rose in his place and asked leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, viz., "the act of the Secretary for Scotland in interfering with the action of the Commissioners holding an inquiry under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, in the case of the Aberdeen Tramways Provisional Order, by taking upon himself the appointment of the place of meeting, which by the statute is in the discretion of the said Commissioners only"; but the pleasure of the House not having been signified, Mr. SPEAKER called on those Members who supported the Motion to rise in their places, and not less than forty Members having accordingly risen,

(who, in consequence of loud cries of "Divide," was almost inaudible) said there was something far more important in this question than appeared on the face of the Motion. It concerned a great principle approved by the House in connection with the devolution of its work [Cries of "Divide!"]

Order, order! The hon. Member has obtained, by the process open to him under Standing Orders, the right of addressing the House, and I trust hon. Members will accord him a hearing.

said he could assure the House that it was far from his wish to waste its time, but a great principle was at stake, which concerned the right of the people of Scotland to manage their own affairs and exercise the whole power given to Scotland by the House two years ago. He would not interfere on a local question were a great principle not at stake, and he would be as brief as he could. But there was a great principle at stake on this question, in regard to which the mere example of Aberdeen was but a way of bringing on a discussion so as to avoid the creating of a precedent. The matter in brief was this: Two years ago, by an Act passed by the House, power was given to obtain Provisional Orders for private Bills in Scotland by Commissioners who were appointed to visit various localities in order to settle on the spot whether parties applying for Provisional Orders should obtain them or not. But this year a new practice had for the first time come into operation. It had come before the House in the first instance last Thursday owing to a Question put by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen, who asked whether the Commissioners in the present instance were conducting their inquiries locally or in Edinburgh. He was sure the Lord Advocate would acquit him of in any way accusing him of any mala fides in the answer to that Question, but the statement he made, however unintentionally, conveyed a completely false idea of what had actually taken place. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the Order in question was one of a group remitted for inquiry to the Commissioners, embracing schemes for the North-East and South-West of Scotland, that Edinburgh was selected as the most convenient and central place, with the concurrence of the Chairman of the Commissioners, and, he held, with the approval of the great majority of the parties interested. These three statements, he was afraid, did not tally with the facts as he understood them. It was completely at variance with the spirit of the Act that several schemes should be included in one large group, and that schemes actually from the two most opposite parts of Scotland should be settled at Edinburgh. The object of the Act was to obviate a number of witnesses having to travel, and to enable the Commissioners, from local knowledge acquired on the spot, to settle more expeditiously and with greater economy the point at issue before them. The Lord Advocate himself in 1898, in introducing the Act, spoke of one of its objects as being to prevent the continuance of, as he called it, smaller interests being bludgeoned by great Corporations. This act of the present Secretary for Scotland, in settling that this Inquiry should take place at Edinburgh, placed the smaller interests in exactly the unfavourable position which the object of the Act was to prevent. Today they had another story. They were told that neither the supporters nor the opponents of the measure were consulted in the selection of the place. So far as his knowledge went, the statement of the Lord Advocate on Thursday was inaccurate. He said also that this had the concurrence of the Chairman of the Commissioners. The Chairman had been interviewed, and he completely denied ever having been consulted or having concurred in any way with the decision of the Secretary of State. Therefore, they had what amounted to a gross illegality at the present moment going on. They had also a grave injustice to the localities concerned. Something like seventy-two witnesses had been brought up from Buckie and its neighbourhood to waste about a fortnight of their time at Edinburgh. He regretted that the hon. Member for Banffshire was not in his place, or he would be supporting him. As fat as the Aberdeen tramway scheme was concerned, some leading citizens had been obliged to waste their time ten days or a fortnight in Edinburgh for exactly the same purpose; whereas four Commissioners could have gone down to Aberdeen and held an Inquiry there, much more expeditiously and much more economically. He felt quite certain that what had taken place would turn out to have been an entire mistake, but it was more for an opportunity of giving the Lord Advocate a chance of rectifying his error, and as a protest which he thought it was very important to make at once, in order to prevent any repetition of the occurrence, that he took this step. It might be said, of course, that the increased fees to counsel for going over to Aberdeen or Buckie would in some way have been saved by holding the Inquiry at a central place such as Edinburgh. But any such argument as that was of no account in view of the enormously increased expense incurred by the witnesses being obliged to travel up to the central position. Then again, the amount of evidence which would have been required, had the Commissioners been on the spot, as regarded the Buckie harbour, or had they been required to visit the actual ground of the Aberdeen tramway, would have been infinitely less than under the present circumstances. He trusted they would have an explanation of the circumstances attending this question, and avoid a repetition of the matter.

seconded the Motion. He was sure the Lord Advocate would be the last to deny that this was a most important question. The whole object of remitting Bills to Scotland to be considered was to have the Inquiry held in the locality affected, and Parliament definitely decided that the Commissioners alone should fix the place of Inquiry. The Lord Advocate had told them that the Secretary for Scotland felt it was necessary to issue some preliminary notice as to the place of Inquiry, and that he had therefore taken it upon himself to fix, along with the Chairman of the Commissioners, the place where the Inquiry was to be held. The Commissioners could surely have held a preliminary meeting in London to fix the place of the Inquiry. Local inquiry was the basis of the Act of Parliament——

Order, order! I should not have allowed this Motion to be introduced if I had thought it was to be argued on the merits of the question whether a particular case ought to have been tried in Edinburgh or Aberdeen. It was only admitted as a matter of urgent public importance on the ground that the Secretary for Scotland was alleged to be introducing a new practice for the first time, contrary to the tenour of the Statute.

apologised for having gone into that matter. But he wished to make it clear that the selection of the place of Inquiry was left by the Act solely to the Commissioners, and the Secretary for Scotland had no right or power to take it into his hands. There had been an unwarrantable interference with the intentions of Parliament in the matter, and he hoped that in future the practice would be in conformity with the Act, and that the intentions of the Legislature would not again be frustrated in this manner.

I do not complain of the tone in which this matter has been raised, though I think the hon. Member might have found a day more convenient for it. I am rather in a difficulty in speaking about the interview with the Chairman which has been referred to. The reporter's idea of what Lord Clifford's views are, may not be precisely the same as his Lordship's, and I do not exactly know how to treat the interview. It is quite impossible for his Lordship either to have denied or affirmed its accuracy, because it was only published in the Aberdeen Journal yesterday, and as Lord Clifford is at this moment sitting in Edinburgh, it is quite obvious that he has not had time to take public notice of the matter at all. I can assure the hon. Member that the last thing in the world that the Secretary for Scotland wishes is in any way to interfere with the undoubted province of the Commissioners in fixing the Inquiry, and no such thing has been done in this case. If hon. Members compare the dates they will see that that is so. Of course it is very easy to ask why the Commissioners should not have met in London. In some cases they might, but in others they could not very well, because unfortunately, of course, the Scotch Office has no jurisdiction over the Commissioners to keep them in London. It so unfortunately happened that the names of the Commissioners were published in London just at the time when they were all going away from London, and it became consequently a matter of practical impossibility to get a meeting in London. Hon. Members will at once appreciate that it was impossible to send Commissioners down to Scotland and say that the day after they arrived they were to have an Inquiry at such and such a place. Ample notice must be given to opponents and promoters of Bills when they are to have their cases heard and where. Everybody will agree with that. I will give the dates. The names of the Commissioners and the noble Chairman were published on 20th March, and that was the first intimation that the Scotch Office or anyone else had. On the 21st March Lord Clifford, having been nominated Chairman, called at the Scotch Office and was told of the group of Bills which it had been arranged should be taken by the Commission. That did not necessarily mean that the whole group was to be, tried at one place. Lord Clifford was told that the group included the Buckie Extension, Aberdeen Suburban Tramways, the Caledonian Railway Act, the Glasgow Corporation Acts, and the Glasgow and Rothesay Tramways. He was also put in possession of all the information that the Scotch Office had, as to where the promoters and opponents of the various Bills considered would be the most convenient places to take them. That was the meaning of my first answer. When I spoke of the majority of those interested, I did not refer to the one Bill the hon. Member was asking about, but to the whole group, and I believe they all wished to have them tried at Edinburgh with the exception of the Aberdeen Tramways. Undoubtedly the information of the Scotch Office was that the promoters of the Buckie Bill wished the case tried in Edinburgh, a letter to that effect having been received from the permanent counsel to the Private Bill Commissioners. The Secretary for Scotland discussed the matter with the Chairman, and said that on the whole he thought Edinburgh would be the most convenient place. In that view the Chairman acquiesced. That was the 21st of March, and either on that day or the next the Chairman went abroad, and he did not come back till four days before the Inquiry opened, so that it was impossible to get a meeting of the Commissioners. During that time, no doubt, an intimation was made on behalf of the Aberdeen Tramways people that they would sooner have the case heard in Aberdeen. But the Secretary for Scotland was put in a difficulty. He could only do the best he could without consulting the Commissioners. He said the matter had been mentioned to the Chairman, and the hearing had been fixed for Edinburgh, and he could not hold out any particular hope that that determination would be changed. More than that he did not and could not say. Then came the Easter recess. Lord Clifford came back on 18th April and called at the Scotch Office, and the Inquiry was to open on the 22nd. He was told when he called that this representation had been made, and there the matter ended. Accordingly the Inquiry was opened at Edinburgh. The Buckie case began on the 22nd of April, and lasted until the 28th. Nothing more, of course, could have been done about the Buckie case, because that was the first Order on the Paper. But I should like to point out that if the Aberdeen Tramway people had still kept to their views that it was expedient that the Commissioners should shift to Aberdeen, there was no reason whatever why they should not have made application to the Commissioners and asked them to go to Aberdeen, and there was certainly no reason at all why the request should not be acceded to. If this system is to be worked at all we must make provisional arrangements, so to speak, at the Scotch Office. If we communicate those to the Commissioners—although it is perfectly true that the Commissioners should themselves determine the question—I do not see that there is any absolute necessity for a formal meeting. So far as the Aberdeen case was concerned, there was still time to make the application. If it was not made, I cannot help thinking that the promoters must be held to have acquiesced in the general arrangement, and the provisional arrangement became permanent. There is absolutely no view on the part of the Scotch Office, or any anxiety, to use the Private Bill Legislation Act for the purpose of making a centralised tribunal in Edinburgh; nor had counsel anything to do with fixing the place of meeting. Their fees would be precisely the same in Edinburgh as at Aberdeen, and their interests would be the same, because there was nothing else going on at Edinburgh, and I suppose they would just as soon be at Aberdeen. I can assure my hon. friend that the counsel are the very last people who are considered at the Scotch Office. It is absolutely necessary to first make a provisional arrangement. The arrangement was made with the concurrence of the Chairman, and though there was not a formal meeting, the Chairman and the Commissioners practically adopted the arrangement, and though I admit that the first Order could not be changed, so far as Aberdeen was concerned there was nothing in the world to prevent the Aberdeen people on the first day of the week making an application to the Commissioners to hold the Inquiry in their case at Aberdeen.

said the matter was an excessively simple one, because it turned on the words of the statute, which said—

"The Commissioners shall hold their Inquiry at such place in Scotland as they may determine, with due regard to the subject matter of the proposed Order and the localities to which the Commissions relate."

The case made by his hon. friend and by those who had put questions on the subject was this: The statute had not been observed. It said the Commissioners should fix the place. The Commissioners had not been consulted, and the place of Inquiry had been fixed without reference to them. The Lord Advocate said the Chairman had been consulted. That was true, but the Chairman was not the same thing, after all, as the Commissioners. In the next place, the Lord Advocate said the Chairman went abroad. He (Mr. Bryce) thought he went abroad because he supposed the matter had been settled at the interview he had with the Secretary for Scotland, and he considered that, after the expression of the opinion of the Scotch office, he had nothing more to do with the matter. The Lord Advocate asked, why did not the Aberdonians remonstrate with them when they found that the Inquiry was not to be held at Aberdeen. But they did express their opinion in the first instance. They said they wished the Inquiry to be held there, and the only reason why they did not continue their remonstrance after the Commissioners had begun to sit was that they also thought the matter had been settled, and that it was no use trying to alter it. That, after all, was the long and short of the matter. He was glad to accept the assurance which the Lord Advocate gave that the Scottish office had no view that these inquiries ought as a rule to be held at Edinburgh. He was sure that statement would be received with satisfaction, because there was no denying that what had happened in this case had caused a certain amount of disquiet, and had made people feel that the beneficial effects which were expected for Scotland—because this was by no means a mere question of Aberdeen—from bringing the hearing of those cases to the very places which were affected, to the very doors of the parties and witnesses, was considered to be a great boon. That was the boon which was expected from the Act, and if it had been lost through the precedent set in this case, there would have been general regret and disappointment. He was glad to find that the Lord Advocate repudiated any such construction as had been put upon the action of the Scotch Office, and had practically admitted that a mistake had been made, and he hoped that in future steps would be taken to guard against any similar occurrence. If it was difficult to have an actual meeting of the Commissioners—although he thought the statute contemplated a meeting—there should be an opportunity for ascertaining the opinions of all of them. He was quite sure that if a thing of this kind was to happen again there would be very great disappointment and regret. However, after the explanations they had heard, although they might regret any inconvenience which had been caused in this case, he thought they would all feel that the discussion had been of use, and that the real intent and meaning and working of the Act had been elucidated by it.

thought some assurance should be given that there would be no repetition of this procedure. A breach of the law had been committed, and steps should be taken in future to see that the Commissioners discharged their duty, and that a meeting should be held in London to determine where they should sit.

was very glad to hear the assurance from the Lord Advocate that this precedent would not be followed in future. He considered, with his hon. friend, that the Secretary for Scotland had flagrantly broken the law, and acted absolutely and distinctly against the statute, and knowing something of local conditions he could tell the House that very grave inconvenience and expense had been incurred on account of this decision of the Commissioners to allow themselves to be overborne by the central authority in London, instead of asserting their authority and coming to the conclusion on their own knowledge of the localities where the Inquiry should be held.

said it was incumbent on the House to see that a bad precedent was not established in this matter. The Scotch Office had no right to interfere, and their action was ultra vires, for the Act distinctly said that the Commissioners, and the Commissioners alone, should settle the place at which the Inquiry should be held. He hoped that in future the Secretary for Scotland would not interfere in these matters, but he was afraid there was a clique of experts in Edinburgh for whom the Scottish Office desired to make provision.

said his colleagues were watching anxiously and jealously the working of this Act, because there were by no means obscure intimations that a similar scheme might be made applicable to the country in which they were more deeply interested. He could assure the Government that nothing would be less calculated to favourably introduce a measure of that character to the consideration of the Irish people than for the Irish Office to copy the example of the Scottish Office. The discussion had been useful and he hoped it would be fruitful. Under the circumstances he hoped the Amendment would not be pressed to a division.

I have no desire to press this question to a division, as I now understand it is admitted that a mistake has been made but that it will not occur again. I ask leave, therefore, to withdraw the Motion.

said he thought it would be ungrateful upon his part if he were to occupy any time in putting the remarks he felt it necessary to make with regard to the Amendment before the House after the time he had absorbed on the previous evening, but he felt his position on this proposal very strongly indeed. When the House adjourned on the previous evening he had got to the point of meeting the objection which the right hon. Gentleman was making to the argument he was employing against the Rule. The right hon. Gentleman had pointed out that even under the Rule there would be an opportunity of addressing 300 Questions to the Ministers weekly; and the right hon. Gentleman asked how was it possible under those circumstances for anyone to maintain that the liberties and privileges of the House were seized or curtailed. Curiously enough, the fact which the right hon. Gentleman had stated as a strong argument in favour of his proposal was quite as formidable an argument against it. He doubted whether the Government would save an hour of time; in fact, it might so operate that the Government would lose an hour, instead of gaining one, by this proposal. Everybody knew that where a minimum of time was fixed for the discussion of particular business, it was the almost irresistible impulse of the House to keep up to that minimum. If forty-five minutes were fixed for Questions, the tendency would be to utilise the whole of the time; whereas the House, if left to its own discretion, would confine Questions to thirty minutes. This would have the effect of saving a quarter of an hour, but the proposal of the Government would decrease the time of the House and the Government by a quarter of an hour. Take what happened today. The present Parliament was not very old, and, although some of the Questions on the Paper were of considerable importance, yet the whole forty-one were concluded within the space of half an hour. So that today the Government would have lost a quarter of an hour, instead of gaining. When anyone proposed a revolutionary change like this, the burden always rested upon him of justifying the change; and if his statement that the Government would lose time by this change was correct, that was a strong argument against the proposal of the Government, because it showed that there was no necessity for the change. It was always impossible, however wise and prophetic a mind a statesman might be, to prophesy the entire effect of changes made in ancient laws and traditions. The testimony of those who had sat long in this House was conclusive upon this point, for there was not a single change that had been made in the Rules which had not had consequences entirely beyond the expectations and desires of those who made them. Take the case of the closure, which had had consequences which nobody anticipated when the change was made. He held that, although this change might, as a matter of fact, not seriously diminish the amount of time given to Members of the House for asking Questions, still there were other results which he regarded as most pernicious. Owing to the fact that the time was limited, there would grow up a spirit of impatience with regard to Questions, a spirit of eagerness to be done with Questions, and a feeling on the part of Ministers that Questions were a nuisance, which ought to be frowned upon and curtailed as much as possible. That spirit, if developed, would be fatal to one of the very best features and functions of this House. He maintained that, in spite of the more democratic form of government in America, the Parliamentary institutions of this country were much more amenable to the pressure of public opinion than they were in America; and he contended that they would be giving up one of the greatest factors which produced this elasticity by adopting the proposal to limit the right of questioning Ministers. He would not dwell upon Question time being the most picturesque portion of an everyday sitting, but what did they find yesterday? There were Questions with regard to the shipping "combine," and its effects upon the commercial supremacy of the country, and upon its position as a naval Power. There were Questions, supplementary Questions, and a cross-examination of the Minister responsible. There were also two most important announcements by the Chancellor of the Exchequer with regard to the tax on flour and upon cheques. He put it to the House that such Questions and answers as those to which he had alluded involved as gigantic national interests as any Bill that had been brought in this session. Therefore, it was a monstrous misunderstanding of the part that Question time played in the history and transactions of the House to represent it as an opportunity for putting idle and cantankerous Questions, intended to goad and pierce the hide of the unfortunate Minister who had to answer them. On the contrary, it was the time when some of the most important business of the nation was done, with regard to topics and subjects which often went down to the very root of their national well-being. He thought he could also detect in this Rule a desire to curtail the liberties of Irish Members. He did not say that any discrimination was made between one section of hon. Members and another, for they had not come to that yet. Nevertheless, a Rule might be aimed at a minority, and stillleave the majority untouched. He wished to give a word of warning to the House. Parties in this country, and especially the Party opposite, had got into a most dangerous frame of mind with regard to the institutions of their own country, because of their settled antagonism to the Irish Members. He thought they had now almost reached the point at which hon. Gentlemen opposite thought it was worth while sacrificing any English liberty to prevent the raising of Irish grievances.

said he had listened with great interest to the speech of the hon. Member opposite, as he always did, because he knew that he had studied Parliamentary practice, and he had had a long experience in the House. He would at once say that he believed the views the hon. Member had expressed, with regard to the desirability of allowing hon. Members the greatest freedom in putting questions to members of the Government, were shared by the majority of the Members of the House of Commons. The liberty of putting Questions was one which had been enjoyed by the House for a great many years. Not only was there a great advantage in getting answers to Questions from members of the Government on various points of interest, but it very often saved debates and discussions which otherwise might take place. At the same time, he differed from the remarks of the hon. Member when he criticised his right hon. friend the First Lord of the Treasury for being somewhat perfunctory in his answer when the Amendment to this Rule was first moved. This question was brought up in the first discussion, and also when there was a discussion on the question of the House meeting at two o'clock.

said that all he had stated was that the question had not been adequately discussed.

said he was glad to hear that from the hon. Member. He would take it that the hon. Member considered that the question was not then adequately discussed. He personally ventured on what had been called the Second Reading discussion to bring the matter forward, and he wished now to express his appreciation of the course which the First Lord of the Treasury had pursued in modifying the Rule to meet the feeling which he expressed and which he thought had the sympathy of a great portion of the House. He then expressed the hope that the Rule would be modified so that Questions might be taken at the old time on the meeting of the House. He could not think that many of the alarms which had been expressed by the hon. Member would in practice be experienced. The hon. Member had suggested that they were suddenly discussing a new question. He might remind the House that this question had been discussed often in the past. It was very fully discussed by the 1886 Committee, and a modification in the system of Questions was proposed by that Committee. Even stronger alterations, in the Rule with reference to Questions were then suggested. As long ago as 1871 he found that the Speaker stated before a Committee that there was difficulty owing to the great number of Questions which were from time to time put in the House. Although this was not a new question, it was one which quite rightly should be discussed. The only point they had now to consider was whether, if they accepted the proposal of the Leader of the House, they would be in any way curtailing that liberty which he maintained all Members of the House of Commons should have. He was inclined to think that they would not be in any way curtailing that liberty. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that there would be opportunities for asking 300 Questions per week.

That is exclusive of Questions answered in manuscript.

Exclusive, of course. They were going to have one great advantage under this Rule, and that was that if they preferred to have a printed answer on the Papers of the House they could have Questions dealt with in that way. He did not attach very great importance to the practice of a Member getting up in his place in order to ask a member of the Government a Question to which often an official answer was read. To their constituents, who were usually interested in the Questions, the fact that they would be printed and published would be a considerable advantage.

I must remind the hon. Member that that rather comes under a later part of the Rule. The Amendment at present before the House is that dealing with the limiting of the time to five minutes before three.

said he appreciated the ruling. He did not quite follow the advantage of closing the Questions at five minutes before three. Would it not have been easier and simpler to have the hour three o'clock? The Leader of the House had done his very utmost to meet the wishes of Members of the House. He hoped the House would not be satisfied with the Rule as altered.

said the First Lord of the Treasury would really be well advised if he accepted the Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman had said that they might put 300 Questions per week to Ministers. If they took the average of the Questions asked during the last five or ten years, he doubted whether they numbered 300 per week, and if that was so, it was doubtful whether any time would be gained by the limitation proposed. This was a new principle to limit the liberty of Members to put Questions. To his mind, there was nothing so important in the business of the House as the getting of information from Ministers by means of Questions on the current questions of the day. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that he had made concessions to the House, but there were concessions on former proposals which the House would not have by any means accepted. No one ever accepted the proposal that Questions should be taken between 7.15 and 8, instead of at the beginning of business. The average of Questions this session had only been fifty-six per day, and the right hon. Gentleman had told them that they would be able to put sixty or sixty-five Questions per day.

That is my calculation.

asked why the right hon. Gentleman wished to tie down the House when the Questions put were actually, less than the number he now said there would be an opportunity of putting. It seemed to him that the right hon. Gentleman was really forging fetters for the House of Commons which were not deserved. He remembered when he first came to the House of Commons that Questions were far the most important part of the afternoon proceedings. He did not know why the right hon. Gentleman had such a mania for legislation. He thought that administration was equally important. It was most important that Members should have the full right of bringing, by the process of Question, the light of day to bear on the methods of administration of the Government Departments. For his own part, he would rather see one or two Acts of Parliament less per session than that the House of Commons should be curtailed in its liberty to ask Questions of Ministers. By the Rule with reference to business in Supply, the liberties of the House had been curtailed, and it was, therefore, all the more important that they should have liberty to ask Questions on matters of administration. This Rule was aimed largely against the Irish Members. [An HON. MEMBER: "No," and Nationalist cheers.] That was his impression, and he formed it from what he had seen in Government newspapers. He deprecated any such feeling. Ireland had a centralised form of government, and it seemed to him that Questions to Ministers were the only safeguard which Irish Members possessed for throwing the light of publicity on many matter's connected with the administration of that country. If the right hon. Gentleman would accept the Amendment, he would obviate the necessity of putting on the officials of the House the thankless task of classifying Questions.

That is referred to in another Amendment to the Standing Order.

said he would not pursue that subject. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman to give his own proposal, with respect to the starring of Questions, a chance. For his own part, he would put a great many Questions free of starring in order to get answers sent through the Votes. This system would materially reduce the number of Questions to be answered orally. He protested against any kind of Rule which would make the House of Commons into something like a French or German bureaucracy.

said that if the average number of Questions was between fifty and sixty a day, and could therefore be disposed of in a limited time, there need be no objection to having a limit of time for Questions; but if the number increased to 100 or 110, as they sometimes had done, there should be the limit which was proposed by the Rule. The hon. Member for the Scotland Division said that Questions served an excellent purpose, because they afforded an excellent opportunity for silent Members to exert themselves. The hon. Gentleman spoke with what he might say was a spirit of contempt, and certainly condescension, when he said there were a great number of Members of the House who, from inability or lack of courage, were unwilling to take part in debate, and who innocently and inoffensively occupied the Committee Rooms upstairs.

I cannot allow an observation of that kind to pass unchallenged. I think the hon. Gentleman has attributed to me a want of good taste, good feeling, and decency of manner. I think no Member can bring such a charge against me. He accused me of speaking in a spirit of contempt and condescension. I expressed the strongest admiration for the patriotic Members who were willing to do work silently and obscurely, without any hope of reward.

said he did not accuse the hon. Member of lack of" taste or good manners. The impression he derived from the hon. Gentleman's reference was that certain Members were relegated upstairs because they were of no use for debating purposes in the House. Hon. Members attended Parliament for other purposes than to legislate for local gas and water in the Committees upstairs. They desired also to take part in debate, and, if he might say so—he hoped the hon. Member would understand that he was not imputing any improper motives—the hon. Member was endeavouring to make a corner in brains. He supposed it was obvious that debates should be carried on by a certain number of Members; but the House was not a debating society. It was a serious Assembly, and, although many hon. Members did not wish to make speeches often——

The hon. Member is rather wandering from the question.

said he was only endeavouring to represent the views of the silent Members. He agreed with his hon. friend who moved the Amendment that the matter of Questions was of importance to the outside public. People had told him more than once that what they looked for in the newspapers was Questions, not debates. It was true that if Questions were limited, it would be unpopular outside, and would lessen public interest in the proceedings of the House; but that would be obviated by the use of printed answers to Questions. Personally he admitted that when he wished to obtain information he took the practical and sensible way of privately asking a Minister, in the Division Lobby or elsewhere; but when a Question concerned a matter for which publicity was desirable, it was perfectly obvious that that purpose would be served as well by a printed reply as by asking the Question in the House. No one desired to abolish Questions altogether. Further, if the answer as printed was not satisfactory, the Question could be put down again with an asterisk. The limitation of Questions, as he understood it, would be an unmitigated advantage to the House, and he, for one, would have no hesitation in voting for it.

said that the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken defended the proposal of the First Lord of the Treasury solely on the ground of a hypothetical abuse of Questions. That was an insufficient reason for proposing to alter an ancient practice of the House. He agreed with the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool that the First Lord of the Treasury was exceedingly perfunctory in his opposition to the Amendment. As the hon. Baronet the Member for Norwich had said, the First Lord of the Treasury did make an important speech on the subject of Questions at an earlier stage of the discussion, but that speech was on an entirely different proposal, and the right hon. Gentleman had made no speech on the present proposal. On the first occasion on which the right hon. Gentleman spoke, his sole ground for amending the Rule relating to Questions was that during the last session of Parliament either fourteen or fifteen days of Parliamentary time had been consumed in answers to Questions; and he proposed, because of that great waste of time, as he called it, because of that expenditure of time, to relegate Questions to a time after twelve o'clock. The right hon. Gentleman was now putting Questions back again to the commencement of public business, and consequently they had got to examine whether the right hon. Gentleman would save much of the fourteen or fifteen days referred to. He had made a calculation, and he found that in the course of a session of equal length to that of last session they would spend about eleven days of so-called Parliamentary time in asking and answering Questions under the proposed Rule; so that taking the very worst session, only four days of alleged Parliamentary time would be saved by the right hon. Gentleman's proposal. More than that, the right hon. Gentleman had introduced into his Rule a certain valuable suggestion, namely, that certain Questions should be answered and that the answers to the others should be limited. If that were in operation last session, more than four days of Parliamentary time would have been saved in the very worst session they yet had, and the time which the right hon. Gentleman now proposed to give the House for asking and answering Questions would not have been occupied. It might be said that hon. Members had, therefore, no grievance if the time were limited, but on some days hon. Members might want to ask Questions for one and a half hours. There might be some vital matter of public interest and importance that would evoke Question after Question to I the Government from every part of the House, and on such occasions hon. Members should not be restricted. It was their unlimited power of asking Questions that gave hon. Members some check over the Government, and the moment they were fettered in any way their power was reduced as Members of the House of Commons acting in their constitutional manner of exercising control over the Government. That control ought not to be wantonly sacrificed. He had shown that the Government would not save one single hour, much less a Parliamentary day, by their proposal. The right hon. Gentleman said—he did not know with what sincerity—that the Amendment would not take long to discuss, because it was a compromise; but the compromise, as he called it, was introduced by a statement by the right hon. Gentleman the other day that it preserved his main object inviolate. Those were Rules to be used by the House for its own management. They were not Rules which ought to be pressed on the House by the Government. What compromise did the right hon. Gentleman make when he did something in defiance of the wishes of the House? It would be a compromise if the right hon. Gentleman gave something to hon. Members on that side of the House who usually opposed his proposals; but it was no compromise to give something against which the whole House was united in opposition. Hon. Members might fairly ask, when the right hon. Gentleman got his proposal to have certain Questions asterisked and other Questions not asterisked, that, in view of the great saving of time that would be effected by that means, he should leave Questions as they were, and allow hon. Members an unrestricted right to ask I Questions on any particular occasion of great public interest and importance, and that the right hon. Gentleman should try for the present session what would be the saving of time which would be effected by his proposal to differentiate between two classes of Questions. If experience showed that too much public time was wasted, the House might then come to the conclusion that the power I of limiting Questions might be limited.

said that no hon. Member valued more the privilege of putting Questions than he did. So far as he was aware, the British House of Commons had a monopoly of that privilege. They were told that it did not exist in the United States; and that the fact of its non-existence was a great defect in the system of government which obtained there. Having taken part in what occurred some weeks ago in reference to the intentions of the Government on the subject of Questions, he was justified in thinking, with his right hon. friend that the concession which had been made was a balance of convenience as between some regulation limiting the time allotted to Questions and that of the time devoted to the general business of the House. He was quite certain that the new arrangement would enable the public to have all the information they desired, and that matters of great public importance would become known to the people by means of interrogations across the floor of the House. The time of the House was so valuable, not only to the hon. Members, but also to the country, that anything that tended to economise and concentrate the attention of hon. Members in matters of great public importance would, he was certain, be a great gain to their procedure. He believed that the proposed system was well devised, and that it would work well. It would not only give to most hon. Members every freedom in asking Questions, but it would preserve to the House—nay, more, it would increase—that liberty of public debate which had on many occasions been too much curtailed, and would result, he believed, in great benefit to the House and the country. He therefore thanked his right hon. friend most heartily for the modification he had made.

said no Member of the House would put down fewer Questions to Ministers than he; his practice was to write his Question and obtain a written reply from the Department to which he had written. But he certainly thought it most dangerous to establish a Rule by which at a certain time all Questions were to be cut off. Nothing could be more detrimental or degrading to Parliament. If this Rule were allowed to pass, they might have a session or two to see how the thing worked; and then, if it failed, it would be a justification to the House to give another opportunity to the right hon. Gentleman to amend the Rule relating to Questions. We were living in critical times, and there might be days in the near future when an hour of Questions might save the Empire; and to deny that hour by a hard and fast Rule was a proceeding which he never imagined the First Lord of the Treasury would be guilty of. The First Lord of the Treasury had led the House to believe that this Rule was to work elastically, that nothing was to he hard and fast, that everything was to be left to adjust itself according to the public demands, and that the position of the House in future S would be one of greater freedom than it had been in the past. The Rule itself was quite inconsistent with that argument. He noticed that the First Lord had made special provision for the absence of Ministers at Question time. The tendency of Ministers to absent themselves at that time was growing, and seldom had a greater illustration of it been seen than that afternoon. The habit of Ministers now was to be negleetful of their duty to the House in this respect, and their not being in their places at Question time resulted in a very great waste of time. But the part of the Rule on which he desired to say a word was the part which referred to "Questions of an urgent character."

That is not part of this Amendment.

said if that was so, so much the better. The great point against this Rule was that it was an automatic machine, which clipped off the Questions at a particular hour; and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would see that some modification was made.

thought the time had now come when the debate on the subject might come to an end. He feared that some hon. Members had worked themselves up into a state of wild alarm without their alarm being founded on anything alarming. Anybody who had studied this matter would agree that forty minutes was sufficient time, as he said before, to bring to book even the wickedest and most flagitious Government. This would work out at sixty to sixty-five verbal Questions allowed to be asked under this Rule; and when they added to these, sixty or sixty-five Questions which might be asked in order to obtain written answers, he thought it was sufficient, as he said, to prevent the sins of any Government being concealed. According to the average of the present session, these questions might not have occupied forty minutes; he did not think they had. That might prove that the Rule was unnecessary, but it also proved that it was not tyrannical. He ventured to ask the House, under the circumstances, whether it was not worth while to give this limitation in order that they might know at what period of the day they were to commence the important business of the House. The hon. Member opposite made a protest against fixing I the hour as to closing Questions, but he had made many speeches in favour of the Twelve o'clock Rule; so that, while he was in favour of fixing an hour for concluding the business, he was not, apparently, in favour of a fixed hour for commencing it.

did not think the right hon. Gentleman was quite reasonable in asking that this discussion should be now concluded. The speech of the right hon. Gentleman had given away his whole case, because when a Minister sought to introduce a new and unprecedented Rule, in principle, he ought to make out a strong case showing the necessity for the change; and the right hon. Gentleman had made out no such case. Why should private Members be asked to part with their right of putting Questions to Ministers, or to submit to any limitation of it? This was one of the most valuable rights enjoyed by private Members. No case had been made out for the change; in fact, the. First Lord had abandoned all attempts to justify it. The right hon. Gentleman now proposed to introduce this great new principle limiting the right to put Questions to forty minutes every day, for the purpose of getting a fixed hour at which public business should commence. He had examined the Standing Order very carefully, but he could find no stipulation that public business was to commence at a particular time. He gathered that it was part of the scheme that whether Questions ended at 2.30 or 2.45, public business should not begin until three.

No, no.

Then what becomes of the certainty to be obtained under the Rule?

said the day was now divided into two sittings, morning and evening. The principal debate would take place at the morning sitting. Supposing it began at three, that would leave four and a half hours. The Government would not have the time cut into.

thought that one of the great objects to be achieved by these Rules was that Members would be able to know when public business would commence. But that was not what this Rule did. He had frequently seen Questions over in twenty minutes, and very often, after the first fury and fervour of a new Parliament had passed away, fifteen minutes were more than sufficient. In the event of Questions being over in twenty minutes, public business would commence at twenty-five minutes before three o'clock. Where, then, was the certainty? A division might easily be snapped before Members expected public business even to have commenced.

pointed out that Members would be able to calculate very closely the amount of time Questions would take from the number appearing on the Paper.

said that at any rate it was clear that there was no definite hour at which public business would commence. In asking the House to consent to this change, the right hon. Gentleman ought to have made out a case, but he had not attempted to do so. Last session, no doubt, Questions did overflow the ordinary average, but, taking session by session for the last twenty years, or even the last five or six years, it would probably be found that, on an average, they did not occupy more than forty minutes. But that average would be composed of nights on which twenty minutes were sufficient, along with other nights on which an hour, or even longer, was required. The objection to the present proposal was that, without effecting any substantial saving, Members, on certain nights, were cut off from the right of asking Questions, and there was created in their minds a feeling of irritation by their rights being invaded on insufficient grounds. The case against the limitation was enormously strengthened by the probable effect of the provision as to "starring." Every one would admit that "starring" was a reasonable suggestion. He certainly did not oppose it. Nobody would argue against a provision which, without interfering with the rights of Members, tended to economise the time of the House. But Members should observe how this arrangement would work. Without doubt, "starring" would have the effect of obviating the necessity of verbally answering many of the longest Questions on the Paper. He believed that under the Rule the average time occupied by Questions would be well within forty minutes. Then, where was the hardship, asked the right hon. Gentleman. It was in the fact that the Rule deliberately proposed on certain nights to dock the right of Members to put Questions, whereas on other nights they would have more time than they required. The Rule was more objectionable in principle than it would be in practice. In four nights out of five he did not believe it would interfere in the slightest degree with the asking of Questions. Then there were other results that this limitation would have. According to the Rule as it now stood, Questions were to be so arranged that those which seemed to be of the greatest general interest would be reached before five minutes to three o'clock.

I think that ought not to be discussed on this Amendment.