The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-07-02 00:00:00

THE PROGRESS OF LEGISLATURE.

THE time is rapidly approaching when, under
ordinary circumstances, the Session of Parlia-
ment ought to come to an end. On the 6th July
it will have run a session's normal length—half
a year. It assembled on the 6th of January,
before even the festivities of Christmas were at
an end ; and for the first month members had to
face the bitterest winter that had swept over the
land for a quarter of a century. The veteran
Prime Minister was unable to be present at some
of the important divisions because of the fierce
Siberian wind that passed across London. Par-
liament, however, had met four weeks earlier
than usual in order to get on with the important
legislative work which it found ready to its hand.
Up to within a year or two ago it had been the
custom to assemble in the first week of February,
and to separate in the first week of August, at
all events in time to get off to the moors by the
twelfth. Last autumn the circumstances were
exceptional. The new Parliament did not Come
together for business until the 20th May, and
' the both ifouses sat into the second week in
September. But this year both branches of the
Legislature were convoked for the 6th January ;
and should be ready to be prorogued in the first
or second week in July. What are the prospects
of this being accomplished ?
It is becoming more and more evident that the
legislative record will disennoint even thf4 72,..f
wuuerate expectations. it was ot course tore
-
seen that the measures designed for the repres.
sion of order and the reteoval of discontent in
Ireland, would make large domande on Thalia-
nientary time; but it was never imagined that
their claims would have been, so extraordinary
as events have proved. There were few who
could have imagined that at the end of June
Ministers would be compelled to devote their
whole attention to the Land Bill, a measure
painfully and wearily making its way through
committee, but with little prospect of making
any sensible impression upon the important part
of their legislative programme- Yet this is how
matters actually stand. The beginning of the
last week of June found the House of Commons
preparing to take up the stage of committee on
Clause 4 of the Land Bill, a measure containing
fifty clauses. The rate of progress made in this
Bill may be estimated from the fact that an en-
tire Government night, lasting from about half.
past five in the evening until one in the morning,
was occupied in the disposal of four lines of that
same clause. When would the fifty clauses be
dealt with at that rate of speed, looking at the
fact that each clause is a bill in itself, some of
them containing sub-sections ? Meanwhile the
rights of private members were in abeyance; the
constitutional principle that the ventilation of
grievances by the people should take precedence
of the granting of supplies to the Crown had
been practically set aside by the taking of votes
of credit; measures urgently demanded by the
various interests of the Uoited Kingdom could
not be touched; matters intimately associated
with the welfare of our vast colonial p ,ssessions
received no attention. The reform of our
Bankruptcy Laws, urgently demanded by the
commercial community, the prevention of such
disastrous Hoods as those of 1879, the Corrupt
Practices Bill, the amendment of our system of
jurisprudence, social reforms all stood iele in
the Inarkat place of legislative life, waiting for
that attention which, after nearly six mouths' of
work, Parliament found it i,upossih'e to bestow.
But it must be ren.)emberad that there has
been no want of ieduitry on the part of the
members of the Legislative Chamber; the at-
tendance has been generally good, and the
sittings have frequently extended ever many
hours. Nor is the present House of Commons
behind any of its predecessors in the nutnber or
ability of its orators indeed, the barenness of
legislation may, in home degree, be attributed to
the number of sneakers who are ftble and anxious
to address the House on the variety of topics
which come before it. The lengthy discus:ions
thus occasioned, however, are not conducive to
rapidity in the transaction of Parliamentary
work, and no doubt, ere long, a remedy will be
found to facilitate the business of the Hotaoe