(Warwickshire, Rugby) moved an Instruction to the Committee to which the Bill was referred, if they allowed Clauses 14 and 15, to report to the House their reasons for so doing. These clauses, he said. authorised the Corporation to close their park on bank holidays to let it for athletic sports, and other purposes, and use the money which they obtained in that way in maintaining a band of music in the town and advertising the attractions of the town in order to induce visitors to come to it. As a general principle the proposition of the Bill was contrary to the law as contained in the Public Health Act, and it was a danger- ous power to give to a Corporation that they should first purchase out of the ratepayers money for the benefit of the ratepayers an open space and then close it on the days in the year when the poorest people in the town were practically only able to use it, and then that they should spend the income which they got in that way not for the benefit of the whole town, but for the benefit of a portion only.

said the promoters of the Bill saw no objection to the course proposed. The Corporation thought there were excellent reasons for the proposal they made, and that they would be able to satisfy the Committee.

said he need not in that case add anything to the observations he had made. His only object was to secure that this proposal should not be made a general precedent. Ordered, That it be an Instruction to the Committee to which the Bill was referred, if they allow Clauses 14 and 15, to report to the House their reasons for so doing.—(Mr. Carrie Grant.)

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can state on what date the Transvaal Gold Law No. 22, 1899, was repealed.

The law was repealed by Proclamation No. 34 of the 27th of November last.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can say under what law with respect to taxation the gold mines in the Transvaal have been worked since their re-opening; what was the date of its enactment; and whether the House will have an opportunity of discussing the provisions of the proposed new law before its enactment.

The gold law in force is that of 1898, which has not been repealed. The reform of the gold law is at present under investigation by a local Commission, and until its Report has been considered, I am not in a position to make any statement.

On behalf of the hon. Member for East Northamptonshire, I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will now issue as a Parliamentary Return a list of all Boer officers sentenced to permanent banishment under the Proclamation of August last.

Notices have been published stating that certain leaders have come within the terms of the Proclamation of August 7th, but, as I have already stated, legislation will be required to make this Proclamation effective. The list of those affected is, of coin se, entirely incomplete, and I do not think it would be of any use to publish it in its present form, although I shall be ready to do so later on.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether Sir Redvers Buller has been ordered not to publish a copy of the message which he sent to Sir George White on the 16th December, 1899, alleged to contain an order to him to surrender Ladysmith; and, if so, whether there is any precedent for so limiting the discretion of a Commander-in-Chief.

I must refer the hon. Member to the answer I made to the hon. and learned Member for South Donegal on 20th January.† As regards the last paragraph in the Question, officers are in no case permitted to publish confidential telegrams.

Has this Question ever been put before?

I am able to state that I never asked such a question.

I am afraid the hon. Member does not always remember the Questions he asks.

Oh, I do.

Am I to understand that Sir Redvers Buller has been ordered not to publish a copy of this message?

Certainly, Sir. Sir Redvers Buller, like all other officers, has been ordered by the Commander-in-Chief to publish no confidential telegrams.

Then he ought to have disobeyed.

On behalf of the hon. Member for East Northamptonshire, I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether any intimation has been made to Mrs. De Wet that she is at liberty to go to Europe; and whether the option of living at some house of her own in South Africa on her own means will be offered to her.

Mrs. De Wet may either leave South Africa or have a change of domicile in Natal. Doubtless this decision has been communicated to her.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is in a position

† See (4) Debates, ci., 302.

As the case of General Truman had been, at his own request, referred to a Court of Inquiry, I was unwilling when questioned in this House to make any statement which might prejudice that officer before the Court. But yesterday in another place statements were made from a Memorandum attributed to General Truman, which that officer acknowledges to have been written by him, but which he states was not intended for publication, which make it desirable that I should state the facts. Some months ago I brought to the notice of the Commander-in-Chief certain circumstances connected with General Truman's control of his Department, and I was strengthened in my doubt, which the Commander-in-Chief shared, as to his capacity by General Truman's evidence before the Departmental Committee. As, however, I was preparing a scheme for the complete re-organisation of the Department, and two lawsuits were pending which would throw further light on the matter, and having regard to the great pressure of work under which his Department was labouring, I postponed any action as regards General Truman till it was possible to set on foot an improved organisation. When, however, the whole question was debated in Parliament, the opinion was expressed on all sides that General Truman's evidence required explanation, and I was forced to tell him that, although there was no imputation on his honour, there were certain points on which, unless he had further explanations to offer, I could not defend him. The Commander-in-Chief suggested to General Truman that he should offer his resignation, and General Truman handed in a provisional resignation asking for further inquiry. The Commander-in Chief at once granted him a Court of Inquiry, which will sit without delay. Pending the report of this Court, General Truman will remain at the head of his Department, but another officer will be appointed to assist in the ditties, as General Truman's time will be largely occupied with his defence. I may say that this is the proper and legal way of dealing with an officer in his position. I regret to have had to make this statement, which I should have made before but for the reasons mentioned, and which should not make now but for the statement made yesterday in another place.

Is it not a fact that General Truman was not approached on this matter in any way until attention was drawn to his conduct in this House?

Will the right hon. Gentleman state if all the information with regard to General Truman was not in his hands on the 9th August last?

Yes. I have stated that the evidence was in my hands in August last. I was engaged at that time, and have been engaged since, on a scheme for the complete reorganisation of the Department, and it would be natural to consider, when rearranging that Department, what General Truman's position was to be. I then also mentioned to the House that two suits were pending, both of which were likely to throw considerable light on the matter, and I did not think it desirable to deal finally with General Truman's case until all the circumstances were before me.

Will the right hon. Gentleman say what were the points on which he informed General Truman that he was not prepared to defend his conduct?

had on the Paper the following Question to ask the Secretary of State for War—Whether he can give the names of the newspapers, periodicals, and books whose circulation in South Africa under martial law has been prohibited or interfered with under martial law. On being called on, he said, "This question was answered yesterday, but I should like to know if Methuen's book on 'Peace or War in South Africa' is among those prohibited?"

I have not read the hook, but I have every confidence in the discretion of the Censor.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can state how many combatant Boers were killed, wounded, and captured, respectively, during the enclosing movement against General De Wet, from sunset on the 5th to mid-day on the 8th inst., when the movement ended.

We have no further information beyond that which was published in the papers of the 10th inst., and which gave a total of 283 killed, wounded, and prisoners.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if, before the issue of the promised Royal warrant for reform of the Royal Army Medical Corps, he will carefully consider the objections raised, both by the officers of the Royal Army Medical Corps and the Medical Schools, to the recommendations of the late Departmental Commission, as regards examinations for promotion; and if he will make such alterations as will limit these examinations to the real requirements of the service, viz., for promotion to the ranks of Major and Lieutenant-Colonel, as suggested by the Sub-Committee appointed by the Council of the British Medical Association to consider the reform of the Army Medical Service.

The only examinations in purely professional subjects will be those for Major and Lieutenant-Colonel. The examination of Lieutenants for the rank of Captain will be in corps and service duties only.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if his attention has been called to a recent statement of Dr. C. Ball, of Dublin, a member of the Advisory Medical Board, respecting the retirement of Army Medical Officers, and will he explain whether it is the intention of the Government to recommend that an Army Medical Officer, who has served 18 or 20 years in the Army and who has failed to pass the examination to a lieutenant-colonelcy, should be compulsorily retired on a gratuity, or whether such an officer will be allowed to serve for 20 years as at present and then be retired on a pension of £1 per diem.

An officer who fails to pass the examination for the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel will be permitted to complete 20 years service and retire on £1 per diem.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the fact that notices have been issued by the War Office to general Officers commanding districts that contracts for supplies to Army canteens in the United Kingdom will not be allowed beyond June next, he will now state what changes, if any, are intended to be made by the War Office with regard to the mode of supplying and management of Army canteens.

A Committee is about to be assembled by the Commander-in-Chief to consider the existing conditions under which canteens and regimental institutions are conducted, and to report whether any alteration is desirable. Pending the Report of this Committee, it is not thought desirable to make contracts beyond next June.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether it is the intention of the War Office to issue an official report of the recent trials of self-propelled lorries at Aldershot; and in view of the fact that in these trials the comparative results shown by the motors exhibited by Messrs. Foden and Messrs. Thorneycroft, over the same distance, showed a superiority by Messrs. Foden's in the matter of speed and in economy of fuel and water of about 40 per cent., and of the further fact that the price of their motor was lower, whether he will state the reasons for which the first prize was awarded to Messrs. Thorneycroft, and the second to Messrs. Foden.

An official report of the recent trials of self-propelled lorries at Aldershot will be included in the Report of the War Office Committee on Mechanical Transport, the publication of which will be considered by my right hon. friend. In awarding the prizes, a number of points, duly set forth in the conditions of the competition, had to be considered, and it was after full consideration of the merits and demerits of the various vehicles, in relation to these points, that the prizes were awarded as stated by the hon. Member.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that the thousand yards' rifle range at Runnymede is about to be offered for sale by auction for building purposes; and whether, having regard to the fact that it is almost the only rifle range so near the Metropolis, and with a view to prevent the 40,000 troops therein being deprived of facilities for rifle shooting, he sees his way to adopt the unanimous suggestions of the Volunteer Officers' Parliamentary Committee, and urge the acquisition of Runnymede upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

This matter has been already carefully considered, but great difficulty has been caused by the Volunteer Commanding Officers having rejected the offer of the London County Council to contribute, as we understood, some £70,000 towards the cost of a range. This has thrown on the War Office a charge of about £145,000 for the purchase and construction of extensive ranges at Rainham, which will find accommodation for a large number of the Metropolitan Volunteer Corps, as well as for regular forces and militia. The cost of Runnymede is estimated at £60,000 to £100,000. Had the Volunteer Commanding Officers accepted the offer of the London County Council, the Government would have been able to assist largely in its purchase, although it is not required for regulars or militia.

Will the right hon. Gentleman refer the matter back again to the Commanding Officers?

Against my strong suggestion, they refused the offer of the London County Council many months ago, and I am not aware that the Council is now willing to renew it.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he is aware that, during the recent gunnery practice of H.M.S. "Edinburgh," one of the anchors was lost off Margate; that long and unavailing efforts were made to recover the same; and, seeing that many similar anchors are now lying in the Government dockyards, of no value beyond their weight in old iron, being of obsolete design, whether he will see that in future one of these is taken up to replace an anchor accidently lost, and thus save the expenditure of time and public money in such searches.

It is not the fact that the anchor lost by H.M.S. "Edinburgh" was of obsolete design. It was of the close stowing type at present in general use in battleships, and the larger first-class cruisers, and in making every endeavour to recover it the Commanding Officer was carrying out the instructions contained in the King's regulations. The reserve of such anchors would require to be considerably increased if, as the hon. Member suggests, no efforts should be made for the recovery of those accidently lost.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the search for this anchor cost the taxpayers of this country over £2,000?

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the artisans and electricians mentioned in the First Lord of the Admiralty's statement as among the increases of the naval ratings are to be attached to the deck or the engine-room department.

The 250 additional ratings referred to consist of carpenters, crews, blacksmiths, plumbers, painters, coopers, armourers and electricians. None of these ratings form part of an engine-room complement.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether any assistance, by way of pension or otherwise, is or will be granted by the Government to persons who have been discharged from the Navy by reason of ill-health, so as to prevent them becoming a burden on the rates.

Provision is already made in the King's Regulations for the award of pensions, either temporary or permanent, or of gratuities to men invalided from the Naval Service by reason of ill-health. The award of such pension or gratuity depends on certain conditions, the most important being the length of service of the individual and the cause and degree of his incapacity.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether an expedition is about to be sent to Bornu in Northern Nigeria; and whether he can give the House any information on the subject.

Sir F. Lugard reports that he has sent a force to Bornu under the command of Colonel Morland, who has been instructed to inquire into the circum- stances in which Fad-el-Allah was killed, and to take measures to establish peace and order in the country. Pending the receipt of Colonel Morland's report it is not possible to give any further information on the subject.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether our Naval Attachés abroad are, like our Military Attachés, placed under the instruction of the missions to which they are temporarily attached; and whether all official communications between the Admiralty and the Naval Attachés abroad are carried on through the Foreign Office and the head of the missions.

Under the terms of their appointment Naval Attachés, like Military Attachés, are placed under the instructions of the heads of the missions to which they are temporarily attached. A memorandum is annexed to their letter of appointment, showing the principal points to which the Admiralty wish that their attention should be directed. All official communications between the Admiralty and Naval Attachés abroad are conducted through the Foreign Office and the heads of missions.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can inform the House what flag flies over the Chinese Imperial Customs at Newchwang; by whom the customs duties are collected; and to whom, or to what account, they are being remitted.

I am afraid that there is nothing to add to the answer which I gave to a similar Question by the hon. Gentleman in April last year.† The situation as regards the customs remains the same.

Is the noble Lord able to tell us whether the state of

† See (4) Debates, xcii., 786

I cannot answer that Question without notice.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any information has been received respecting a proposed new Swiss tariff; and, if so, whether he will submit the details to the Commercial Intelligence Committee of the Board of Trade, as was done in the case of the new German tariff.

A copy of the proposed new Swiss tariff has just been received. It will at once be forwarded to the Board of Trade for examination.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the circumstances resulting in the death of John Carrington, employed as a platelayer on the Great Northern Railway at Nottingham, on the 17th December last; is he aware that this man's hours prior to the accident, commencing at midnight on the 15th, were four hours duty, three hours rest, ten hours duty, seven hours rest, four hours duty, and three hours rest, and that he had been on his last turn eight and a half hours when the accident occurred. Can he say whether look-out Men were provided at the spot the man was working at the time of the accident, as was the case when he was working at the same place the previous week; and what representations have the Board of Trade made to the Company on the subject.

I have communicated with the Company upon the subject of the hon. Members' Question, and they do not admit the accuracy of the facts stated therein. I think the best course to adopt will be to investigate the circumstances by means of an inquiry, and one shall be ordered.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture if he will give particulars of the most recently reported cases of swine fever in the Spalding Division; whether he has had the cases investigated; and, if so, with what result; and can he give an approximate date when the markets will be re-opened providing no fresh cases arise.

My right hon. friend has asked me to give the following answer: Two outbreaks were detected as recently as the 14th and 27th of last month. The cases were fully investigated, and appear to have been connected with a recent outbreak in the same neighbourhood. As swine fever has lingered in this district for eight months, and the local authority decline to exercise veterinary supervision over the markets, I cannot undertake to say when the markets will be re-opened. To name a particular date might perhaps encourage concealment of the disease.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he can state when the Report of the Royal Commission on the Port of London will be presented to Parliament.

I am informed by the Royal Commission on the Port of London that they hope to be able to present their Report soon after Easter.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will grant the Return relating to Dr. Jameson's treatment which stands on to-day's Paper.†

No, Sir. It would

† The following is the Return referred to in the question:—

"Dr. Jameson's Treatment (Royal Warrant)—Address for Return giving the text of the Royal Warrant under which Dr. Jameson was treated as a first-class misdemeanant."

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman can tell me whether this power cannot be exercised in Ireland as well as in England?

Certainly.

Why was special consideration extended to Dr. Jameson?

That does not arise out of the Question.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware of the danger to the inhabitants of Knutsford. Cheshire, arising from the pollution of their water supply; that the medical officer of health to the Urban District Council has warned such council that Knutsford was liable to an epidemic similar to that which visited Maidstone, and that such opinion has been confirmed by an independent expert; and, seeing that the Council have taken no steps to stop such pollution or to secure a pure supply of water, whether he will take proceedings to compel the Council to fulfil their duties; whether, in view of the application to Parliament for borrowing powers by the Knutsford. Light and Water Company, he will see that conditions are imposed to compel the Company to fulfil their obligations, and to obtain their supply of water from an unpolluted source.

I am aware of the complaints which have been made as to the water supply of Knutsford. The Local Government Board have been in frequent communication with the Urban District Council with regard to it, who state that they feel the responsibility of their position, but that they consider that they have taken every practicable step in their power for the safety of the inhabitants of their district. I am still in correspondence with them on the subject. I have no control over the Company by whom the water is supplied; but at my suggestion the District Council have placed before the Board of Trade the facts as to the alleged pollution of the supply, so that the same may be considered in connection with the application of the Company to that Department for a Provisional Order to enable them to raise additional capital.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether persons desiring to inspect the register kept at the Smallpox Hospital of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, in accordance with Section 8 of the Vaccination Act, 1898, are required by the Medical Superintendent to be vaccinated before doing so; and whether a person who refuses to be vaccinated can demand a copy of the register on payment of the fees set forth in Section 8.

I must refer the hon. Member to the reply which I recently gave to a similar Question by the hon. Member for the Rugby Division.† I shall be happy to give the hon. Member a copy of that reply.

But the Question as to vaccination was not asked by me.

I think it was. I will send the hon. Member for Ipswich a copy of it.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the chief clerks in the offices of surveyors of taxes in large cities only obtain the same increment as the second clerks; and whether he will advise an increase in the chief clerk's increment in the higher sections, as promotion at present does not carry any

† See (4) Debates, ci., 1331.

It is true that a first clerk in the office of a surveyor of taxes often receives only the same increment as the second clerks, viz., 2s. 6d. per week per annum. But in any important district promotion from second clerk to first clerk would be accompanied by an immediate rise of salary, which is an ample recognition of the more important duties performed by a first clerk. Overtime payment to clerks in Sections A, B, and C is at the rate of 1s. per hour.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether any post office telephone exchanges, under the management of the Post Office, have yet been opened in London, and can he state what is the total number of subscribers to the Post Office System in the Metropolis up to the present, and if no exchanges have yet been opened when it is anticipated that any will be provided.

The number of agreements for connections with the Post Office London Telephone Exchange system up to Saturday last was about 2,250, but many of these agreements cover the use of a number of exchange telephones. The work of connecting the premises of these subscribers with the Central Exchange by means of the underground system, which has already been constructed, is now in active progress, and an exchange service will probably be given to those subscribers to the Central Exchange whose lines have been completed in the course of the present week. Additional subscribers are being connected every day. The exchanges at Putney, Chiswick, and Kingston, are so far advanced that the work of connecting subscribers can be taken in hand at once. The Westminster, Kensington, Wimbledon, Richmond, and Twickenham Exchanges will begin working shortly. The Exchange at Croydon, and an exchange to serve Mayfair, Marylebone, and Bayswater, will probably be completed by the end of the year. Arrangements are also in progress for an Exchange at Hampstead, and the surveys for the underground work in connection with a number of other Exchanges are nearly completed.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General whether, from 9 p.m. till 7 a.m., the trunk wires of the Post Office telephones are switched on to the system of the National Telephone Company; and whether the control of the State telephone business is in the hands of the Company between these hours.

The chief exchanges of the National Telephone Company, as well as of other licences of the Postmaster General, are connected by means of junction lines with the nearest Post Office trunk wire exchanges. Where those exchanges are at Post Offices which are not always open the junction lines are extended to the nearest trunk wire exchange at which a constant service is given, but the control of the lines and of the traffic is not in the hands of the National Telephone Company.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General whether a confidential circular has been issued to certain provincial postmasters in Ireland, requesting them to furnish the names and state the qualifications of any male sorting clerk and telegraphist at their offices who wishes a transfer to the Dublin establishment; if so, is it contemplated to employ women in place of officers thus transferred, seeing that such a system would reduce the number of positions to be given by open competition in Dublin, and lower the service efficiency standard; and whether this matter will be reconsidered.

No such circular has been issued.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he can state the date on which threatening notices have been issued in London for the recovery of Income Tax due to be paid on or before 1st January last; and, if these notices have not yet been issued, whether he can state on what date it is proposed to issue the same; and whether he can give similar information with regard to any of the other towns in England.

It is not possible at such short notice to give the date of the issue of the notices to which the hon. Member refers for any particular district. The general instructions to the officials charged with the duty of collecting the Income Tax in England are to the effect that the second notices, which demand payment within ten days, are to be sent out 21 days after the issue of the first, or on the 22nd of January, whichever date may be the later. If this notice be not attended to, then the third notice, threatening recovery by restraint, becomes issuable.

I will put down another Question for Friday.

I will try to get the information by then.

I beg to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury if he can conveniently state by what principle of selection provincial newspapers are chosen to receive Government advertisements, and if the extent of the circulation of a newspaper is allowed to exercise any influence on the decision.

The selection of the newspapers in which particular advertisements appear rests with the heads of the Departments concerned. I imagine that regard is had in each case to the question of the circulation of the paper amongst the classes whom the advertisements are desired to reach.

I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether he can state when the final Report of his Majesty's Commissioners appointed to inquire into the system of local taxation in Scotland will be presented to Parliament.

My right hon. friend has asked me to state that the Report in question has been finally adjusted and is in the hands of the printers, and will be presented so soon as it can be got ready.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that in the course of last spring or last summer a police inquiry was held in Hospital. County Limerick, in the case of Sergeant Sheridan for the burning of Mrs. Quinlan's hay, and for the stabbing and mutilating of Michael Cregan's ass on the lands of Ballinamona; will he state at what date the inquiry was held, and who were the police inspectors who conducted it; and, seeing that Constables Keegan and Anderson gave evidence at the inquiry incriminating Sergeant Sheridan in connection with the charges, whether he proposes to take further steps in this matter.

This matter was very fully discussed on the Appropriation Bill at the end of last session, when I announced the decision arrived at by the Government. On that occasion I stated that a secret and searching investigation had been held by my direction into all these cases. The investigation was conducted in June by District Inspectors Morrison and Hobbins.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that, in a case heard at the Abbeylaix, Queen's County, Petty Sessions, on the 8th inst., Sergeant Gallagher, Royal Irish Constabulary, swore upon cross-examination that he recommended physical force as the only practical remedy for the grievances of Ireland; and will he state what steps he proposes taking in the matter.

The Inspector-General, after careful investigation, is satisfied that Sergeant Gallagher's ill-advised and improper observation was made ironically as a sarcasm; that it in no degree represented his opinion, or was not understood to do so by those present. The Inspector-General has informed Sergeant Gallagher that he strongly disapproves of such language, even though used in jest. This censure, in his opinion, with which I concur, sufficiently meets the exigencies of the case.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether Mr. Michael Delaney and other prisoners now in Castlebar Gaol, undergoing sentences inflicted by specially constituted courts, will be allowed freely to write and receive letters concerned with their private business.

These prisoners are subject to the same rules as other local convicted prisoners in respect of writing and receiving letters on private business. If prisoners express a desire to write letters on business or family affairs of an urgent nature, they will be permitted to do so by the Governor.

Are these prisoners treated as contrition criminals?

I do not think the words used by the hon. Member exactly represent the case. They are treated as persons condemned to imprisonment with or without hard labour, as the case may be.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will obtain the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown in Ireland upon the point of how long the rate collectors' warrants remain in force, with a view to saving the expense of further litigation in the matter.

At the request of my right hon. friend, I will reply to this Question. The Law Officers of the Crown in Ireland are the legal advisers of the Crown, and not of local administrative bodies. It is no part of their duties to advise these bodies, nor would their opinion, if given, be binding on these bodies, their officers, or members of the public. The answer to the Question is, therefore, in the negative.

I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland whether he will state the reason for withholding payment from Daniel Duffy, of Raphoe, County Donegal, of the expenses to which he was entitled for attending as a witness at Londonderry Petty Sessions, in the case of the King versus Doherty and others, returned for trial at last winter Assizes in Belfast.

Duffy having made a statement to the police favourable to the prosecution, was summoned as a witness by the Crown. When, however, he was interviewed by the police before the hearing at Petty Sessions he not only receded, from his former statement, but went over to the defence, and was examined for the accused and gave evidence in contradiction of his first statement. The Crown accordingly declined to order any payment to be made to him for his attendance at Petty Sessions as a Crown witness.

I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland whether he is aware that at the last Quarter Sessions for Queens County, held in Maryborough on the 21st January, 1902, the grand jurors, after assembling, were immediately discharged by the judge, there being no criminal business to be disposed of; and, whether, under such circumstances, it is the duty of the sheriff to notify jurors that their attendance is not required.

The Clerk of the Peace states that there was one criminal case tried at the Quarter Sessions mentioned. With regard to the Grand Jury, he explains he was aware that on the 14th January a man was charged at Rathdowney Petty Sessions with obtaining goods by false pretences. This case, he anticipated, would be returned to the Quarter Sessions at Maryborough, but it was returned to the Assizes instead on the 18th January. The Assistant to the Clerk of the Peace did not inform him the case had been sent to Assizes, and it was not until the morning of the 21st January, when the Quarter Sessions opened, that he became aware of the fact, when the Grand Jury was at once discharged.

The Motion standing on the Paper which I beg now to move, needs, I think, little explanation. I have been asked by Members on both sides of the House how the Government propose to deal with the situation which would be created if one of the new Standing Orders were to come into force while the others depending on it were hung up. The greatest confusion would result, and therefore it would be better that the scheme as a whole should be passed before any part of it came into operation. I beg to move. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That, until the consideration of the proposed Resolutions and Amendments to Standing Orders dealing with Sittings of the House, Friday Sittings, Priority of Business, Business in Supply, Questions to Members, Adjournment of the House, Private Business, Quorum of the House, and Standing Committees is completed, no one of such Resolutions or Amendments shall come into operation."—(Mr. A. J. Balfour.)

said he did not think the matter required any discussion, but he wished to point out to the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord that there must be very wide liberty of discussion when the House came to deal with the Amendment of Standing Orders. The right hon. Gentle- man correctly observed the other day that they all hung together, and he must not complain if in the course of the debate hon. Members were compelled to range over the whole of the scheme of the Government. He mentioned this so that no objection might be raised hereafter. The Orders were so interdependent that it was absolutely impossible to avoid dealing with the proposed alterations from the very beginning.

said hon. Members, on referring to the Notice Paper, would see enumerated the Standing Orders involved in his present proposition, and in answer to Mr. CHAPLIN (Lincolnshire, Sleaford) he added that some of those already passed had come into operation.

hoped the right hon. Gentleman would see his way to printing on the White Paper the parts of the Standing Order referred to in the various Resolutions. It would be a great convenience to hon. Members.

As far as I am concerned, everything which conduces to the convenience of the House shall be adopted. I will ascertain if there is any physical difficulty in carrying out the hon. Gentleman's suggestion.

said he had, alter some consideration, come to the conclusion that it might be better, as the new Rules must be hung up for some time, to let them stand over till the end of the session. Two of the Amendments which had been passed, had already had to be hung up, and now they were asked to take eight or nine out of the total of 24, and to treat them in an absolutely different manner from the remaining Amendments. He thought the House and the country should know the real meaning of the Resolution, for they dealt with the very life of the House itself.

Order, order! The hon. Member cannot discuss the merits of the Amendments now, nor can he debate whether the matter shall be postponed to the end of the session. He must confine himself to the Amendment on the Paper.

said he would move an Amendment which would effect the object he had in view.

On the present Amendment the hon. Member cannot discuss either the merits of this proposition nor the desirability of postponing the operation of the new Rules altogether. Amendment proposed—

"To leave out the words 'Until the consideration of,' and insert the word 'when.'"—(Mr. Disraeli.)

said that apart

said he thought it would be most convenient if they were to consider for a short time the bearing of this proposition on Bills and Motions. The Question which he put to the right hon. Gentleman a short time previously with regard to private business had considerable bearing upon what he was about to say. The proposal with regard to everything in fact, except Private Members' Bills, Government business, and votes of censure by the Opposition, amounted to this, that in future the non-official Members would have to depend on evening sittings.

And Fridays.

I said except Bills. Continuing, the right hon. Baronet said they ought to consider what was being taken away from the House as a whole, and what was being offered to it instead. This Motion proposed to take away all Tuesday, a day which, in late years, had been enjoyed by private Members, and in lieu thereof it was proposed to relegate unofficial Members to the evening sittings, which might begin somewhere about 10 o'clock. There was no certainty whatever that they would commence at 10 o'clock, for the First Lord, when he introduced his scheme to the House, announced that private business was to go over to the evening sittings, and to be taken up to 10 o'clock and then adjourned. That was the original statement of the right hon. Gentleman, as it was understood by Members of the House and by the Press.

No, 10 o'clock was the time after which it could not be taken.

said that if the right hon. Gentleman would refer to the report of his speech and the comments upon it he would find that he was most certainly understood as saying that private business would be taken up till 10 o'clock.1 The matter was now left absolutely vague. All the House knew was that the Chairman of Committees was to have power to place private business where he pleased. With the known objection of Parliamentary Agents to taking private business on Mondays, he could not but fear that the two days most frequently taken would be the two days allocated to the House as a whole from 9 o'clock. [Mr. A. J. BALFOUR dissented.] Would the right hon. Gentleman give the House any certainty on the point by giving even one day at 9 o'clock of which they could be sure?

said he had more than once explained his view to the House. Opposed private business was to be taken at the evening sitting. There were four evening sittings in the week.

One is for Supply.

said the Government did not think it right that the distribution of private Bills as between the various evenings should be left to the promoters, and the idea was that the Chairman of Committees should distribute them as evenly as possible.

said that what independent Members in all parts of the House were anxious for was certainty as to some occasions, however few, in the course of the session upon which they would be able to obtain the decision of the House in regard to questions in which they were interested. Not only might private business be put down for 9 o'clock, but Motions for adjournment were liable to be taken at that hour. Therefore, when private Members had on the Paper Resolutions which excited strong feeling, Motions for adjournment might, and probably would be, made for the very purpose of defeating the ballot, and bringing forward casual as against fixed subjects. In such a case, the Member who had by the fortune of the ballot obtained priority, and very likely represented the wishes of a large number of Members of the House, if he had to bring his Motion on at some late hour, would not obtain the closure from the Chair, because the question would not have been sufficiently discussed. It would only require one Member opposed to the Motion to make a long speech, to render it impossible for the decision of the House to be obtained. On one occasion, when proposing to take the time of private Members on Tuesdays, the First Lord of the Treasury expressed his belief that he had never brought forward a Motion on a Tuesday. But, as he (the speaker) stated at the time, that was not so. Not only the First Lord, but all the Gentlemen at present holding a leading position in the House, had found it necessary to bring forward Motions on Tuesdays. The present and late Leaders of the Opposition, when unofficial Members, had brought forward such Motions, and the Leader of the House himself on one occasion not only brought forward but succeeded in virtually carrying a Motion. It was true the House was counted out on that night, but not until the right hon. Gentleman had obtained his way; and he scored an immense success. All these distinguished Gentlemen had found it necessary from time to time to bring questions to the judgment of the House, independently of the Government and independently of votes of censure by the regular Opposition; and it was essential that the House should insist on that opportunity being in some form preserved. This protest was not the ordinary shriek of the victims, to which the right hon. Gentleman had alluded. There were many Members who had not often brought forward such Motions, but had co-operated with others in doing so. They were now pleading, not for the right of old Members, who could look after themselves. The House was kind to old Members, and such had no difficulty in making their views heard. But it was necessary to plead, not only for young Members, but for those who would in future become Members. Preparations were being made in the country for the representation in the House of practically new interests; but it would be a delusion for the representatives of those interests to expect to bring before Parliament the questions to which they attached the deepest importance, because, under this rule, they would have no opportunity of submitting them to the judgment of the House. Trade unions were of opinion that they had lost some of the Parliamentary rights which a Conservative Administration had formerely given them, and they were making large sacrifices of time and money for the purpose—and he believed they would attain their end—of being more largely represented in the next Parliament than they were in the present—and not by men who put trade unionism before all things, but by men like the hon. Member for Morpeth, who, besides being trade unionists, were statesmen. If these men came to the House in large numbers at the next election, and were given no opportunity of bringing the questions in which they were interested before the House, more would have been done to destroy Parliamentary Government in this country than had been done for a long time past. False notions were prevalent in the House as to the use unofficial Members had made of their time. It had been said that private Members counted out one another. He had investigated the use made by unofficial Members of their time for a considerable number of sessions past. He would not go over the whole period, but simply take the last two, sessions as an example. Even reduced as private Members' time had been under the leadership of the right hon. Gentleman, and cut down to a greater extent than ever before, with the exception of a single year, there were in each of these sessions six full nights, besides a considerable number of occasional opportunities, on which a large number of questions were brought to the test of the judgment of the House, divisions in most instances being taken. Last year ten questions were brought to the judgment of the House on those six evenings, and there was not a single "count." In the previous year there-were three "counts," but they did not take place until several questions had been decided by the House. There were eleven questions brought to the decision of the House in that year, making twenty-one in the two years. The right hon. Gentleman had occasionally said that private Members did not make the best use of their time, but he had never helped them to the adoption of any of those schemes—and under these Rules they were impossible of adoption —by which the best use could be made, of the time. But putting that aside, and admitting that unofficial Members in all parts of the House would have to cooperate far more closely than they had hitherto done—and he was glad to see signs of that co-operation even in the discussion of these Rules—he yet contended that the opportunities of the past had not been marked by the failure the right hon. Gentleman appeared to think, but that they had been of important assistance-in the direction of Parliament. As he had already said, there had been three "counts" out of twelve full nights during the last two years. One was at half-past seven after one decision had been taken; one was at half-past eight after two decisions, and the third was at 8.50 after four questions had been decided by the House, so that Members on that occasion were able to go to bed with clear consciences. Questions brought forward in this way had been hampered in a manner unknown until quite recently. Formerly, it was a point of honour with Governments not to count out the House in unofficial Members' time, and they were always represented by at least three or four of their Members when a "count" did take place. But during the last three years, he regretted to say the custom had arisen of every single Member of the Government leaving the House, of the Government Whips themselves actively promoting "counts," and practically insisting on their Members not coming into the House. That, he thought, was almost a conspiracy against the rights of unofficial Members. This was not a question which affected Radicals in particular. It was a curious fact, but he was glad it was so, that the new generation of Conservative Members were making large use of unofficial Members' time. Of the twenty-one questions to which he had referred, four in each year were submitted by Conservative Members. The Irish Members, notwithstanding their great success in the ballot, had only two Resolutions in 1900 and three in 1901. There were three Motions by Liberal Members above the gangway in 1900, and one in 1901; there was one Welsh Motion in each year; there was one from the Radicals below the gangway in 1900, and none in 1901; and one Socialist Resolution was very properly brought to the test of a division in 1901. The Leader of the House was under the delusion that private Members could obtain the opportunities they desired in Supply, and had constantly suggested that the new Supply Rule afforded means for obtaining a decision of the House on matters of this kind. Of the twenty-one questions dealt with in the last two years, there was probably not a single one, with the exception of some Irish matters, which could have been brought to a decision in Supply. One of the Motions brought forward by Conservative Members—that by the hon. Member for Hythe on the subject of cable communications—appeared at first sight capable of being so dealt with; but when even that was examined it would be found there was not a Vote in Supply to which the hon. Member's arguments or conclusions would have applied. Supply all orded no opportunity for bringing these questions to the test of a. division. It was essential, however, to the efficiency of the House and the reputation of Parliament in the country—in the future even more than in the past—that unofficial Members of all shades of opinion should be able to take the judgment of the house on questions without either the Government inviting them to do so or by a vote of censure from the Front Opposition Bench. If no certainty such as he had urged were given, the regular Opposition would be forced more and more by the pressure of their supporters to bring forward unsatisfactory votes of censure, which might help the Government but did not help the country. The tendency was to place more pressure upon the Address, and although the Amendments might not concern non-party matters technically, they were votes of censure on the Government, and hon. Members opposite were obliged to resist them He did not know what course the right hon. Gentleman would take with regard to these matters; but he did not think it was possible that he could defend his proposals as they stood and leave them as they were. The Government seemed to think that all the advances made in the country—all the thought on labour questions and Conservative democracy in this country—could be sufficiently dealt with by magazine articles rather than by bringing such questions before this House. There were many such questions which must be discussed in this House. By the change of the hours on Tuesday, there was also a loss, of the opportunity for a certain number of very good Bills upon which the judgment of the House had been obtained on Tuesdays. By these proposals this opportunity would be gone. Such Bills would now be relegated to the Friday only, and on that day dealt with in the way in which patents were dealt with in a. country he had heard of, where all patents offered to the Government were referred to a Committee of Inventors; the result of this was that the inventors generally agreed that the particular inventor was a lunatic and his patent was a fraud. It was now suggested that those Bills should be dealt with by those who were generally interested in them. That was not at all satisfactory, and they would have to deal with the subject later on. They would have to deal carefully with the subject of the time-table, and they were convinced that the Rule as to adjournments was unfair. They also felt sure that the right of the unofficial ruler to submit questions to the judgment of the House was impossible under these rules.

said that in this proposal, two entirely different questions had been raised. The first question was whether they should alter their long established practice of sitting on Wednesdays for private business; and the second was the question of the afternoon and evening sittings. Those two matters hung together to some extent, but he thought they were entirely different subjects and should be dealt with separately. He was sorry that the Government had not adopted a different way of putting this question before the House. As the Motion stood, if they desired to raise those questions separately they could have suggested that after "Tuesday" Wednesday should be inserted in the present Standing Order, and subsequently they would have come to the other, which was an entirely different point, by leaving out the words "and Friday at Three of the clock." By that means they could have taken the two questions separately, and hon. Members on the Government side would have been able to exercise a free judgment on each matter as it came before the House. He did not desire to enter upon a discussion of the question at that moment. Personally, he felt very strongly upon the question, and he experienced very considerable difficulty in knowing how he was to vote upon the Motion as it was at present before the House. While he agreed with the Government as to the time of the sittings of the House, he did not agree with their change from Wednesday to Friday. Before they started upon that somewhat conflicting debate, it was desirable that they should obtain some clear idea as to how the House might express its opinion without committing itself to an adverse vote upon the whole matter before them.

I understand the hon. Member's point to be this: That the question as to whether we shall substitute Friday for Wednesday is a question quite isolated from the question of the remaining days of the week, which we shall divide into afternoon and evening sittings; and the hon. Member would like to have those debated separately. His suggestion, I understand, is that we should put the word "Wednesday" alone.

My suggestion is to insert "Wednesday" before "Thursday" in the Standing Order.

The House has already embarked upon the particular question of the distribution of the time and the want of facilities which the distribution gives to private Members, and I do not think that the general discussion of this question ought to be in any way burked. But surely my hon. friend will have a full opportunity of raising the question of Wednesday and Friday on his own Amendment or on those similar to his own on the Paper, and I should have thought that would have satisfied him and would have been convenient to the House.

said he quite saw the point which the First Lord of the Treasury had put forward, but at the same time, owing to the manner in which the Standing Order was proposed to be amended, it would follow that those who voted for these words being left out would, by implication, support the words that were afterwards to be inserted, which included Wednesday, on account of the peculiar way in which the words had been taken out.

No, no.

said that after the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman, in consideration of his approval of the time of the sittings, he should give his support to the proposal that the words may be left in in order that the sittings of the House should be arrived at afterwards. He thought every hon. Member who did not like the Wednesday change might support the rule in that broad way, reserving the actual question of the Wednesday and Friday change for the general debate upon the Amendments.

Hear, hear.

asked what arrangements were going to be made for the Private Bill Committees and the Grand Committees under this new Rule. The work of the Committee of Selection was not very easy now, when the Members had to come at twelve, but if they were forced to attend at eleven o'clock in the morning, the work of the Committee of Selection would become well nigh impossible. The change from three to two would be a crushing disability to men of affairs. They wanted to consider the convenience of those men who were of great value to their debates. Lawyers, merchants, doctors, and others, whose time was very valuable in the morning, would find it impossible to get down to the House by two o'clock. But if, in addition to this, they had to come down at eleven to attend Private Bill Committees, their work would be very hard indeed. Then again, what about the Grand Committees, upon which Ministers often sat? Ministers ought to be employed in the forenoon upon the business of the nation, and if they attended Grand Committees they would have to neglect the affairs of the nation. As to the dinner hour, he had already spoken of the absurdity of attempting to drive down to Kensington to dine and return to the House in an hour. He was sure that that arrangement would only produce dyspepsia, bad health, and bad tempers. They all knew what the morning sittings would be, and there would be very little continuity in the business. The result of the break in the continuity of the business would be that the Members who went away in the dinner hour would, in many cases, not return, and he pitied the poor Whips. They understood that private business was to come on Friday and overlap the opportunities of private Members. Now he had been in charge of private business in the House for many years, and he knew that, as time went on, it would increase in complexity, and if private Members were deprived of one opportunity, they would take another. If they could not talk at the proper time, they would take advantage of Motions for adjournment and private business in order to bring their own questions forward. He should be greatly obliged if the right hon. Gentleman would explain to them what arrangements were to be made under the new dispensation for Private Bill Committees and Grand Committees

asked whether the suggestion now before them was going to increase the businesslike capacity of the House. No doubt the proposed arrangement would be a convenient one for many Committee of. Supply would be on Thursday, and they would go away on that day. Possibly they would run away before the end of the Wednesday sittings, and some might forget to come back quite in time on Monday. The system of taking a week-end had become enormously fashionable, and it was a very pleasant one, but was it really business-like arrangement? Was it making the business of the country the prime duty of this assembly? He must candidly say that he did not think it was. It seemed to him that no one in arranging his own private business would put four consecutive long days together, each to twelve or one o'clock, with only an interval of an hour for dinner. The present arrangement for Wednesday seemed to him a reasonable one both, for the staff, and, what was of perhaps more importance, for the Members themselves. To sit from two to eight o'clock would be a very long time without a break. It was an hour longer, than at present, and was, it seemed to him, no improvement. There was a proposal that the Chairman should be, allowed to leave occasionally, but they had never yet established that, and it was hardly a reform which could be considered, a real practical reform of the procedure of the House of Commons. The proposal to adjourn for dinner was a very pleasant one to many Members, He lived in Victoria Street, and it would be extremely comfortable for him to go home to dinner, but although he had been in the House for nearly eighteen years he had always made it a rule to dine here, because if he did go home he did not like to turn out again. But years were rolling over him, and if he were compelled to go home for dinner he might have a difficulty in coming back. A private Members' night might possibly be too much even for him. He fully agreed that some change was necessary, but looking to the number of hours this change would give, he really could not see that the Government would get a very great advantage out of it. He had never known the Government, when it had the whole time of the House, to have morning sittings. If it were true that when the Government had the whole time of Parliament at its disposal it had never adopted morning sittings, in what possible way could it be necessary to adopt them now for the sake of getting business through? He thought there was a grave objection to meeting so early as two o'clock. There was the question raised by the hon. Gentleman the Member opposite about Committees, which was a very important one. It must be remembered that Private Bill Committees were part and parcel of the whole system of administration in this Rouse, and a very important part. It was a very trying thing for a man to be here at eleven o'clock on these committees, but if it were to be made a regular thing to come at that hour it would be still more difficult for hon. Members to attend the Committees. He supposed he was old-fashioned, but he did not wish to see the House full of simply professional politicians. He wished to see men of all classes and of all occupations—successful men in business and in the professions. After all, these were the men who had made and were making the country great, and for whom they ought to have respect in their arrangements. It had been asked how were they to get through the enormous quantity of business which had to be done. He thought sometimes they tried to do too much business. If they would confine themselves to the business of Supply, and one or two measures that were wanted, and do that properly and efficiently, they might get on better than they did. He agreed with the hon. Baronet opposite that private or unofficial Members, by bringing forward Resolutions and having them debated, were ventilating subjects which were of interest to the public outside if they were good; they ultimately led to legislation. With regard to the changes of hours, although they would be extremely comfortable for him personally, he could not think that they would tend to the better carrying out of the business of the House. He, therefore, with regard to these particular changes, regretted that they had not his support.

said that the rule now under consideration involved a constitutional change, and in his opinion it struck at the efficiency of Parliament as a whole. Except in the case of a few who had been brought into contact with the machinery of the House in various ways, hon. Members found it necessary to be here for two or three sessions before they were able to grasp the manner and method whereby they could make any position for themselves in the House, or do what their constituents sent them here to do. The Labour Members had been sent here by certain sections of the community throughout the country, and, up to the present, they had been unable to bring prominently before this assembly the grievances under which their class laboured. It would take them some sessions before they could get into touch with other Members, in order to press forward the questions they had at heart. In the event of a dissolution taking place before these Members had been able to do anything for their constituents, the result would be disastrous, not only to them, but to the particular trade or section of the community that sent them to Parliament. The result would be to crush out of public life all those Labour Members, who, it would be admitted, had been admirable Members of the House. It had been said that those Members would find a means in Committee of Supply of dealing with those questions which they desired to bring forward. He maintained it could not be done in that way, but if it could be done in Committee of Supply, it would be done most ineffectively, and if done, it would rob those Members who desired to bring forward other matters in Committee of Supply of their opportunity. Therefore, no matter which course was taken, private Members would lose. It seemed to him, looking at it with comparatively limited experience, that in drawing up this particular Rule there had been a conspiracy, on the part of the official Members generally, to kill the private Member, or, at any rate, to ruin him, so far as his efficiency in the House was concerned. The ballot, which was one great protection of the private Member, would become practically a myth, because, when the time came, he would, in all probability, be robbed of his opportunity. It had been said that the Chairman was to be the arbiter of what was of value and what was not. The effect of this Rule would be to crush the private Member between the upper and the nether millstone. It could not be denied that the pressure of work during four successive days would be found in the first place very irksome to the higher officials in the House. It would become a drudgery to the employees of the House and on the working private Members, who desire to forward any particular matters of moment, who would be obliged to attend here the entire day in order to take their share in the work of the House, and to whom the remainder of the night would be occupied in futile and ineffective attempts to gain some hearing for the subjects which they had at heart. The only class of Members to whom this Rule would be of any value were those for whom least consideration ought to be given, either by the House, the constituencies, or the public at large. He meant those Members who were able to come there and take as small a share in the business of the House as they chose; and who could afford to go away when they pleased, especially for the week-end. But should-other Members of the House be penalised for the benefit of those who took the least interest in the business of the House I He hoped the Leader of the House would take this question of substituting Fridays for Wednesdays into his serious consideration, for he was convinced that it would benefit no one except the Governmental section of the House and those Members who took a very small part in the real business of the House, while it would be of enormous disadvantage to and a strain upon the officials of the House, and upon the gentlemen of the Press, and therefore to the public at large.

said he did not wish to speak on this question in any spirit of hostility to the proposals of the Government. In fact, he considered that it should not be treated as in any sense a Party question, because what they wanted to arrive at was, what would be most convenient to the majority of Members on both sides of the House; and in matters of this kind they should be left perfectly free to express their own opinions. At any rate, when a change of this magnitude was proposed, an appropriate opportunity should be afforded to review the whole position in regard to the sittings of the House, and to consider whether the hours during which they had been in the habit of sitting, even with the modifications now proposed, were those most likely to be conducive to the convenience of the general body of Members, and to the efficient conduct of business. He had no hesitation in saying that the vast majority of people outside who were in the habit of watching their proceedings were filled with amazement at the late hours which they persisted in keeping, and at the unseasonable times at which they elected to transact a good deal of the most important part of their business. They could not account for it, and could not fathom the reasons which impelled them to such a course. They simply regarded hon. Members with a sort of amused toleration—as a kind of peculiar people who were a law unto themselves, and who held different views on these subjects from those held by the generality of mankind. After having carefully examined the proposals of the Government he confessed he had utterly failed to discover how they were likely to bring about any material improvement in this respect. Although they were to be allowed an hour instead of half an hour for dinner, they would have to come down an hour earlier in the afternoon. In fact, it was worse than that, because under the present system Questions were taken first, after private business. These usually took at least an hour, and therefore it was unnecessary for hon. Members, unless they had Questions to put to Ministers, to come down until half-past four o'clock. Under the suggested arrangement, however, Government business would generally be taken at half-past two, which would mean that they should have to come down two hours earlier than at present, whilst it seemed to him that it would still be necessary for them to sit very late on most nights in the week, especially after the Government had appropriated the time of the House for their own business. Then the substitution of Friday for Wednesday as the day for an early sitting, by causing them to sit late for four consecutive nights, would make these late sittings even more trying than they were at present. The changes proposed might, to some extent, relieve those Members who were not in the habit of attending the sittings of the House regularly, but it appeared to him that these were the Members whom it was least necessary for them to consider, for whatever changes might be made; it was not at all probable that they would attend any more regularly. Nor could he see that these proposed changes would to any material extent relieve Mr. Speaker, the officials of the House, the members of the Government, or those Members of the House who wished to follow and take an intelligent interest in the whole of their proceedings. Since he became a Member of the House, four years ago, several things in connection with their procedure had impressed themselves very forcibly upon his mind. In the first place, he thought they had been in the habit of transacting a good deal of the most important part of their business at most inconvenient, unsuitable and unseasonable hours; often turning night into day; assigning the first place and the best hours of a sitting to comparatively unimportant business; and relegating the considerations of high matters of State to the small hours of the morning. And he had also thought that whether their business was important or the reverse they had taken about six times as long to transact it as any other business or legislative Assembly in the world, not excluding that much abused body, the House of Lords, would take to transact precisely the same amount of business, and with no better results. It seemed to him that it was not only or even mainly a question of the convenience of Members. It was simply a perversion of terms, and a misuse of the English language, to say that hon. Members were idle, slothful, and lazy, just because they wished to restore their mental balance by going away for the week-ends; or because they did not wish to spend 10 hours at a stretch in an unhealthy atmosphere, listening to long-winded orations on subjects with which they were already perfectly familiar, without any sufficient interval for rest or refreshment. His opinion was, that the sooner they recognised the fact that Members of Parliament were after all only human beings, and not mere cast-iron machines, the better it would be for all concerned. But the point he wished to make was, that if they expected hon. Members to work at unseasonable times or for an excessive number of hours without a sufficient interval in which to recuperate their powers, it followed as a matter of course that they would not get from them the best work of which they were capable, and that the business of the, nation would necessarily and inevitably suffer in consequence. They knew perfectly well that, for most business purposes, a man was at his best in the early part of the day; but except on Wednesdays, when, usually, comparatively unimportant subjects were discussed, that was the very part of the day when the House of Commons scorned to sit at all. Why should they, in their corporate capacity, act in a different manner in regard to the transaction of their business and the management of their affairs to that which each of them would adopt individually if they were dealing with their own private concerns; and why should they set at nought and ignore the very salutary custom which prevailed amongst all business and professional men, indeed amongst all sane individuals who could control their own actions, all over the world, namely, to do the most arduous and important part of their work in the early part of the day, when they were fresh, vigorous and alert? He himself did not see why they should not hold morning sittings, just as they did at present on Wednesdays, on every week day except Saturday. That would be something like a genuine relief not only to Members of the House, but even more to Mr. Speaker, to members of the Government, and to the over-worked officials of the House; and yet it would leave Ministers free for an hour or two both in the morning and in the evening to attend at the offices of their Departments and transact such business as that they had to do there. He was quite aware that whenever this suggestion was put forward, many of the older Members shook their heads and said that it would never do. But what he could never get to know was why it would not do. Except for the old-fashioned, high-and-dry Tory objection to any change whatsoever, the only objections he had ever heard raised to such a course being adopted were two—firstly, that it would interfere with the attendance of business and professional men who had their own affairs to look after, and could only come to the House after their personal work was done; and, secondly, that it would interfere with the work of the Committees of the House. But he respectfully submitted that neither of those objections, when they came to be examined otherwise than superficially, would hold water for a moment. In most foreign Legislatures far more work was delegated to Committees than in this House. On a reference to the Return, with which they had been favoured as to the customs which prevail elsewhere, it would be found that the House of Commons differed from all foreign Legislative Assemblies in respect to the length and lateness of their sittings. He believed he was correct in saying that there was not another Parliament in the whole of the civilised world which transacted the most important part of its business in the latter part of the day when every one is tired, except on very rare occasions, and cases of great emergency. It might be said that in most foreign countries Members were paid, that they had the professional politician, and things were done in a very different way. The English thought themselves very superior people—possibly they were—but human nature was pretty much the same all the world over, and he believed that exhaustion, fatigue, and mental prostration from excessive hours of labour were just as likely to overtake an English Member who was not paid, as a French, German, or American Senator who was paid. They could not expect the average man, just because he happened to be a Member of Parliament, to be moulded differently and to have greater powers of endurance than all other people, and surely if Members were not paid they were entitled to even more consideration than Members who were paid. Nor did he believe that the shortening of the hours and assimilating them to those of other business and Legislative Assemblies would have the effect of depriving the House of Commons of the services of business and professional men. He thought that they would continue to come just as much as they do now on Wednesdays when anything of importance necessitated their attendance. But however that might be, things had come to a pretty pass if a rich and powerful country like Great Britain could not command the services of a sufficient number of men, able and willing to transact the business of the nation, without having recourse to men, jaded, weary, and worn, who had spent their best energies over their private concerns and could only give to the nation of their second best, after their own work was finished. He did not wish for a moment to disparage the services of that class of Members. On the contrary, he considered them most valuable and advantageous in every way. And as he had said he believed that many of them would—even at some personal sacrifice—continue to attend on all essential occasions, even if they did have morning sittings. Even if they did not, their advice and assistance could always be obtained whenever any expert opinion was required on matters before the House. And there would, in such a case, be this distinct gain both to them and to us, that it would no longer be "advice gratis," which many people think is not worth very much. But his contention was, and he thought it could not readily be answered— That if the sittings were altered so as to bring them within reasonable and respectable hours, it would not only improve the quality, character, and capacity of existing Members, but it would largely add to and increase the number of suitable and well qualified men who would be willing to serve their country in the capacity of Members of this House. Then, as regards Committees, he did not see why such a change need impair their usefulness and efficiency, or in any way interfere with those functions which they now exercised with so much advantage to the State. Some of these Committees already sat, to a certain extent, whilst the House was sitting, and it seemed to him that was a difficulty which could readily be got over if a few business men were to meet round a Table and devote themselves to the task of finding a solution. At all events, it was quite certain that Members could not be in two places at once. But as most of these Committees were composed of an equal number of Members from both sides of the House, it seemed to him that not very much harm would be done if they did occasionally miss a few divisions while attending to the work on which they were engaged, which most people would think was at least as profitable a way of spending their time as tramping through the Division Lobbies. If, however, the sittings of the House were held earlier, they would get through the work so much more rapidly and thoroughly, that it would soon be found quite unnecessary to sit every day in the week any more than Foreign parliaments found it necessary to do so; and in that case it would be quite possible for Committees to sit when the House itself was not sitting, or it might be arranged that they should sit at a different period of the year altogether. He was sadly afraid that he would not be successful in persuading the House, and, least of all, the members of the Government, to adopt such a drastic change as that which he had suggested on the present occasion. But, nevertheless, he was glad to have had an opportunity of laying his views on this subject—which he held very strongly—before the House, and he was much obliged for the patience with which they had listened to him, and in conclusion he would only say that he hoped and believed that the time would come, and that before so very many more years had passed over their heads, when the change he advocated would be adopted, because he was convinced that it was in accordance with the dictates of reason and common sense, and that it would be most advantageous to them all in conducting the business of the nation.

I cordially agree with one remark which fell from the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, and that was that the discussion of this Rule in particular should be left to what I may call the unbiassed judgment of the House, and that no influence should be exercised to procure its decision in a specific direction. Yet I venture to say with reference to the picture the hon. Gentleman has dawn of a reformed House of Commons enjoying itself with Wednesday sittings every day of the week, with the attendance which Wednesdays secure, and with the admirable legislation of which Wednesday legislation is a type, that if the unbiassed judgment of the House were left to deal with that question, the hon. Gentleman will find himself in a very small minority. I would like to say a few words on the questions that may be raised in the discussion of this Rule. With reference to the point raised by an hon. Gentleman opposite, who said that he was prepared to agree with some portions of the Rule and prepared to disagree with others, it did seem, at first sight, that we should have been precluded from discussing all the branches of this Rule, and that we would find ourselves in some difficulty when we came to divide upon it; but the course adopted by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House seems to free us from the difficulty; and we shall be able, while necessarily surveying all the points as they arise, to have our individual opinion on each point separately. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean raised one of the most important points which could come before us with reference to any alteration of our procedure, and that is the position of the unofficial Members. He attached great importance to the unofficial Members and their Motions, and he seemed to think that the proposed alteration of the Rule would deprive unofficial Members of what they at present possess and would reduce their opportunities for discussing legislation. I do not quite read the proposals of the Government in that light. I think they form a sort of contract between the Government and the House of Commons for securing that a larger portion of time should be placed at the disposal of unofficial Members. [An HON. MEMBER: Oh!] I am expressing my own opinion, and not the opinion of anyone else; and the way I read the Rule is that the grabbing and grasping of the time of unofficial Members, which sometimes takes place very early in the session, is to come to an end; that unofficial Members are to have the time of the House left to them during certain periods of the session, without its being infringed upon by the inexorable demands of Supply, and that they are to have certain nights absolutely secured to them. I would wish to mention, however, that the right hon. Gentleman omitted one point, namely, the importance of a different mode of allocating the time given.

I did say that on what was called the Second Reading Debate, and I alleged that it was a ground for having the Committee which the Leader of the Opposition asked for, because without that Committee it could not be raised.

I had not the pleasure of hearing that speech. I entertain a strong opinion that the plan which Mr. Courtney suggested years ago with reference to allocating the time of unofficial Members would prevent these counts out which necessarily arise from insignificant matters being brought before the House. I should like to correct the right hon. Baronet on one point. He asserted that it was a modern practice for the Government tellers to assist in a count out. I was never counted out except once, and that was at the instigation of a Government of which the right hon. Baronet formed part. I do not think we can dispose of this question satisfactorily until we have some mode of allocating private Member's time. As to the question whether the Wednesday sitting should be changed to Friday, or should remain as it is, there is a good deal to be said for the change and against it. I can see that a holiday at the end of the week, which would practically be a holiday of three days, and not of two days, would be agreeable to a large number of Members; but, while I agree that we are hound to consider the convenience of Members, we are bound to consider first the discharge of the business of the House, and I do not think that the substitution of Friday for Wednesday would be in favour of the effective transaction of business. Supply is to be taken on Thursday, and an evening sitting on Thursday for Supply I do not think will have any more attraction than an evening sitting on Friday now has. The practice will very soon be adopted. It will become a habit of the House to practically adjourn at the close of the morning sitting on Thursday. Friday will become a dies non. I do not think that the House as a whole can afford to convey to the public the impression that the first instinct of Members is to seek opportunities for holidays instead of devoting themselves to public business. I think that the Wednesday sitting is a break in the week which is appreciated, not only by the Speaker and the officials, but by hon. Members. As far as the convenience of Members is concerned, and you cannot disregard their convenience altogether in this matter, Wednesday has become an accepted break in the week, and a great many engagements of a social and political and public character will be greatly interfered with, if that day is taken away from us. Then, with reference to the change of hours, I am glad to hear that question raised at last, and I am impelled to ask the right hon. Gentleman what is to become of Committees if this change takes place. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman has made a suggestion with reference to the Committee work of the House. Who is to do the Committee work, and when is it to be done? The hon. Member who has just sat down spoke rather disparagingly of Committee work.

No, no, not at all!

I acquit the hon. Member of any intention, but that was certainly the impression he created.

On the contrary, I said that service on the Committees of this House was of great advantage to the nation.

The House must recollect that a Private Bill Committee is a judicial body, and Members are not allowed to leave it without the consent of the House, and that if a Member is absent he is reported to the House, and before now in a case of that kind, the House has used its punitive powers. If the House is to meet at 2 o'clock, at what hour are the Committees to begin work? When the alteration of the meeting hour of the House from 4 o'clock to 3 o'clock was made, it produced a great deal of inconvenience and dissatisfaction. I believe they now meet at 11.30. You cannot ask hon. Members to conic here before 11.30. [A VOICE: "Yes. 11 o'clock.") Can you ask them to come before 11 o'clock? You must remember that if you cut the hours of these Committees short a considerable amount of extra expense will be inflicted upon promoters of Bills. Then, as to Grand Committees. There is a tendency now to send a great deal of legislation to Grand Committees which are specially prohibited from sitting while the House is sitting, and only once or twice has that prohibition been removed by special permission. You cannot be in two places at once, and you have not provided for that in any way; you ought to give a chance to a Member sitting on a Grand Committee or attending the Sittings of this House.

There cannot be any important business until 2.30, and if the right hon. Gentleman looks at the Rules he will see that a Grand Committee can sit after the House sits, but not while important business is going on.

But the most important business of the day is to begin at 2.30. Members of Private Bill Committees and other Committees have a right to come to the House when important business is being discussed. When we come to discuss the question in detail, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will make some concession to the House on this matter. I think there may be time to allow some margin with reference to Committee work with regard to the suspension of the sitting. One hon. Member objected very much to this adjournment between the morning and evening sittings, and what he said was perfectly true. Nevertheless, we have to look the fact in the face that, at the present time, call it what you will, there is a dinner hour now, and no one would submit to sitting for eight or nine hours at any occupation without having a reasonable and proper interval for refreshment. I am of opinion that it is best that a time should be allotted for that; and whether the hour the right hon. Gentleman has allotted, or whether the proposal of Mr. W. H. Smith when he occupied the position of the right hon. Gentleman in this House, I need not trouble myself now to consider, but I think you must in sonic way provide for a suspension of the sitting of the House for a reasonable time in order that hon. Members may refresh themselves. With regard to the change of Wednesday to Friday, I feel there are insuperable difficulties in the way of this change, and there is great difficulty in making our sittings commence at so early an hour as two o'clock. A difficulty will also arise as to the allocation of the time from 7.15 to 8 o'clock, and also in the arrangement of private business. As regards private business, I do not think the proposed remedy of the right hon. Gentleman is sufficient for the purpose, even when the Chairman of Committees is given the power of fairly dividing the work among all the days of the week. I think it certainly should be put out of the power of any Parliamentary Agent to dictate to the House what it should do with its time, but the remedy proposed will not deal with that question. I think there will have to be much more consideration and a great deal of devolution with regard to private business. The experiment which has been tried with so much success in Scotland must be tried elsewhere. That is not within the limits but I do not think you will be able to take up private business in the evening without great inconvenience to the House and those who introduce measures to the House. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will, on files questions which concern our convenience, leave the House at liberty to form it, own opinion, although the House will give the greatest possible weight to his opinion. I, therefore, appeal to not to make this a Party question, but allow it to be decided by the House itself.

Perhaps the House would allow me at this stage to say just a few words. If this debate is continued, not, I hope, for very long, we shall have all the questions touched on by the right hon. Gentleman cropping up again, so, perhaps, I had better answer them at once. The right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down appealed to me not to make Government proposals a question for a Government division. That is a very difficult doctrine to maintain. We have to consider this matter as a whole, and, in so considering it, it would be quite inconsistent with our procedure if those responsible for the Government plan did not take the further responsibility of carrying it with all the authority which all Governments exercise in the conduct of public affairs. We must exercise that authority. I do not think that touches the merits of the question, and. it is on the merits that I propose, for a very few moments, to detain the House. The right hon. Gentleman is, I think, not counted as one generally hostile to the procedure suggested in these Rules, although he has severely criticised some of our proposals. I will not say anything as to that, part of his speech in which he dealt with the question of Wednesday and Friday sittings, as that will be dealt with at a later stage, and it is independent of the question of morning and evening sittings. Let me deal first with the general objection to any alteration of the times of the business of this House. Whatever you do, whatever device the wit of man can contrive, it will undoubtedly be open to objections of genuine force. I do not for one instant suggest to the House that the plan we have proposed is a perfect plan, or that a scheme has been devised by which everybody's convenience may be met, by which no single interest either in or out of the House may be injured, which shall at once give the Government all the time they want for legislation, and at the same time give private Members all the time they want for their resolutions, give private Bills a place in the very heart of the Parliamentary day, give every Member ample time for his dinner, and yet not ask him to come down until four or five o'clock in the afternoon. This plan, like every other, calls for sacrifices from some people. All we claim for it is that by it we add to the general convenience of Members without materially injuring the great interests committed to us. Let me prove that general proposition by dealing with the subject of Committers—private Bill Committees and Grand Committees. As regards Grand Committees, I think the right hon. Gentleman opposite has not made himself acquainted with one of the proposed Standing Orders appearing later on the Paper, by which the existing Binds within which Grand Committees may sit are curtailed by half-an-hour. At present, Grand Committees may not sit beyond three o'clock without special leave of the House. Under the Standing Order that we propose, that hour is to be altered to 2.30. Therefore, Standing Committees may sit while some of our proceedings are going on, but they will be released at the hour public business begins. No doubt that will, to some extent, curtail the hours of their activity, but I do not think it will seriously impair their efficiency.

Will the right hon. Gentleman state the hour at which the Committees will commence their sittings?

That is not a question of our Rules. That point is not laid down by the Rules now; it is a matter for the Committees themselves. I will pass from the Grand Committees to the Private Bill Committees. Let the House remember that the existing system requires or enables Private Bill Committees to sit while the House is engaged in public controversial work. I believe that these Committees now habitually sit until four o'clock, and I see no reason why — at all events, it is a matter for them to decide—they should not sit, perhaps not until four, but until the House had begun its public work. That is the practice already, and I see no reason why that practice should not continue. Let me remind the right hon. Gentleman that, while he praised, and praised justly, the Scottish system, and while he desired to see that system extended to England and Ireland—a view with which in its general terms I heartily agree—that system requires Members of both Houses to be completely away from the controversial work of Parliament.

Not during the session.

Certainly. That system requires a certain number of Members of this House to be away altogether. That being our existing system, and that being the system the right hon. Gentleman desires to see extended, do not let us be too fastidious or too particular about the fact, which is undoubtedly true, that the sittings of Private Bill Committees will overlap the general sittings of the House. Having made that defence of the proposal against the right hon. Gentleman's attack, let me repeat in his presence—as I think I said to the House when he unfortunately was away on account of illness—that I do not think the existing system of dealing with private business is either good or should be indefinitely continued. I do not see why we should wait to reform our general procedure until we have got a perfect system for dealing with private Bills, but I think that these new Rules offer an occasion which ought not to be lost of appointing a Committee, as we propose to do, to consider the whole question of how private Bills may best be dealt with by this House. As I said in answer to a question from an hon. friend of mine the other day, I think that Committee will have, among other topics, to consider how far the system which is working so admirably in Scotland may receive a yet further extension. I omitted to say just now that not only do the sittings of Private Bill Committees overlap the sittings of the House, but the Committees also sit on Wednesdays; that is to say, they sit on Wednesday through more than two-thirds of the whole sitting of the House. I think, therefore, I am justified in dismissing as insufficient—I do not say as wholly without foundation — the arguments the right hon. Gentleman has brought against the scheme. Then my hon. friend the Member for North Islington attacked, but in very moderate terms, the general allocation of business. He stated that so far as he could see, the Government would get very little advantage out of it. I entirely agree, if by the Government he meant the progress of Government Bills. I do not see why that progress should be much more rapid under this plan than under the existing system; at all events, I do not think the gain to Government is very great. But these Rules, and, in particular, the Rule we are now discussing, were not devised to give the Government more time than they already get or take —I will come to the question of taking presently—but to allocate that time in a manner more convenient to the general body of unofficial Members of the House, and to make our proceedings secure and certain so far as concerns the hour at which Government business should come on. I have been reproached with having promised the House that these Rules would give security as regards the time private Members' business would come on at the evening sitting, whereas, evidently, there is no such security. If this House is to have any elasticity in its procedure at all, that elasticity must be granted at the expense of somebody, and I frankly admit that by these Rules we get that necessary elasticity at the cost of the evening sittings, and not of the afternoon sittings, which are the kernel of the day, and which are always Government sittings—if you call Supply Government business. I quite admit that these Rules are intended to make, and will succeed in making, the business to be taken at those sittings absolutely secure. And what an advantage that will be! It is not the mere advantage of the Government having more hours in the session. The advantage is not so much to members of the Government as to all Members of the House who want to take part in what is and, after all, ought to be, the main business of the legislative session. Is that a small boon? Is that a boon which ought to be lightly thrown aside? Then my hon. friend went on to say that while this plan did not give any special facilities to the Government, it did make a much more convenient arrangement of work for most private Members, him elf included. He admitted the arrangement was convenient, but he said it was not specially business-like. I do not admit this distinction between what is convenient and what is businesslike. There are circumstances in which the two may be at odds or antagonistic, but, depend upon it, no hours which are really inconvenient are really businesslike. That may be laid down with certainty. The House may be obliged in order to do its business to sit at very inconvenient hours, but the more we make the hours of sitting convenient to Members of the House, surely the more business-like will be the arrangement under which this assembly does its work. I will not say anything about the interesting speech of my hon. friend the Member for the Edgbaston Division. He has a plan of his own, which is almost as far removed from the Government plan as it is from the plan under which the House has hitherto worked. He desires to have five days in the week on which the Wednesday Rule shall prevail, and have no evening sittings at all. That, no doubt, is a plan which has charms, but it is not I a plan the Government could ask the House to accept, and I do not think it is necessary that I should do more than thus briefly allude to the scheme the hen. Member has endeavoured to lay before the House. I will pass to the criticisms of the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean, who initiated this debate. Some of them I have already dealt with. He thought there was great uncertainty as to the method by which Private Bills would be dealt with under the plan of the Government. I really think my opening statement has not had full justice done to it. After hearing that statement, as I thought, so strangely represented by the right hon. Baronet, I consulted Hansard, and I find that, as there reported—though the report has not been corrected or touched by me, or, indeed, by anybody else—it quite accurately represents what I intended to convey to the House, and it certainly is not at all consistent with the views the right hon. Baronet put before us. Our views about the time to be given to controversial Private Bills are quite settled. We think that such Bills as cannot be finished before 2.25, should, in the main, be taken in the evening sittings; as between the evening sittings we desire that the most impartial distribution should take place under the auspices of the Chairman of Committees. We see no reason why Government time should be sacrificed to private Members, or private Members' time to the Government, or Supply to either, but we think all four evenings should be treated on an equality, whether they belong to the Government, or are devoted to Supply, or are in charge of private Members. I thought, and still think, that that is a practical, convenient, and possible scheme. The right hon. Baronet went on to complain that this Rule greatly limited the opportunities the House now has for discussing and voting upon those private Members' Resolutions to which he attaches such supreme importance, and he seemed to think that I am an enemy of those Resolutions. I do not know on what statement of mine he founds that belief. For my part, I am perfectly ready to admit that they are of value, that many interesting discussions take place upon them, and that, in some respects, they are a very welcome interlude to the prolonged debates which the House insists on having in regard to the details of Government measures. It is an interlude, however, of which Members did not always show themselves very appreciative, for the number of counts out on these occasions in the last ten years is really much greater than any human being would guess from the two years which the right hon. Baronet has selected as giving a fair specimen of what happened.

There was not one last year.

There was not a single count out last year, and an average taken over last year and the preceding year presents a very imperfect view of the way in which hon. Members use these opportunities. I value them myself, but I do not value so greatly what the right hon. Gentleman calls the decision which the House takes upon them. The debates are very often interesting, but I do not think that the division shows the real estimation in which the House holds the Resolution, and we shall never get that until such Resolutions are brought forward in the form of a Bill or some measure in charge of the Government, in some form in which hon. Members think it would be likely to pass into law. Therefore, I think the opinion of the House on these abstract Resolutions is of very small value and, within my own recollection, I know a case in which right hon. Gentlemen opposite, when Members of the Government—and when the right hon. Gentleman himself was the Leader, on the very morrow of the House having passed a Resolution upon a subject—paid no attention to it whatever on behalf of the Government. [An HON. MEMBER: No, no!] I am sorry if I am misrepresenting the historical sequence of events. Now is it a fact that these abstract Resolutions are receiving very hard measures at our hands? I think not. It is perfectly true that under the Standing Orders as they lie on the Table private Members have the whole of Tuesday in every week for the discussion of these abstract Resolutions, but surely the experience of even the youngest Member of this House, to say nothing of the older Members, would show that, as a matter of fact, every Government in turn trespasses and trenches upon the time given to these Resolutions. The hon. Gentleman the Member for King's Lynn, and other ardent supporters of the rights of private Members, must take facts as they find them. It is not because of any aversion to the work of private Members that their time is taken, but it is because in no other way can the legislative business of the House be carried on. Our view is that, once for all, we should regulate this division of time between the Government and private Members, and we ought not to leave it to these constantly recurring Motions for taking the time of the House, but private Members ought to have some certainty as to what days of the week are to be devoted to work other than Government work. That certainty is given by these Resolutions. By this allocation of time we shall have one day a week in which hon. Members will not be prevented from bringing on a Resolution by lengthy private business or by Motions for adjournment.

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will contend that a Motion for adjournment is not Government business, but it is nevertheless due to the lachesof the Government and actually is Government business.

The hon. Member says that the adjournment of the House is Government business. Really, I do not quite see how after such a statement we can argue together. If 40 Members rise in their places in this House and say that a certain matter is a matter of emergency as against something put forward by the Government of the day, that is, in the opinion of the hon. Gentleman, to be labelled Government business. I need not argue that question any further. I say that there is no business which is more private business than adjournments, and an adjournment which can only be brought on by 40 Members has probably more backbone in it than the abstract Resolution in favour of which the hon. Gentleman speaks. I still consider that if 40 Members choose to move the adjournment, that is emphatically private business, and we really ought to confine these Resolutions to private Members' days. I do not, however, propose that, and I should be very much surprised if we do not find that there are a great many more matters of urgent public importance started on those days on which the Government have evening sittings than on those days which the private Members have set apart for their business. Time alone will decide whether I am right or wrong, but I think my prophecy will not be found to be wrong. I do claim to have shown to the House, leaving the Friday and Wednesday question on one side, that this arrangement is not open to every objection which has been taken against it. It does not give everything which each of us desire, but I do think that it gives more than any other rival plan can give, and I know it gives more than the plan upon which the House now tries to carry on its business.

The right hon. Gentleman has made a very adequate statement as to the operation of these rules. I cannot, however, myself understand how he considers that any considerable advantage is going to be gained by the Government in the conduct of public business. The right hon. Gentleman has stated that this new Rule will not give more time to the Government, and that is exactly what appeared to me, for I do not think it will give any more time to the Government. If that is so, then I do not quite understand what the object is in making this change. You may make this change to obtain a better distribution of the time, but, in my opinion, you will have less time for the Government than they have at present, and they will have that time in a very inconvenient form, because, practically speaking, in order to secure what is called dinner you give up two hours of the day, and in order to recoup those two hours you call upon the House to meet an hour earlier. I think everybody must feel that, to a great number of hon. Members, to meet an hour earlier is a very great inconvenience, and that inconvenience applies to those who attend Committees, and to everybody who have their own private affairs to look after, and to whom coming an hour earlier is certainly an inconvenience. And all this inconvenience is incurred in order that we may have these two hours for dinner. But we do not dine here under the existing system, for a large number of hon. Members go away to dine. I am not sure that this plan of supposing that we are going away at 8 o'clock and coming back at 9 is going to be more convenient than the present system. Why is it when the right hon. Gentleman wants to get through the business of the House that he does not have a morning sitting? Why does he not have a continuous sitting of the House in order to get through the business? I cannot understand how he considers that he is going to get more working time for the House of Commons by this new arrangement. He is certainly not going to get more time for the Government, but is he going to give more time to the unofficial Member? As was pointed out by my right hon. friend the Member for the Forest of Dean, everybody knows that the time that will be available to unofficial Members will he less under this plan than it is under the existing system. He is left out of consideration upon this question of the time available for business. Then there is the important question we shall have to consider presently of the change from Wednesday to Friday. In my opinion, by this plan you are going to lose at least one day out of the seven in the work of the House of Commons. I believe that will be the result of this change. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton that this is a great blot upon the proposals of the Government. I believe that Friday will be a wasted day, and that will he the inevitable consequence of this change. I entirely agree with my right hon. friend the Member for East Wolverhampton that hon. Members will go away, to a great extent, upon the Thursday. That will be an absolute loss to the working time of the House. Looking at the whole of this plan, though I agree that there may be some advantageous readjustments of the manner in which the business has been arranged, yet the plan proposed by the Government I think is one which will not add to the working time of the House of Commons, but will diminish the working time of the Government, and will also diminish the opportunities which the unofficial Members would otherwise have had at their disposal. So far from believing that this plan is going to raise the reputation of the House of Commons as a working Assembly, in my opinion the existing plan, with all its defects, is better than the plan the Government now propose. Therefore, I for one will vote for not altering the present system, imperfect as it is, as I see no advantage but considerable inconvenience and loss of time, in the plan proposed by the Government.

said he was sure the uppermost feeling of all Members was not merely to make Rules for their own convenience but for the better carrying out of the business of the House. He attached the greatest importance to the proposed interval between the two sittings of the House. He believed strongly that it would facilitate business, and that to many of those who were hardest worked in the House it would be a great convenience and relief. He spoke of those who sat on Committees, and especially Private Bill Committees. Many hon. Members knew from experience how great was the effort to come down and deal with a difficult and contentious bill in Committee when a number of witnesses and a great many learned counsel were taking part in the discussion, and then to be obliged to stay in the House until one o'clock in the morning or sometimes later. They were expected on the following day to undertake their onerous and responsible duties again at eleven or a quarter past eleven. This was no new question, although some hon. Members spoke of it as a novel idea on the part of the Leader of the House. In 1848 a Committee reported that it was undesirable that hon. Members, having had to attend to the trying work of Committees, should be forced to sit here without an interval till late at night. In 1857 Sir Erskine May suggested before a Committee that it would be desirable to have morning sittings two days in the week. The 1886 Committee, which was the last important Committee, made a Report on the subject. He felt that the Leader of the House could not possibly have avoided bringing forward these matters, because they were distinctly in accordance with the suggestion of a great number of that Committee. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire was most anxious that before considering these proposals they should be discussed by a Committee. The questions had already been fully discussed by Committees. In 1886 the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, was a member of the Committee, and their recommendations were almost exactly the same as those now proposed by the Leader of the House with respect to the hours of meeting and the interval. The opinion of a large number of that Committee was that the interval should be from seven to nine. Now the proposal was that, it should be from eight to nine. He expected that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire would have said a kindly word for his own recommendations, but his attitude now proved that those who took part in the deliberations of Committees could not be depended upon when they came to talk about them in the House. He believed that two o'clock was a good time for the fleeting of the House, although he realised fully the great difficulties that would be entailed upon professional men and others. The question had been started as to how the Committees were to work under the circumstances, and he appealed to the Leader of the House to consider this point. He saw that there would be considerable difficulty in carrying on the work of Private Bill Committees upstairs if Members were liable at half past two to be called away for Government business, or to an important division. When intricate questions were being argued by counsel, it was unsatisfactory both for them and those who had to adjudicate on the case that Members of Committees should be called away to divisions. His right hon. friend said that Members could pair, but there were many occasions when they wished to record their votes. When presiding over a Committee and Members said they must go and vote or ask Questions, he had never ventured to influence them in any way whatever. They were asked why Private Bill Committees should not meet earlier. They met at eleven, but earlier was impossible if Members were in the House until one o'clock or later. He asked the Leader of the House to consider whether it was not possible to modify the proposal just a little in order to get over the inconvenience to Members of Committees. Would it not be possible, if the House met at two o'clock, to arrange that Government business should not begin until three? There would thus be half an hour for private business and half an hour for Questions. He also suggested that Government business should be carried on to half past seven instead of a quarter past seven. If these suggestions were adopted, the arrangement would conduce to the convenience of Members, and the advantage of the business of the country.

said that, having had for many years a somewhat extra share in the Committee business of this House, he desired to say a few words on the subject under discussion. He was obliged to His Majesty's Government for attempting to ease the way in which the business of the House could he conducted; and he would take up the points at present in debate one by one. He could not imagine a more inconvenient proceeding than beginning business at two o'clock. First of all every Member had his letters to attend to, and with the increase of the number of voters in every constituency the amount of a Member's correspondence had enormously increased. Then, nothing would tend more to poor wishy-washy speeches in the House than to deprive hon. Members of those opportunities of preparing their deliverances, which they would not have if they had to go down to Committees at 11 o'clock and afterwards to sit in the House till 12 or one o'clock next morning. And all this was to be done without Wednesday as a resting day! As regarded Private Bill Committees, he confessed that when a division of considerable importance was coming on before the House, it was very difficult to induce the Members of these Committees to attend steadily to their work. If they went down to the House to vote it was almost impossible to get them quickly together again. Even if they did come back as soon as possible it involved never less than the loss of 20 minutes. He had sat on many Committees before which 12 and 14 Counsel were engaged at high fees, but when the Members of Committees left the room to go down stairs to vote, business was interrupted and Bills which ought to have gone through in a day were often carried over two or three days, to the great expense of both promoters and opponents of the measure. Owing to the hurry of the times and the increasing numbers of engagements which hon. Members had and the necessity of getting through the business of the House, Grand Committees were created. Now of all the institutions of the House he most disliked Grand Committees. The Private Bill Committee was an institution belonging to Parliament; it was a Committee of its Members to examine private Bills judicially, but a Grand Committee was a Select Committee composed of those in favour of the measure and those against it and they merely sat as partisans not as judges. If they were going to force more business on Grand Committees, there would be more trouble with the Private Bill Committees. Again, Members of Select Committees were not obliged to attend all its meetings, and they would prefer to go down to the House when important business was before it. He was sure that, if the business of the House were to be well done, instead of decreasing the time before the House met it should be increased. Then, it they were going to have a full dinner hour emptying the House, what was to become of the dinner hour speeches? At present the dinner hour was the only chance of a good number of the junior Members giving voice to their views, and getting them reported. Moreover, if hon. Members went home to dinner they would not come back in such weather as we have had lately, and the House would be badly attended. In regard to Fridays and Wednesdays he entirely agreed with his two right hon. friends below him. In this they were going to work Members on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays for Government business, and he was very sure that on Thursday night there would be a very poor attendance, and also perhaps on the Monday night. The debating and listening power of the House would likewise be greatly les- sened. This Amendment had been brought in with the best possible intentions, but he trusted that the head of His Majesty's Government would think more seriously about the effect it would have on the working powers of the House, and the ability of Members to discharge their duties, especially as regards Select Committees, and those on private Bills.

said that the House found itself face to face with the fact that there was a contest for the time of the House between the Government and private Members. The scheme of these Rules recognised that there were favourable and unfavourable times for debate; and that there were subjects of greater and less importance to be debated. The present system lent itself too much to enable certain Members to take up the time of the House with the less important subjects at the most favourable times in order to gain notoriety. A definite adjournment for dinner would save the House from the undignified failure to keep a quorum, and from unexpected divisions being taken which did not reflect the real opinion of the House. He did not believe that private Members motions would suffer under the proposed new Rule; in fact, he thought that the Rule would be a benefit rather to private Members. The most serious part was the private Bill legislation, but he thought they would find that any evils which arose would work their own cure. Some hon. Members seem to think that the Standing Committee was a sort of Paradise for their particular proposals, and he did not think that they would show the same anxiety to seek opportunities of getting their Bills before Standing Committees if they found that owing to this probable overloading of Standing Committees their Bills never found their way downstairs again. There were many grave difficulties in the way, and he was glad that the Government proposed to relegate the questions to a Committee to consider it in all its possible bearings. After all, he did not think the change from public business at 3.30 to 2.30 was a very serious step, for there were provincial as well as metropolitan business men who were entitled to be considered. He would not, discuss the question of Wednesday and Friday at present, but as regarded the convenience of the metropolitan business men, he did not think that ought to be taken so much into account. He supported this Resolution with a reservation, as to the proposal to substitute Friday for Wednesday, although he did not share the apprehensions of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean as to the dreadful things which would happen if these rules were passed.

thought it was not at all creditable to His Majesty's Government that while they were discussing the very central part of this new system there was only present one representative of the Government and there was not a single Cabinet Minister present. They appeared to have abandoned all interest in the Rules, and perhaps they had retired to an early dinner. He was not at all sure that he would not be justified in moving the adjournment of the debate in order that some Member of the Government should be induced to attend. [AN HON. MEMBER: Move it.] He scarcely felt justified in moving the adjournment, although he thought he had ample grounds for calling attention to this contempt and indifference for the progress of this great sessional measure. He was not at all depreciating the importance of his hon. friend the Secretary to the Local Government Board, who was present as the representative of the Government. With regard to the proposed change from Wednesday to Friday, he regarded it as the most important and the most sensible part of the whole Rules. Much as he disliked the new Rules, he would vote for many of them in return for the Wednesday change. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman had been informed that the Government were likely to be beaten in the division upon this question of. Wednesday, but they should not be beaten if he could help it. He would whip up and canvass and do his utmost to secure the right hon. Gentleman a majority upon this question. [AN HON. MEMBER: Why?] Because he believed that it was a sensible change. It would accord general convenience to the greatest number of hon. Members of the House, and he believed it would act largely to the interests of the public service. As a rule hon. Members did not attend now in large numbers until about five o'clock, and so they had an enormous length of absence from the House, which they did not seem to have acknowledged in the debate. Under the change, all hon. Members would have more chance of leisure. A great deal had been said about this being a week-end convenience. In his opinion the week-ends were an enormous convenience to poor hon. Members of this House, who had not palaces at their disposal within a few miles of the House of Commons. He had a week-end every week, but he did not take it so much for pleasure as for economy, It was cheaper for him to take his week-end at his own cottage than to remain in an expensive place like London, and that was why he considered that the change would be good for all parties, and would be more economical for the poorer hon. Members of the House. To those who lived in London the advantage would not be so considerable, but they had also to consider the class of men to whom the right hon. Member for the Hallam Division of Sheffield referred just now. What about a great number of the hon. Members of the House who leave their businesses for five days in the week in charge of managers, and neglect their businesses as far as their personal superintendence was concerned, and who at present could not return until midday on Saturdays? That class of men had a right to be considered in the rearrangement of the machinery of the House of Commons. He regretted that any inconvenience would be caused to his professional friends, and he knew what a great deprivation this change would be to them. But even they had their consolation, which was very considerable and substantial, and many other hon. Members would like to suffer the same deprivation with the same result. He thought hon. Members would be able to get on with the business for the extra hour in the afternoon, while the professional class were pursuing their daily avocation for their own sustenance and profit. There was another reason why it would be an advantage. Thursday was generally looked upon as the most important day of the week, and it was the best Government day of the week. Under the new system, Supply would be taken on Thursday instead of Friday. They had been voting between £130,000,000 and £160,000,000 a year during the last two or three sessions, and the greater part of this money had been voted on a Friday, but under these new Rules it would be voted on the best day in the week, when a larger number of right hon. Members would be in attendance. Surely the expenditure of these vast sums of money should be the principal consideration of the House. If the new Rule relegated that great expenditure to the principal day of the week, it would be doing a great public service to the consideration of the finances of the country, and they would have much better debates. It was well known that under present conditions a large number of hon. Members left London on Friday mornings, and vast sums of money were consequently voted in a very thin House. He considered that the change from Wednesday to Friday would prove the most serviceable of any of the new Rules which the right hon. Gentleman had proposed. With regard to the dinner hour, he entirely disagreed with the Government, and he had put down an Amendment. He believed that the dinner hour would be mainly a waste of time. He was a Member of the House when morning sittings were invented and first applied, and he could safely say that they were dismal failures. One of the greatest difficulties at the evening sittings was to secure a sufficient number of hon. Members to make up a quorum of 40, and it was the custom on such occasions to look from a great distance to see if there was a light in the Tower to know whether there had been a count out or not. When the House met it lingered on until 10 or 10.30. There was no efficiency in the House of Commons on the day of the morning sitting between 9 and 11.30, yet the right hon. Gentlemen proposed to cut into two parts what otherwise would be a useful legislative day. Nobody ever came down to these evening sittings unless they were inter- ested in the subject under consideration. The adjournment at 7 o'clock was very useful to those who lived within a two mile radius of the House, but to the working Members it was a delusion and a snare; it was an hour or two thrown away, and only tempted them to spend what they could ill afford. Another subject he wished to allude to was the 1 o'clock in the morning arrangement. He did not know whether a frequent continuation of the sitting to 1 o'clock was contemplated, but his opinion was that if they sat an hour earlier they ought to adjourn an hour earlier, and on that question he should divide the House. To do good work one must be in good health and in a good state of preservation, which could not be the case if the sittings were continued after midnight. He did not know whether Mr. Speaker would be able to put the Question in such a way that hon. Members could vote on the Wednesday and Friday question, apart from the other portions of the Rule, or whether the Rule would have to be put as a whole. If it was put as a whole, he should vote against it, but if it was divided so that the change of Wednesday to Friday could be voted upon, he should vote for the change. But the whole discussion had shown the wisdom of the suggestion of the Leader of the Opposition in favour of a Committee being appointed to consider the whole of the Rules. They ought to consider the whole scheme of Parliamentary work which was necessitated by new developments and by modern requirements, which were not experienced in years past. If these alterations were made they would have to pass a measure for the payment of Members, otherwise the representation in Parliament would be restricted to wealthy men only, and in order to bring Parliament up to date there would have to be further Amendments in the Rules in a very few years. For these reasons, he wished the Leader of the House had consented to relegate the whole subject to a Committee of experienced Members, so that the House might be advised upon the whole question.

said the hon. Member who had just sat down had complained of the expense which would be entailed on certain Members by the adjournment from 8 to 9 o'clock; but there was no obligation for those Members to leave the House, where a cheap and excellent feed was provided if people wished to remain, and they had every convenience in the precincts of the House after dinner. A great fear had been expressed that business and professional men would be inconvenienced by the new rules, and, as all classes were expressing their opinion on this matter, he would like to put in a word for another deserving class. There were many simple country gentlemen who would like to go to their homes in the country from Friday to Monday, and attend to the business from which they had been withdrawn for the rest of the week. They had no particular anxiety, they did not ask anything from the Government, and were only anxious to support the Government because they had confidence in it. To that class of men this alteration would be of the greatest possible advantage, as it would enable them to leave London on Friday afternoon for their homes, where they could remain until Monday afternoon. It must be remembered that their domestic occupations were of some importance to them, and their only object in coming to Parliament at all was, because they thought their doing so would benefit their constituents. As he believed the proposal now before the House would be of great advantage to that deserving class of Members, he should support it.

said that as junior Whip he felt that these Rules, so far as they affected private or unofficial Members' legislation, would not work satisfactorily. Bills would not be dealt with satisfactorily, Small Bills, which the House might think it desirable to oppose, would not be stopped from passing, while others which the House might like to see passed would be hotly opposed. It would be almost impossible to bring Members up to the House to discuss private Bills on a Friday, and therefore, he would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider this question. If the right hon. Gentleman adhered to the Friday being given up to a morning sitting, he would ask him whether he could not see his way to allowing unofficial Members to have Wednesday instead of Friday and that the Government should take the morning sitting on Friday for Government business. If the Government took the morning sitting he was satisfied that Membres would come down to the House without any great strain being put upon the Whips. Unless the suggestion which had been made with regard to important Questions being put down at the commencement of the sitting on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, was carried out, Members, in his opinion, would lose the very great power they had at the present time of moving the adjournment of the House on matters of urgent public importance. As matters stood at present, these motions were usually made on account of unsatisfactory answers being given by Ministers. In that way unofficial Members would retain this power and privilege which in the past had never been abused. During the last 19 sessions the average number of Motions for adjournment were six per session, the greatest number for one session being 20, the least number being two. In the last seven sessions the average number has been five per session. It could not be contended therefore that this privilege had been abused in the past, and the House ought not to allow it to be taken away.

said there was one important matter he would like to mention. His right hon. friend the First Lord of the Treasury had promised that a Committee should be appointed to consider the arrangements for Private Bill Committees, but in his opinion, whatever the ability of the Committee might be, it could not by any possibility prolong the time to be allocated to Private Bill Committees on any day, and it might result in the fact that their decision might seriously upset the proposals now before the House, by either breaking into the time of the Government, on the one hand, or the time of private business on the other. Whilst in the main in favour of the proposal of the sitting commencing and ending at given hours, he did not agree with the time at which it was proposed to commence. Moreover, he believed the arrangement would ultimately prove to be to the disadvantage rather than the advantage of the Government business, as a definite hour for the conclusion of business always afforded greater facilities and temptation for obstruction. The scheme, however, was an experiment, and it ought to have a fair trial, because it was essentially a business proposal in itself. The proposed arrangement with regard to Questions to Ministers would cause a difficulty in reference to Private Bill Committees. The only way out of the dilemma to which he had referred would be to grant a longer time than at present proposed for the asking of Questions. He thoroughly agreed with the suggestion of the hon. Member for Norwich, that a good half-hour should be given. Whether the Questions remaining over should be dealt with by being printed with the answers in the Votes next day, or whether there should be a small Committee of the House to sift Questions, in the same way as there was a Committee to deal with petitions—whatever scheme was adopted—that would take them more than half-way out of the dilemma, by causing the public business to commence at 3 o'clock instead of 2.30. The Private Bill business was of vital importance to the constituencies, involving as it did the spending of millions of money. It needed no Committee of Inquiry to declare that it was impossible for these Committees to sit for any length of time coincidently with the sitting of the House. As illustrating the absurdity of the position, in which Private Bill Committees might be placed, he would remind the House of what had happened and would very likely happen again. Take the case of a Committee with a large group of Bilk to deal with. One of the measures might have passed the Committee, and be down for Third Reading, with the result that the Chairman might be dragged from the Chair while counsel was addressing him on another Bill, in order to be in the House to defend the Third Reading of that measure. Numerous other instances might be quoted, and he earnestly begged the right hon. Gentleman seriously to consider whether it would not be worth while to remodel his proposal with regard to questions in the direction which had been indicated.

My right hon. friend has gone into the subject of Questions, which I think is not absolutely germane to our present discussion.