Mr. Speaker, for the second time in the course of this year I have to ask the House to express its sympathy with our Royal Family in a great bereavement. In January it was the Queen, and now, a few months later, it is the late Queen's eldest daughter, the Princess Royal of England. The end, Sir, has long been foreseen; and yet, now that the blow has fallen, we cannot doubt that those most nearly affected by it deserve all the sympathy which this House and this country can accord to them. I do not think it will be necessary for me to dwell at length upon the virtues of the deceased Empress. She was, we all know, exemplary as a wife, exemplary as a daughter, exemplary as a mother; and she was, besides all that, endowed with many gifts of nature and of education which would have made her, even in another station, a remarkable and accomplished woman. And although, perhaps, it is not strictly relevant to the motion I am bringing before the House, in addition to that, we most of us have in our minds that she perhaps suffered more in the way of bereavement and of pain than is common to the lot of mankind. One other, and only one other, title to our special sympathy do I venture to bring before the House to-day. The late Empress Frederick, born an Englishwoman, was by adoption a German; and all through her life she strove to promote to the best of her ability, with all the advantages her high station gave her, that mutual comprehension, that sympathy, between these two great nations, on which so much, in my opinion at all events, the future of civilisation depends. These are claims outside the special claim which requires me to-day to bring this matter before the House. The prime, the moving cause of this motion is the desire which we all feel upon the present occasion—as we have always felt upon similar occasions in the past—the desire to express to our Sovereign the deep sympathy which we feel in all his personal losses, the feeling which we have that his affairs are our affairs, and that anything which nearly concerns him cannot be alien from us. It will be noticed that in the resolution which I am about to read mention is also made of the son of the late Empress, the present German Emperor; and I think it will be felt on all hands that it is in accordance with our feelings and the feelings of the country that we should express to him through the King our great sympathy in the bereavement under which he is now suffering. It is with these feelings and with this object that I ask the House to agree to the motion standing in my name.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty to express the deep concern of this House at the great loss which His Majesty has sustained by the death of His Majesty's sister, Her Majesty the Empress and Queen Frederick of Germany, Princess Royal of Great Britain and Ireland, and to condole with His Majesty on this melancholy occasion; and to pray His Majesty that he will be graciously pleased to express to His Imperial Majesty, William, German Emperor, King of Prussia, the profound sympathy of this House with the Imperial and Royal Family.

"To assure His Majesty that this House will ever feel the warmest interest in whatever concerns His Majesty's domestic relations, and to declare the ardent wishes of this House for the happiness of His Majesty and his family."—( Mr. A. J. Balfour. )

I feel sure that the House will on this occasion not fail to express with sincerity and unanimity that sympathy with the Crown and the Royal House which always animates it. This loyal feeling is intensified on this occasion by the warm admiration which is entertained for the illustrious lady whose death we are now mourning. The Empress Frederick, although she was seldom in this country and among us after her marriage—and what a vista of years that recollection carries us through—yet never lost that place which as Princess Royal in her earlier years she won in the nation's heart. Besides this, there was the universal and profound respect for her chaacter. Her Majesty's great mental gifts, the many accomplish- ments with which she adorned her life, her well-known enthusiasm in the cause of intellectual and civil freedom, her devotion to the great man who was her husband, and the fact that, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, while she fully discharged all her duties in the exalted position which she occupied in Germany, I she still remained true to the land of her birth—these things have made our people proud of our Empress Frederick and glad always to think of her as a British Princess. We deplore the loss to her country and to the highest tendencies and aspirations of the age which her death involves. Knowing as we do how close are the ties which bind the members of the Royal Family together, we find it not only a duty, but a duty which carries our hearts with it, to offer to them, and especially to His Majesty the King, the tribute of our sincere sympathy. Sir, I beg to second the motion.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved, nemine contradicente , That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty to express the deep concern of this House at the great loss which His Majesty has sustained by the death of His Majesty's sister, Her Majesty the Empress and Queen Frederick of Germany, Princess Royal of Great Britain and Ireland, and to condole with His Majesty on this melancholy occasion; and to pray His Majesty that He will be graciously pleased to express to His Imperial Majesty, William, German Emperor, King of Prussia, the profound sympathy of this House with the Imperial and Royal Family. To assure His Majesty that this House will ever feel the warmest interest in whatever concerns His Majesty's domestic relations and to declare the ardent wishes of this House for the happiness of His Majesty and his family.

To be presented by Privy Councillors and Members of His Majesty's Household.

I now rise to propose an Amendment to the existing Supply rule, which in the opinion of the Government is rendered necessary by the present state of public business. I do not think that there will be much dispute in this House as to the necessity for some such alteration as that which I am proposing. We find ourselves with nearly one hundred Votes outstanding—I think the exact number is ninety-seven or ninety-eight—and if we were to divide upon those Votes under the existing rule, if a division were challenged upon every one of those Votes, we should be dividing, according to my calculation, about twenty hours consecutively. If we were to begin at 10 o'clock on Thursday, as we should under the Supply rule, we should go on dividing the whole if Thursday night, the whole of Friday morning, and our proceedings upon the penultimate day of Supply would not be concluded until the first hours of the ultimate day of Supply had already passed. I say nothing of the absurdity of such a situation, and of the strain on he officers of the House or of the general ridicule which, I think, would rightly attach to our proceedings; but really I wonder, as a question of order, how the proceedings on the ultimate day of Supply could begin, as required by the rule, in consequence of this undue prolongation of the proceedings on the penultimate day. I do not know whether the House quite realises the enormous burden which is thrown upon its members, not by the prolonged discussions, but by divisions. This is a portion of our labours of which the outside world knows little or nothing. Perhaps I may be excused for making a personal reference. I find that I have divided in Government divisions 340 times in the course of the present session. I have no record of the others. But assuming that I have divided not more than 340 times, it appears that I have spent nearly a fortnight of Parliamentary time in marching through the lobbies. I am a busy man, and I confess that that particular expenditure of time is of a kind which, however necessary, I dwell upon without any special satisfaction. I believe the total number of divisions this year has been 410, and at the same rate of calculation they would come to about ten Parliamentary days of eight hours, which is nearly a fortnight and a half; and if there be any gentleman in this House whose industry has been of so phenomenal and remarkable a character as to take part in all these divisions—which I doubt—he certainly has worked hard in the service of his country. I think that in these circumstances it will be felt, and felt universally in all parts of the House, that we must do something, and do that something to-day, in order to prevent the scandal and absurdity which otherwise will necessarily fall upon us as a business assembly.

Before I come to the broader question of the Supply rules, let me explain that in the plan which I propose I am, after all, simply following the analogy of our existing procedure in Supply. Under the immemorial practice of this House different subjects of expenditure are constantly associated as sub-heads under one Vote, though no doubt this proposal carries the principle further than is already recognised. If the House desires an illustration of what I mean let them take the example of the Colonial Service Vote. In that Vote there are thirty sub-heads, and these sub-heads deal with matters absolutely different and distinct, possessing nothing in common except that they come into one Department of State over which there is a single Parliamentary head. They deal with colonies scattered all over the world, with problems absolutely different, problems that cannot be settled in one body by one set of arguments, which, if they are discussed at all, must be discussed separately; and yet, very properly, and in order that our business may be managed with reasonable expedition, that great variety of subjects has always been dealt with in one Vote. If another analogy is required I may remind the House of what takes place with regard to Supplementary Estimates for the Army and Navy. An Estimate is put forward requiring additional money under the head of each one of these Votes. It is, however, presented and voted upon as a single Supplementary Estimate. The Estimate may deal with an infinite variety of military topics with which the Minister for War is concerned, but, nevertheless, by the practice of the House it is presented and divided upon as a single Estimate in spite of the great divergence between the various matters dealt with. Therefore there is nothing new in the principle which I am laying before the House. It is an old principle carried further, and for the reasons I have already explained to the House.

If it be admitted, as I think it will, that some change with a view to dealing with the proceedings on Thursday and Friday is necessary, I pass to another topic, an underlying and more fundamental principle on which probably the unanimity will not be so great. The way I will put this aspect of the question is to ask the House, as I have asked myself, whether the fact that I have been obliged to come here to-day and to ask the House to pass this resolution shows that in principle the Supply rule has failed or whether it has not failed. [Opposition cheers.] I gather from the cheers of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite that I have not inaccurately stated the question which is present to their minds. I am quite clear as to the answer which ought to be given to that question. I think not only that the Supply rule has not failed, but that there never was a session in which the proceedings in Supply have more conclusively demonstrated that the Supply rule was an absolute necessity. There are, in my judgment, only three questions that can be asked intelligently with regard to the conduct of business in this House in Supply and on Report if the Supply rule has not failed. The first question is this: has Supply been taken at a time in the session when it can be discussed, and has it always been so? I remember that in 1893, when the right hon. Gentleman opposite was one of those responsible for the conduct of the business of the House, up to 12th September, not 12th August, only twenty-five Supply Votes had been discussed in the House. There may have been overmastering necessities. [AN HON. MEMBER: Tory obstruction and the "Fourth Party."] The Government of that day and the House of that day had not the advantage of the Supply rule, and I believe any party in power attempting to do the legislative work that Government had taken on itself would have been driven to defer Supply until the abnormally and the inconveniently late period I have mentioned; but they would have been saved from that had the Supply rule been in existence, and no amount of obstruction, a word which I thought I heard whispered across the floor of the House, Tory or otherwise, would have made the smallest difference to the discussion of Supply. I think, therefore, I may confidently answer the first of my three questions in the affirmative. The discussions we have had in Supply are discussions which have taken place when the House has been in its full glory and its full strength, and when these discussions had the best chance of being conducted under proper Parliamentary conditions.

The second question, I think, that may be asked about Supply is: has sufficient time been given for the discussion of Supply? And I will say again, what I have often said before, and shall probably often have to say again, that this is a relative question and not an absolute question. You can only test the amount of time which it is proper to give to Supply by considering what are the general claims on the time of the House and what is the length of session the House ought to be asked to undertake. I think it will be admitted that, as far as this year, at all events, is concerned, the time given to Supply has not only been sufficient, but, if anything, excessive. We have not merely had the twenty-three counted days, but we have had very prolonged discussions upon the Supplementary Estimates of last year before Easter, and we have had a good many discussions on days that are not counted. I make out that the number of days we have given to Supply this session is somewhere in the neighbourhood of thirty-eight or thirty-nine. That is, in my judgment, more than a proper proportion of time to be given in a normal session to the discussion of Supply; and I would ask those who seem to be under the impression that it is our desire to curtail the discussion of Supply to compare that to the amount of discussion which used to prevail in earlier and in some respects happier days. I have had looked up the amount of time that was given to the discussion of the Estimates forty years ago and thirty years ago, in the years 1861 and 1871 respectively, and I find that in 1861 there was an amount of time devoted to Supply equivalent to nine days, and in 1871 the amount of time given was equivalent to six days. The investigation is not an easy one, but when I talk of days I turn everything into an eight-hour Parliamentary day. Compare that with the vast expenditure of time this session, and you will have some measure of the growth of this particular claim upon our Parliamentary energy. It may be said, and probably will be said, that since 1861 and 1871 the Empire has grown and its expenditure has grown. It is obvious that that is perfectly true, and no human being can deny it; but I venture to say that, though that may be a reason why we should make some increase on the nine days and the six days I have referred to, it would be wholly absurd for us to lay down the principle that Parliamentary time is to be allocated simply in proportion to the amount of expenditure that has to be dealt with in Committee of Supply. The years remain the same, the length of the session which the House ought to be asked to sit remains the same, and the claims upon our time are perhaps not less than they were, and in these circumstances it is physically and arithmetically impossible that you should without limit increase the number of days allocated to discussion in Committee of Supply. If that be so, I think my second question—namely, whether enough time is given for discussions in Supply—should also be answered in the affirmative by every candid man in this House. I do not care who is responsible for the management of business in the House, I do not think any man will get up and say that out of an ordinary session it is proper that more than thirty-eight or thirty-nine days should be given to Supply.

Do the thirty-eight or thirty-nine days include the time given to the consideration of the Report of Supply?

I have not worked out all that in detail, but we have, of course, sat up late on many nights for Report, and the time I have given would not include time so spent.

I come now to the third question that can be asked about Supply. It is this: has the time given to Supply, granted that it was given at the right period of the session and was sufficient in amount, has it been properly distributed among the various classes of Votes to be discussed? To that I have a very much less confident answer to give than those I gave to the two previous questions. I do not think the time has in every respect, or nearly every respect, been allocated to the best advantage among the various Votes. I will frankly add to that admission that I do not think the Government are to blame for it. All that we can do is to see that the first Vote put down on each night is the Vote the House most desires to discuss from the point of view of criticism of the Government policy. It has often been said to me by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton and other Members, "You have got the closure. When you think a Vote has been sufficiently discussed, why do you not closure it and let the House go on to the next1" [An HON. MEMBER on the Opposition side: Hear, hear.] There is an hon. Gentleman on the other side who takes that view, but I do not know whether he is one of those hon. Gentlemen who the other night accused me of putting on the closure too often. I would venture to point out to the House that the closure is no remedy for the particular evil of which I am now complaining. Let the House remember that it takes, under our modern practice, three divisions to closure a Vote, and they occupy the House the best part of an hour. First there is the closure itself, then there is the Vote on the Amendment under discussion, and finally there is the division on the Vote. What remedy, then, is the closure in these circumstances when we have got to deal in the course of the session with 144 separate Votes1 It is no remedy according to my observation for what has occurred. There have been on some occasions certain gentlemen in the House who were quite determined either that a Vote should not be finished or that it should be closured.

No, no.

If the hon. Gentleman who differs from me will put his hand on his heart and say that he is confident that no such desire ever animated himself or his party, I shall, of course, accept his statement. But in order to show the House how impossible it is to allocate the time given to Supply among the various Votes by means of the closure, let me take a case, which I admit is the extremest case I could take, but which, nevertheless, illustrates the difficulty from which we suffer. Let us suppose that every Vote had to be closured. There are 144 of them. It takes three divisions to closure a Vote, and if all these Votes were dealt with in this way it would take us eleven eight-hour days to deal with the Committee of Supply and another eleven eight-hour days to deal with the Reports of Supply—twenty-two days in all; and twenty-three days is the allotted time for the discussion of Supply; so that out of twenty-three days twenty-two would be continuously occupied in walking through the lobbies. I think that will be a clear indication to the House that under our existing system it is not in the power of the Government, however anxious they may be, to see that the time allotted to Supply is distributed among the various topics that can be raised in Supply to the best advantage. We can do something by putting down the most important Votes first. That we have done, and I think nobody can deny that we have done it anxiously, continuously, and consistently. But, after all, much must be left to the discretion and the wisdom of the House itself.

Yes, and it would be better if you left more to the discretion and wisdom of the House.

I frankly admit, from what I have observed of the method in which Supply has been dealt with this year, the wisdom and discretion of the House, or of a minority of the House, have not shown themselves in a very clear manner. Whether it is possible in the future to remedy this, as I have often suggested it should be remedied, by a Committee, on which the Opposition should be in a majority, who should allocate the fixed time between the Votes—whether that is possible I do not know, nor would it be in order for me now to discuss. But of this I am quite certain, that it is not possible for any Government, against the wishes of even a relatively small minority of this House, to allocate these Votes to the hest advantage if that minority are anxious to upset the arrangement. Let me remind the House of the three questions which I said ought to be asked with regard to the management of Supply. Has Supply been taken at the right time of the year? It has. Has sufficient time been given to Supply in the course of the present session? It has. Has that time been allocated to the best advantage by the House? It has not, but the Government are in no sense to blame. I have only one more observation to make, which is that I cannot believe that anybody, looking back over the history of this session, can doubt that events have vindicated the Supply rule, and shown its necessity as it has never been shown before. In what position would the House now find itself if the Supply rule had not been in force? To begin with, let me say we should have had much fewer days in Supply—we should have taken our legislation and we should have deferred our Supply.

YOU had no legislation to take.

Even taking Supply as we have done, we have nearly 100 Votes undisposed of. Where should we have been if we had not been able to give all the time that we have given to the discussion of Supply? The House would have had before it, what it has often had before, the vista of an August and a September in which Supply would be slowly and painfully forced through by endless sittings, by the endless application of the closure, and by the even more effective torture which is due to long nights out of bed. That is not the way to conduct Supply, nor to bring our Parliamentary practice into credit. As far as I am able to judge from what has occurred this session, so far from there being the slightest indication that we ought to retrace our steps in connection with the Supply rule, there is, in my judgment, evidence that the resolution which I now venture to propose to the House ought, in this or in some closely analogous form, to be made a part of the permanent procedure of this House. I beg to move.

Motion made, and Question proposed, " That at Ten of the clock on the last but one of the days allotted for the Business of Supply under the, Order, Business of the House (Supply), of the 27th day of February, 1901, the Chairman shall forthwith, put every Question necessary to dispose of the Vote then under consideration, and shall then forthwith put the Question with respect to each Class of the Civil Service Estimates that the total amount of the Votes outstanding in that class be granted for the services defined in the Class, and shall in like manner put severally the Questions that the total amounts of the Votes outstanding in the Estimates for the Navy, the Army, and the Revenue Departments be granted for the services defined in those Estimates. That, at Ten of the clock on the last allotted day, the Speaker shall put forthwith every Question necessary to dispose, of the Report of the Resolution then under consideration, and shall then put forthwith, with respect to each class of the Civil Service Estimates the Question, That the House doth agree with the Committee in all the outstanding Resolutions reported in respect of that class, and shall then put a like Question with respect to all the resolutions outstanding in the Estimates for the, Navy, the Army, the Revenue Departments, and other outstanding Resolutions severally. Provided always, that with the exceptions herein contained, the other provisions of the order of the 27th February shall remain in force."—( Mr. A. J. Balfour .)

It is a matter of regret to me that I am not able to support the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman. I say it is a matter of regret, because I am one of those who have not viewed with any disfavour the experiment he introduced in regard to discussions in Supply. I am not one, either, who stands out too much against any reasonable measure for expediting business, and I have no sympathy whatever with any Member of the House who uses the forms of the House for the purpose of defeating the intentions of the House and the proper treatment of the business of Parliament. But I confess that, having looked closely into this matter, I do not see my way to support the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman passes very lightly over the question whether any blame attaches to the Government. I do not know that we need go at any length into that matter, but I do believe that it is a general impression in the House, not confined to any particular obnoxious party, that the Government's management of the business has not been successful during this session. To begin with, we met later than we need have done, we have had longer holidays than were necessary, and there has been obvious throughout the session a lack of what I may call driving force. Hon. Members may depend upon this, that the best way of securing the businesslike discussion of our affairs is to have them presented to the House in a business like way. It may be said that some of the discussions we have had in Supply have been a waste of the time of the House; but that, again, depends very much upon the way in which the House is treated by the Government. I will point to one little matter as an instance of what I mean, not immediately connected with Supply, but still involving large sums of money. What is to be thought of a Government presenting to the House two Bills involving expenditure of more than twelve millions sterling, which have not yet been read a second time, within eight or ten days of the conclusion of the session? When we find great and important questions of finance treated in that manner, is it surprising that the House should not be very businesslike in its own conduct of the debates?

But now, Sir, let me come to this rule relating to Supply, which was introduced by the right hon. Gentleman as an experiment, and which, no doubt, has certain advantages. The right hon. Gentleman points out that the discussions on Votes in Supply have not been huddled together as they sometimes have been at the end of the session. No, but something else has been huddled together at the end of the session, and that is the decision of the House as to these Votes in Supply. The discussion may now be more leisurely than it sometimes was. but I doubt if, after all, it is not rather random and perfunctory, because the attitude of the Government towards this question of discussing Supply is this—You have a certain number of days, deal with them as you like; we have no interest in the matter. What shall we put down? What would you like put down? And then, when a Vote is put down, the Government have no interest whatever in accelerating the discussion, and if the discussion is not a very pleasant one for the Government, and is going rather against them, all they have to do is to go on to the magic hour of twelve o'clock. Then the discussion ceases, the Vote disappears, and is only seen again at the end of the session. Probably the Government would be much more anxious to give us full information and to make out their case for the Vote if they knew that they could not get the Vote without a division in which the conduct of the Minister would be brought to book. That is one matter. The Minister is supposed to have no interest in the subject, and the critics get no satisfaction, because, if I may use a hunting phrase, we may liken the operation of the clock striking the midnight hour to the case of the fox which runs to earth and puts an end to the hunt.

May I interrupt the right hon. Gentleman? Has he known a single case in which a Vote has been talked out at twelve o'clock except by the Opposition?

That would require a large amount of research, because—which Heaven forbid—we should have to re-read all the discussions in Supply during the session. But the question cannot be settled in that off-hand way. The speeches that are made in opposition to Votes are not always confined to one side of the House; sometimes the right hon. Gentleman's friends are quite as overwhelming, and even more so, than we are. So I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman has altogether made out a case for the complete success of his rule. But the great objection to the rule, and the great difficulty, is the necessity that is now laid before us for to-morrow—that is to say, this process, which is called the guillotine, which cuts down and reduces the whole proceeding to a travesty of the business of Parliament. I am glad to say that I have never yet taken part in that operation, so that I cannot speak from personal knowledge. I have seen it stated in the newspapers that every Vote this year is going to be challenged and divided upon. I should like to know on what authority that statement is made. It has never been so, and we cannot assume it is to be so now. If it was, I confess I think it would be an abuse of the forms of the House. But now the right hon. Gentleman has a proposal to reduce the number of divisions that may be taken by dealing with j the Votes in classes. He quotes, as some justification for that proposal, the case of a Vote which contained a great number of sub-heads, but each one of these sub-heads may be challenged separately and I a division taken upon them. But now j they are to be lumped together in so many classes, and the individual Member of the House thereupon loses the opportunity, which every Member ought to I have, and always has had, of expressing his opinion by his vote upon each of these Votes in Supply. I will take the Scotch Votes. Supposing any Scotch Member has a particular objection to one of these Votes—he could only express it under this rule by voting against the whole of the Scotch Votes. It is an interference so fundamental, as it seems to me, with the rights of members that I cannot bring myself to support it. It would deprive the Members of the House of an immemorial right. I admit to the full that the present system is bad; it leads to unpleasant results at the end of the session, and if we are to continue this mode of dealing with Supply some method must be invented of getting over that difficulty. I should hope that before another session the right hon. Gentleman will consider the matter, and come forward at the beginning of next session with a proposal to deal with it. Let me suggest another matter to him, which I know he has fully in view himself, which also requires immediate treatment, as it seems to me, and that is the encroachment made by private business upon the time of the House. [Hear, hear.] I trust that next year the right hon. Gentleman will be prepared to make some proposal on that subject. With regard to the present proposal, I should not like to lose any chance of making our proceedings more businesslike, but I cannot take any responsibility for setting up again a system which, although it was well intended—that is the unkindest thing, perhaps, I could say; I will withdraw the expression "well intended" and will say" well designed"—although it was in the main well designed, and although it was a system which I, for my part, wished to succeed when it was introduced, I do not think it has succeeded, and I think it required some different modification from that which the right hon. Gentleman proposes before it can work with efficiency.

rose to continue the debate.

^* : I ought to remind the hon. Member that if he speaks now he will not be able to move the Amendment which, I see, he has upon the Paper.

said he was obliged for that intimation, but he did not propose to move the Amendment.

reminded the Speaker that in a ruling he gave in February, 1899, he said—

"The practice on several occasions has been to allow a general discussion upon a new Standing Order, and so far to relax the rule which prevails when I am in the chair as to allow hon. members to take part in that discussion, and also to move or to second Amendments."

^* : I well remember the occasion, and the hon. Member has read words which, as reported, had reference to debates on Standing Orders, though he was asking at the time about the Order for dealing with the whole conduct of Supply during the ensuing session, and in the debate upon that Order hon. Members were allowed to speak more than once, subject to certain limitations which I named. 'When the new code of Standing Orders was introduced in 1885, Mr. Speaker Peel allowed, on that special occasion, that there should be a general debate first, followed by Amendments. This, however, is not a case either of Standing Orders or of a laying down a rule for the government of the Supply business of the House during the session; it is the case of an emergency motion, rather in the nature of the motion moved some little time ago by which the Government took the time of the House for the remainder of the session, and directed me to adjourn the House when the Government business is disposed of. There is no reason whatever why it should be exempted from the general rule.

I may be allowed perhaps to say with what gratification I heard the declaration of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition that in this matter he is determined to oppose the resolution, and the right hon. Gentleman, in taking that course, I am convinced, has taken the course best calculated to benefit the House of Commons as a whole in the future. It is particularly gratifying to us, who have been opposed to all these motions in the past, to find that on this occasion there will be a united opposition to this resolution. I regard the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House as a fitting termination to his career of blundering mismanagement this session. There has never been a session, in which the Government had such advantages as that opened by the existing administration. There never was a session when the Government had such large powers, such a large majority, and such complete control over the time of the House, and yet it is true that there has certainly never been in the memory of the Members of this House any session in which there has been so little legislative result on the one side and such an accumulation of undisclosed Supply on the other. I was not impressed or convinced at all by the speech of the Leader of the House. First of all, I do not understand why in the closing hours of the session he has thought it necessary to propose a new rule of this kind, of such far-reaching importance. If it was necessary that the House should set itself the task of remodelling the Supply rules, that certainly ought lo be done at the commencement of the session, with plenty of opportunity given for consideration and discussion. The right hon. Gentleman, in the commencement of his speech, put forward as a justification for intervening with this motion at this period of the session that he anticipated that to-morrow and next day there would be ninety-eight or one hundred divisions. What right has he right hon. Gentleman to anticipate any such thing? I have seen paragraphs in certain newspapers stating that it is e intention of my colleagues and myself to vote indiscriminately against every Vote that comes up to-morrow and the next day, but those paragraphs are quite unauthorised. We should never be guilty of the stupidity of voting indiscriminately against every Vote. Let me point to what has occurred in the past. This guillotining of Supply was first instituted in 1896, and every year since then there have been a large number of Votes left over for the guillotining process at the end of the session. Last session there were something like fifty Votes left over, and the opportunity existed just as much then as it does now. There is practically no difference. If the object was, as the right hon. Gentleman seems to imagine, to bring contempt and ridicule upon the House of Commons and on Parliamentary usages generally, it could have been carried out last year on fifty Votes just as well as it could this year on ninety; but, as a matter of fact, there were only six or seven divisions taken, and never since this rule has been made has there been any attempt by the Irish Members to take indiscriminate divisions even on the Irish Votes which remain over for decision. There are certain Votes on which it would be ridiculous and impossible for us to divide, and, as there have been in other years, there would have been a selection of Votes by us, Votes upon which we had a strong opinion, and on those we should divide, and the others would be allowed to pass without dividing, and therefore the only justification of the right hon. Gentleman for bringing in this proposal falls absolutely to the ground. It is poor statesmanship and poor leadership, if I may say so, to base a proposal for altering the rules of procedure of the House of Commons upon the flimsy contention that the right hon. Gentleman fears that advantage would be taken upon such an occasion to force a division on a Vote.

I am persuaded that the passing of this rule would be fatal to the House and fatal to the rights of private Members. In 1896, when the rule was proposed, it was discussed from every point of view at considerable length, and the right hon. Gentleman then said that the object of Supply was to diminish the Estimates. That is not the object, and no such object is directly possible. The importance of Supply is that it gives the House an opportunity to criticise the Government and keep the Government in check in the administration of the country. The right hon. Gentleman moved this rule for that purpose, because he said "the object of the rule was not to diminish the rights of private Members but to increase them." The operation of this rule in the case of Ireland is to absolutely remove from discussion every one of the rights of Irish Members to discuss the administration of our country. We are deprived of every opportunity of criticising the Government or controlling the administration in any way. The right hon. Gentleman in 1896 went on to say that this rule would improve the discussion and increase the opportunity of the debates. It cannot be denied that the right hon. Gentleman's predictions have not been fulfilled. It has not increased the opportunities of private Members, it has not enhanced the tone of debate, and it has not added to the control the House of Commons ought to have over the administration of the country. The right hon. Gentleman in 1896 gave a promise that he would give us four days of the twenty allotted for Supply, and as a matter of fact he did give us four days in the first year, but not afterwards. That is a small matter, because four days are just as inadequate as three, but I mention that point to show that from an Irish point of view we have been deprived of what we were promised when the rule was suggested.

How does Supply stand at this period of the session? Three days have been taken by Irish Supply. No one can allege that those three days have been improperly used. They were used for the discussion of matters of the gravest importance, which were not discussed at undue length. One of them, which was disposed of in a few hours, was the Vote for the Land Judges' Courts in Ireland, a question of the utmost importance, which could properly have been discussed for the whole night; it was only discussed half the night, and the rest of the time was occupied in discussing the Chief Secretary's Department. No one will suggest that half a night is too much for that. Another night was taken up in discussing the Board of Education, and the resignation of one of the best known members of that board. The next evening was taken up with the Vote for the law officers of Ireland, which involved the whole question of jury packing. Those three nights were certainly not wasted, but we are left without any opportunity of discussing the whole body of Irish Supply. All the great public departments in Ireland, the Local Government Board, the Board of Public Works—I need not name them all—all the great public departments are now, under this rule, left without any discussion whatever, and if this new rule is passed it will come to this, that not only are we forbidden to discuss any of these great public departments, but we cannot record a vote against a particular department unless we vote against all the Votes. A greater absurdity could not possibly be proposed.

I think that in bringing forward this rule the right hon. Gentleman has really been guilty of something which amounts very closely to a breach of a parliamentary pledge. In 1896 this question of the possibility of prolonged proceedings and continuous divisions was discussed. It was resisted by the hon. Member for King's Lynn, who pointed out that under the words of the rule it would be possible to have 100 divisions. Then the Leader of the House said that that was not his interpretation of the rule; that his desire and idea was that there should be a sort of closure by compartments. He thought apparently that that was provided for under the rule, but it became evident to him that that was not so in the rule as proposed. Then there came from every side of the House a strong opinion that there should not be this closure by compartments, and finally the right hon. Gentleman came to this position, that he had to give up his rule as drawn, amounting to closure by compartments; but he had to go further than that, he had to give a pledge that he would not propose any resolution for closure by compartments. It was suggested to him that the House should walk circumspectly in this matter, and should take no hasty step, and finally on the last day, in order to get the rule passed, he made a concession. The right hon. Gentleman on that occasion said—

Will the hon. Gentleman give me the reference to that pledge?

February 27, 1896. The passage I have read is from page 1336 of Hansard , Fourth Series, Volume 44, but it would be well if the right hon. Gentleman Would refresh his memory by reading two or three preceding pages of the debate, because he found the words ha then moved did not give this power, and then said," Well, I will give this pledge." That has not been done, and I submit to the right hon. Gentleman that that ought to be a bar to his action on this occasion.

Let me put one other consideration shortly before the House. The closure rule is in itself, I think, a great evil, and it is an evil that grows with practice. When it was first used it was only used for exceptional cases, but the House has got used to it, and it is used oftener, and year by year this tendency goes on. In the present session it has been applied twice as frequently as last year. But I wish to make this distinction—closure, after all, is subject to certain safeguards; it cannot be applied without the consent of the Speaker or the Chairman, and it cannot be applied in a House of forty Members or in a House where the majority in the "Aye" lobby is less than 100; but under this rule that ceases altogether, closure is to be applied indiscriminately, whatever the opinion of the Speaker or Chairman may be. The House has no veto, and there is no limit as to the number of the majority. Is it not absurd that in order to closure some trumpery measure it is necessary to obtain the sanction of the Speaker or the Chairman and have a majority of 100 Members in the "Aye" lobby, but in order to closure millions of Supply it is not necessary to have either one or the other? So that while it cannot be applied to trumpery measures without these restrictions, it can be made use of in the case of millions of Supply in a House of forty Members. When we are asked to pass this rule through the House to prevent the degradation of the House of Commons, I say the passing of the rule brings degradation not only to the House of Commons, but parliamentary institutions generally.

I know this rule is directed against the Irish Members, and I say that from that point of view it is unnecessary; but I want to point out in conclusion a consideration which I have put before the House often before, and which I must go on putting before it on every occasion which I think may call for it. Undoubtedly the House of Commons has broken down this session; it has broken down more glaringly than ever it has done before—no one will deny that, but I believe it is utterly childish for anybody to maintain that that breakdown is due to the action of the Irish members in this House. I do not want to push this too far. [Ministerial laughter.] I would like to address myself to thoughtful men who have had some experience of the House of Commons and can look at this matter seriously. These are not trifling matters, but matters which affect all Parliaments. I admit that the presence of Irish Members in this House is and must always be under the present system a source of embarrassment and trouble, but that is the price you must pay for forcing upon Ireland a system which is unsuitable to the circumstances, and which is resented by the people. So long as the Irish Members are a compact body of men not animated by those sentiments of veneration for the dignity of this assembly which animate the breasts of English Members, and direct their attention solely to what they regard as the interests of their own country distinct from the interests of the House of Commons and the Empire as a whole, and so long as self-government is denied to Ireland, of course the presence of the Irish Members tends towards the block of business and the disarrangement of Government plans, and is a constant source of trouble, difficulty, and danger. Of course to that extent they are responsible, but it is utterly childish to suppose that this is the be-all and end-all of the whole meaning of the breakdown of the parliamentary machine. It is nothing of the kind. The breakdown is due to the fact that the Government is overworking the machine. The whole character of the work of the House has necessarily changed in the last half-century. The right hon. Gentleman quoted the figures of Supply in 1861 and 1871, but the whole conditions of life have changed since then. While it was possible for the House in 1861 and 1871 to transact the business with comparative ease, it is utterly impossible for the House, even if an Irish Member never opened his lips, to carry out successfully the work forced upon it now. The trouble is far more deep-seated than Members think. For the last fifteen years this block of business has become more observable every year, and every year quack doctors come forward to submit all kinds of nostrums. You have had new rules almost every year; you have taken away the time of private Members; you have destroyed all the privileges of private Members; you have; added to your rules of procedure new Supply rules, and another new rule this afternoon; yet, instead of the evil diminishing, it is growing in volume and intensity. The evil is deep-seated, and it cannot be got rid of by any new rules which the most in genious Minister who has ever lived could frame. It is not the nature of things.

The House is performing the duty of three or four local Parliaments in addition to that of a great Imperial assembly. Let us consider the position of Great Britain and America, America has between forty and fifty different legislatures, and in addition there is the great Congress sitting in Washington. Each of these local legislatures has ample work in managing local affairs, and Congress is occupied in considering Imperial interests. But the House of Commons, sitting with the twelve o'clock rule, is supposed to be able to do the work that is done in the United States by twenty or thirty legislatures and Congress in Washington. The attempt is impossible, and it has never succeeded in the history of the world. It cannot be done. If this rule is passed it will not help the Government in the slightest degree. On the contrary, it will injure the House by bringing further discredit and degradation upon it. One of the common accusations made against the Irish Members is that their one object is to degrade and injure the House of Commons. I am not such a hypocrite as to pretend that if in the process of holding the Irish Members at Westminster by force hon. Members injure their own Parliament I am sorry for it. If the House suffers in reputation and efficiency it is not in human nature that the Irish Members should grieve very much over it. But I look at this question from a broader point of view. I believe in representative institutions, and that Ireland's hope in the future rests on the success of representative institutions in her own land. I for one have never been in favour of discrediting or destroying representative institutions. I desire that they should be given to Ireland, and therefore I do not favour action which has solely for its object the attacking of representative institutions anywhere. The Irish Members are misunderstood in this matter. The Irish Members are at Westminster against their will; they are present, as they believe, temporarily. They desire to go back to their own country and to sit there in a free Parliament of the Irish people. They believe that it will be a Parliament in which toleration, wisdom, and efficiency will combine, and if in the meantime the House finds their presence at Westminster irksome, that their action disarranges plans, it is unwise to be impatient. As wise, sensible men, devoted to parliamentary institutions, the desire of the House ought to be to get to the bottom of the mischief, and not simply to legislate from day to day by these hand-to-mouth measures. The House ought to recognise that these things do not touch the seat of the disease, and it ought to make up its mind that the only safety of the House for the future, and the only safety of representative institutions, is to be found in such a system of devolution as will enable Ireland to manage its own business, and to trouble the House no more with what has been called the Irish spectre on the floor of the House of Commons.

If there is one man in the House who is bound not to support this motion it is myself. In 1896, when this rule was first under discussion, I had the responsibility of being Leader of the Opposition, and in that capacity I made an appeal to the right hon. Gentleman, who was then, as now, the Leader of the House, and he responded to that appeal by an answer which obtained the passage of this rule in the House of Commons. I asked the Leader of the House this—

"I observe that the question is now raised somewhat unexpectedly, and the matter is one requiring further investigation."

—that is, the question of taking the Votes en bloc.

"It was not a mere question of convenience, but one of constitutional gravity. It concerned the separation of the Votes, the right of the House to vote separately on each question, and was a matter of profound importance which went to the very root of the principle of the control of the House of Commons over the expenditure of public money. The Leader of the House had agreed that the question and the manner in which it should be dealt with should be reserved for mature discussion. The words were to be treated as doubtless and ambiguous, but in the future steps would be taken to make them clear. On the understanding that this would be done he suggested that the Opposition might leave the matter."

It was in reply to that demand that the right hon. Gentleman made the statement which the hon. Member for Water-ford read to the House. We had yesterday some rather heated discussions upon pledges given by a member of the Government, and if ever there was a pledge, a pledge more strong than another, it was the pledge given by the Leader of the House upon the demand of the Leader of the Opposition that the thing which is now asked of us should not be done. [Mr. BALFOUR dissented.] I have here the Report showing that it was a pledge. It was a pledge that this thing should not be sprung upon the House at forty-eight hours notice—no, twenty-four hours notice—that it should not be done without mature consideration by a Committee of this House. It is now sprung on us on a Wednesday afternoon at twenty-four hours notice. That is not the way to conduct the business of the House of Commons; that is not the way to lead the House of Commons; and if business is to be dealt with on that footing and in matters of this supreme importance, of constitutional importance, an importance which it is impossible to exaggerate, how can you wonder that the House of Commons is in a state of chaos, and that a confession of impotence is made by the right hon. Gentleman such as no man has ever made before?

I made no such confession.

Is it not a confession of impotence that of 150 votes 100 have not been discussed, and that Members are not allowed even the opportunity of recording their votes on them? I will explain what I mean by the impotence of the House of Commons, and I am afraid it goes a great deal further than the Votes in Supply. What has been the history of the session? What has become of the interests of the people of this country? What has become of all the measures that were indicated in the speech from the Throne, though they were few enough, and what has been done for the people at home? Among the many disasters of this war has been the demoralisation of the House of Commons; but, Sir, I protest against rules being made on this footing, and upon pledges of this kind being suddenly and hastily changed in a session which is an exceptional session. Nobody can doubt that this war has dislocated the business of this House in a degree which could not have been anticipated, and which everybody hopes will not recur. Then we have this panic proposal, founded on a state of things which we have on the assurance of the hon. Member for Waterford—whose remarks at the conclusion of his speech are deeply deserving of consideration in the future of the House of Commons and the government of this country—does not exist. He has told us that all these foolish terrors are utterly unfounded, and yet you have come forward with this crude, immature, and I am bound to say, in my opinion, improper proposal, founded, I will not say on the fears of the brave, but on the follies of the wise, This was a thing which was foreseen at the time by my right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition, who in that very debate spoke before me. Here is the extract from Hansard —

en bloc it destroys all that. The right hon. Gentleman talked about sub-heads, but it is the essence of subheads that you could vote against them. If you closure the Votes in Supply you deliberately reserve the right of an hon. Member to vote against a particular proposal, but if this rule passes that right is lost. This is a very serious matter, and I venture to say, after what passed in 1896, if the House of Commons agrees to a suggestion of this character it will in my opinion have done more to destroy its reputation in the estimation of the country than any other course we could possibly have adopted.

^* : As I was the first Member to lay before the House proposals for allotting one day a week for Supply, and providing for the distribution of the time thus allotted, I may be allowed to say a few words on this question. The issue that has been raised in the interesting speech of the hon. Member for Waterford, and so forcibly and unanswerably urged upon the consideration of the right hon. Gentleman by my right hon. friend the Member for West Monmouthshire, is the necessity of his carrying out what appears to have been a perfectly definite pledge given by the First Lord to the House in 1896, when this closure rule was first introduced. I do not propose to go further than to record my adhesion to what has fallen from my right hon. friend, and to express my opinion as a member of this House that it will indeed be a grave matter and a blot on our proceedings, and a grave error on the part of the Leader of the House himself, if he leaves the position as it is. The proposal is a proposal of great gravity in its constitutional aspect. Nobody can doubt that the proposed modification of the rule is a very serious interference with the right of members of this House to express their opinion by vote upon any Vote before the House, even where they are deprived of the opportunity of discussion. I make an appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to consider this matter. In dealing with this question, he has asked the House whether there Iris been awarded sufficient time for Supply, and whether that time has been effectively and usefully employed by the House of Commons. Whether or not we consider too much time has been allotted to Supply, no one can doubt that the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in saying that this time has not been employed in the most useful or satisfactory manner. I agree absolutely with the right hon. Gentleman when he says that proceedings such as he appeared to think were threatened for to-morrow and the succeeding day would be not creditable in the view of the country. But what is discreditable is the fact that two-thirds of the Votes of Supply remain to be decided by the process of the guillotine. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to consider that the only remedy was the closure, and he drew a gloomy picture of twenty-two days out of twenty three being occupied by divisions on the closure and the consequential divisions in the discussion of Supply. That was an obvious arithmetical fallacy into which I need not enter. In the manner the right hon. Gentleman has dealt with this question I am amazed at his lack of knowledge of human nature and his failure to recognise what is constantly going on in the House of Commons when parties are trying to understand each other, and by a process of give and take to arrive at a decision.

One of the greatest evils with regard to the working of the rule has been the result of the indifference with which the right hon. Gentleman has treated the whole question of Supply. He has told us that his function with regard to the distribution of the time given to Supply has been to choose the Vote most prominent in the minds of hon. Members, to place it first on the Order Paper, and then to let loose "the whole pack," whatever that may be—whether the Irish members, his own supporters, or members of the Opposition—to discuss that particular topic for the whole night without any restraint whatever. It is an absolute fallacy to suppose there is no remedy but the closure. By consulting various sections of the House, ascertaining the subjects which really excited interest, and then making suggestions at the beginning of these evenings of Supply, the right hon. Gentleman could often obtain room for two or three subjects, instead of only one, to be discussed in the course of the sitting. I am much in sympathy with the suggestion the Leader of the House has repeatedly made—it was a suggestion I myself placed on the Paper many years ago—that a Committee, in form, status, and weight of authority somewhat analogous to the Committee of Selection, should be appointed to allocate approximately the distribution of the time de voted to Supply to questions really deserving discussion. In supporting that proposal the right hon. Gentleman has shown a more practical idea of leading the House than is often the case with him. I do not, however, agree that that Committee should be so constituted as to have upon it a majority of representatives of the Opposition. The question of Supply should not be looked upon as a party matter. In my opinion the composition of such a Committee should follow the usual lines, the Government having the customary majority therein, the main object being to secure the representation of all sections.

To the resolution now before the House I object most strongly. It is an aggravation of the closure rule. When I many years ago placed my own proposal on the Paper it certainly was not associated with any suggestion of the closure. My idea was rather that the matter should be arranged by the ordinary common-sense procedure which used to govern the House in happier days. The proposal we are now discussing is a very grave one. I do not wish to speak too harshly of the right hon. Gentleman's conduct of affairs during this session, but I do think it has been a little slack. There is a very serious danger in letting these questions of Supply run on for ever without coming to a definite conclusion at the time, with nobody really caring what the issue may be. The time of the House is thus wasted, definite conclusions are not arrived at, and the real decisions are obtained by this closure vote at the end of the session. That ought to be obviated. The Government is, to a large extent, responsible for the singular position in which we are placed. That we should be not only unable to discuss, but also deprived of our right to vote on questions of Supply, is a very grave scandal, and I hope before the debate is concluded we shall find in the right hon. Gentleman a recognition not only of the spirit of the pledge which he gave in 1896, but also of the broader aspects of this question.

The case against this motion has been put completely by the hon. Member for Water-ford, backed up by the right hon. Gentleman for West Monmouthshire, and I should be glad to hear the defence of the Leader of the House to the charge that, in bringing forward this resolution, he is violating a pledge given to the House in 1896. What, after all, does the right hon. Gentleman expect to gain by this motion? How much time will he save? It has been said that a newspaper paragraph has stated that the Nationalist members are going to divide the House on every one of the ninety outstanding Votes in Supply. If the right hon. Gentleman believed that paragraph he is capable of believing anything. His experience of the Nationalist members ought to have told him that, whatever charge may be brought against us, we cannot be charged with stupidity. It certainly would be very stupid on our part to vote against Estimates of which we are in favour. We wish to get away from the House just' as much as hon. Members opposite. Alluring voices are calling to us from the mountains and moors of Ireland, the summer is waning, and we would much rather be on the green shores of Erin than on the green benches of the House, of Commons. How much time is the right hon. Gentleman going to save? If the resolution is passed, I suppose we shall feel bound, as a protest against this action of the Government, to vote on every opportunity which presented itself. Experience ought surely to have taught Ministers that Irishmen are never struck at without knowing how to hit back. A certain amount of time may be saved, on Supply by this resolution, but there will still be other Government business to be transacted; and if we choose in connection with all remaining business to take such opportunities as are open to us, the right hon. Gentleman, notwithstanding his closure, will lose eventually much more time than he gains. He, therefore, can take his choice. He has no right to assume the truth of newspaper paragraphs about the Irish party. We do not consult the right hon. Gentleman any more than he consults us. We do not tell him what we are going to do, but we probably find it easier to ascertain what he intends doing than he finds it to discover our intentions.

It has been said that the time of the session has been wasted. I would point out that owing to the war a very large portion of the session has inevitably been consumed in dealing with questions arising out of the war, independently of the Estimates. The session has not been wasted. On the contrary, the work has been done fairly well so far as there has been any work to do. The right hon. Gentleman has not troubled us with much legislation. Why, therefore, is he now in such a tremendous hurry? Why, for the sake of one day is he going to strike at the constitutional practice of the House? From the point of view of Parliamentary institutions alone this; motion is a most dangerous one. After an absence of some years from the House of Commons I have been astonished on my return to find that practically this assembly has become a mere machine for registering the decisions of Ministers. Private members' rights are gone, and their power seems to have disappeared. In fact, the only people, other than the Government, who appear to have any power in the House are the Irish party. No doubt we have given a little trouble at times, and will probably give more. Why does not the Leader of the House propose that all the Votes should be taken en bloc at 10 o'clock? He might just as well do that as take the course he now proposes. I suppose the proposition has been put in its present form to make a pretence that some right of discussion is left to us, but no such right really exists. As far as we are concerned, we always know how to pay the Government back when attacks are made upon our rights and privileges. It is for the House of Commons to take care that in allowing the Government to strike at us it is not allowing its own liberties to be stricken down. In the struggle for emancipation, in the struggle for reform, in the struggle for agrarian legislation, Irishmen have led the van. No single reform by which the working classes have benefited has been or could have been carried in this country during the last fifty years without the assistance of Irish votes. It is therefore very ungrateful on the part of Englishmen, because we have now and then given a little trouble, to come down and strike at us as they are doing by supporting this resolution. However, as I have said, Irishmen can hit back. They have been accustomed to pay blow for blow for many a year, and, please God, they will never lose the strength of their arm. By the course he is now taking the Leader of the House is doing more damage to the House of Commons and to Parliamentary institutions that he evidently imagines.

The motion seems to me to mark another epoch in the process by which the constitution of the country and the rights of the House are being altered. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House has put the case very strongly against the system under which, but for this resolution, the House would be called on to-morrow and Friday to vote upon the remainder of Supply. I admit that that case, if all the outstanding Votes were divided against, is a very strong one. To vote in that way would certainly expose the House of Commons to ridicule—and perhaps to deserved ridicule—but it is a position into which the House ought not to be put. It is absolutely the duty of the House, and of course of the Government leading the House, to endeavour to devise something which should relieve us from the ridicule and absurdity involved in such a system. The remedy proposed by the right hon. Gentleman strikes at the root of the responsibility and control of Parliament for and over the expenditure of the country. It forces us to give an apparent approval to Votes of which we may really disapprove. The very foundation of the control of the House over the executive Government of the country, the very method by which the power of the House has been built up from the thirteenth century down to the present time, is the control of the House of Commons over Supply. Everyone can see that it is in the control of the House of Commons over expenditure that the very citadel and fortress of our liberties consist, and the history of the growth of that power is the history of the growth of the British constitution. That power cannot be more palpably or conspicuously reduced than by the proposal before the House. If a Vote is brought forward on Thursday—say the Civil Service Estimates—and I object to any item therein, what are the alternatives before me? Either I must vote for something of which I entirely disapprove, or I must vote against the whole of the Civil Service Estimates, and appear on the records of this House as having objected to the carrying on of the government of the country. Such alternatives show the absurdity of the present position. Hon. Members whose experience goes back, as mine does, to 1880, will agree with me when I say that in the course of the last few years the character of the House of Commons, and therewith the character of the British constitution, of which the House of Commons is the central point, has very greatly changed. Therewith also the control of the House over the Executive has very greatly declined. I am far from blaming the right hon. Gentleman who has been Leader of the House for the greater part of that period for all that has happened. Everybody who occupies his position is and must be largely the victim of circumstances. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman regrets as much as anybody that there should be this change in the character of the House, or of its position in the constitution, and in the constitution itself, and that the despotism of the Executive—a despotism which necessarily diminishes the sense of responsibility to the country—should be increasing. There have been forces at work which are carrying the country in that direction, and I am sorry to say that I think those forces are working for evil. The process we have watched for the last twenty years has been in the main a deplorable and unfortunate process, which is likely to make the Government of this country in the future more difficult and less stable than in the past. The moral of it seems to me to be that we ought all in our several ways to try to devise a remedy for the evils which we see, and not to increase those evils by such a proposition as that now before the House. No one will deny that the power and influence of Parliament are declining, and after all it is on Parliament the country depends. If we pass this resolution we shall take a long step towards a further weakening of the control of this House, and towards a further decline in the influence and reputation of Parliament. Looking upon the resolution in that sense, I confess I deplore the Government should have brought forward this motion.

I think it is of the utmost importance at the outset of this debate that we should clearly understand what is the possible evil to meet which this extraordinary, revolutionary proposal is made to the House to-day. Let us consider what might happen supposing this resolution was not passed. The utmost that could happen would be some inconvenience to Ministers and a number of Members who would be kept here. It is of vital importance to remember that this resolu- tion cannot for a moment be supported by argument such as was used by the First Lord of the Treasury in support of his last revolutionary motion, when he lumped together the Supplementary Civil Service Estimates namely, that he was under the obligation to observe the law with regard to the financial business of the session, and that it would be impossible for him to observe that law unless some such step was taken. Now I say that when the procedure of the House—based upon precedent extending, I suppose, over two centuries—is to be revolutionised in a most vital particular, and in the most wholesale fashion, on twenty-four hours notice, I without due consideration, and for no other purpose except to avoid the danger of Ministers having to sit up two nights, it shows a levity in dealing with this House which is perfectly appalling. The only ground that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House has advanced for his action is a newspaper paragraph in which the right hon. Gentleman saw it stated that it was our intention to divide against every Vote.

No.

Well, it is based on rumours to that effect.

No.

Then what is it based on? No Minister is entitled to come down to this House and ask the House to I make a revolutionary change in its procedure because he anticipates a certain number of members may abuse the rules of the House. He is bound to go on I facts. If by abuse of the rules of the House an impasse or block is caused, then the Minister may, as in the old days, base his case upon, facts that have I occurred, and not upon vague rumours and possibilities. The right hon. Gentleman assumes something, and that is the ground upon which his motion is based. What is the assumption involved in the argument of the right hon. Gentleman? The assumption is that we, the Irish members, would feel ourselves bound on every conceivable opportunity that the rules of the House offer, by divisions and otherwise, to block the business of the House. May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that we have, roughly speaking, allowed 200 or 300 motions to pass through the House without challenging a division, and that if we had exercised our rights of challenging and dividing upon every motion submitted from the Chair during the present session the House would have done nothing but walk through the division lobbies? Why, the other day twenty motions during private business were submitted from the Chair, and if we wished we could have divided upon every one of those motions, and in that way kept the House dividing all night. If we look to the proceedings of this session, the right hon. Gentleman has no ground for taking up the position that we would to-morrow night exhaust our utmost rights and divide against every Vote. Let us consider the working of the present rule. I was always an irreconcilable opponent of these rules. I always held that it would result in the degeneration of the debates on Supply. The Leader of the Opposition was prepared, when the new Supply rule was introduced some years ago, to give it a fair trial and fair play, and despite the fact that he has consistently given it fair play, he has declared to-day that in his experience the rule has utterly demoralised the debates in Supply, and has had the effect of lessening the willingness of the Government to give information, and of causing debates in Supply to be of an unreal and ineffective character. During the whole of the time when I was chairman of a large body of Irish members in this House, and as an opponent of this rule was anxious to discredit it, I never during those 'years divided against all the Votes. If any member will take the trouble to turn back to that time he will find that the utmost that was done was to divide against Votes to which we had objection, and that the members of the House got home even on the worst occasion at three o'clock in the morning. I want to know by what right does the right hon. Gentleman assume that the proceedings to-morrow night and Friday night will be any worse than in former years? Suppose they were, is it to be contended—for this is an immensely serious matter—that the whole rules of the House of Commons are to be remodelled and recast without the investigation by a Committee, simply and solely to allow Ministers home to bed a, few hours earlier. That is the whole and. only ground for this rule being proposed to the House.

Sir, I have dwelt on this point, because I want to illustrate the rapid progress of demoralisation to which this constant recurrence to new rules leads. In the old days we used to have these matters dealt with early in the session, and then only after immense provocation, and after a long record of abuses of the rules. In the opinion of the Leader of the Opposition it has been the universal practice not to proceed with a resolution of this sort unless the Government had the support of some section of the Opposition. The rights of private members and the rights of the whole House are being threatened in the anticipation that Ministers may be kept out of bed for two days running for two hours. This new rule is introduced at the end of the session, after twenty-four hours notice, without taking the trouble to look back as to the pledges given by Ministers when this rule was originally introduced. I complain that the right hon. Gentleman has entirely overlooked the lessons of the last five years, and he has done what he had no real right to do, for he has deliberately based this resolution and consumed a whole day of Parliamentary time legislating for eventualities which, judging from the experience of the last five years, will never arise. I have opposed this resolution from the very outset, and I always prophesied that it would have a very bad effect on the debates. Not only has this resolution failed in all the objects it was intended to achieve, but it has injured the character of the debates in Supply. Those debates used to be of an elastic character, and by means of arrangements and understandings the most important Votes were pushed to the front and the less important ones taken practically sub silentio at the end of the session. That system was based on human nature and possessed elasticity.

One of the evils of this proposal was that it meant the substitution of a hard-and-fast system of measuring out the time of the House for the old elastic sys- tem which has obtained for many years. The First Lord of the Treasury repeated last year and this year his invitation to the Opposition to join him in forming a Committee to measure out the time to be devoted to certain Votes in Supply, but the Leader of the Opposition most wisely refused such a proposal. The right hon. Gentleman said he was willing to be liberal in regard to the constitution of that Committee, and he offered that a majority of members of the Opposition; should be upon it, and that they should be left to decide which Votes should be; taken and what amount of time should be devoted to each. A more absurd proposal was never made. From the very circumstances of the case any such arrangement was bound to be an ignominious failure. By such a proposal as was suggested in that Committee the Opposition would have all the responsibility and none of the power, and no more preposterous proposal was ever, placed before the House. Why not put the whole of the Order Paper in the hands of such a Committee? The right hon. Gentleman confessed that it was impossible for any Government, in the face of a small minority opposed to the working of the rule, to allocate the time properly in Supply. Under the old system we were often able to put Ministers under pressure to make concessions in order to facilitate the passing of the Votes, but now there was no such force in existence, and Ministers were absolutely careless in regard to expenditure.

Some Ministers have adhered to the old practice, and we had an instance of this recently upon the Home Office Vote. Other Ministers think that the only way of dealing with this question is by continually closuring the Votes and introducing new rules, but they will never gain their object in this way. The First Lord of the Treasury has said that, no matter what rules are passed, a good deal will still have to be left to the good sense of the House. I think a good deal more ought to be left to the wisdom of the House of Commons, and then we should get through the business much more smoothly and rapidly than by resorting to coercive measures. The Home Secretary met their criticisms in a reasonable spirit, and not with contempt and insult or indifference. The result was that the Home Secretary got his Vote through without the closure. In the case of the highly contentious Budget of 1894 it was passed without resort to the closure; and this year, although the Irish party were bitterly opposed to the Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer managed by an adherence to the old spirit of this House, by great patience—although some people say he has a pretty hot temper—and by courtesy to everybody, to get through a most complicated Bill without resorting to the closure.

It is in that direction that you must look for an improvement in the conduct the business of the House, and not in the direction of treating a minority as irreconcileables and as men who are utterly irrational. If you compel us to rote against everything you will find that we shall become irreconcilable, and the whole procedure of this House will be degraded by an attempt to do what no other national assembly has ever tried to do, and that is to try and carry on your proceedings, not by appeals to common sense, but from beginning to end by coercion and attempts to trample upon the minority. These closures demoralise the mind of the House of Commons and tend to make hon. Members think that the old safeguards built up in this House by the wisdom of our ancestors in generations past are musty and foolish.

There was a significant passage in an article in that great journal The Times of yesterday, which published the text of the motion of the Leader of the House and referred to it sooner than any other newspaper did. The Times which might be taken as expressing semi-officially the view of the Government in this matter, said— The Times in these matters unquestionably spoke the minds of members of the Government, and it showed the extent to which the public mind was demoralised on the subject. First we had the introduction of the closure, and then we had the automatic closure, and when the latter was applied for the first time the House of Commons was turned into a Donnybrook fair, and blows were struck in the House for the first time. That shocked the House of Commons, and then the automatic closure was applied, not ad hoc or in an emergency, but as part of the usual procedure of the House of Commons.

And now we, by this resolution to-night, on the flimsiest possible grounds, to be denied the right to record our votes against such a Vote as the Irish Constabulary Vote! Consequently we shall be obliged to vote against Irish Education and every other Vote in Supply which has not been opposed, or rather against every class of vote. A more grotesque and monstrous thing could not be imagined. I wonder what would have been said five years ago if anybody had hinted at such a proposition. Soon, no doubt, we shall be having the proposition of The Times , that when the clock strikes ten o'clock on the last day of Supply every Vote remaining shall be taken as passed, and, perhaps, £30,000,000 or £40,000,000 or £70,000,000 will be taken by the Treasury without any vote at all. If this system is allowed to go much further we shall find Ministers, driven by the remonstrances of their supporters, coming down to the House of Commons, and taking the whole of the Votes in Supply in one lump sum like a Vote on Account. All you will have to do presently will be to increase your Vote on Account, and take at one fell swoop enough money to run the whole show for a year. Under these circumstances I think we are justified in protesting in the strongest possible way in our power against this resolution, and I still have some hope that the First Lord of the Treasury will consent to withdraw his resolution.

My difficulty in dealing with matters of this kind—which are brought up, not once in a session, but again and again as attempts to gag the House of Commons—is that, although I do follow a Tory Government, and still believe in Tory principles, I yet have a veneration for this assembly, which alone stands between us and an arbitrary government, and I cannot follow my leader upon the proposal which he has made to-day. Five years ago, in the year 1896, I first drew attention to the possible consequences of this rule. The right hon. Gentleman, the Leader of the House then gave a pledge, which he ought to keep at least in spirit, if not in the letter.

I did.

I will read the right hon. Gentleman's own words. He said upon the occasion to which I have referred— on the Vote; now it is a hard-and-fast line.

There are two scandals involved in this motion. The first is that it should be made at the present time of the year, when many Members have left town, and some who had gone have been forced to return to resist the driving of another nail into the coffin of the House of Commons. The second scandal is that if this alteration is necessary in the rule it should have been made in February. The right hon. Gentleman passed this rule in February, and why did he not then put in this extra drop of poison, which is enough to kill the last remnant of independent spirit in this House? This is not an old rule. What is to be the result? The Chancellor of the Exchequer tells us that the Budget this year will probably be £201,000,000. But it will be more, because the right hon. Gentleman has omitted appropriations-in-aid. Why does the Leader of the House not make the Vote £201,000,000 all at once? There are seven classes in the Civil Service Estimates, and there are also the Army, the Navy, and the Revenue Department Estimates. Why make ten bites at a cherry? Swallow it whole! Let hon. Members send their votes from Cowes and Scotland and other places. The Government are too timid. When they do a thing let them do it handsomely. Thirty millions for the Navy Estimates in one Vote! Then thirty millions for the Army Estimates. And there is the very Cordite Vote, on which the present Government got into office, and hon. Members from Ireland are to have no chance of turning them out upon it. It is not playing the game. Let me remind hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury bench that they are the creatures of the House of Commons. [Cries of "No, no!"] Yes, the Ministers are the creatures of the House of Commons.

Hear, hear.

I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman admits it. It is by the display of their abilities and by the goodwill of the House that they occupy their positions on the front Treasury bench.

Hear, hear.

Then why destroy your creator? Is no other Member other than those who sit on the Ministerial benches ever to have an opportunity of distinguishing himself in Supply? Is no other possible future War Minister ever to move a reduction on the Cordite Vote? That is not treating the House or the Opposition with fairness. Surely the Government can be a little generous and fair to those poor dejected hon. Members who sit on the other side, and who you say are always incapable of doing anything. Let them at least talk upon the Estimates. They will do less harm in that way than in any other. Let the House remember that this is the very first time such a rule as this has ever been suggested. The only reason I can think of for this rule is the Irish Members. But the Irish Members are in this House by your own deliberate choice. The House of Commons, such as it is, is as you have determined it should be, and such as you have determined it shall be maintained. You now say that the rules are defective, but the rules are all your own, the days are all your own, and the nights are all your own. You have taken every possible opportunity, you have made your own rules for the game, and now you propose to make other rules as you go along because the existing rules are not convenient. You have got all the time—[An HON. MEMBER: And all the money]—and the whole of the conditions have been laid down by yourselves, and now you come to us whining and you say, "Unless you give us this new rule, this revolutionary, drastic, killing, hampering rule, we cannot carry on the business of the House of Commons." Is there no fault in yourselves?

I saw the other day in an American paper an account of an experiment which has resulted in the creation, I believe, of boneless fish. I am not sure that we are not beforehand as compared with the Americans in this matter. What I insist upon is this. Your rules are such as you have made them yourselves, and you have-no right to complain. You have got the largest majority and the most powerful Government of modern times, and surely you can get a few Votes passed. I am afraid that there is a certain amount of moral bonelessness about the Treasury bench. I have again and again noticed that the chief cry of the Treasury bench is for bed and holidays, but I do not think that that is sufficient. I think that, having made such rules as you have made, you should be prepared to do even the walking, if necessary, that you have provided for in your rules. Hon. Members opposite are prepared to do it, and you are much greater in numbers on this side, and you can furnish more relays to do it. Surely you need not be frightened by this walking. I think there is some fault in the Government In this matter. Let me read to the House a short passage from Bolingbroke. He says— all the safeguards which this House has preserved to help you. You may despise me, but do not despise the House of Commons and disregard the liberties by which you sit here, and which it is your duty above all others to defend.

^* reviewed the circumstances attending the passing of the Supply rule, and, recalling the words used by the Leader of the House, contended that he was bound by his statement, made when originally proposing the Supply Rule, and that it was not within the right hon. Gentleman's right to make the present proposal. The rule was the outcome of an arrangement entered into with the Opposition, which the latter had kept. There was no justification for this sudden proposal at the end of the session. If the right hon. Gentleman had wished to amend the order at the beginning of the session he would have been fully within his rights in doing so, but to-day he was bound by his speech of 1896. The session was now nearly over, and when the transaction had been completed except for this single point, the right hon. Gentleman, almost without notice, endeavoured to force upon the House an Amendment depriving private members of a right which they had enjoyed for nearly five years. The right hon. Gentleman ought to have asked himself what new circumstances had arisen which justified him in breaking the spirit or the letter of a compact come to at the beginning of the session, a compact which was endorsed and passed in the terms of the resolution. Nothing had since happened except what was foreseen in the year 1896. The assurance of the leader of the Irish party had been given that there was no intention whatever of dividing upon every Vote. What possible justification had the right hon. Gentleman for this attempt to deprive them of their right to express their intelligible, if silent, opinion on each Vote as it came forward. He had never known this rule to be abused, and the charge which the right hon. Gentleman by inference had brought against this side of the House was altogether unwarrantable.

He would give an illustration of the manner in which the rules of the House might be abused to the detriment of public business, but of which no advantage had been taken by any section of the Opposition. There was a very ancient custom in this House that when any speaker spoke too long or in a way which the House considered tedious or inopportune, hon. Members might cry "Divide, divide!" in order to put a stop to any further observations from him. This practice had been put into operation twice this session with remarkable persistency, and on each occasion it was hon. Members opposite who continued for a lengthened period of time to shout "Divide, divide!" in order to prevent some hon. Member on this side of the House from being heard. If upon, the Opposition side they were to take advantage of what had been admitted to be the practice of the House, when a prominent Minister got up, or when, as in a recent case, the Colonial Secretary called a certain section of the House a pack," on such occasions they might, by the determination to persistently cry "Divide, divide!" prevent the Minister from speaking. If they resorted to such tactics it would be impossible to carry on the business of the House. But it had not been from the Opposition benches it that obstruction of that kind had arisen, and he for one protested against the charge implied in the amendment of the Standing Orders moved by the First Lord of the Treasury. There was no intention of abusing the existing rule, and he submitted that no case had been made out for bringing forward such an Amendment at this time of the session, contrary to the explicit declaration previously made by the First Lord of the Treasury.

I rise to make a few observations in reply upon the general debate, in the hope that we may be permitted to deal with the Amendments to be proposed without any further expenditure of time. Let me begin by saying that though I endeavoured at an earlier period of the sitting to give reasons and argument which seemed to me then, and seem to me now, to be strong in favour of the resolution I propose, I am not aware that any speech since has traversed those arguments. I pointed out earlier in the afternoon that there were only three questions which seemed to me relevant. I dealt with these questions, and nobody has referred to the arguments I brought forward. [An HON. MEMBER: Most of us support the Supply rule.] I will not pursue the point. I really am gratified that the Supply rule is supported by hon. Members on the other side of the House. I receive that assurance with satisfaction, and I pass on, without any complaint that my arguments have not been answered, to answer some of the arguments on the other side. A point which I notice has been urged by more than one hon. Member, put briefly, amounts to this: Whereas no conclusive proof can be given that a very large number of divisions were to be taken on Thursday or Friday it was improper to take any defensive or prophylactic measures against a danger which might never occur. What is the value of that argument? One hon. Gentleman said that we had no right to apply a remedy to any malady which has not declared itself in full vigour. I do not agree with that. I think if there were indications—of course they are not proofs—that the House might be put in a position both humiliating and ridiculous, it was my bounden duty to prevent the occurrence of any such disastrous event. Of course I cannot prove conclusively that an undue number of divisions would be taken, nor can I define what is an undue number of divisions. It is not for me to say that it was not in the right of an hon. Member to divide on every Vote. Hon. members opposite made us divide four times on one Vote last night.

Because we were closured.

They made us divide not only on the Amendment, but against the Vote, and not only against the Vote but against reporting the Vote to the House. I am unwilling to say that anything within the rules of the House is beyond the competence of it, but I say that hon. Gentlemen who within twenty-four hours performed an operation which was unusual, and I had almost said was unexampled, are hardly in a position to come down in this lamblike attitude and say that this cruel aspersion on their Parliamentary character ought never to have been made, and that there are no grounds to imagine for a moment that they meant to divide a very large number of times, and that consequently I am proposing a remedy for a disease which has never declared itself. Let anybody cast his mind back over the incidents of this session in connection with Supply. Let him remember what occurred on the Supplementary Estimates before Easter, and the incidents which have occurred on the Estimates since Easter, and I think he will be convinced, as I am convinced at all events, that there was a danger of sufficient magnitude to make it my duty to adopt proper precautions. It is possible that hon. Members from Ireland intended to divide a few times and not more than a few times on the remaining ninety Votes.

Why not every time?

Exactly. The hon. Member, I think, had not the good fortune to be present during the whole of the debate, else he could not have made an interruption more embarrassing to those who have conducted the debate up to this moment on the opposite hypothesis.

The right hon. Gentleman must not misrepresent me. I say that we have a right to divide, if it so pleases us, on every Vote. The fact that the rules permit the division gives the right; but to possess the right and to exercise it are two different things.

I still do not understand the interruption of the hon. Gentleman, "Why not every time?" The hon. Gentleman, perhaps, can explain it. That, however, is my defence for having taken what I admit to be a precautionary measure. I think that the defence is complete. But let me say this, in making this alteration of the rules I am not doing anything which is inconsistent, in my judgment, with the rule as it was originally introduced. On the contrary, when I introduced this rule five years ago I contemplated at the time that the rule would not require the House to go through this prolonged procession through the division lobbies on Vote after Vote. [An HON. MEMBER: And why not stand by the rule, then?] That was my opinion in 1896; it is my opinion now; and the alteration I am proposing is not inconsistent with the policy upon which that rule was originally framed. On the contrary, it brings the rule nearer to the original scheme which I laid before the House. [An HON. MEMBER: Why did you not do it in March?] I did not do it in March because the rule had worked fairly well in these five years in the shape in which it is now. I had no ground for suspecting in February that it might not work as well in 1901 as in previous years. I have reasons now which from the nature of the case are not coercive or conclusive, which do not carry their conclusions. with them by irresistible logic, but they are reasons which, nevertheless, every practical man in the House who has watched these proceedings this session will deem probably to be sufficient. I do not think I ought to pass from that branch of the argument, which I think was alluded to first by the hon. Member for Waterford, then by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and subsequently by Members on both sides of the House. They have got it into their heads that something passed in the debates of 1896 which makes it improper, indeed, impossible, for me to make such a proposal as that which is now being made, without some preliminary investigation by a Select Committee or otherwise. I entirely traverse that statement. Let me remind these hon. Members of what occurred in 1896, for they appear to have failed in their recollection of what exactly occurred. As the rule was introduced in 1896, I interpreted it as carrying an even more drastic termination of proceedings in Supply than the termination which I am now proposing. Towards the end of our debates on the rule, which was a sessional Order for that year alone, a dispute arose; s to what the precise meaning of the rule was, as to the exact interpretation which ought to be put on its language. The question could not at the moment be finally decided, but I rather lean to the view that the words of the rule carried out the intentions of the framers—in other words, that it carried with it the extremest form of closure. Other hon. Members, including the right hon. Gentleman opposite, took a different view of the words, and supposed that the proper reading of the rule was that each Vote should be put separately and might be separately divided upon. It was my own, and the general understanding at the time, that the debate on the sessional Order should finish that night, and I said that we could not decide which of the two views was the right one, but if it turned out that my interpretation was the right one, I would undertake that before it was put in force the House should be again consulted. But my interpretation turned out to be the wrong one, and the House was not consulted. If the interpretation had turned out as I thought it was, I should have had a select Committee, and the House would have again been consulted and asked whether it liked the particular form of Closure for Votes in Supply. But how that pledge about an interpretation, which was not the true interpretation, and which, even if it had been the true interpretation, only referred to a sessional Order, can apply to another sessional Order passed five years afterwards passes my understanding.

My point is that the sessional Order this year was passed by the House on the faith that everything stood exactly as it was when it passed the sessional Order of 1896, that every assurance given by the Government then applied to this sessional Order, and that no change would be made this year without fulfilling the conditions applicable to the sessional Order of 1896.

There was nothing suggested in connection with the Order of 1896 which would prevent me from bringing forward a new proposal and in asking the House to decide upon it. If that is the kind of interpretation of a pledge which the right hon. Gentleman seeks to impose on my words in 1896, the carrying out of the business of the House becomes an impossibility. A more flimsy contention than that of the right hon. Gentleman I cannot conceive. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to recapitulate the true history of the 1896 Order, but after all that is not the important point we have to discuss; what we have to discuss is the merits or the demerits of the proposition I have submitted. The right hon. Member for South Aberdeen admitted that it would be a scandal if we had to march for twenty hours through the lobbies, but he deplored the solution of the difficulty I have proposed without suggesting another. I do not complain of that. It is not his business necessarily to make a suggestion. He went on to say that this resolution strikes at the root principle of Parliamentary business, and he said, and said truly, that the interests of this country were intimately bound up with the control which this. House exercises over Supply. I do not deny it. That is the accurate historical view. Is it not, however, folly, after laying down that broad general principle, to draw from it the corollary that the financial machinery which suited in the time when the House was quarrelling with its Monarchs—is it not folly to consider and insist that this machinery is the best suited in these days to give the House control over its finance? I say that the control of this House over finance is complete. If it pleases it may discuss every Vote, it might easily do it under this rule, but I do not think that that would be a proper occupation of parliamentary time. On the contrary, I think it is far better that we should have discussions, full discussions, upon the great services involved—the policy of the Colonial Department, the policy of the Foreign Department, and on the Navy and the Army—than that we should devote ourselves and waste our time over what I would call the smaller and less, interesting items of national expenditure. At all events, that is my view, and it is my view further that, under our rules, quite apart from the discussion of the Estimates, this House has a control over the finance of the country, and over the expenditure of the country, which it never had in the old days when it had the disputes with Monarchs. What can the House do? It can turn out Ministers, it can turn out the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and with him go his colleagues.

The hon. Member for King's Lynn said that the Government were the creatures of the House of Commons. So they are. So they were before these rules were passed, and so they will be if this rule be amended, as I hope it will be in the way now proposed. The creatures of the House of Commons the Government are, and, I hope, will be. This is the secret, and the whole secret, of the grip which this House has on the Administration of the country. It can turn out any Minister; it can defeat any policy which it condemns; it can change; the occupants of this Bench, and yet we are told that under the modern system the House of Commons is diminishing in importance, and that the Ministry is increasing in importance. 'The Ministry can never be anything more than the creatures of this great popular Assembly, and it is folly to ask us to believe that a change in the rules about Supply which leaves the House twenty-three days for the discussion of Supply enslaves the House and places it under the heels of the Ministry, or takes out of its control the whole management of financial affairs. I must beg the House in this matter to look at the realities and not merely to consider constitutional phrases. Constitutional phrases are admirable things, because they embody the history of the past, and without the history of the past it is impossible to understand the present. But if you become the slave of constitutional phrases, and do not look at the underlying realities, which give them meaning, and without which they are only fit to be used in competitive examinations, then, Sir, I do not think that we fulfil our functions as men of common sense and as men dealing with the facts of a real world in a real spirit, We become the interpreters of subtleties—of things once which had a real meaning but are now little more than historical phrases. [Ironical cheers by Sir William Harcourt.] Perhaps the House will allow me to return to that argument in a minute, but meanwhile I must have a parenthesis about the right hon. Gentleman's ironical cheers of what I have just said. The right hon. Gentleman made a very violent attack upon me about three hours ago. He said that I had reduced the business of the House of Commons to confusion. He not merely implied, but said, that I was a very indifferent Leader of the House in the arrangement of business. That I should not have objected to. It has been said of every Leader of the House in succession, and I have no doubt that when I give up or have to give up the position which I now occupy I shall be pointed to by some future Leader of the Opposition as one far superior to the unhappy gentleman who then occupies my present position. That is the natural order, of which I make no complaint whatever. But when the right hon. Gentleman comes down to the House as he has done, not to-day for the first time, and poses as a man who has never applied the closure, and who has never involved the House of Commons in all the controversy which the closure carries with it, he must permit me to remind him of a few episodes in his own career. The right hon. Gentleman remembers his Budget very well, which he carried through the House without the closure, like my right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. But that is the only episode that he does remember in the years that he led the House. I remember when he came down and discussed an important Bill in two days because he saw a lot of Amendments on the Paper. He, in those days, went in for the prophylactic method of dealing with the difficulty. He came down and proposed the gag—[Cries of "Order" and" Withdraw"]—and he was supported by all the Irish members. He proposed that the Committee on the Evicted Tenants Bill—a Bill which raised in those days strong feelings and passions on both sides of the House—after a very brief discussion, should automatically close; and after an equally brief, or still briefer interval the Report stage was closed, and the Third Reading was taken under the same pressure. That may be described, if you like, as interfering with the liberty of debate. That may be described as turning the business of the House into confusion. That may be described as an indication that I do not know how to use those persuasive measures by which, if I had greater command of them, I should be able to get the doves to feed out of my hands.

The hon. Member for Waterford made a speech on lines which he has dealt with on more than one occasion before—a speech which I listened to with great interest and, as I always do in his case, with great admiration. Whatever the hon. Gentleman's actions may be to bring this House into discredit, his speeches, I admit, add lustre to our debates. What was the line that the hon. Gentleman took 1 He said openly that, "You cannot expect to have us Irish Members here without undergoing very much friction, so mucL inconvenience, and so much waste of time that practically you will soon be heartily sick of us and wish to get rid of us." That was the general tenour of the hon. Member's complaint, and I think his party have lived up to his theory. I do not deny—and I do not wish to put it more strongly than the hon. Gentleman himself—that his declaration, and his friends, by their action, have made it perfectly clear that they do not value the smooth working of the Parliamentary machine one farthing; but, on the contrary, they see with satisfaction the gradual breaking down of the machine and the gradual proof being brought to everybody, in and out of the House, that if we are to keep our ancient liberties, our ancient freedom of speech, and our ancient institutions, the Irish Members must be got rid of.

The right hon. Gentleman is quite fair so far. I said that by the very nature of things, and the history and character of this House, and the quantity of work coming upon it, a system of devolution will be necessary.

I will not go into Home Rule, I will not go into devolution, whatever that may mean as distinguished from Home Rule. I take the admission of the hon. Gentleman that with the growth of the Empire, with the growth of the business, and with the presence of the Irish Members in this House, some change in our rules is necessary if this House is to go on.

I did not say that. On the contrary, if the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me for interrupting him, I said that these changes in the rules were mere palliatives, and did not touch the disease at all.

The hon. Gentleman is right, and I will put his I view exactly in the form which I think will be fair to him and the form in which I wish to deal with it. He admits that we cannot go on as we are. His remedy is either Home Rule or devolution. I do not discuss that with him to-day. I take the proposition that we cannot go on as we are; and I say that if I do-not admit Home Rule or devolution I must take the view that there must be a change in the rules of the House. I will not describe that procedure as tinkering. The changes we introduce into our rules ought to be gradual and slow. My view is that there are a great many matters in which it is quite clear that our rules are antiquated, and that directly any body of gentlemen in this House wish to drive the rules to an absurdity they can do so, and the only remedy, the only proper remedy, is that when once the defect is exposed, it should be dealt with.

I turn now, Sir, to the line of argument taken by the hon. Member for King's Lynn. He, not for the first time, has told us that these changes, these tinkerings, as he calls them, are-all very well for the party in power, but will prove disastrous to that party when they go into Opposition. I accept that canon. I do not think that anybody on either side of the House can judge of the merits of a proposed change without putting himself in imagination on the other side of the House. Let hon. Gentlemen opposite think how the rule will work when they are in power; let hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House think how the rule will work when, with the revolutions of the wheel of fate, they come to sit on the other side of the House. By that canon I am prepared to have this proposal of mine tested, and I say that, were I in opposition at this moment, I should welcome a Supply rule like the present one, which gave me the power every week, throughout the whole of the session until August 5th, to arraign the Government to which I was opposed, to bring it before the bar of public opinion, and to divide—because, if I were in opposition, I should like sometimes to divide upon the matters which were at issue. And, if I were in opposition, I should view with horror and disgust a repetition of the old system by which some huge scheme of legislative revolution was brought in early in the session, crowding out Supply to the end of August or the beginning or middle of September, and then requiring me to sit up till five o'clock in the morning to have my say even upon the most important Votes. Therefore, I accept the test put to me by the hon. Gentleman the Member for King's Lynn and by others, and I think it is the only test which really gives fair results, and enables us to look at this matter, not from our own personal interests at the moment, but from the general interests of the whole House of Commons. What this House of Commons exists for mainly is to criticise the Government and to pass legislation. As regards legislation, this rule neither promotes it nor hinders it. As regards criticism, it enormously helps us, and I am one of those who think that this rule, far from diminishing the power -of the House of Commons over the Government of the day, far from diminishing the grasp which the House has over Supply, has done more to reaffirm that great principle of our Constitution than anything which has been done for many generations. [Hear, hear!] The hon. Member. I understand, agrees with me.

For once.

The Opposition, I suppose, will vote against the proposal with a happy heart because they are the Opposition, and because they know that they, at all events, will not have to take part in the ceremony of walking for twenty-four hours through the lobbies. Indeed, I was very much amused by the Leader of the Opposition in this connection. He ended his speech by telling us that we were taking from the Opposition one of their most valuable privileges, though he began his speech by saying that never since the rule began had he taken the trouble of walking through the lobbies on the final day of Supply. Naturally, the right hon. Gen- tleman, comfortably in bed, would reflect with unruffled serenity upon the laborious and somewhat ridiculous process which he regards as so intimately bound up with the honour of this House and with its control over the Estimates. I cannot agree with him, and I am convinced that this change, which I have suggested, is in accordance with the general spirit of the rule as originally framed, and is not only required by the particular exigencies of this year, but would, if embodied in the rule permanently, greatly facilitate the proper discussion of the Estimates, and greatly add to the dignity of the procedure of this House. Under these circumstances I feel wholly unshaken by any of the speeches we have heard against the rule, and with more confidence than ever I venture to recommend it to the attention of the House.

The House has been waiting all the afternoon to hear what the right hon. Gentleman would say, because most of us were at a loss to understand how he was going to reconcile the motion he makes to-day with the pledge he gave five years ago. We have now heard from the right hon. Gentleman a speech marked by many of his most characteristic and some of his most charming qualities. We have heard the tu quoque retorts of the old familiar kind. We have heard I constitutional philosophical generalisations, and we have heard a long speech, but let the House remember for a moment how slight and small a portion of that long speech was devoted to the subject which again and again cropped up in the speeches which preceded it, namely, the pledge given in 1896. He does not dispute the pledge. I must confess that after the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman I am driven to the conclusion that, whatever may have been his compliance with the letter of his pledge, I think he has broken the spirit of it. The right hon. Gentleman, dealing with the facts of the present situation, pointed to the possibility of a long and ridiculous series of divisions on Votes without discussion to-morrow night and the night after. Admitting all that, the right hon. Gentleman has not exhausted the possible alternatives. He has taunted us on this side of the House for not suggesting other alternatives. I will suggest an alternative which would have avoided the necessity for the present resolution. Why should not the right hon. Gentleman have given us a number of more days for Supply, and kept the House sitting for three weeks longer, rather than deprive Members of their ancient privilege of saying "Yes" or "No" to the proposals of the Government? Why should he not keep his own rule in its original shape, and, instead of beginning at ten o'clock to divide on Votes without discussion, begin at ten in the morning? I have risen mainly to express my own strong view that the original rule has broken down. I have never openly opposed the rule, but I was not fond of it, and I am not sorry that it has broken down. The House knows that a very large number of separate Votes are to be massed into one under this new resolution. Has the right hon. Gentleman any idea of the amount of public money which the House is to be asked to vote without discussion? I should have thought it the duty of the Leader of the House, when making this revolutionary proposal, to tell us how much of the expenditure of the year is involved in this new kind of closure.

It is very large.

I believe it is enormous. I have not the means of knowing which he possesses, but I have resorted to the authorities of the House with regard to the Votes in which I have taken more particular interest. The Navy is the most important of all Imperial subjects. I am informed by the authorities of the House that, under the Navy and Army Estimates loans a sum of £34,000,000 will be passed to-morrow in one comprehensive Vote, without discrimination, without discussion, and without the opportunity of separate division. What about the Civil Service Votes? There are ninety or one hundred Votes that are going to be dealt with in this way. That, I think, is a proof that the rule the right hon. Gentleman brought in five years ago has broken down. Why has the rule broken down? It is not merely on account of defects in the rule itself. There are other things to be taken into account. What was the practice ten years ago? I would remind the House that the practice then was to have three Votes on Account, the House never letting the Government out of the financial leash for longer than two months. Now we have one comprehensive Vote on Account for the Civil Service Estimates taken at the beginning of the session. The moment that Vote is passed in the early weeks of the session the Government know that, with the help of the closure at the end, they are secure of Supply for the year, and they have no longer any interest in consulting the opinion of the House. The result has been that the Committee proceedings of this session have been in the main futile. The House has not been led in Committee either by the Minister in charge or the Leader of the House. The attitude of the right hon. Gentleman amounts to this—that we have so many days to talk about the Estimates, and that we may select our subjects—it is a matter of complete indifference to him. I venture to say that old Leaders of the House, whose place the right hon. Gentleman now fills, would never have dared to deal with the House in that way. In my opinion it is the adoption of this attitude, more than the rule itself, which is the cause of the system breaking down. Beyond all that, I regret to say that the House has now finally lost the possession of financial control. The right hon. Gentleman is uniformly courteous to individual members of the House, but he is lacking, as it seems to me, in respect for the House itself as a corporation. The reasons given by the right hon. Gentleman in support of the course which he is taking would have justified the still more drastic procedure of dealing with the whole of the Estimates of £200,000,000 in one fell Vote. The House of Commons has sunk to the position occupied in the system of the United States by what is magniloquently called the Electoral College. On the majority sitting behind Ministers, who appear to care nothing whatever for the details of the business of the country, and who, with rare exceptions, support the Government through thick and thin, lies more than on anybody else the blame for the confessed paralysis which has overtaken this great national institution. I do not believe that we shall ever do much good in the debates on the Estimates until we resort to the expedient of establishing at the beginning of the session Select Committees to revise the Estimates in detail before they are submitted to the House, leaving less subject for talk in the House, and Select Committees to examine the Estimates after they have been carried into execution by the Department. Unless some such remedy as that is adopted I do not believe that the situation will be improved. Does the right hon. Gentleman not reflect how enormous during the past twenty or thirty years has been the growth of our Imperial interests and of Parliamentary responsibility? My belief is that twenty or thirty years ago the House sat longer in the course of the year, and that at a time when the Empire did not reach half the extent, and when the Estimates did not reach a half or a third of the present amount. Is it not absurd to suppose that with this continual expanding of the Empire, and with our interests increasing in intensity as well as number, you can go on under the old methods? I believe we shall have to hold longer sessions, and that we must have in addition to that the devolution which was spoken of by the hon. Member for Waterford—devolution in two senses—internal devolution to Committees of this House, and external devolution which means Home Rule.

I, with other hon. members, fail to see why this drastic proposal should be adopted. In every speech made on this side of the House the right hon. Gentleman was asked to state his reasons for bringing forward this proposal, and in his second speech he stated that there were indications, if he did not take this course, that the House might be placed in a humiliating position. I do not think these indications are enough to warrant the drastic step now proposed to be taken. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will agree to the reasonable and moderate Amendment on the new rule which I have to propose—that for Ten o'clock there should be substituted Twelve o'clock. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will mitigate the terrors of the new rule by agreeing to the Amendment, the effect of which would be that we would go on for two hours, as provided in the rule passed in February. Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that an obstructive spirit is displayed, and that, when we got to Twelve o'clock, the right hon. Gentleman would have some justification for adopting the measure he now proposes. Suppose he passes the present rule, the effect would be that the whole proceedings would be over at half-past two o'clock. The House did not adjourn this morning till after two o'clock, and it sat till two on several other nights within the past week. If the method I have indicated were adopted the right hon. Gentleman might trust the House to a certain extent, and at the same time secure everything he wants. Under a Twelve o'clock Rule, as I suggest, it would give two hours more for discussion, and I am sure the House-would be very willing to sit till three or four. If the rule is enforced in the violent way the right hon. Gentleman indicates, all voting will be reduced to a, farce. He asks us to vote on classes, but what Member is willing to vote against every item in whole classes of Supply? Who wants, for instance, to vote against every item in the Education Votes, or in the Civil Service Votes? The most violent reformer in the House only wishes to protest against some items of these Votes. This proposal is one of the greatest degradations ever put upon the House. The Amendment which I propose would enable the right hon. Gentleman to get out of a great deal of the obliquy of his own proposal, and if he gets the essence of what he wishes he ought not to force this humiliation on the House of Commons. The right hon. Gentleman said that he had taken part in 340 divisions, which was equal to a whole fortnight of his time; but it is the right hon. Gentleman who forces these divisions upon us. The object of the House ought, to be to discuss matters with common, sense and arrive at just conclusions, but such attempts are nearly always wrecked by divisions. I beg to move.

Amendment proposed—

"In line 1, to leave out the word 'Ten,' and1 insert the word 'Twelve,' instead thereof."—( Mr. Lough. )

Question proposed, "That the word 'Ten' stand part of the Question."

I confess I cannot quite understand how the Amendment can carry out the object which the hon. Member professes a desire to accomplish. In my view the effect of it would be to make the application of the rule more inconvenient to the House, and nothing would be gained by it. I apprehend that the House would have to sit up till past one o'clock under any circumstances, and that, I think, is quite late enough.

Question put.

The House divided—Ayes, 214; Noes, 109. (Division List No. 416.)

Main Question again proposed.

I must congratulate myself on having given the First Lord of the Treasury an argument when in my judgment he was very badly in want of one. I put a question to him which I considered was a very pertinent one, namely, why should we not divide to-morrow night on all the Votes if we thought fit to do so? That I think was a very simple and time-honoured proposition, but the First Lord of the Treasury seemed to regard it as something strange and wonderful. I want to know why? If a question is put from the Chair in this House we have the right to divide or not according to our own judgment. There is no crime in dividing, but from the manner in which the First Lord is dealing with the rules I am afraid he will soon convince himself that it is something like high treason to call for a division he does not approve of. I say at once, and I say it with some knowledge of the views and opinions of my colleagues, that not a single Member on these benches had any idea so absurd as to divide against Votes which we favour and approve. Where did the First Lord of the Treasury find out this dark conspiracy about the Irish Members intending to divide against every Vote? I want to know what was the basis of his position. He read a paragraph in some newspaper attributing this intention to the Irish Members.

I never said that.

I understand that the right hon. Gentleman had some foreshadowing of it, but whether he got it from the metaphysical imagination that haunted Macbeth, himself, and other distinguished Scotchmen I do not know. The right hon. Gentleman apparently had some anticipation that the Irish Members were going to divide against all the Votes. They had no such absurd intention. Even if they had, it would be no justification for the rule now proposed to the House. The right hon. Gentleman admitted in his speech that this House as an effective instrument of government has broken down. That is our position, too. It has broken down. The right hon. Gentleman admits that the rules and machinery of this House have grown rusty and archaic owing to the growth and constitution of the Empire it is meant to govern. I admit it is absurd to suppose that machinery and rules good enough for a Parliament ruling a nation of ten millions within this isle are suitable for the world-wide Empire which this Parliament controls to-day. There I am in entire agreement with the right hon. Gentleman. What is the remedy? The remedy of the right hon. Gentleman is a change in the rules. But no rule will ever bind any deliberate assembly in the world apart from and divorced from the public opinion ruling, influencing, and guiding every member of that assembly. Make any rules you like. These rules, logically and legitimately interpreted within the limits to which they extend, will still have no power or control over any body of men or any individual in this House unless backed by the acceptance of the public opinion of this House and of the country which elected it. Therefore I say the right hon. Gentleman, who is a philosopher, is merely touching the fringe of the question if he thinks he is going to reform and improve the House of Com- mons by any small, or for that matter any large, changes in the rules.

The right hon. Gentleman says the rules are objectionable from another point of view—that they were made at a time when this House was fighting against monarchy and endeavouring to guard its own control of the purse. Surely I need not point out that there are dangers from democracy as well as from, monarchy. One of the worst dangers of democracy is that under the outward form of pure and perfect democratic rule you may have such a system of bossism as you see prevailing in other countries, especially beyond the Atlantic. What is the foundation and root of all the evils there? It is that you have the outward show of entire perfect democratic organisation and control, whereas in the end democratic control practically disappears, and either the political machine or some other fungus growth is the real ruling power, controlling the doctrines of the nation. Is there not the same danger here? We have a Government in office and an elective democracy, and if you have a number of men in office, with a big majority, the history of that democratic combination will be different from that of every other similar organisations in the world if it does not, in the end, monopolise power and govern by despotic methods. As the hon. Member for Dundee has pointed out, in a speech which was one of the most closely reasoned I have ever heard, in all previous sessions the House of Commons kept a close grip on the public purse, but under the present regime the House of Commons is giving up its control over the purse of the nation after one debate at the beginning of the year. In the old days there were three or four Votes on account throughout the year, and at stated periods, six weeks or two months, the House had the opportunity of expressing its approval or disapproval of the conduct of the Government. Now a Vote on account is taken for the entire session, and during the whole of that time Ministers escape the criticism of the House, and thus under democratic forms there are the same escapes of the public purse from the popular control as you had in different forms under the Stuarts and Tudors.

The right hon. Gentleman says the Empire has outgrown the House of Common, and its ancient forms. I remember some ten years ago there was a fierce disturbance in a small Irish town, Tipperary, which, from the Irish point of view, was of importance, and upon which the right hon. Gentleman, who was then Chief Secretary, and the Irish members had to make speeches, a gentleman from Johannesburg, which was just then beginning to be known, expressed to me his wonder that such a subject should engage so much time in the Imperial Parliament, while there was a country called South Africa, which was ignored as if it was of no account at all, and I naturally had to explain to him that it was not our fault if it was so. Neither was it, and neither is it to-day. We want none of our local affairs to engage the attention of the Imperial Parliament, It is by your own express will that Irish local affairs occupy so much of the time of this House, and this Parliament is no longer an Imperial Parliament in the real sense of the word. An evil exists which has its root deep down in national circumstances. Yet the right hon. Gentleman seeks to deal with it by the application of petty remedies. Supposing the Irish Members had divided against all the Votes, great and small, bad and good, would it have been such a terrible catastrophe? The House might have been kept sitting till three o clock, or even all night. Well, after twenty years in the House, I am no fonder of that sort of thing than other people. But I do not think a consideration of that kind is a sufficient reason for changing the rules. But if a change was considered necessary by the right hon. Gentleman it would have been less absurd if he had brought down a rule causing all the Votes to be passed in one lot. See what would happen under the rule. Take Class 4. I and my hon. friends believe that the Queen's Colleges are a bad form of teaching for the Irish people. Under the old rule we would have taken a division on that Vote, but if we did so under the new rule we would also be compelled to vote against the National Gallery, the Board of Education in England, the British Museum, and the Wallace Collection. Why, if it was proposed to have the portrait of the right hon. Gentleman in the National Gallery—and there are in that collection the portraits of many persons who have less right to be represented—I should be obliged to vote against it in order that I might be able to record my vote against the Queen's Colleges. Then with regard to Class 3, I may not be satisfied with the way in which the Dundrum Criminal Lunatic Asylum conducts its affairs, and in order to vote against that I have to vote against the Vote for the Law Officers of the Crown, with a risk of depriving my distinguished countryman of his salary; I have to vote against the Land Registry; the Police in England and Wales; the Reformatory and Industrial Schools of Great Britain; and Broad-moor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. I am compelled to do all this injury to England, and not only that, I have to go to the country of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury, and I have to vote against the law charges there, and the money for the Crofters Commission, which is trying to do for the poor of Scotland something like what to a certain degree has been done in Ireland. And because I disapprove of the Dundrum Criminal Lunatic Asylum, I have to put myself in conflict with my best friends in England and Scotland. The more the matter is examined the more absurd it appears, and I think I have demonstrated that it is a reduction ad absurdum . I disapprove, Mr. Speaker, of much that this House has done, but no man who has read history can fail to recognise that it has done much—not for Irishmen, for it lives by the destruction of our own Parliament—which recommends it to the gratitude and affection of every Englishman and Scotchman. It has been the model for the colonies and for many Continental parliaments. I am, therefore, sorry to see that the First Lord, who ought to be the custodian of its glories, proposes to strike a great blow at all these things by the motion which he has brought forward.

The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has complained of not being able to vote on separate classes. There is a simple method of doing so: begin to divide at five o'clock, and if that is done there is no reason why every class should not be voted on.

said that if this proposal had come early in the session it might have been listened to, and it would have been far better to have introduced it when proper discussion could have taken place. The devolution recommended by the hon. Member for Waterford was the only solution of this matter. In his reply to the allegation that he had given a definite pledge in this matter not to bring in such a rule without first submitting it to a Committee, the right hon. Gentleman had entirely failed to make good his case, and the charge of the hon. Member for Waterford had not been answered in any way. One would have imagined from the right hon. Gentleman's speech and his interest in the House that he would be one of the first to safeguard its privileges, but under his leadership the privileges so well safeguarded for generations had been frittered away, and the House] of Commons had been reduced to a voting machine. The House had to thank the right hon. Gentleman for the chaos which now reigned. Angry sittings were the direct result of provocative speeches by His Majesty's Ministers. He asked the right hon. Gentleman to examine his conscience and say whether his conduct was not provocative of scenes in the early part of the session. In his experience as an old Member he had seen no session since the twelve o'clock rule had been passed in which it had to be suspended so many times as in this. The Government had no excuse. This had been a session in which no great legislative measures had been dealt with, and, so far as the Statute-book was concerned, would be the most barren session that had been held for many years. If any Member took the trouble to read the debates of 1896, when the new rule was brought in, they would see that the predictions made by the Irish Members had been justified by the facts. The right hon. Gentleman had everything in his favour—he had an enormous majority, and the most docile which had ever been seen; but so great had been his mismanagement of affairs that the House at the end of the session was asked to vote enormous sums of money without any discussion. The position of the Irish Members was that they sat in the House against their own wills. If His Majesty's Government were willing and able to govern Ireland, they were certainly going the wrong way about to convince the Irish people of that fact. But the Irish believed that the state of congestion of business in the House was so great that it was absolutely impossible for this Government to govern Ireland.

said he desired to call attention to the fact that the right hon. Gentleman had never made a single reply to or touched the main part of the speech of the hon. Member for Waterford in respect to the point as to the days allotted to Irish Supply. That was an astonishing fact, because the hon. Member for Waterford adduced evidence to show that the right hon. Gentleman had promised to allocate four days for the discussion of Irish Supply. Considering the important position the Member for Waterford held in the House, the right hon. Gentleman might have condescended to notice that part of his hon. friend's argument. He did not attach much importance to the right hon. Gentleman's promise, because four days for the discussion of Irish Supply was in his opinion quite as absurd as three days, which in itself was absolutely absurd. If the Committee which the right hon. Gentleman had suggested in 1896 were to sit, he should suggest that they gave twice that number of days to Irish Supply. The crucial part of the discussion was that the right hon. Gentleman had been charged with a breach of faith, and the reply which he had made to that charge had not been distinguished by his usual candour. There was no doubt that he gave the pledge that this new rule which he had proposed to-night might be a possible consequence of the Sessional Order proposed in 1896, but that if he had to propose such an addition to the Sessional Order he would not do so without having first submitted the subject to the discussion and decision of a Select Committee. The right hon. Gentleman did not deny that, but said that the pledge was given only with regard to the particular year; but surely when a Sessional Order was renewed it was renewed on the understanding that it was a mere Sessional Order, and the mere renewal of a Sessional Order at the commencement of every session implied an undertaking on both sides of the House, if not on behalf of the Minister who proposed it, that it was renewed upon the undertaking upon which the original rule was obtained, namely, that the right hon. Gentleman would not adopt a severe development of that rule without having first submitted the subject to a Select Committee. The right hon. Gentleman therefore had not answered the argument of the hon. Member for Waterford.

This debate would not be complete without the House being reminded of what took place in 1893. There were two sets of rules for closure adopted in 1893. In the case of the Home Rule Bill it was not until after the House had been discussing four clauses for nearly fifty days that the responsible Ministers, recognising that they would never get the Bill through unless they brought the obstruction to an end, proposed to put all the clauses to the vote upon a certain day without discussion. There was not an Irishman in the House, nor he believed a Liberal Member, who did not regret that a full opportunity for discussion of every clause was not given. But what occurred? In that debate the Colonial Secretary, on the 21st of August, 1893, said— to their contemplated action; but the hon. Member for Waterford had declared on behalf of the Irish party that the fear of the Government was absolutely without foundation. There was not the slightest necessity for the rule. It was not for him to lecture the House, but he would say one word as to the state of things which had been brought about. One astonishing feature was the number of hon. Gentlemen who almost broke their necks to get into the House, and having got in, at the end of a week were so anxious to get out again. Those hon. Gentlemen were the very persons who cried out "Divide, divide!" to hon. Gentlemen who had not spoken half-a-dozen words. Until this was altered, until English and Scotch Members in their attention to business imitated the Irish Members, who, by whatever method they did it, did their business—and it was, no fault of theirs that they did not sueceed—this state of chaos would continue He thought that this proposal of the right hon. Gentleman marked the height of absurdity, and proved that the greatest institution in England was in great danger of being degraded by the hand of the right hon. Gentleman, who ought to be the first man to uphold its traditions

said he desired to move the Amendment that stood in the name of his hon. friend the Member for East Mayo, which was an Amendment that should commend itself to the judgment of the First Lord of the Treasury. Obviously Supply in the case of England, Scotland, and Ireland did not stand on the same footing, arid the Amendment claimed that the Votes in the various classes for England, the Votes in the various-classes for Scotland, and the Votes in the various classes for Ireland should be taken separately. The Amendment he submitted was a very sensible one. He did not propose to touch the English or Scotch Votes, but with regard to Ireland the result of this proposal would be almost shocking. The only control which could be exercised over the great public departments of Ireland was by this rule taken away. Out of twenty-seven Irish Votes only three had been passed, and only four had been discussed. Only one-third of the amount of the Irish Votes had been discussed. The condition was alarming. There had been no discussion as to public Votes, and in Glass 2 there were nine Votes, of which only two had been debated, and such important Votes as the charges for the Lord Lieutenant's household and others would have to pass without discussion. One of the strange facts with regard to the new rule would be that if Irish Members wanted to vote against the salary of the Chief Secretary they could not do so unless they also voted against the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, which had only been a year in operation, and upon the operation of which there might be many opinions. There had not been an opportunity of saying a word upon the work of that Department, and yet under this absurd rule they could not record a vote against the salary of the Chief Secretary without voting against that and other offices. In Class 3 there were eight Votes, only one of which had been touched on. From 1886 until 1895 no such thing ever happened with regard to Supply as had happened this year. A sharp eye was kept on the Executive of Ireland, and there was not a single department which was not discussed by Irish Members in this House. How different was the story now. From 1886 to 1895 there was a great deal of legislation attempted or passed; this year there was no legislation to speak of, except the Factory Act. They could not, he found, vote against the system by which jury packing had been carried on in Ireland without voting against other matters which they had no desire toresist. If there was any country which ought to be exempted from this rule that country was Ireland. One of the most valuable functions of Parliament had always been the discussion and the redress of grievances preceding Supply. He claimed that this rule was wrong with regard to England and Scotland, but with regard to Ireland it was absolute tyranny.

Amendment proposed—

"In line 7, after the word 'Class,' to insert the words 'for England, Ireland, and Scotland respectively.'"—( Mr. Flynn. )

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

I understand the hon. Gentleman's object, but I do not see how this Amendment would operate to effect it.

The operation would be that the Scotch Votes and the English Votes and the Irish Votes, though grouped together, would be classed separately.

I am not perfectly satisfied with the present classification of Votes, but I do not think any alteration would be desirable now. It may be worthy of consideration in the future, but with regard to this particular incident I cannot accept it. I would point out to the hon. Member that I have promised to give the time up to ten o'clock to-morrow to Irish Supply. He will, therefore, have something like six hours for discussion of Irish Estimates to-morrow, should he think it desirable to take the opinion of the House upon any particular matter.

said that all through the discussion the one feeling uppermost in his mind was astonishment and surprise at the extraordinary change which time brought on certain Members of the House. When he heard the right hon. Gentleman advocating the new rule he could not help contrasting the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman with his attitude some sixteen years ago. The Irish Members had been accused of obstruction. It had been charged against them that they had illegitimately used their rights and privileges in the way of voting by taking an unusual number of divisions. He could say with the clearest possible conscience that anything he had done in the way of protracting debates—

^* : I thought the hon. Member was proposing to second the Amendment. What he is now saying is quite out of order.

Yes, Sir; these observations were only a preface to my speech. I can only say that if I have offended in any way I learnt my lesson from the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House when he was a member of the Fourth Party. Of course, he forgets those days now, as I daresay I should myself if I were in his place, but then I am not in the Cabinet yet, and I am still imbued with the old ideas. With regard to the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Cork, the hon. Member, resuming his speech, said he thought it was a perfectly reasonable one. The main reason for moving it was, as he understood, that the First Lord and the Government feared that the Irish Members would on the following night challenge divisions, not merely on Votes affecting Ireland, but on all other Votes. That fear was not altogether well founded. He had, of course, heard certain rumours, but the First Lord might rest quite satisfied that the Irish Members would only challenge divisions on purely Irish items of Supply, for the discussion of which they had been afforded no opportunity. He challenged any hon. Member to say that they had had a fair opportunity of debating them. Of course, they had taken part in discussions on general subjects, such as the war in South Africa, but it could not be denied that on matters affecting the Irish administration and on expenditure in connection with that country Irish members had clearly not had a fair chance. The session had lasted six months, and from the very commencement he had been waiting and watching for an opportunity to discuss certain topics in connection with his own constituency in county Clare. He had failed to secure one, and he would have to go back and tell them that he had been unable to bring before the House certain matters which they had desired him to call attention to. Only the other day he read a report of a debate in the other House of Parliament, raised by a certain noble Lord, which had direct reference to a matter of the utmost importance to the county he had the honour of representing in that House, a matter which vitally affected the interests of the county, which involved the expenditure of large sums of money, and would necessitate the employment of hundreds, if not of thousands, of people. An opportunity was found of raising the question in the House of Lords, but he himself, in the House of Commons, had not had a single chance of making speech upon it or of ascertaining the views of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. It came to this, that if an hon. Member desired to raise a debate upon a local topic it was necessary he should be a member of the House of Lords, Now, he did not aspire to a seat in the Upper Chamber, and, even if he did, he feared that his aspiration could not posibly be realised. [An hon. member: Why not?] He put it to hon. Gentleman opposite whether there was not good foundation for the complaint he was making of the lack of opportunity to discuss local matters. It might be that Irish Members had taken up a certain amount of the time of the House, but he ventured to assert that they had not occupied more than their fair proportion. Only three or four days had been devoted o the discussion of Irish Supply, and on those occasions matters of broad general importance had been debated—matters which, in his opinion, ought not to have been left to Supply. His contention was that in Supply they ought to have an opportunity of bringing forward topics of purely local interest—matters affecting their respective constituencies. When he went back to Ireland he would be asked by those who elected him—and he represented one of the largest agricultural constituencies in that country—why he had not brought forward certain matters vitally affecting their welfare, and he would be forced to confess that he had failed to obtain an opportunity of doing so. The electors would find it difficult to believe such a statement, and they would be naturally disaffected, dissatisfied, and discontented. Was it to be wondered at that Irish electors failed to feel satisfaction with the treatment which their particular interests met with in that House? He himself was disappointed and astonished that the Government should have put forward a proposal of that kind to curtail the actual privileges and rights of members, and he was shocked especially that it should have been made by a right hon. Gentleman who in his early days of membership really taught hon. Members how to prolong debate, and to bring about as many divisions as possible in order to embarrass the Government of the day.

said he thought that any fair-minded man would consider the Amendment proposed by his hon. friend to be only reasonable and just. On the days on which Irish Supply had been brought forward for discussion English and Scotch Members skedaddled from the House altogether, and he thought that Irish members in their turn should allow Scotch and English Members an opportunity of recording their votes upon Estimates in which their countries were particularly interested.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes, 116; Noes, 208. (Division List No. 417.)

Main Question put.

The House divided—Ayes, 205; Noes, 113. (Division List No. 418.)

Ordered, That at Ten of the clock on the last but one of the days allotted for the business of Supply under the Order, Business of the House (Supply), of the 27th day of February, 1901. the Chairman shall forthwith put every question necessary to dispose of the Vote then under consideration, and shall then forthwith put the Question with respect to each Glass of the Civil Service Estimates that the total amount of the Votes outstanding in that class be granted for the services defined in the class, and shall in like manner put severally the questions that the total amounts of the Votes outstanding in the Estimates for the Navy, the Army, and the Revenue Departments be granted for the services defined in those Estimates. That at Ten of the clock on the last allotted day the Speaker shall put forthwith every Question necessary to dispose of the Report of the Resolution then under consideration, and shall then put forthwith with respect to each Class of the Civil Service Estimates the Question, That this House doth agree with the Committtee in all the outstanding Resolutions reported in respect of that class, and shall then put a like question with respect to all the Resolutions outstanding in the Estimates for the Navy, the Army, the Revenue Departments, and other outstanding Resolutions severally. Provided always that, with the exceptions herein contained, the other provisions of the Order of the 27th February shall remain in force.