility of acting in my stead. Therefore, all that has been done has been done in strict accordance with the law, and with the understanding of the House when it passed the Bill. I do protest against the claim of any hon. Member of this House to set up his own understanding against the general sense of the House; and still more do I protest against any hon. Member setting up his own individual opinion in language so pretentious as to declare that he is the only wise man in this Assembly, and that all the rest of us are nothing but fools.

I think it is due to the House and myself to make one remark with reference to what has fallen from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Oxford. My hon. and learned Friend has alluded to a conversation upon public matters between him and myself, and therefore I do not complain of his having done so, although I think my hon. and learned Friend ought to have informed me of his intention beforehand. My hon. and learned Friend appears to have put rather a misconstruction upon that conversation. He used the word "deluded." I cannot suppose that the hon. and learned Gentleman meant that I intended to delude him—[Mr. VERNON HARCOURT: I never referred to that transaction.] I think, nevertheless, it is due to myself to explain what did really pass between the hon. and learned Gentleman and myself. He is quite correct in saying that he showed me a "privileged copy" of the Rules—that copy which my hon. Friend regards as so precious—and we had some conversation regarding them. Shortly afterwards—I believe before the statement was made by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Ayrton) in the House—I told him that the Rules either were or would be cancelled, but I gave him no information as to what might happen afterwards; for a very good reason—I had not the slightest knowledge of what would happen. Therefore, when he supposes that I gave him any assurance as to the future he was altogether mistaken. My hon. and learned Friend wrote to me in the autumn, and he appeared to think that I had given him such an assurance. I wrote to him in reply stating that I had given him no assurance of the kind; and as there was no answer to that letter, I supposed that my hon. and learned Friend was of the same opinion.

The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. E. Forster) is entirely mistaken in what I meant to say. I received an assurance which led me to take a certain course in this House. In consequence of information I received I withdrew the Notice that I intended to give in this House. That is all I said on the subject, and that is all I intended to say. I wrote to my right hon. Friend when I saw that the prosecution was instituted by the Government, to say that I felt extremely uncomfortable in having withdrawn that Notice on the understanding that the Rules were cancelled, because I felt that if I had not withdrawn my Notice, a discussion would have taken place in this House which would have prevented the prosecution. My right hon. Friend wrote back to me stating that I had shown him the Rules, which he had never seen before, and that he had given me the assurance that they would be cancelled, and that he knew no more of the matter. I never intended to represent that I had received from my right hon. Friend any other representation than that the Rules would be cancelled against which my Notice had been directed. With reference to the First Commissioner of Works, the right hon. Gentleman has not read as carefully what I have written on this subject as I have read what he has written. I never stated I was of opinion that the Rules could not be legally carried out in the Recess. I stated the very reverse—I felt after the division on the Motion of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Monk), that they could be carried out:—but what I did say was that if a different course had been taken these Rules would have been discussed in Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Ayrton) also misunderstood me on another point, when he observed that I had said a misdemeanour had been committed because the Rules had been delayed for six days. Now, what I said was that it was a misdemeanour never to have laid before nor have presented to Parliament these Rules, seeing that Parliament had sat more than six days after they were framed. Parliament sat 15 days after that, and yet the Rules were not laid before the House.

said, that the House had been spending a good deal of time in discussing the merits or demerits of certain Rules regulating the holding of public meetings in the Park; but a still more important question had been entirely overlooked—namely, whether Hyde Park was a proper place for holding meetings at all. The First Commissioner of Works had referred to a discussion which arose in the Select Committee on the Parks Bill, and he would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he was not correct in saying that the expressed opinion of the majority of that Committee, as well as the very thinly disguised opinions of a considerable section of the minority, were not decidedly opposed to Hyde Park being subjected to the meeting nuisance. No distinct Motion had been brought forward which would admit of the House expressing an opinion on this important point, and he therefore intended on an early day to call attention to the various codes of Rules successively made, re-made, and withdrawn which had reference to the regulation of meetings in the Parks. With regard to the Regulations which the Home Secretary had laid upon the Table to-night, it was his intention to move a Resolution which would afford the House an opportunity of deciding whether the nuisance of public meetings in Hyde Park should or should not be any longer tolerated.

said, that in common with many Gentlemen on that side of the House, he had believed the Rules respecting the use of the Parks would not be enforced until they had been submitted to the judgment of Parliament. The First Commissioner of Works had very ably, though not, perhaps, very lucidly, defended himself against the charges brought against him by the hon. Members for Warrington and Oxford. The right hon. Gentleman had been accused of being a first-class misdemeanant; and up to this moment —owing, it might be, to his own want of understanding — he could not think the right hon. Gentleman had cleared himself from this charge—namely, that in the first instance he issued several sets of Rules which did not meet with the approbation of the House, and that eventually a set of Rules was issued without the House having an opportunity of discussing them. However this might be, a little fact was worth a ton of argument. The Government, whether they represented or embodied the power of the Commissioner of Works, had superseded those Rules, thereby taking the second of the two courses marked out for them by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Oxford, when he said they must either withdraw the First Commissioner of Works or else deprive him of the power of framing the Rules. They had adopted the latter alternative. With regard to economy, his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Oxford had given Notice of his intention to bring forward an abstract Resolution to the effect that greater economy ought to be effected in the public service. Now, he would ask Her Majesty's Government to begin by abolishing this useless office of First Commissioner of Works. The main argument urged in favour of the retention of the office of Lord Privy Seal was that it was useful to have a discreet counselor who could give advice to the Members of the Government when their hands wore full; but such an argument could not be used in defence of the office of First Commissioner of Works.

said, he thought the discussion had taken too much of a personal turn, and pointed out that the Act of last year distinctly provided that there should be no occupation of the Park by the public, either by riding, driving, or public meeting, except under Rules and Regulations signed and sealed on the part of the Crown. Consequently, if Rules had not been made by the First Commissioner of Works, the public could not have occupied the Park at all. One clause in the Act expressly said that as soon as the Rules were made and sealed they should be published in the Parks to which they were intended to be applied, in order that the public might have an opportunity of understanding what the Regulations were. To those hon. Members who complained that they were under a misconception as to the meaning of the Act, he would remark that it clearly stated that Rules were to be framed by the First Commissioner. The point, moreover, was distinctly challenged as to whether the Crown or Parliament should have the framing of the Rules, and the words "if Parliament be then sitting" were deliberately introduced.

congratulated the Government on having done the reverse at the commencement of this Session of what they did at the commencement of the last. They began last Session by doing a foolish act; they began the present Session by doing a wise one. He was not going into the history of the past; but he should esteem it his duty at a later period of the Session, unless one of his hon. Friends adopted a similar course, to move a Resolution that the power should not be left in the hands of the First Commissioner of altering Rules as regards the right of public meeting in the Parks when Parliament is not sitting. Without bringing any charge of bad faith against the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Ayrton), he must distinctly say that last year both the Prime Minister and the First Commissioner made use in that House of language to the effect that any fresh Rules which might be made respecting the Parks would be of a temporary and exceptional character. The First Minister said—

"There might, however, be cases of particular celebrations in the Parks which might present exceptional circumstances, and which might require regulations of a special and temporary character; and therefore it might be necessary to introduce into his hon. Friend's (Mr. Rylands') Amendment some modification in respect to regulations that were strictly exceptional."—[3 Hansard, ccix. 928.]

The right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works also said—

"It was plain that rules might be required temporarily and for an emergency, and it might also be found necessary to modify existing rules." —[Ibid. 1733.]

In conclusion, he expressed a hope that one of the occupants of the Treasury Bench would before the debate closed answer the question as to whether the fine inflicted on Mr. Bailey would be remitted. An hon. MEMBER said, he had been much pained by hearing the hon. Member for Warrington (Mr. Rylands) bring a distinct charge of breach of faith against his right hon. Friend the First Commissioner of Works. He was bound to say he thought his right hon. Friend had entirely cleared himself of that charge. Not only had his right hon. Friend cleared himself in character, but, judging from what fell from the hon. and learned Member for Oxford, he did not think it was ever intended to make the charge in the sense in which he understood it. A great many communications of a private and confidential character must necessarily pass between Ministers and Members of the House of Commons, and it would be a great disadvantage and misfortune if actual imputations of bad faith were to be made on either side. From the explanations given to-night it was clear that everything was done in public and in the face of the House, and that whatever mis- understanding there was, it arose as to the construction of what occurred in public. No doubt could now exist in any one's mind that there had been any breach of faith on the part of the right hon. Gentleman.

said, in answer to the question which had been put to him, whether it was the intention of the Government to remit the fine which had been imposed upon one of the defendants for having broken the Rules of the Park, that if the offence had been committed in honest ignorance on the part of the defendant, or in the honest belief that the Rules had been illegally promulgated, he was sure the Government would have felt the strongest desire to act with compassion. But it must be remembered that these meetings were held in open and ostentatious defiance of the law and of those who administer it, and there was no concealment of the fact that those who attended them did so for the purpose of vindicating their right, whatever the Rules might be. Under these circumstances, he did not think it right that the fine imposed by the magistrate should be remitted. At the same time, with respect to the case carried before the Court of Queen's Bench, they had thought it right to recommend a remission of the costs incurred by the Government, and which were payable by the defendant.

wished to ask, whether the Rules which were cancelled, or were to be cancelled, applied to the Park of Holyrood, because the restrictions rendered public meetings in that Park entirely out of the question, and that had created great dissatisfaction in Edinburgh?

said, the alterations made affected the Rules relating to all Parks in which meetings might be held. The Rules would be laid on the Table of the House, and then the hon. Member would have an opportunity of seeing them. He believed that they made full provision for a reasonable and proper right of meeting in the Parks.

in rising to move for leave to bring in a Bill to make better provision for carrying into effect "The Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1854," and for other purposes connected therewith, said, the Bill was founded upon the Report of the Joint Committee of both Houses appointed last year to consider the various Railway Amalgamation Bills then before Parliament. The circumstances that led to its appointment illustrated the saying that "history repeats itself." In 1853 proposals were made for amalgamation which alarmed the country on account of their magnitude, and the fear of the monopoly which might result from them. A Committee vas moved for and obtained by the then President of the Board of Trade, the right hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley). A change of Government occurred; but the inquiry was carried on under the presidency of the present Secretary of State for War (Mr. Cardwell). Since then things in the railway world had pursued their course, very much unaffected by the proceedings of that Committee. Parliament had granted a number of lines, many of them competing lines; these lines had competed for a certain time; they had then combined, and, in many instances, they had sought to be amalgamated; and amalgamations which were condemned beforehand by the Committee of 1853 had been, nevertheless, since sanctioned by Parliamentary Committees and by Parliament itself. Great alarm was again excited last year in consequence of other important Railway Amalgamation Bills that came before Parliament, especially the proposed amalgamation of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company with the London and North-Western Railway Company; and the result was that he felt it his duty, on the part of the Government, to take a step that would have the effect of hanging up the Amalgamation Bills until Parliament should have further inquired into the matter. He obtained the appointment of a Committee consisting of Members of both Houses, which last year inquired into the whole subject of railway amalgamation. The members of that Committee were chosen for their knowledge of the subject and their practical experience, so that their Report was calculated to carry great weight with both Houses. It was now his duty, as Chairman of that Committee, to lay before the House a Bill in conformity with the recommendations of the Committee, just as the present Secretary of State for War proposed, in conformity with the recommendations of the Commons' Committee of 1854, the Bill now well known as the Railway and Canal Traffic Act. The present Bill did not differ in principle from that Act; but he hoped it would be an improvement upon the Act, and that, as the result of further inquiry and larger experience, the Act would be rendered more effective for the purpose of attaining the object which Parliament had in view—an improvement both in respect of the provisions of the Act itself and of the machinery for carrying them out. A few figures showing the position of the railway world now, compared with what it was in 1854, would be interesting. The present Secretary of State for War then spoke of the magnitude of the subject; and, if great then, it was still greater now. In 1854 there were 7,686 miles of railway open, compared with 15,537 miles on the 31st of December, 1870. In 1854, the amount of capital raised was £264,000,000; and at the end of 1870 it was£530,000,000. In 1854 the annual value of the traffic was£16,700,000; in 1870 it was £43,000,000; and now it was probably £50,000,000. Such being the magnitude of the question the Committee of last year had to deal with, they proceeded to examine the whole history of railway amalgamation; they took both time and care in considering the subject; they examined a number of witnesses, who gave very valuable information; and then they gave Parliament the best account they could of the past, and the best advice they could in relation to the future. Many of the conclusions the Committee came to were, indeed, of a negative character. In this most difficult matter they found it much easier to say what, in their opinion, Parliament could not do than what it could do, and that he believed was not any fault of theirs, but it arose out of the necessity of the case. They reported that, in spite of the objections and protests of high Parliamentary authorities, amalgamation had gone on uninterruptedly down to the present day, and that the amalgamations effected had not produced the evils which had been anticipated; and, he was bound to say, they came to the belief that, in many cases, amalgamation had conferred on the public much more benefit than disadvantage. They saw little prospect of distinguishing between amalgamations which might be allowable and beneficial and amalgamations which ought to be prevented on account of the probability of their becoming injurious to the public interest. They found, indeed, that, whether amalgamation was effected by Parliamentary authority or not, combinations between railways destructive of competition went on to an extent very little short of amalgamation itself. They came to the conclusion that the result of all this process was that direct competition with respect to rates and fares had very nearly come to an end; but that there still was a valuable competition in point of route, in point of accommodation, in point of facilities, in point of all those advantages which result from having two or more parties to deal with on the part of the public instead of one. They were unable to advise Parliament to prohibit railway amalgamations. They were not able to lay down for the guidance of Parliament a rule on the subject. They were not able to make a railway map of the country with a view of saying that such and such amalgamation ought to be sanctioned and such and such ought to be refused. That was a task which they made up their minds was impossible. They came to the conclusion that each amalgamation proposed to Parliament must, however imperfect the process, be considered on its own merits, and dealt with by Parliament on the best information and by means of the best machinery they could command; and, with that view, fully aware of the critical and important character of such a proposal as that for the amalgamation of two great railway companies which was made last year and made again this year, and which no doubt was only a specimen of the applications to be made in future, the Committee recommended that Parliament should at least do this—they should provide a specially qualified tribunal for considering each case as it arose and for the purpose of considering all applications for amalgamation that might come before Parliament, so that they might all be dealt with as far as possible on the same basis by a tribunal competent to deal with so grave and critical a question, upon some principle of uniformity and with some prospect of securing the public interests. In compliance with that recommendation it would be his duty on a very early day to move Resolutions with a view, in case the other House of Parliament should concur, which he hoped they would, of remitting to one specially selected Committee all the Amalgamation Bills of this Session. The exact Report of the Committee was that to such a Committee should be referred all Bills for amalgamation of railways, all Bills for the transfer of canals or navigation to railways, and also all Bills to put any public harbour within the control of railway companies. That Resolution he should propose to the House; and his hope and belief was that such a mode of inquiry would secure the effective consideration of every one of these proposals for amalgamation, and, if any one of them were sanctioned, would secure the imposition, on the promoters, of such terms as would provide for the interests of other companies and the public. A large part of the inquiry conducted by the Joint Committee of last year referred to the conditions which, supposing railway amalgamation to be granted by Parliament, ought to be imposed on the companies seeking and obtaining such privileges. Both the Committee and the Government had before them very numerous memorials and applications from the great commercial bodies in the North of England interested in the great amalgamation, which was the principal cause of the constitution of the Committee, asking for a great variety of conditions which those gentlemen thought might very properly be imposed on the companies. On examining these proposals, they found that, to a very great degree, they were unconnected with the immediate question of amalgamation; that they were but partially adopted for the purpose of averting the dangers and monopolies to be produced by amalgamation; and that they were made because the parties interested very naturally thought there was a fair opportunity for Parliament to impose conditions, in the public interest, on companies which came for new privileges. These various suggestions, which hon. Members would find set out and fully discussed in the Report, were very carefully considered by the Joint Committee. He would only mention two or three of the most important. He was bound to say the Committee, after the most careful examination, decided the greater number of them to be either impracticable or unwise. There was the question whether Parliament should not take the opportunity of these applications to reduce largely the companies' powers of charging their rates and fares to the public. There was the question whether there should not be reserved the power of periodical revision by some public authority. There was the question whether the unlimited power of varying their charges to the public which railway companies now used, certainly with great freedom, and in a manner which led to complaint, and sometimes to suspicion, ought not to be limited; and whether the system of equal mileage rates according to distance should not be imposed upon companies. These were strongly urged before the Committee. They were very carefully considered, and in all these three cases the Committee came to the conclusion unanimously, that they were not conditions which it was either practicable or for the public interest to impose on railway companies. After a lengthened inquiry into these and other similar proposals made for the control and regulation of railways, the Committee came, he thought unanimously, to the belief that the Railway and Canal Traffic Act of 1851, at all events, indicated a line which any attempt to regulate railway traffic should take, and that the objects aimed at by that Act were still those which it was necessary they should endeavour to attain. In fact, the Committee came to the conclusion that the best and only important thing they could recommend Parliament to do was to have an improved version of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act of 1854. The House knew the main objects of that Act. Those objects were to secure uninterrupted facilities for the convenient interchange both of goods and passengers from one system to another, and especially to observe the rule of equal charges under the same circumstances. That necessity was felt by the Committee in 1853, and it was equally felt by the Joint Committee of last year.Com plaints were still too frequent that railway traffic was not always allowed to take its proper route; that the shortest and best route was often artificially barred by the conduct of some railway company which had an interest adverse to that of the public; and that the natural course of trade was diverted by the imposition of prohibitory tolls on those links of the canal system which had got into railway hands; tolls being imposed not for the purpose of fair profit on the canal itself, but for the express purpose of diverting traffic from its natural and proper course, and throwing it upon the railway. These evils were keenly felt by the author of the Bill of 1854. The Committee of 1853 made this recommendation with respect to goods and passengers—that every railway company should be compelled to afford full advantage of convenient interchange from one system to another, to give every class of traffic fair facilities, and especially to observe the rule of equal charges under similar circumstances. At the same time, his right hon. Friend told the House, in introducing his Traffic Bill, that what was wanted was, that Parliament should devise means by which the same facilities should be given in travelling from one part of the kingdom to another over several lines as over the same line. For reasons which he would state to the House, the provisions of that Act, however well intended, had accomplished very little. He did not say they had done nothing. In principle they had been most valuable, and so far as securing fair and equal treatment between trader and trader they had had considerable effect, and sonic excellent decisions had been given in the Courts of Law in that respect. But as to securing the equal treatment of company by company, or the free and uninterrupted forwarding of traffic over all the lines which Parliament had sanctioned, the success of the Act had been most imperfect. In controlling the dealings of company with company the Act had been to a great degree a dead letter. This point was very fully examined into and proved before the Committee of last year. This want of success was, in the opinion of the Committee, due to two causes, one the want of more specific enactments within the Act itself, the other the want of an authority better fitted for putting the Act in motion and carrying its intentions and provisions into effect. Experience since the passing of the Act had very conclusively shown—and the Committee were of that opinion—that a Court of Law was not an authority fitted for giving effect to an Act so peculiar and special as the Railway and Canal Traffic Act. Upon certain points, as he had stated, good and valuable decisions had been obtained; but with respect to a great part of it the Court of Law, to which the carrying out of the Act had been confided, had not been able, or at all events certainly had not succeeded in giving effect to the intentions of Parliament in passing the measure. The difficulty was felt at the time the Act was passed. The framers of the Act did not then propose to leave this question of railway management, at least as regarded equal treatment, purely to the decision of a Court of Law, but endeavoured to meet the difficulties in the way by certain provisions in the Act itself. They proposed that the Court of Law should be enabled to call upon the Board of Trade for assistance in dealing with these special matters, or to employ some expert or engineer competent to advise them. But, after all, it turned out, as many expected, that a Court of Law would be a cumbrous and unfitting body for putting such an Act in force; that, from the very fact of its being a Court of Law, it deterred many from coming to it who would otherwise be most anxious to avail themselves of the powers and protection of the Act; and it was of itself most reluctant to undertake the duties imposed upon it by Parliament. He was not surprised that at that time Parliament should have endeavoured to make use of a Court of Law, for there was then a distinguished Judge—Chief Justice Jervis, of the Common Pleas—who, differing from all his brethren, thought that his own Court could undertake such a task. That, as he had said, was not the view of his brethren, and especially of one great and eminent Judge who protested at the time against the imposition of such duties upon any Court of Law; he meant Lord Campbell. That noble Lord, in his place in the House of Lords, more than once maintained that this was a duty which ought not to be imposed upon a Court of Law. Lord Campbell said—

"That was not a code which the Judges could interpret; it left them altogether to exercise their discretion as to what they might deem reasonable.…. The Judges, and himself among them, felt themselves incompetent to decide on these matters.…. He confessed he was wholly unacquainted with railway management; he knew not how to determine what was a reasonable fare, what was undue delay, &c.…. They should have a lay tribunal for the decision of questions of the nature contemplated by the Bill, and not one composed of the Judges."—[3 Hansard, cxxxiii. 1137.]

The prediction of Lord Campbell the Committee of last year found to have been entirely fulfilled, and now, at the end of nearly 19 years, they thought it would be well to take the advice of that noble and learned Lord, and to remove this jurisdiction from the Court of Common Pleas to some other tribunal. With that view the Committee recommended that the administration of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act should be transferred to a new body appointed for this express purpose, to a body which might be called the Railway and Canal Commissioners, consisting of three gentlemen of high standing and character, one at all events to be an eminent lawyer, and one, if it were possible, a man practically conversant with the management of railway traffic. The Bill which he was about to ask leave to introduce would carry out the recommendation of the Committee. It proposed to create such a Commission as he had described, consisting of men of high standing and with ample remuneration—a Commission which, if well constituted, as he ventured to assure the House it should be, would, he believed, command the confidence both of the country and of the railway interest. But in transferring to such a new authority the powers contained in the Railway and Canal Traffic Act the Committee had to consider whether the Act could not, in the public interest, be strengthened in its provisions. The principles of the Act were mainly two—namely, the free forwarding of traffic between railway and railway all over the country, and the fair and equal treatment of traffic and traders by railway companies. The Committee had to consider whether the Act could not be enlarged and enforced. They laboured long and carefully to find means of strengthening the Act in the public interest, and they found, as they believed, a method by which the Act, within its principles, could be greatly improved. Two proposals were made to the Committee, which were largely discussed, with the end in view which he had described. One was a proposal that general compulsory running powers should be given to every railway company over the lines of every other. That was urged very strongly on the Committee by very high railway authorities. The other was a system of general through rates, under due provisions and regulations. The question of running powers was fully sifted, and the conclusion the Committee arrived at was that it would not be wise to enforce general running powers by any general enactment. It was shown that running powers were not, as a rule, necessary; that they were only convenient in some cases; that to enforce them upon unwilling companies would be a violent interference with the management of lines; that it would be most inconvenient, probably dangerous, and certainly impracticable and unworkable, to attempt to enforce them against the will and in spite of the opposition of the company owning the lines. The Committee, therefore, refrained from making any such recommendation in the way of general legislation. At the same time, it was quite evident there were now, and there would be in future, many cases in which running powers to be exercised by one company in case of need over the lines of another might be properly and wisely given; but the Committee desired to leave that to the determination of Railway Committees as a condition to be imposed in Amalgamation Bills, if it should be thought fit, and to be enforced by the Commissioners whom this Bill proposed to set up. The question of through rates and fares was found to be a different one, and the Committee came to the conclusion that something useful and valuable might be done in that direction by general legislation. After the most careful consideration of the subject, they came to the following Resolution:—

"Second, and only second, to the question of the control of railway charges, is that of the interchange of railway traffic, or, in other words, the question of best utilizing and developing, under the present system of occasionally conflicting companies, the capabilities of a railway.… If a company monopolizing a district is to be allowed to arrange or disarrange the traffic as it pleases, to time passenger trains so that they shall not meet at a junction with other passenger trains, to obstruct traffic coming from other lines, and to send traffic by the longest and least convenient route, in order to keep it on its own line, there may be the greatest possible public inconvenience."

And they went on to recommend that, under proper conditions, railway companies should have a right to require and obtain through rates over the lines of their neighbours. The primâ facie rule for the determination and apportionment of those rates would, of course, be according to the mileage; but that was a rule which was not capable of being always rigidly observed, and would, in some instances, even work injustice, and therefore the Committee were of opinion that the Commissioners proposed to be created should be invested with ample power to settle that matter between company and company. The Commissioners would take care that no wrong was done to the company required to forward the traffic of another company, the sole object of the provision in the Bill being to secure that the intention of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act should not be frustrated, or that, Act made a dead letter, but that the traffic should be forwarded by that route which it would naturally take, and by which it could most conveniently travel. This was intended, if Parliament sanctioned it—as he hoped it would—as a certain amount of interference with railway companies; but he ventured to submit to the House that it was an interference which was amply justified by the facts of the case, and one which, if guarded by proper and careful provisions—which he thought would be found in the Bill when it was in the hands of Members in a day or two—the railway companies themselves would be very unwise to complain of. They were but conditions and facilities which fell very far short of those which railway companies constantly thought they had a right to demand from, and were constantly willing to give to, each other when carrying on their contests in Parliament, and he was of opinion that the public were well entitled to draw their own conclusions from the demands and admissions made by the companies on those occasions. It would, too, be an interference which only had for its object the prevention of the imposition of that kind of charge which upon canals lead obtained the suggestive name of "bar tolls;" tolls imposed in order to close a route against traffic, not by a physical but a fiscal obstacle, the object being to direct traffic over a course more profitable to the company. It would be an interference intended to prevent companies from absolutely defeating the intention of Parliament as expressed in the Railway and Canal Traffic Act. Beyond that interference it was not intended to go, and it was a degree of interference which, he believed, would be admitted by many railway authorities themselves to be a fair one. The Committee of last year found such to be the view of some of the best-informed railway witnesses they examined. He had one example before him in the language used by a very eminent railway manager, Mr. Scott, the general manager of the South-Western Railway. In answer to a question of his (Mr. Chichester Fortescue) Mr. Scott said—

"I have been very forcibly struck with the language of Mr. Cardwell's Act, which I believe to possess already very much of what is really required. Mr. Cardwell's Act, I am inclined to think, has never been fairly tested…. It would be necessary to provide that a through rate and fare should be of the nature of the facilities mentioned in the Act."

That was exactly the object which the Committee had in view, and it was that which the Bill was intended to carry out —namely, that under proper supervision the granting of through rates and fares should be of the nature of the facilities required by the Railway and Canal Traffic Act. The result, then, of that part of the Bill would be this—that the Railway and Canal Traffic Act would be enlarged and strengthened—as he contended and as the Committee believed entirely within its scope and principle—by some specific enactments, and that the application and enforcement of the Act would be committed to a new tribunal specially constituted for the purpose, instead of to the Court of Common Pleas. The Committee considered very carefully what amount of duty should be imposed upon this Commission, if constituted, for the benefit of the public; and there was one duty of a very important kind with respect to which there appeared to be a positive unanimity of opinion among the experienced railway witnesses who were examined that it would be of the greatest advantage to allot it to the Commission—that, namely, of exercising the functions of arbitrator under the provisions of the Railway and Canal Acts. The Committee were very much struck by the evidence of various witnesses as to the vexation and delay which attended private arbitrations under the special Railway Acts as now exercised. It was shown that those arbitrations often lingered for months and years, and constantly defeated the very object and purpose for which they were demanded; and, of course, while the railway companies suffered from this cause, the public suffered also. The Committee recommended and the Bill proposed that, whenever in any Railway Act, past, present, or to come, provisions for arbitration, for the purpose of carrying into effect its provisions, were or should be inserted, that arbitration should be carried out by the new Railway and Canal Commissioners. That provision, unless he was greatly mistaken, would give satisfaction to the railway companies and confer much benefit upon the public. The House would therefore see that on the one hand the new body would acquire the powers now nominally exercised by the Court of Common Pleas, and on the other hand the power which was now most inconveniently exercised by private arbitrators. And he might point out that this power would have no inconsiderable bearing upon the consideration of future important Railway Bills, and especially Amalgamation Bills: with respect to the securities which Parliament might require to avert any injurious consequences to the public arising from such monopolies, for where Parliament introduced provisions into Amalgamation Bills in future—conditions which would inevitably lead to arbitration, and which could not be carried out except by arbitration—the companies and the public would have the advantage of resorting to the eminent body to which he had referred, instead of to private arbitrators. There were matters of a minor character which hon. Members would find embodied in the Bill, such as a provision that a transfer of canals to railway companies should not be valid unless with the sanction of the Railway and Canal Commissioners. They would find clauses intended to enforce the due maintenance of canals in the hands of railway companies by their owners; and he need hardly say that the rule as to through fares would apply to canals just as much as to railways. There was also a provision for the transfer, from the Board of Trade to the Commissioners, of powers with respect to railway agreements and other matters of no great consequence, but which, being questions connected with traffic, might well be handed over to that body. He believed he expressed accurately the feelings of the Joint Committee of last year when he said that they did not profess to provide by tins Bill a perfect remedy for such evils as those which accompanied the many great advantages which the railway system of Great Britain conferred upon the country. They found great difficulties existing. They foresaw great difficulties in the future. They were not sanguine as to their power, or even the power of Parliament, to provide a solution for all these difficulties. They did not, for instance, profess to find means of keeping competition effectually alive between company and company. Competition in point of price, at all events, they found was almost extinct, and they saw no means of maintaining it; but they did think they saw the means of securing to the public the full and free use of the railways which had been made and which might be made, and that in spite, he was going to say, of whatever combinations and alliances railway company and railway company might make with one another. That was what they aimed at. They had rejected a number of suggestions—some of them plausible—for increased Parliamentary interference and control; but a certain limited amount of Parliamentary control in the direction he had intimated the Committee thought possible and advisable and for the public benefit. He expressed their views and his own in confidently submitting them for the adoption of the House, and he hoped that in this matter the companies would not separate their interests from those of the public.

said, he did not intend to oppose the introduction of this Bill, the character of which had been so lucidly explained by his right hon. Friend. On the contrary, he thanked him for undertaking at so early a period of the Session to carry out what, after the Report of the Joint Committee last year, it was his bounden duty to do. With very much of what his right hon. Friend had said he (Mr. Gilpin) cordially agreed; and with reference to the few points on which he differed from him, he would probably have another opportunity of expressing his opinion. He would, however, say on this occasion that it would be necessary for the Legislature to consider how far it was wise—how far it was best for the interests of the public—that Parliament should interfere in the management of what after all was private enterprise, when they took up matters which were generally best managed by the companies themselves in their own interests—how far, in short, they might do mischief where they intended to do good. There was no doubt that a new tribunal was much wanted to deal with those various questions to which his right hon. Friend had alluded. He (Mr. Gilpin) did not express any opinion as to the form of tribunal; but he entirely agreed with the right hon. Gentleman that a competent tribunal should be established for most of the purposes, and with most of the powers, described by him. The powers to be given to this Commission would be a subject of grave discussion, and, perhaps, division of opinion. He concurred with the President of the Board of Trade in thinking that to give to a Commission of this sort directions that every company should have running powers over every other company would be to ensure a succession of accidents compared with which they had nothing in the history of railways. As to the adoption of any systematic rate from one end of the country to the other, that was a question which would require careful consideration. It was perfectly well known that while the cost of one line of great extent might be so much per mile, some of the smaller lines, like the Metropolitan, the Charing Cross, and some portions of the Brighton line, had cost an enormous sum, and that to have the fare anything like the same rate would be obviously unjust. He trusted that the Bill of his right hon. Friend would receive the sanction of the railway world and the public generally.

congratulated the right hon. Gentleman on his lucid analysis of so ponderous a blue book as that issued by the Joint Committee, and thanked him for having brought this measure forward at the commencement of the Session. It was a subject of great importance, not only to the railway companies, but also to the traders of the country, and it was de- sirable that it should be dealt with in a satisfactory manner, and with as little delay as possible. He hoped, however, that time would be given to the country to consider the Bill before they came to a decision on the second reading. He wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the Government meant to recommend any course to that House with respect to the Amalgamation Bills which were now before Parliament?

reminded the House that the Joint Committee was appointed last Session in consequence of the introduction of Amalgamation Bills of wider scope than any previously sanctioned, and that in their Report, while recommending regulations applicable to railways generally in their relations to each other and the public, they had specially in view the growth and progress of railway amalgamation. Several of those Bills having been reintroduced this Session, he would suggest that this Bill should take precedence of them, or proceed pari passu with them. This would remove some objections to the passing of those measures, and would guard against their passage unaccompanied by the antidote in the shape of this Bill which the interests of unamalgamated companies and of the public demanded. The announcement of such a course on the part of the Government might not be without effect in facilitating the passage of the Bill now introduced.

on behalf of the canal interest, thanked his right hon. Friend for the Bill, which, he believed, would give great satisfaction. The Joint Committee would, no doubt, take care that the Amalgamation Bills were not passed unless this measure accompanied them.

said, that he rose chiefly to enter his dissent from the opinion which had been expressed by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Gilpin) against the adoption of the running through system. He believed that under proper supervision the through system could be adopted with safety and certainty, and that it would add greatly to the convenience of the public.

in reply, agreed that his Bill was a necessary complement to amalgamation schemes. He intended to propose the reference of the latter to a Joint Committee of both Houses, as recommended by last year's Committee. With respect to what had been said by his right hon. Friend behind him (Mr. Dodson), he agreed with his view of the situation, and he (Mr. Fortescue) would take care that one of these proceedings should not outrun the other, and that the Railway Amalgamation Bills should not precede the present measure.

in moving—

"That, whenever Notice has been given that Estimates will be moved in Committee of Supply, and the Committee stands as the first Order of the Day upon any day except Thursday and Friday on which Government Orders have precedence, the Speaker shall, when the Order for the Committee has been read, forthwith leave the Chair without putting any question, and the House shall thereupon resolve itself into such Committee, unless on first going into Committee on the Army, Navy, or Civil Service Estimates respectively, an Amendment be moved relating to the division of Estimates proposed to be considered on that day,"

said, that the Order which he was about to move was the Order which was recommended by the Select Committee that sat the year before last. It had the approbation of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire, and it was agreed to by the House at the commencement of last Session; and he thought that the working of the arrangement during the Session must have commended it, on the whole, to the approval of the House. It had two objects mainly in view. The one was that hon. Members should know with certainty what the business was for which they were to come down in the evening; and the other was that there should be ample time for the discussion of the Votes in Supply. He thought that both of those objects had been answered, for the number of Votes that were passed in Supply was not much larger on the average at any particular sitting than was usual; and as a much longer time was occupied in the sittings, it showed that the financial business of the country must have been more thoroughly discussed. It had been sometimes represented that the Rule had been introduced for the advantage of the Government. But that was not actually the case—there wore very nearly the same number of sittings as usual in Supply, and the real difference, as far as they had at present ascertained, was that the sittings had been longer and the discussion of the Votes more thorough than before. At that there was reason to rejoice; and he hoped the House would see fit to allow the same Order to prevail in the present Session.

rose to move the Amendment of which he had given Notice; and in doing so begged to assure the House that he had no wish to diminish in any way the facilities for the despatch of Business, and he would not have brought his Motion forward at this time if he could have done so at a later period of the Session with any hope of success. But if he failed to take advantage of this opportunity for bringing forward his proposal when another part of the subject was being dealt with, he would practically be shut out from any chance of raising the question which he desired to raise. He had no doubt that the Resolution passed last Session on the Motion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer had done much to facilitate the passing of Supply; but when the right hon. Gentleman spoke of the passing of Supply as the very core and kernel of the business of the House of Commons, he would beg to remind him that there were other duties equally important it had to discharge in the consideration of measures submitted to them, and other business of great consequence. And if they passed the Resolution now proposed by the Government, and ignored all other business, a hopeless state of confusion would, he contended, be the result, and the House would not be facing properly the difficulty which it had to meet, but would be merely passing, to use the language employed by the Member for Waterford (Mr. Osborne) last year, a stop-gap Resolution. If hon. Members would look back they would find that Lord Palmerston, when he brought the Resolutions of the Committee of 1861, of which he was a Member, before the House, stated that there was one point which should not be lost sight of, and that was the question of the free power of the representatives of the people to bring forward the grievances of the country before going into Committee of Supply. After referring to two functions of the House of Commons, the passing of laws and examining the Estimates and voting the Supplies for the year, he went on to say—

"But this House has another function to discharge, and one highly conducive to the public interests—namely, that of being the mouthpiece of the nation—the organ by which all opinions, all complaints, all notions of grievances, all hopes and expectations, all wishes and suggestions which may arise among the people at large, may be brought to an expression here, may be discussed, examined, answered, rejected or redressed. That," said the noble Lord emphatically, "I hold to be as important a function as either of the other two."—[3 Hansard, clxii. 1491.]

The House, fortified by such an opinion, ought, he thought, to hesitate before they sanctioned the doing away with the power of which he was speaking to any material extent;—they should endeavour so to regulate the conduct of Public Business as to facilitate the transaction of the whole of it, instead of only a single portion. The Resolution which was now moved had certainly been recommended by the Committee of 1871, and had been put in practice last Session with success; but it should be remembered that there were many other points dealing with the business of the House, recommended by that Committee with the same object, which had not been put into practice, and which if adopted would in no way necessitate the restriction of what he looked upon as a great constitutional privilege. One of those modes was contained in a Resolution which was before the Committee of 1854, which was passed by the Committee of 1861, and was endorsed not only by the weighty evidence of Lord Eversley, but by that of the late Speaker and of those gentlemen who officiated so ably at the Table of the House. In the Resolution to which he referred it was recommended that when a public Bill had passed through a Select Committee, and had been reported to the House, the Bill, as amended, should be appointed for consideration on a future day, and, unless ordered by the House to be re-committed generally or in respect of some particular clauses, might, after the Report, be ordered to be read a third time. The late Speaker was of opinion that the adoption of such a course would relieve the House of a very difficult part of its business, which though sometimes done extremely well, was often done very carelessly: and Mr. Lefevre, before the Committee of 1854, expressed himself to the effect that he thought it undesirable that a Bill which had passed through a Select Committee upstairs should in all cases be subjected to the ordeal of passing through a Committee of the Whole House. Another point discussed before the Committee of 1871, which had also been discussed by every Committee which had sat to consider this question, was that the House should be divided into Grand Committees, to each of which should be submitted a certain class of business. Were this suggestion adopted, the despatch of Public Business would be greatly facilitated, and the proposal met the approval of all who had had experience in the business of the House. Another suggestion which had been laid before the Committee was that a change in the position of the Orders and Notices of Motion on Tuesdays might be made after a certain day—say the 1st of May—by which private Members who were sufficiently imprudent to introduce Bills on their own responsibility might be enabled to advance their measures. It had further been suggested that after the 1st of July in each Session, when it was clear that there would not be sufficient time for Bills introduced by private Members to be sent to the other House early enough for discussion, and when therefore it was hopeless to persevere with them, Government Orders should have precedence on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. With reference to morning sittings on Tuesdays or Fridays, it was notorious that owing to the want of a proper enthusiasm on the part of the Treasury benches for the legislation of private Members, they resulted in "counts-out" at the evening sittings, a result of which the latter might justly complain. These were all points which the House ought fairly to consider when attempting to deal with the important subject of reforming its method of conducting its business, and it would be a great misfortune were it, acting on the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman, to confine its attention to the one point put forward by him, and to leave the others out of sight altogether. He asked the House to deal with this question as a whole, and not in patches. Hon. Members were sent to that House more to express the feelings and wishes of their constituents than simply to vote Supplies, and any reform in the conduct of the business of the House should be conducted with fairness, and not with the view of facilitating Supply at the expense of the former duties, as was suggested by the right hon. Gentleman. He was aware that there were hon. Members who were anxious that there should be no step taken in this matter at all, and deprecated any reform which would have for its result the facilitation of business; but the view he (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) took of the matter was that the work, if possible, should be distributed more equally over the whole of the Session, and not driven off, as was the case last year, to the end of the Session, when the House was compelled to pass such ill-digested measures as called down upon them the well-deserved rebuke which the Lord Chief Justice had uttered a few days ago in commenting upon one of the most important Bills passed last Session. The hon. Baronet concluded by moving his Amendment.

said, he regarded the question now under discussion as being of the greatest importance. It was now proposed on the part of the Government to repeat the experiment of last year, by which the old constitutional maxim that grievance should precede Supply was violated. That had been the old constitutional rule in former ages, and he saw no reason why it should be deviated from at the present day. Doubtless, he should be told that the business of that House had become more important, and that the work of legislation was vastly heavier now than it used to be, and that therefore it was absolutely necessary that some limit should be placed upon the right of private Members to put Questions to Her Majesty's Ministers on going into Committee of Supply. But, for his own part, he was disposed to doubt whether we did not legislate quite fast enough. The House had heard from a high authority that to pass one or two great measures in a Session was all that the Government could undertake to attempt, and therefore there was no reason why this enormous mass of Bills should be laid before the House Session after Session, only to be withdrawn as it approached its end. It was true that there might be Ministerial questions which were pressing for legislation; but it should be borne in mind that the matters equally pressing for discussion had much increased in number. When the principle was declared that grievance should precede Supply, we did not possess the vast colonial empire we now had; and on the first night of the Session the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire had told them that foreign questions ought to receive more attention than had latterly been devoted to them. If, then, private Members were to be deprived of the right of putting Questions on going into Committee of Supply, what was to become of the great colonial, foreign, and other questions which were continually cropping up, and upon which the country had a right to know the views of the Ministers, which could be elicited in no other way than by means of Questions on going into Committee of Supply? On one occasion, when he had put a Question to a Member of the Government, the right hon. Gentleman in the Chair had told him that he should put it on the Motion for going into Committee of Supply, in order to afford the Minister an opportunity of answering it at greater length than was convenient at the time of Questions. He referred to that instance with the view of illustrating the position in which private Members would be placed if the Rule proposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer were to pass, under which private Members would be deprived of the privilege they now possessed of putting Questions on going into Committee of Supply. He was aware that the reply of the Government would be that private Members would have an opportunity of putting the Questions to which lie had referred on Friday evenings on going into Committee; and, further, that Tuesday evenings were devoted to private Members, who might then move Resolutions on any subject they thought fit. There were many questions, however, on which it was not desirable to move Resolutions, but as to which it was desirable to obtain information; and the best opportunity for doing this was on the Motion for going into Committee of Supply. He ventured to remind the House that when this matter was being debated early in last year the Prime Minister stated that the Government were bound to keep a House on Fridays, and that was perfectly true, because the Government would be unable to place Supply on the Paper for Monday nights as the first Order if the House were counted-out on Fridays, and therefore no counts took place on those evenings; but, on the other hand, the Government having no interest in keeping a House on Tuesdays, the House had been counted out five or six successive times on those nights. Thus the right of private Members to bring forward Resolutions on Tuesday nights became a mere shadow, and consequently, if they were to be deprived of their right to put Questions on going into Committee of Supply, a great inroad would be made on their privileges. For the greater part of the Session Tuesday and Friday mornings were in the hands of the Government, and private Members had only the privilege of bringing forward on the Motion for going into Committee of Supply on Friday evenings questions affecting most important interests both at home and abroad. For these reasons, he hoped the House would pause before it adopted the Motion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

said, he was of the number of those Members who thought that one of the most important duties of the House was not simply to try what number of statutes they could pass each Session, but to discuss a variety of subjects—and amongst the variety of subjects for discussion none could be more important than the Estimates. This was, however, a task from which the House was rather inclined to flinch. He supported the Resolution of the Chancellor of the Exchequer last year, and he was prepared to support it again for the same reason. The reason which he gave last year for supporting it was not that he thought it was a Motion which facilitated the work of the Government—the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that night showed that he also felt that—his reason was that the effect of the adoption of the Motion would be that the House would really know when the Estimates were coming forward, and the Estimates would be more thoroughly discussed. The machinery of the House was clumsy and defective in this respect—that there was an absence of certainty as to what business would come on on any particular occasion. Without limiting debate by a gag law they could not insure that any Order of the Day or any Notice which stood after the first in the Paper would come on at a particular time. He had no disposition to introduce a gag law; but it was a reproach to the House, and rendered its rules useless and absurd if they could not ensure, at any rate, what would be the first Order or Notice to be brought on on any particular day. And they had that night two instances which showed how strongly the evil was felt. The noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho) asked early in the evening a Question—he (Mr. Dodson) thought with reference to this very Motion—which showed that he was pressed by the inconvenience of the uncertainty as to when it would come on. But they had just had a better illustration of the evil of uncertainty. The Home Secretary had that evening had recourse to a proceeding which he (Mr. Dodson) believed took the House entirely by surprise, and had introduced a debate for which they were not prepared. The proceeding was technically correct; but it was a very inconvenient proceeding, and one which he hoped would not be made a precedent. The hon. Member who had just sat down (Mr. R. N. Fowler) spoke very strongly of the constitutional privilege of bringing forward grievances before Supply, and alluded to ancient practices. Well, our ancestors did, no doubt, assert that principle, and insisted on grievances before Supply; but when our ancestors spoke of grievances, they had genuine grievances against the Crown, and said they would grant no Supply at all until their grievances wore redressed. But it was a gross exaggeration of terms for any hon. Member who had a theory to ventilate or a pet project to promote—such, for instance, as a proposal to make a new road across a Park—to insist on the old constitutional principle, in order that when the House was anxious to discuss the Estimates, and there was no question about granting Supply—he might come down and impede the progress of business by the introduction of some totally irrelevant question. In the name of common sense let them adhere to the rule that in the absence of any question of privilege or matter of extraordinary urgency, the question set down first should come on first. The hon. Baronet who had moved the Amendment (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) made one or two suggestions with regard to facilitating the progress of business in the House, and more especially the business proposed by private Members, and he alluded to the business on Tuesdays. It had always appeared to him (Mr. Dodson) that it would be a great advantage if the business of Wednesdays and the business of Tuesdays were transposed. If Tuesday night were made an Order night for private Members, and Wednesdays were set apart for the discussion of Notices, the Bills introduced by private Members would make more progress, because the time of the sitting on Wednesday was limited, and offered great facilities for talking them out. The hon. Baronet suggested that Bills that had passed through a Select Committee should be ordered to be considered without being passed through a Committee of the Whole House. That was worthy of consideration. It was an ancient practice of this House, as it was still of the House of Lords, not to put a Bill through Committee where not deemed necessary, but to omit that stage. He (Mr. Dodson) was, however, afraid that if the suggestion now made were adopted, they would have a discussion upon the question whether a Bill should be committed to the Whole House or not. The hon. Baronet had moved, as an Amendment to the Motion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that a Select Committee should be appointed to consider the despatch of business. He (Mr. Dodson) was not sanguine of any good resulting from that course. At all events, he would suggest this to the hon. Baronet—that he should propose his Motion as a substantive Motion, and not as an Amendment on the Motion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Motion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was recommended by a Select Committee. It was adopted last year by the House and had been tried. With all due respect to those Gentlemen who differed from him, he thought experience was in its favour, because it had facilitated a full and thorough discussion of the Estimates.

said, he was surprised that so high an authority on the constitution of the House as the right hon. Gentleman who had just spoken (Mr. Dodson) had not taken a graver view of the question affecting the privileges of independent Members. He had compared the question of the constitutional source of Parliamentary Government with a question of making a road across a Park. But the question they had to discuss was whether the English House of Commons was to be or not to be an independent body. Was it to be a body called together merely for the purpose of recording the decrees of the Prime Minister, or to give free expression to the feeling of the country? He did not wonder that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had simply brought forward his Motion in a formal manner, because they knew that the Minister who really sought to reduce the House of Commons to the position of recording his dictates without discussion was the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government. He was virtually the Mover of this Resolution—he was the real assailant of the rights and privileges of Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman having been formerly a distinguished member of the Tory party had proved himself to be a true convert to modern Liberalism — he could combine in his own mind all the aspirations of the democrat with all the instincts of the despot; while upholding liberty of debate in theory, the right hon. Gentleman in practice would willingly restrict the debates here to a record of his goodwill and pleasure. Last year it was said that there was a conspiracy between the two front benches to restrict the privileges of the House of Commons. But in this instance he thought he could depend upon the vote of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Disraeli), who did not, however, at present appear to be taking any very lively interest in the discussion. He was sorry he could not attract the attention of the right hon. Gentleman, who in 1862, when a Motion almost identical with this was brought forward by the senior Member for Brighton (Mr. White), said—

"If you tamper with, and trench upon, the privileges which the House of Commons has hitherto enjoyed with so much advantage to the nation, you may ultimately find that you have raised throughout the country a spirit of discontent and of just dissatisfaction, which you will have much cause to regret, and much difficulty in allaying. What practical advantage, I ask, do you think can flow from priggish, pedantic, and petty attempts to deal with the Rules of this House?"—[3 Hansard, clxv. 157.]

These were wise words, and he only hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would not on this occasion gainsay them or resort to a practice which they had all unfortunately witnessed—that of disappearing behind the Speaker's chair when the time came for a division, and becoming "conspicuous by his absence." A good deal was said about the despatch of business; but it was possible to despatch too much business, and to do business with too much despatch. The Licensing Act was a proof that hasty legislation was not always good legislation. This was what the Judges had said of it recently. Mr. Justice Blackburn said—

"He should like to hear from the Members of the Legislature whether they understood what they were about when they passed the Act, and why they had not expressed their meaning in language which an ordinary individual at Petty Sessions might be supposed to understand. It was an Act wonderfully calculated to puzzle everybody, and one which operated most ingeniously in that way."

The Lord Chief Justice said "he had never, during his judicial experience, known so confusing and puzzling an Act;" and Mr. Justice Mellor also de- scribed it as one of the greatest puzzles ever submitted to him, adding that he had only seen one other Act so badly framed. If this was the result of deliberate legislation, what might be expected from crude and hasty legislation? Yet the professed object of the present Motion was to expedite legislation. He could hardly conceive a more dangerous and ruinous expedient. It was difficult for the united and deliberate wisdom of Parliament to frame an intelligible Act, and hurried legislation must be of the kind described by some of the highest legal authorities of the land, and which the proposition before them, if adopted, would perpetuate. During the last few years measures had been passed through this House, which, if they could now be submitted to the country by the new test of the Ballot, would, in his opinion, be rejected by a large majority; yet the Government now asked the House to precipitate legislation, and to cease to give to measures the care and attention they required. Now, so far from trying to precipitate legislation, the first duty of Parliament was to put every possible obstacle in its way. He said so advisedly, for if a measure bore the test of discussion and argument, it would ultimately be carried, while if it had to be dealt with hurriedly it ought not to be carried. But there were other and stronger grounds for opposing this Motion. The very basis of constitutional government was to be found in the maxim, grievance before Supply. The British Constitution—which the right hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright) declared he had never seen—was founded on the principle that the Crown had no right to go to Parliament and ask for Supply until every Representative of the people had had an opportunity of stating the grievances of those who had sent him to Parliament. The right hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. S. Walpole), speaking on this point in 1862, had enforced the importance of maintaining the unwritten law and usage of the House of Commons, which prescribed that on all occasions when the Government desired to have money voted for the use of the Crown, the unofficial Members should be entitled to put any Question to the Government, to submit any point, to suggest any grievances that might require remedy, and to have such assurances from the Government as would prevent the Session being closed before the points raised had received attention. He appealed to hon. Members below the gangway opposite, for whose talents and consistency he had the highest respect—a compliment he could not pay to every quarter of the House—to remember these words on going to the lobby, and also to ask themselves what reply they would make to their constituents when they inquired what had induced them to barter away the rights and privileges of the Commons. Nothing could justify the sacrifice they were asked to make; nothing could compensate for the right of every Member of the House of Commons to have a full, free, and fair opportunity of expressing the grievances of the Commons before proceeding to vote money to the Crown.

always listened with respect to the right hon. Member for Sussex (Mr. Dodson). His thorough knowledge of the usages, and of the past and present practice of the House, entitled his opinion to every consideration: he therefore could not conceive what had induced him, despite his profound knowledge of the history of Parliament, to support the proposal of the Government. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that the necessity for stopping Supply by a statement of grievances was now at an end, as there were no grievances to justify such a proceeding. If the proceedings of the times of Eliot and Holies were not likely to recur, the principle for which they fought was as important as ever; and the right hon. Gentleman would acknowledge that even in their day men could have been found in the Court party ready to declare that the people had no grievances sufficient to justify a denial of Supply. He thought, then, the House of Commons was not justified in surrendering its power or opportunity of independent expression. The Government's chief argument in support of this proposition was their desire to secure Monday for Supply; but it had always been held important to have the Monday entirely free to provide for the discussion of any event of importance which might have occurred since the rising of the House on the Friday night. He could not help thinking the privileges of unofficial Members had already been sufficiently curtailed. When he first entered the House, Members were able to speak for any length of time even on the mere presentation of a petition. That, no doubt, was absurd; but they might go much too far in the other direction, and might unduly limit that free expression of opinion which was of the very essence of their Constitution. It would also be remembered that as they held no sittings on Saturday or Sunday it might often be especially necessary that private Members should have the power of initiating a discussion on any important event that had occurred during the interval between Friday and Monday. The encroachments of the Government must be watched with the greatest jealousy, and this was one which should not be entertained for a moment.

Although I had last Session a doubt whether it would be advisable that the House should institute another inquiry on the subject of Public Business, the experience of the last Session fully convinces me of the necessity for some such inquiry if it were for no other purpose than to satisfy the House that its Business has not been conducted in a manner consistent with its dignity. For what do we find? We find the highest judicial authorities declaring that the measures passed last Session for effecting great constitutional changes in our electoral system, and that our legislation touching social questions, such as the employment of labour, and the regulation of public-houses at the end of the last Session; that all these measures are imperfect and unsatisfactory. I, Sir, am fully conscious of this, that the truth lies deeper; that if in any Assembly like this there is a want of public spirit, a want of independence, and a want of self-respect, such an unfortunate state of things is not to be cured by the appointment of a Committee. It will only be cured by the action of public opinion, or by that Assembly finding itself outraged beyond endurance by some other power. I regret to say, that from the manlier in which this subject—that of the Business of the House—has been treated in this House, I fear that the predominance of party feeling has much to do with the mischief, and that if the Leaders of the two parties choose to coalesce on any subject, as matters have stood, the House of Commons is virtually helpless. Now, what has been done? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) supported the Chancellor of the Exchequer in carrying this Resolution through the Select Committee of 1871, though certainly not by a large majority, for they had a majority of only 1. But this affords an illustration of the effects of a combination on the part of the highest officials past and present in curtailing the privileges of the private Members of the House, and of the House itself. They were last Session successful, and the House of Commons, towards the close of last Session, assented to this curtailment of its privileges. There is now but one additional reason why the House should now hesitate in again yielding its ancient privileges. This reason is, that the proposal is made at an earlier period of the Session than it was last year. If the House of Commons no longer values its privileges, no longer feels competent to use them as its predecessors have done, it is time that the House should abandon its privileges. But I agree with the hon. Member for East Sussex (Mr. Dodson), who spoke so ably this evening. I think there are other arrangements, or re-arrangements, beyond the proposal now before the House, which ought to be contemplated, and might be sifted by a Committee. As the hon. Gentleman observed, what an illustration have we had to-night of the want of order in this House! Why, Sir, in our Books the question connected with the Public Parks stands for discussion to-morrow; but through a manifest irregularity committed by the Home Secretary in proceeding without Notice to make a Motion that was not formally on the Books, the Business which stands on the Books of the House for to-morrow has been taken to-day. Who can hope for regularity in the conduct of Business under such circumstances as these? It is understood that there is a certain period at which Notices are to be given. The Clerk at the Table calls for the Notices; and on the very first day of the Session—I have a note of the occurrence here—Minister after Minister rose in his place before the Clerk at the Table called the Notices, and gave their Notices in defiance and in total disregard of the order of the House. After the Petitions, and before the Clerk at the Table called the Notices of Motion, the Prime Minister rose and announced his intention to bring in the Irish University Education Bill; the President of the Board of Trade rose and announced that he would bring in a Bill on Railways and Canals; the Home Secretary rose and announced that he would bring in Bills for the Amendment of the Criminal Law, and would lay upon the Table the Rules relating to the Parks; and the singular fact is this, that he gave written Notice that on Monday he would ask leave to introduce a Bill to amend the Act for the Prevention of Crime, but gave no written Notice that he would also lay upon the Table the Rules to be substituted for those which now regulate the Parks. The Home Secretary entered his Notice with respect to the criminal law on the Books; but he entered no Notice, which appears on the Books or Paper, of his intention to bring the subject of those Rules under the Notice of the House to-day, and yet he rose in his place to-day to open a question which stands in our Books on the Notice of another Member for discussion to-morrow. Sir, if right hon. Gentlemen the official Members of this House, treat the Rules of the House with such total disregard, then, indeed, it is impossible that the order of our proceedings should command respect, and it is not surprising that our legislation is confused. From the manner in which this subject of its Public Business is treated by the House, was treated by the House last Session, and is treated by the House now, I fear that many Members on either side of the House have so completely delegated not only their political powers, but their political consciences, that there does not remain independence of feeling and intellect enough in the House to maintain for itself the Rules and privileges which our predecessors have vindicated and asserted for centuries. If there is this weakness; if there is such a tendency to delegate our powers—and what an illustration of the abuse of that principle of delegation we have had in this very Parks Act, which occupied our attention so irregularly at the commencement of the evening; if this House has got into the habit of delegating its functions, first to the leaders of parties and then to subordinate officials, until they become practically the legislators for this country; if this House, after having virtually overruled the independence of the House of Lords, is content thus to delegate its functions and sacrifice its independence by violating and abandoning the Rules by which our predecessors vindicated their independence and raised the intellectual standard and position of this House, we must continue to sink in the estimation of the highest authorities of the law; we must continue to sink in public opinion, until at last the House will have to lament the utter loss of those privileges which its predecessors so successfully used and so earnestly maintained. Meanwhile, there are many questions which the House would do well to have submitted to a Committee. I shall, therefore, certainly vote with the hon. Baronet the Member for West Essex (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson).

said, that he should be glad, if it could be done, to vote both for the Motion and for the Amendment. He thought that the Resolution of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was a reasonable and necessary one; he also thought that the Business of the House might amply be discussed by a Select Committee; indeed, he was not sure but that such a Committee might well meet every Session, and that its labours and suggestions would be highly advantageous. If, however, the hon. Baronet the Member for Essex did not succeed with his Amendment, he would not be able to get his Committee until late in the Session—if even then. If the Government would consent to the Amendment, or would undertake itself to propose a Committee, he should be contented; if not, he should certainly vote for the Amendment of the hon. Baronet the Member for Essex.

said, he was glad to find at least one independent Member on the benches opposite, and also glad to find that he hailed from the same country as himself. He had watched the course of the debate with great surprise. The question was not a party one; indeed it was one which affected those who wore supposed to monopolize the legislative ability of the country—namely, the Liberal side of the House—more than it did hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition benches, and yet it was almost exclusively—in fact, with the exception only of the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson)—from the latter part of the House that it was challenged. He did not know whether the Government had expected that the Resolution was going to pass without any resistance, but it appeared to him, from the way in which they had dealt with the question, that they had made up their minds to force it down the throat of the House, as if they knew—to use a phrase which the Prime Minister had once employed in reference to the Chancellor of the Exchequer—the "sort of people they had to deal with," and were acting accordingly. Looking at the question as it was brought before them last year and as it had been brought now, he could see nothing in the conduct of the Government to inspire them with confidence. Earlier in the evening he had asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer a plain and civil question not to bring on a question so important in a House of a few Members. This request was answered very shortly, he would not say uncourteously, by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and but for the accident of the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for West Essex (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson), the Resolution would have been slipped through in a House of about 20 Members. Only that morning he looked at the Votes to see how the question had been treated by the Government last year. The Government announced at the meeting of Parliament that having considered the subject during the Recess, they had determined to move for a Select Committee upon Public Business. That Motion was brought on upon the 8th of February; but the Motion having been opposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire, was withdrawn. The Government had then no proposals to make; but the Chancellor of the Exchequer that very night placed on the Notice Paper the three Resolutions which he subsequently tried to move. They were put down for Friday, the 23rd; but on the previous night he put down four more Resolutions to be moved, making seven instead of three. When the Resolutions came on for discussion, one only—that relating to Committees of Supply on Monday—was carried in the teeth of a similar Amendment to the present, moved by the hon. Member for West Essex, and then the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer "scratched" his six other horses. Was there anything in the course taken by the Government last year on this question to inspire confidence on the part of the House this Session? His own feeling had been so strong on the point that if there had been any hope in the then present state of parties he would have a second time challenged the decision of the House upon this Motion; but he knew that the mechanical majority was such that it was hopeless to appeal to the feeling of independence among hon. Members on this matter. This one Resolution, moreover, was carried by a majority of 32 in a House of 272 Members, and the substantive Resolution by a majority of 40 in a House of 224 Members. Before, however, any great changes were made in the Forms and Orders of the House, they ought to be carried by general assent and agreement, and not by small majorities of this kind. If the precedents were referred to it would be found that any changes of similar importance had always been carried by general assent, and by majorities that showed no doubt as to the wish of the House. In 1861 a change introduced by Lord Palmerston was carried by a majority of 253 in favour of the change to 98 against it. Such changes should not be smuggled through the House when there was hardly anybody present. The House had had some experience of the working of this Resolution, and had there been in that experience anything to make it attractive to the non-official element in the House? For himself, he had found its operation to be so intolerable that he had given notice of his intention to oppose it if it were again brought forward. He had himself been entrusted with a grievance, not relating to an individual, but a class—the officers of the Army. A Resolution had been handed over to him by his gallant Relative (Colonel Anson), who had been prevented by illness from being in his place. From March to July lie waited in vain for an opportunity to bring forward this grievance; and it was only at last, at the very close of the Session, that he could find the opportunity he desired. When such cases arose they were usually much prejudiced by delay. Moreover, when they were brought forward at the very end of the Session, the discussions were not reported, very few Members were present, and it might be said that judgment went by default against those who had grievances to complain of. The late Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Dodson) had thrown ridicule over the maxim that grievances should precede Supply, by saying that our ancestors were interested in this old constitutional rule, but that we were not. But where would he draw the line when he defined who were our ancestors? The Select Committees of 1854 and 1861 had both reported strongly in favour of keeping this right of stating grievances in the hands of Members. Sir Erskine May, in his work on the Forms and Proceedings of the House, had fully described this ancient constitutional doctrine, and the practice which had grown up in consequence of allowing every description of Amendment to be moved before going into Committee of Supply. Another voice, no longer heard in that House, was raised before the Committee of 1861. Viscount Ossington, whose present illness every Member of that House must deeply regret, but whose absence did not render his opinion of less weight, being asked with reference to curtailing the expression of opinion on the part of Members, said—"It is not so much restraint that we want as order in the arrangement of Business." That order in the arrangements was wanted, especially on the Treasury bench, his hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) had abundantly shown. His hon. Friend the late Chairman of Ways and Means had stated, however, that what was really required was a certainty of particular measures coming on. As regards Supply hon. Members had had an opportunity of estimating the value of this certainty, for he happened to be a good deal in the House during the course of the Army Estimates, and he knew from personal observation that there were very few Members in the House when the Estimates were being discussed; nor did he think that number was greatly increased last year by the so-called "certainty" of measures being brought on. The Government were proposing to take from the House of Commons a privilege which its Members had heretofore enjoyed. It was alleged that the progress of Public Business would be thereby facilitated; but if the non-official element in the House found itself in the intolerable position it occupied last year, did the Government think it would succeed in the object aimed at by their proposal? The infallible result would be that private Members would act as they did last year. Take his own case as an example. Finding it was impossible to bring for ward his Motion, he discovered a plan of saying in the discussion of the Estimates everything he wanted to say. [Hear!] Yes, but in a different way. He gave Notice that he would move the reduction of the salary of the Secretary of State for War by £2,000 a-year, as that Minister was responsible for everything connected with the Army. On the Votes of the salaries of the Secretary of State, the Financial Secretary, and the Surveyor General, hon. Members might hang any number of pegs and delay the course of Public Business. The ingenuity of independent Members would have recourse to this mode of making their grievances known, and the Government would not facilitate the transaction of Public Business as they hoped to do by taking away the privilege of free speech from the House. The choice of the House lay between the Resolution which the Government hoped to force down the throats of hon. Members, as they did last year by a majority of 32, and the Committee proposed by his hon. Friend the Member for West Essex. That there had been a block of Public Business he fully admitted, but believed it was the result of mismanagement. As the Amendment suggesting a Select Committee had been proposed, he would advise the House to negative the present proposal simply; but, as the question involved was of the highest importance, he trusted that no stop would be taken without deliberate inquiry, and that, above all, care would be taken, if a Committee were appointed, to obtain the nomination of a fair Committee. Hon. Members owed it to themselves to see that they were no longer dealt with as they had been. It was no mere official question—the danger was that Members who had been in office, or who hoped to be in office, looked more to the official management of business than to their duty as representatives—and it was the duty of independent Members to see that their privileges were not curtailed. The value of the House of Parliament as a mere legislative machine was as nothing compared with its value as a means of expressing public opinions and public grievances. This it was which had made the House of Commons an example to foreign nations. He hoped that the House would continue to afford a ready means for the free expression of the thought of a free people.

said, that his right hon. Friend the Member for East Sussex (Mr. Dodson) had used the words "common sense;" now he (Mr. C. Bentinck) wished that the Government had not been guided more by common sense in regard to this subject; for had that been the case, the House would never have heard of the Resolution now proposed for its acceptance. The first thing "common sense" would suggest was, whether there was any ground for such a Resolution at all. As a Member of the Committee which investigated this question the year before last, he heard all the arguments then advanced, and listened to certain allegations made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and other Members of the Government, all of which had been successively contradicted. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had the audacity—if he might use the word—to say that this was not a constitutional question; but this allegation had already been amply refuted by Members sitting on that side of the House. Then his right hon. Friend the Member for East Sussex had said it was not proper that small questions should be raised in the manner which the Resolution would put a stop to. It ought, however, to be remembered that in times gone by independent Members had abundant opportunities of bringing questions before the House. They were at liberty to speak on Petitions, for instance, and they had Thursday to themselves. But the constitutional right of "grievance before Supply" was the only one now left to them, and they must either maintain that, or else become subservient to the Government. The Chancellor of the Exchequer changed his opinions very often, and lie hoped he should make him change his opinion on this subject before he left his place to-night —though this would be a task of considerable difficulty, because, as a rule, the right hon. Gentleman only changed his opinions when he changed his bench. It had been stated, in support of this Resolution, that it was absolutely necessary to take away the right of making Motions on going into Committee of Supply, because the Government would not otherwise be able to get through the Business of the Session. Now, on this point lie had obtained from the officials of the House statistics as to the time really consumed by unofficial Members of the House, and therefore taken from the Government. The grievance complained of by the Government was in 1870, and the Return he had obtained had reference to that and the preceding year. In the Session of 1869, before the 15th of July, there were only eight nights on general Supply on which Amendments were proposed by unofficial Members. Of these only three nights were occupied by Amendments which had not reference to the division of Estimates under consideration. One of these was moved by his hon. Friend the Member for North Hants (Mr. Sclater-Booth) on the constitution of the Board of the Treasury; the other, which occupied two nights, was brought forward by the junior Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett), and related to the case of the Queen against Overend. No one could deny that these were questions of vast public importance which might be properly brought before the House as grievances before Supply. In the Session of 1870 there were only seven nights on which Amendments on general Supply were moved; and only one Amendment was moved which had not reference to the discussion of Estimates afterwards about to be considered —namely, that proposed by his right hon. Friend the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley), respecting the exclusion of reporters from the House. Therefore, in the last two Sessions only three Motions had been made on general Supply which did not relate to the subsequent division of Estimates, and the time of the Government had been profitably occupied by those questions which were of an urgent nature. As regarded Motions which referred to the actual Estimates on the Paper, it was clear that their discussion before the Speaker left the Chair was a saving and not a loss of time; for under such circumstances Members could only speak once, and a vote could be taken thus directly. If their Resolutions were carried, Members challenging the policy of Estimates on principle would not be shut out, but would be compelled to ask the sense of the House upon a feigned instead of a real issue, a result in Ids (Mr. C. Bentinck's) opinion greatly detrimental to the dignity of their proceedings, and entirely opposed to common sense. He was sure, therefore, that if "common sense" was allowed to operate on the minds of hon. Members opposite it would induce them to vote against this outrageous and monstrous proposition. It was said that without this Resolution there would not be time for the Business of the Government; but they had the full benefit of it from February of last Session, and yet, instead of taking advantage of it, they took Votes on Account, and occupied time with sensational legislation, instead of bringing on the Estimates. On the 9th of July the head of the Government took the whole time of the House by moving that Government Orders should have precedence; and then the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Torrens) asked hon. Members whether they were going to surrender their independence, and spoke of business being transferred to Downing Street, and of the House becoming merely an instrument to register the decrees of the Government. Several hon. Members were then obliged to abandon their measures for want of time to discuss them, and to those Members he now appealed to think twice before they followed the Government into the lobby in support of this Resolution. Let them remember that the independence of the House was gone unless it had opportunities of expressing its opinion on questions which arose suddenly. In addition to the infringement of their right, he had already pointed out their privileges had been further restricted by the institution of Morning Sittings. Morning Sittings would begin in June, or perhaps at the end of May, and when they began the rights of private Members were lost. Members who were exhausted by sitting from 2 o'clock to 7 o'clock could not attend to Public Business after 9 o'clock at night. In 1862, after Lord Palmerston had carried the Resolution by which Thursdays were transferred to official Members, and by which the Motion for Adjournment was taken away and Supply put down on Friday instead, the senior Member for Brighton (Mr. White), proposed a Resolution identical with this; Lord Palmerston and Sir James Graham opposed it, and the former said—

"It would not, I think, be fitting that a bare majority should impose restrictions on the conduct of the business of the House, which a large minority might regard as being inconsistent with constitutional principle."—[3 Hansard, clxv. 161.]

These words might have some influence on Members on the Ministerial side of the House; and the main support constitutional and conservative opinion could have in the House was the independence of the House itself, wherefore he believed Members on the Opposition side of the House would be entirely hostile to the principle of this Resolution.

Sir, it is with some trepidation I rise to answer the arguments that have been adduced, not so much on account of the intrinsic weight of them as from this reflection—that if the Motion I have submitted were carried out it would have the effect of preventing the hon. Members for Norfolk (Mr. G. Bentinck) and Whitehaven (Mr. C. Bentinck), and the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho) addressing the House so frequently as they have been in the habit of doing. When I remember the House is fresh from hearing the speeches of the noble Lord and the hon. Member, I confess I fear it may be carried away by terror lest it should not hear them again, and that hon. Members may go contrary to their honest and sincere convictions rather than run the risk of such a deprivation. I must take the liberty of disregarding a great deal of their speeches, because, to say the truth, it was not relevant to the subject before the House. This Resolution has nothing to do with the legislative power of this House, because, whichever way it is decided, the time alloted to the House for legislation will be precisely the same. The question we have to deal with is whether a certain portion of time shall in future be devoted to hon. Members to make speeches which are to be followed with no immediate result—that is, to state grievances—or whether it shall be given to the consideration of that which, after all, is the original and principal duty of the House of Commons —the careful investigation of the public expenditure. That is the whole question we have to decide. Therefore, I take the liberty of saying that a great deal that has been said on other subjects is absolutely and purely irrelevant. This question may be argued in different ways. It may be argued on authority —as it has been, there being quoted against me Lord Ossington and Sir Erskine May, who are, in truth, the two principal witnesses on whom I rely in asking the House to renew this Motion. But the House is asked to appoint a Committee to investigate this question and any other changes that may be proposed. I am no enemy to Committees of the House for these purposes; but when a Committee has made a strong recommendation, and it has passed through a year's experience without giving rise to cavil, if it is to be put aside pending inquiry by another Committee, such a practice will be singularly inconsistent, because the only use of a Committee is to inspire the House with so much confidence in its recommendations that they may be carried out. If you markedly disregard the strong recommendations of a Committee which have been tried with success, what hope can there be that the recommendations of the proposed Committee will be carried out? This is not like a technical and abstruse subject, which hon. Gentlemen may not like to look into for themselves, and on which they may willingly defer to those who have devoted time and attention to it. The Rules and Orders of the House are matters which press upon us all, and which we all form an opinion upon every day. Therefore it is natural—and I do not say it in a tone of complaint—that when an influential Committee comes to a conclusion on such a subject the House should be apt to disregard the recommendations of the Committee, and to judge the matter for itself. I confess it does appear to me, unless the House will defer to the opinion of the Committee it may appoint, a matter which cannot be found out beforehand, it is absolutely a great waste of time and trouble to appoint one at all. Men of the highest eminence must compose these Committees if they are to have any effect on the House; but if their recommendations come to be invariably set aside, it will be impossible to get gentlemen of eminence to give to these inquiries the time necessary to arrive at a satisfactory result. These are difficulties—I do not say they are conclusive—against referring the matter to a Commitee, but they are well worth the consideration of those who wish to see an improvement carried out in the conduct of our Business. It seems to me, as the House will no doubt ultimately take the matter into its own hands, and without regard to what a Committee may recommend, it is better to make the proposition before the House than to go before a Committee. But be that as it may, that is not the real question before us to-night, because the hon. Baronet the Member for West Essex (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson), as I understand, does not allege that he has anything to say against my Motion, but he proposes to supersede it by a Committee. He is one of those persons who would burn down my house in order to roast his own pig. I cannot help thinking it is a great pity the question of a Committee was introduced at all. The two subjects are quite distinct. As has, indeed, been pointed out by the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson), the one does not exclude the other. Many hon. Gentlemen may be in favour of both. But, having made that remark, I must say I think the best course, with a view to the reform of our Rules and Orders, would be to vote for that which, in this instance, was the recommendation of the Committee, and to consider, as a separate question, the Motion for a Committee when we go into the matter at large. What we proposed to do was, more than anything else, to give certainty to the House as to what should come before it; and that advantage I should say we entirely attained. That was no slight advantage, for what was the state of things which existed previously. Hon. Gentlemen put down a number of Questions, which sometimes remained on the Paper a very long time, because there was no sufficient inducement for them to come down to the House and bring them on. But those whose duty it was to answer the Questions had to attend whenever Supply was on the paper, in order to have the chance of answering them. I have myself been 12 or 15 times in that unenviable position—and let me inform the House that is no slight inconvenience to those whose time is not their own, and who have other important duties to attend to. But it is said that, after all, last Session we did not advance much more rapidly with Supply than before. That is quite true. We took longer time in the discussion of the Estimates, but we discussed them much more satisfactorily. The Votes were looked into much more narrowly, and the House in that respect asserted a duty, by carefully watching and criticising the expenditure, quite as important as hearing the speeches of the hon. and learned Member for Whitehaven. The particulars as to the progress made in discussing the Estimates are rather curious. In 1865 the average number of Votes passed in Supply per night was 11; in 1870, the number was 8; in 1871, the average number was 10; and in 1872 it was 9 only. Did we gain nothing by that? I think we gained a great deal. My own experience satisfies me that the result has been that more attention was paid to the subject. You have to look to the pockets of the people as well as to their liberties, and the grievances of the pocket are, I apprehend, quite as pressing as any other so-called grievances which there is no lack of opportunity for bringing before the House. What I have proposed was recommended by a Committee of great authority. It has the concurrence of the head of the Government, of the leader of the Opposition, and of other gentlemen of the greatest weight and authority. It has been tried without the suggestion that it had failed, and, being moved in the same terms as last year, I trust the House will not go back, but enable us to apply to the finance of the coming year the same scrutiny we applied last year.

could not admit that the arrangement last year had been successful. By the arrangement of last year hon. Members were prevented from taking part in criticising the Estimates, because they were uncertain what Votes would come on, in consequence of the Votes not being moved in the order in which they were placed on the paper. The Civil Service Estimates, especially the Superannuation Vote, had passed through the House with scarcely any observation. He was not disposed to offer any factious opposition to the Government, but although he had supported the right hon. Gentleman last year, he could not support him now.

said, he had given Notice of an Amendment to the proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which he thought the House should dispose of simultaneously—probably the House did not fully perceive the effect of his asking to have the word "first" struck out—but in truth the words as they now stood gave them nothing whatever. His second Amendment related to "Opposed Business," and he should move its omission. He also thought they were entitled at the commencement of the Session to have the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government on the question that no fresh Opposed Business should be proceeded with after half-past 12 o'clock. On this point a somewhat ominous piece of paper had been put into the hands of nearly every Member; it bore at its head the somewhat misleading title of "the privileges of private Members." It stated that there was a general feeling in the House against this proposal, which it was hoped would be encountered by the most strenuous opposition. If any hon. Gentleman intended to oppose the proposition, it was only right that the House should hear the view taken of it by Her Majesty's Government. Hon. Gentlemen who had charge of a particular measure were apt to think of no other business but their own; but those Gentlemen ought to recollect that other Members were obliged to wait in the House until late hours to watch those measures. The officers of the House also were obliged to wait, and there should be some consideration shown to them. Why should not the House put into operation in its own favour the nine hours movement, of which the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) was so great an advocate? Some might say that they should adopt "the double-shift." and that they should have another gentleman to share in the duties of presiding over their deliberations, two Chairmen of Committees, two First Commissioners of Works, each with perhaps a different set of Park Rules, and so on. He did not wish to make any particular reference to the late occupant of the Speaker's chair; but he would say that this was not a moment at which they should lightly regard the onerous duties which they imposed on those who served them in this House. Hon. Gentlemen might rest assured that legislation would not be facilitated by carrying it on to extreme hours. A strike would be produced; not a strike against a larger "output" of legislation, but such a strike as had led been for years by the late Mr. Brotherton. It would be found that adherence to unlimited hours would produce a movement in favour of early closing. In these days when so much importance was attached to the operation of a free Press—especially by hon. Members opposite—he begged to point out that it was strangely inconsistent that they should practically be sitting in camerâ, and virtually discussing measures with closed doors.

said, that with reference to his Resolution, "That no fresh Opposed Business be proceeded with after half-past Twelve of the clock ante meridiene," so far as he could gather the Government were disposed to accept the principle of his Motion in the shape of a Sessional Order. He should, therefore, for the present leave the matter in their hands. If, however, he found that they did not, on consideration, take the initiative, he should bring the subject again before the House.

hoped it would not be understood that hon. Members were bound to accept a proposal which he, for one, believed would tend greatly to lengthen their debates.

observed, the Motion not having been made, there was now no opportunity of speaking on it. So far as the Government were concerned, they were perfectly willing to consider the subject on that or any other night. At the same time, he thought it very likely that the hon. Member had exercised a wise discretion in postponing the Motion till another night, when the general mind of the House might be directed to it.

in rising to move that the Chairman be directed to move the House, that leave be given to bring in a Bill for the Survey of certain Shipping and to prevent overloading, said, that since he had circulated a book amongst the Members of the House on this subject he had had upwards of 300 letters from as many Members of the House, and of that number 97 had authorized him to put their names on the back of the Bill. That could not be done without great inconvenience, and therefore he had determined to take the first 10 names, and he asked the others to accept that as an explanation.

said, he had no wish to oppose the Motion; but he expressed a hope that hon. Members who had received the book referred to would suspend their judgment on the ground that it was an ex parte statement capable of being satisfactorily answered.