The Express.
London, England, 1848-08-31 00:00:00

PUBLIC BUSINESS.

SECAND IIEADINO.LUiTaIAs7t; BIIL
COMM MEM —Controverted Eleciions; Tr never nt Landed Pro-
pert y ( I rel,hl); reser U. eland) ; Nuisances and Cuntagiaus Diseases;
DAM Police; Commons Inelosure Ad Amendment; Bice.
DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS (COURT OF ROME)
BILL.

Tho M.aquis of LANSDOWNE said that he wouli to-
morrow call their lords dos' att.ntion to t'te a‘nendrnenta
mad( by the House of Commons in this bill.
Their lordship& then adjourned at half- past fire o'clock.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.—WEDNESDAY, Auo. 30.
The SPEALER took the chair at 12 o'clock.
PUBLIC BUSINESS.
SECOND READING.—Poor Law Auditors' Proceedings Reatrirdoi

BBL
COMMITTEE—Copper and Lead Duqes BilL
RF:POKTS.—Exetvequer ; West India Colonies and Mauritius;
Savings Banks; Co dated Fund; Mts.
TIMID READINGS.—Past-hursea Lieenees, As.; Lock-up house;
Spirits (DeCers in) ; British spirits Warehuusing; Lnmilliritr front
Sugar ; Slave Traits ;Muscat); Bills.
LORDS' AMENDMENTS CONSIDERED. Poor Law Union

ChargeaiNo. 2) BM.
PETITION:S.—By Sir H. WILLOI7GIUST, from Mr. Coiquhoun
chairman of tho Provident Charing-croas, against the
Sayler Banks Bill.—Sir W. JO NHS, from 250,000 deproitors to
IL•li,g* banks, against the Saving., Banks BBL—CoI riIBTUORP, from
Grantham, to Om same effect.
NO f•CE 1W MO fIoN.—TOLTA Oa MFACTIANT
MACKINNON, early nest smaion to move for:, committee to inquire
1 into the prosent systirn of levying tolls on merchant vivaria at Dover

and Ramsgate.
CONDUCT OF PUBLIC BUSINESS.
Oa the order of the day for the third reading of the Dia-
tilting from Sugar Bill having been read,
Mr. DISRAELI said he would take this occasion to make
some remarks upon the conductof the public husinees during
the se 'sine! now about to close. He considered it csnvenient
that parliament should not separate without expnseing some
opinion on this subject. (lieu, hear.) Whatever the merits
or demerits of the session in other respects, there was no
doubt that it possessed by general consent 'his cha-
racteristic—that it hail been a session of unex-
ampled duration. (Hear, hear.) There was, further,
a suss non almost as generally prevideat out of doors,
that MA tfliciehey Lad not been commeueurate with the
length of its existence. (Hear, hear.) It was said in all
quarters that, after having sat now nearly ten months, after
having laoeured, in a fashion, with inffinte zeal and perseve-
rence for that extended period, parliament was about to be
prorogues', leaving a vast number of projects of legislation of
great .uterest and value, some not proc.eded with at all, end
others with but very slight progress effected in them ; sub-
ject even, most strongly recommended to the consideration
of the parliament in the speech from the throne, not having
been dealt with in the way, or anything like the way, °rigs.
nally contemplated by the general body of the house and by
the country at large. (Hear, hear.) There was
more than one reason generally offered to account
for this most uneatisfsetory state of affair", unsatisfactory in
every respect, and amounting to a grievous public evil, in
that at t 'sided to show our present system of government to
be inadequate to the legislation cousidered r. quisite fur the
public willare. (Hear.) One of the mat popular causes
assigned ler this unsatis:actory state of things, for the exist-
IMO) of this grievous evil, was the alleged tendency to too
much discussion in the House of Commons, too much
speech-making, too much talk. This was an imputation
that had been heard of before the present session. It was
not, perhaps, so fife but it was from time to time raised in
the I..st session of the last parliament, and he rather thought
it had been fiat urged as an objection to the conduct of
public business by hon. gentlemen of the Manchester school,
by whose diairguished leader the cry had again been re-
vived this session, in the most formal and precise manner.
The hon. member for the West Riding of Yorkshire
had even acknowledged to the house that so sen-
sible was he of the evil of prolonged discussions
in the House of Commons that he would consent—
thoueh generally opposed to tariffs—to a soot of rhetorical
tariff, which should limit the period at which he should be
permitted to address the house to a space settled by a stand-
tug order. (Laughter, and cries of Ilear, hear.") The
idea seemed to be a popular one with the gentlemen of the
Manchester school opposite, and there might, or there might
not, be something in it ; only he would esmind the house
that it was but quite recently the inconvenience of too much
discussion hat been perceived by those gentlemen. (Hear.)
There certainly was a period, and that period not very re-
mote, within a very few years, when the loon. member kr
the West Riding and his immediate disciples would scarcely
have been satisfied with .olowaoce time for addressing the
house. He (Mr. Disraeli) hod listened to a great many very
lengthened and very able ppeeehee from the hon. memner
sod his disciples vi that house, and, as he revs lected, most
of those speeches exceeded in duration that ideal period
which the hon. member now wished to establieb. (Hear.)
So far from thinking at that time that there could be too much
discussion of a sulsject, the hon.gentleman end his disciples, not
satisfied with their talk in the House of Commons, built
halls and hired theatres, wherein, with more and still more
discussion, to imps es upon the public conviction those prin-
ciples which they considered of public. importance. There
was another cause which had been assigned for the present
unsatisfactory um* of public business—namely, the forms
nr constitution of the house, which were now discovered to
be so cumbersome and so impracticably intricate as to offer
great obstacles, a bar, indeed, to the efficient, satisfactory,
and spa •dy transaction of the public liminess. It was this
view of the case, he believed, which was principally relied
upon by he- Majesty's ministers. These gentlemen had on
several occasions deplored and deprecated the use of those
forms of which hon. gentlemen, from time to time, availed
themselves, and towards the later days of this now dying
session. certainly with the sanction, though he would not
say at the instigation, of the government, a committee was
appointed to inquire into the conduct of public business, of
which committee he (Mr. Disraeli) was a humble mem-
ber, and ls,fore which the right hon. gentleman in the
chair bad been a distinguished witness. From the ap-
pointment of that committee, as well as from their own re-
marks in the home, it was clear that ministers considered
that in the forts of the house would be found a cause of
that state of public business which every one deplored. At
the same time, it was also clear that ministers by no means re-
jected the cause assigac 1 by the bon. member for the West
Hiding and his friends. Her Mejesty's minister' had on
several occasions deprecated a propensity to discussion, as
tending to present an obstacle to the progress of business,
pointing out that if bon. gentlemen would only abstain from
too close an inquiry into the merits of measurea—(i.ear,
he ar)—it would de of vast convenience to government—(" hear,
hear," and laughter)—and materially facilitate the progress
of legislation. Government, therefore, while immediately
representing the second alleged cause of delay, the forms,
namely, of the house, were also to be regarded as adopters
of the first cause alleged, the tendency, namely, in the
House of Commons, to too much talk. This adoption, in-
deed, was manifest from a paragraph in a late number of an
official paper, which he would read to the house.
L' xi J. RUSSELL.—The London Gazette, of course ?
(A laugh.)
Mr. DISRAELL—No, not the London Gazette, but a
paper—the real, regular, official weekly paper—the paper
that gets hold of government secrets, far more inter sting
and far more important than any that ever appear in the
London Gazette, and that circulates first-hand all appoint-
ments, from an ambassador down to a gauger. In this
paper there appeared last week among the ministerial move-
ments this paragraph, fully showing what was the govern-
ment view of the subject : 'We have authority to state that
the fish dinner—(great laughter)—which was fixed for the
16th inst. is postponed until the 250 inst. This postpone-
ment is occasioned by the vexatious discussions in tile House
of Commons—(renewed laughter)—which have now reached
such a pitch that something must really be done to arrest
the evil. We have authority, however, to state that the
fib dinner will positively take place on the 25th."
And so it did : nn Saturday was the dinner of the e' 'felon ;
let them have the digestion of it on Wednesday. And al-
lowing—au he would very readily—tor all the irritability
natural to men whose dinner is put off, he would point out
that this paragraph, by authority," was not to be consi-
der d as a mere ebu'lition of fasting spleen, but as the de-
liberate declaration, in a grave official organ, of the opinion
which, in the house, mini* re had before repeatedly ex-
pressed, that over-discussion of public meuuree impeded the
prognes of public business. Having thus fairly, he believed,
represented the two suggested came 4 of the imperfect le gisla-
. tion in that assembly, he now proposed, in a matinee the
most brief and condensed that he osuld cent? ire, to ascertain
whether these two causes were the red causes—whether it
was to be imputed to over-discussion is that house or to the
forms of the house, that, after having sat there nearly ten
months, they had done very little, and thst very little not
very well. (Hear, hear.) But, before he entered into that
argument, it would be perhaps not unintert sting to the house
and to the eountry to glance at what that home, which it
was just row the fashion to arraign, had actually done this
session, and, for this purpose, he would quote a paragraph from
the et pert of the committee on public business, which had
beta laid on the table of the house, but not as yet circulated
among members. It appeared, then, from the repor. that
Oa re had sat this year forty•five public committal!, some
of them of More than usual importance, with an average of
fifteen members serving on Bath committee • that there
had been twenty-eight election committees with an average
number of five members serving on each committee; that
there had been fourteen groups on railway bills, with an
average number of five members serving on each group,
seventeen groups on private bills with five members each, and
111 other committees on private business. Of the public
committees, that on commercial distress sat thirty-nine dale ;
that on sugar and coffee planting thirty-nine days; that on
naval, military, and ordnance expenditure forty days; and
that en miscellaneous expenditure thirty-seven days. It ap.
psared, further, that there had this session been presented
to the house nearly 18,500 petitions, showing an increase
of 2.5 per cent. upon the greatest number presented
in any former year, except in the session of 1843.
(Hear.) And he would lng to make an observation about
these petitions, since a very great error nee of
doors oa the subject. Taste !Noss. idea prevalent'
presentation of petitions to that house was a mere
:arm; that the petition once ordered "to lie on
was put into some mysterious bag and no more
of, whereas, in point of feet, every petition laid
saes afterwards scrutinised by a select committee
some of the most experienced and influential met
house, and that every petition which, (tom its c
intrinsic ability, was deemed at all to merit the
was printed and circulated among the members
—(hear, hear) ; in fact, he fully believed that
went the right of petitioning—although, of e.
bers were not permitted to make speecaes on ,
every petition—waamore important, more really
more beneficial to the people of England, than it had
any period of our history. (Heal, hear.) Ile wto
proceed to investigate whether the causes he had
thou assigned for the procrastination of public teas'
theptal causes. It wound be, perhaps,eonvenient t
reminding the hem tot the einumstanees under

mit Of
dent that the
sere matter of
n Ve table "
seen or heard
1 on the table
,e composed of
members of the
i character or
he distinction, 4
root the house
t at this mo•
tonne,rie presenting
mom-
onnprally effective,
it had been at
le would now
had homed as
business, were
It to basirtni,
tder fth
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