The Sun.
London, England, 1860-07-20 00:00:00

SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, JULY 20, 1866.-

IMPERIAL PARMA EN T.

HOUSE OF LORDS—(YESTERDAY.)
The LORD CHANCELLOR took his seat on the woolsack
at five o'clock.

_
PRIVATE BUSINESS.
The Macclesfield Gas and the Horsham and Guildford
Direct Railway Bills were read a third time and passed.
LABOURERS' COTTAGES (SCOTLAND) BILL.
On the motion that the house go into committee on this
bill,
The Earl of AIRLIE took the opportunity of explaining
certain misunderstandings, and directed the atten.tion of
their lordships to the state of agricultural labour in Scot-
land, and said when the bill was in committee he should
move an amendment to the effect that the cost of improve-
ments for cottages should not be made a permanent charge
on the estate.
After a short discussion in which the Marquis of Bath,
Lord Redesdale, and the Earl of Galloway took part,
The house went into committee, and the amendment
alluded to having been made, the bill was reported.
CRIMINAL LUNATICS ASYLUM BILL
(AMENDMENT).
This bill was read a third time and passed.
LANDS CLAUSES CONSOLIDATION ACI
(AMENDMENT) BILL.
Earl DE GREY moved the second reading of this bill,
and said one of the clauses empowered the Secretary at
War to take land for the defence of the realm. The bill
did not increase the power given to the Secretary at War
under the Defence Act, but it enabled him to avail himself
of the machinery of the present measure.
The Duke of SOMERSET said the bill did not give any
new power to the War department ; it only gave improved
machinery. With respect to the Admiralty the alterations
he wished could be better discussed in committee.
Lord CHELMSFORD thought the bill conferred some
new powers on the Lords of Admiralty, and therefore it
ought to be most carefully considered.
After a few words from Earl Ds GREY, the bill was
read a second time.
COLEWORT BARRACKS (PORTSMOUTH) BILL.
This bill passed through committee.

ANNUITY TAX ABOLITION BILL.
The house went into committee on this bill, which was
reported without amendment. •
LEITH HARBOUR BILL.
This bill was read a third time and passed:
REGISTRATION OF BIRTHS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
This bill was read a second time.

COURT OF QUEEN'S .BENCH ACT (AMEND-
MENT) BILL.
This bill was also read a second time.

CENSUS (ENGLAND) BILL.
Earl GRANVILLE said, in moving the second reading
of this bill, he need not make any observations, as its ob-
jects were so well known.
The bill was read a second time.

CENSUS (IRELAND) BILL.
This bill was also read a third time.
THE BUSINESS OF PARLIAMENT.
The Earl of DERBY rose, pursuant to notice, to call the
attention of the house to the mode of conducting the busi-
ness of the house. He said,—We have now arrived at the
third week of July, a period when it is generally hoped that
the session is drawing to a close. On former occasions the
review of the session has often been made the subject of an
exciting political controversy, and I am far from saying
that the present session is so far an exception to the general
rule as not to afford ample material for debate. (Hear,
hear.) But on the present occasion it is my desire not to
seek, but sedulously to avoid, such a discussion. I wish
solely to draw your lordships' attention to a state of things
which necessarily leads to dry detail, but which is yet a
matter of great importance not only to the country, as
affecting the character of the legislation of both houses,
but also to the interests of any and every Government
which happens to be charged with the responsibility of
office. I trust, therefore, we may approach the considera-
tion of the question without the slightest reference to party
feeling, and merely as a subject in which we all have a
great and common interest. We have now been sitting for
the space of 26 weeks, and at the expiration of that time I
find that 34 Acts of Parliament have received the Royal
assent, and that there are 13 other bills which, as they have
passed both houses, and only await the Royal assent, may
be supposed to be already added to the legislation of the
session. On examination, however, the great proportion
of these bills prove to be measures of the most absolute and
complete routine. There is hardly a single measure among
them that can claim the dignity of being of second,-
rate importance. This is not a circumstance which is new
or peculiar to the present session, for I find that during
this session nearly as many bills will have been passed
up to the expiration of July as in any of the last ten
or twelve years. The number is somewhat smaller,
but the difference is not material. What I wish to bring
before your lordships is that almost by the necessity of the
case the same thing must be found in nearly every session
of Parliament. I wish to direct your attention to the man-
ner in which parliamentary business is conducted in the two
houses, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the mode
of proceeding may not be altered so as to avoid thedifficulty
I have pointed out. I begin by acknowledging that the
great proportion of bills, 9 out of 10, or even 19 out of every
20, require to be originated in the other House of Parlia-
ment. This does not arise merely because there are a nuns. •
ber of bills which, owing to the privileges of the House of
Commons, we are precluded from originating in this house.
I will frankly confess that, as a general rule, the House of
Commons is better adapted for originating and discussing
measures in the first instance, and that your lordships are
better employed in revising and correcting the rough
work, if I may say so, of the other House of Parliament.
I do net mean to cast any discredit on your lordships' house
when I say that the proceedings here do not bear any com-
parison with those of the other house in regard to the minute
examination of measures, especially if they are of any length.
There is, comparatively speaking, so small a number of your
lordships who are disposed very carefully to consider the pro-
isions of measures which may be introduced, or who are in-
terested in calling attention to matters in detail, and there
is so great a readiness to allow measures to be sent from this
for consideration by the other house, that I suspect, unless
a bill happens to excite general attention, there is a risk of
its being sent down without receiving that attention and
consideration which would probably have been bestowed on
it had it been sent up to your lordships to be passed into a
law. But assuming that in the great proportion of cases
bills should be introduced first in the other House
of Parliament, we are led to consider what is the
course of proceeding which is taken in regard to bills in that
house, and what is the prospect that those which originate
there will come before your lordships in a reasonable time
in order to give you the opportunity of deliberately con-
sidering them. There is ene point of difference between the
proceedings of the House of Commons and those of your
lordships' house. I need not say that by the courtesy of
this house any noble lord has the privilege of placing a bill
on the table and obtaining for it a first reading, without the
necessity of raising any lengthy discussion. In the House
of Commons members have no such power. It is necessary
for them first to give notice on the preceding day that leave
will be asked to introduce a bill, and upon that leave being
asked considerable discussion may arise. Bills have there-
fore one more stage to go through in the House of Com-
mons than in your lordships' house, and in cases where
it is necessary to originate the bill by the re-
solution of a committee of the whole house there is added
another stage, making two more stages upon the introduc-
tion of certain measures than are necessary in your lord-
ships' house. But, then, what are the facilities which the
House of Commons affords, especially to. the Government,
for the introduction of bills and the progress of public busi-
ness ? By the rules of the House of Commons two days
are set apart for motions by individual members, and a third
day, Wednesday, is set aside for bills without any prefer-
ence in favour of Government measures over those of pri-
vate members, the bills being taken in the order in which
they stand on the notice paper. At the commencement of
the session the Government, by giving notice of all the
measures they have prepared, and sometimes also, I
fear, of measures that they have not prepared, occupy
the ground, and have an opportunity of introducing
some bills. But, except for the first week of the
session, the Government have no precedence over pri-
vate members, and they are often placed in circum-
stances of great difficulty with regard even to the introduc-
tion of their measures. When bills are introduced the Go-
vernment have nominally two days in the week for their
consideration. We should, however, recollect the position
in which the Government stand at the beginning of each
session with regard to the two days in tie week allotted to
them. It is necessary, in consequence of the expiration of
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the amount proposed to be demanded for the military and
naval service of the country. The first object, therefore, is
to go into Committee of Supply. The Mutiny Act cannot
be passed before the votes for men and money have been
taken, and it is thereforenecessary before Easter that these
votes should be considered in supply. But, although
Government are in possession of two days out of five for the
transaction of Government business in the House of Com-
mons, that statement, without further explanation, would
lead to an erroneous idea in regard to the time actually at
their disposal; because on every occasion of going into
committee of supply it is open to any hon member to move
any amendment, and a discussion may be taken upon any
subject whatever, on the ground that the consideration of
grievances ought to precede the granting of supply. It,
therefore, often happens that a whole evening, and some-
times more than a whole evening, is occupied by discussing
some question that has nothing to do with committee of
supply. With regard to other bills a satisfactory rule has
been made, that when the hou. e has once gone into com-
mittee on a bill, and has reported progress, it is not com-
petent for any hon. member, when the bill again comes be
fore the house, to move an amendment to the motion that
the Speaker leave the chair. But formerly that was not.
the case, and this was one of the modes adopted by the House
of Commons for the purpose of curtailing the forms of the
house and saving time. I believe that this alteration was made
under the presidency of my noble friend (Viscount Evers •
ley), whom I do not now see in his place, who presided with
so much dignity and public utility over the deliberations of
that house—(cheers)—and that was one of the many valu-
able improvements he introduced into the parliamentary
practice of the House of Commons. (Hear, hear.) It has

been found necessary of late years, indeed, to carry these
restrictions to an extent that can hardly be justified. Your
lordships all know that en the presentation of petitions in
this house the whole subject of those petitions may be en-
tered upon and discussed ; but it has been found necessary
to put so absolute a restriction upon this right in the House
of Commons that members are not allowed to state anything
except the substance of the petition and the parties from
whom it proceeds. With regard to Committee of Supply, it
is not only necessary that a motion should be made when-
ever the Speaker leaves the chair ; but upon every occasion
when the house goes into committee afterwards, although
no vote may have been taken on the previous occasion, a
new motion must be made and a new amendment may be
moved. And that may take place on every occasion when
the Government seek to go into Committee of Supply.
During these two days in the week, when devoted to the
business of supply, the Government may thus be indefi-
nitely embarrassed and the public business indefinitely
postponed by amendment after amendment. But that is
not all, for every Friday, which is one of the two days at the
disposal of the Government, a motion was made " that this
house at its rising adjourn to Monday." That motion
affords weekly an opportunity not of moving a specific
amendment, but of discussing every description of subject,
introduced without order or regularity or without the
possibility of any Minister speaking more than once in
answer to numerous interpellations. Recently Thursday
has been taken as a Government day instead of Friday,
and the discussions upon the motion for adjourn-
ment on Friday are net now taken out of the time allotted
to Government business. So far as the promotion of public
business is concerned, that is a very considerable improve-
ment. But in the early part of the session the Government
are limited to two days in the week, and for public business
of the character of legislation there is little or no time be-
fore Easter, from the necessity of obtaining Supply, and the
difficulty of entering upon the consideration of Supply. I
hope it will not be supposed that in alluding to the practice
of the House of Commons I conceive myself entitled, or
that your lordships are entitled, to pass an opinion upon the
mode in which the House of Commons transact their own
business, or that such an opinion would carry any weight with
it. What I want to show is that this is a state of things which
the House of Commons have made many attempts to amend.
It is to be regarded not as an exceptional state of things,
but as one that does and may affect every session of Parlia-
ment. Ido not mean to say that there may not have been
some additional delay in the present session, owing to the
introduction, at an unusually early period, of a budget of
an ambitious and complicated character, simultaneously
with the introduction of a commercial treaty, which led to
much discussion and difference of opinion, and simultane-
ously also with the introduction of a Reform Bill, which
occupied a great deal of the time of the house. The House
of Commons, then, having one stage more for every bill than
3 our lordships, and originating a great number of bills, the
Government having only two days for the conduct of the
Government business, those two days being greatly occupied
by motions in supply, and those motions being liable to in-
terruption and great delay from the introduction of other sub-
jects, the time for legislation at their disposal may be re-
garded as almost nil, and the result is that the number of
bills passed before the end of July is comparatively small.
From 1848 to 1860, but not including, this year, the average
number of bills that received the Royal assent up to the
end of July for each year was 61, while the average num-
ber that received the Royal assent from the end of July up
to the end of August was 61. That is to say, the number of
bills passed in a month when there is a very small number
of either house in attendance is equal on an average of years
to the number that received the Royal assent in all the five
preceding months of the session. My lords, I have before
me a precise state of the business of the house as it was
this morning. Your lordships have gone through some mea-
sures this evening, and so far it will not be accurate; but
this morning there were five bills standing for a third read-
ing, eight for committee, two of which are referred to a select
committee, nine for a second reading, the day for which is
fixed, and 16 waiting for a second reading, for which no day
is fixed, including three bills which originatedhere, and ap-
pear likely also to terminate their existence in this house.
The total number of bills now on the table of your lordships'
house is 43; but even with regard to these 43 bills, 15 or
16 of which came up on Monday, and five or six to-day, there
are comparatively few which are of great importance. Now,
there is, as I said before, a large number of bills which
your lordships have not the power of originating. Se far,
however, as your power in that respect extends, you have
not neglected the public business in the course of the present
session, for I find that you have sent down to the House of
Commons 22 or 23 bills, many of which are very important,
including seven relating to the consolidation of the Criminal
Law, which received your assent at an early period of the
session, and to whose consideration much industry and
knowledge was applied. In addition to these, you passed a
bill for the regulation of the Divorce Court, the Indictable
Offences Bill, a bill for the Union of Benefices, another on
the subject of Church temporalities, and a great number of
other important measures. It must, however, be admitted,
when we come to take notice of the progress which these
measures have made in the House of Commons, that the
position which they occupy on its votes is not such as to
encourage us to originate bills in this house, for having
examined the votes of the House of Commons, I find that
not one of the bills which you have sent thidaer—the course
of three of them, I may observe, I have been unable to
trace—has yet passed through committee. (Hear.) Ten of
them are awaiting that stage, having passed a second read-
ing, while there are nine which have not been successful in
making so rapid a progress. I, under these circumstances,
am very much afraid that the time which your lordships
have given to the consideration of these bills will havebeen,
so far as the present session is concerned, absolutely thrown
away. I now come to deal with the state of business gene-
rally as it stands inthe House of Commons, and that, I find,
presents by no means a satisfactory aspect. There were in
that house this morning only three bills awaiting a third
reading; eight awaited consideration, having been
amended, while there were no less than 41 set down for
committee, including 10 which were sent down from this
house. Twenty-five, including nine others sent down by
your lordships, stood for second reading, and, over and
above this mass of business, there are, on the votes of the
other house, no less than six notices of motion for leave
to bring in bills—(a laugh)—which have yet to go through
all their stages. Among these are the Militia Ballot Expenses
Bill, the Medical Relief Bill, the Volunteers (Ireland) Bill,
the East India Judicature Bill, some of which are Govern-
ment measures. But more than this there are financial pro-
posals, in which case it will be necessary that the House of
Commons should go into, committee, and pass resolutions to
form the groundwork of bills, which bills will then have
to pass through their several stages, and go through
your lordships' house, before the Appropriation Bill can
be introduced. (Hear, hear.) This, I think you will
agree with me, is no small amount of work to have to
accomplish, especially when I tell you that this morning
that huge impediment, the Bankruptcy Bill, consisting of
500 and odd clauses, stood at the head of the list—a bill
which the Attorney-General, like another Sisyphus, is one
deavoming to roll up the Parliamentary hill, but which no
sooner reaches the top than it comes down again with far
greater rapidity than it ascended. (Laughter.) I said this
bill stood at the head of the list in the House of Commons
this morning, but I believe it does so no more, for if I am
not misinformed, among the other painfu sacrifices which
her Majesty's Ministers have been obliged to make is the
abandonment of these 500 and odd clauses. (A laugh.)
But there yet remain the Highways Bill, the Ecclesiastical
Commission Bill, and the European Forces in India Bill—
one of the most important and difficult measures with
which the Government ie called upon to deal, besides the
Poor-Law Beard Continuance Bill, the bills relating to the
tenure of land in Ireland, the London Corporation Bill—
which, to my certain knowledge, has been for some years on
the votes of the House of Commons—the Roman Catholic
Charities Bill, making together with several other measures
which I need not more particularly mention, but many of
which are of considerable importance, 77 bills in the other
House of Parliament, in various stages, from which if I de-
duct the 19 bills to which I have already alluded as having
passed your lordships' house, there will be left 58, none of
which, or very few of which, have yet—at the end of July
—gone through committee. (Hear.) I hive, however, in
the observations which I have made given your lordships
but a very feeble picture of the embarrassment of the Go-
vernment in regard to the business of the country. I say
this, because I have been informed by a right hon. gentle-
man who is likely to know that, according to the best cal-
culation that can be made, eight or nine nights more will
be required to get through the votes in supply which still
remain to be passed. (Hear.) Now, when you take into
account the fact that the Government have only two, or at
the utmost three nights in each week at their disposal, I ask
you what prospect there is at this period of the session that
the 58 bills which I have mentioned will receive that con-
sideration to which they are entitled, and without receiving
which it would reflect no credit on Parliament that they
should be allowed to pass into a law. (Hear, hear.) And,
what, let me ask, is likely to be the result of this state of
things ? Why that, with perhaps a few insignificant excep-
tions, measures ore the expediency of which the opinion of
the country has been clearly pronounced, and the main prin-
ciples of which met with almost universal approval, will
fall to the ground, a sacrifice to that general massacre which
usually takes place about this time of the year, so that legis-
lation will have been absolutely brought to a standstill, and
but little or nothing will have been accomplished in that
direction during a session which has already lasted six
months, and which will not in all probability terminate for
a month or six weeks to come. (Cheers.) Now, this, my
lords, is a subject which, in my opinion, will press itself
upon your attention more and more year after year,
and if for the evils which it involves no remedy can be
provided the result must be that Parliament will be placed
in a position neither creditable to itself nor useful to the
nation. (Hear, hear.) Surrounding circumstances have
in the present session been favourable to legislation.
The Thames this summer has been more inoffensive than
has of late been its wont. (A laugh.) The temperature has
been such as to enable the members of the House of Com-
mons to go through their senatorial labours without the
feeling of absolute exhaustion. (Laughter.) But, with all
these incentives to work, it is too much to suppose that a
large number of the independent members of that house
could go through six weeks of slavery, sitting from 10 to 14
hours a day. And, if men could be found to accomplish so
great a task, I feel certain that the physical prostration

consequent on the exertion is not the means by which
they would be best fitted to give due consideration to
details of the measures brought under their notice, which,
under these circumstances, there would be a tendency to
slur over, so as to get rid of measures themselves, with
the -view of sending them up as speedily as possible to
your lordships' house. (Hear, hear.) Such, my lords,
being the evils with which we have to contend, where are
we to find for them a palliation or a remedy ? Great bene-
fit, it must be admitted, has been conferred by the opera.
tion of the resolution of my noble friend (Lord Redesdale),
in accordance with which your lordships will not, after
a certain day, undertake the responsibility of dealing with
a measure which it is impossible for you—owing to the
time at which it is laid before you—to con eider
satisfactorily. In former years, bills which were post-
poned until a late period of the session were
frequently passed with extravagant haste. I find that in
one year—Parliament having been prorogued on the sth of
September-37 bills received the Royal assent in that month
and 61 in the August immediately preceding, while only
27 received the Royal assent before the end of July of the
same year. I also find that in 1853 only 40 bills received
the Royal assent before the end of July, while in the follow-
ing August 97 were added to the legislation of the country.
It is impossible that these measures could have received the
attention due to every bill which passes your lordships'
house, and the consequence of such a system is that year
after year we are called on to pass Acts for the purpose of
amending mistakes, whether of this or of the other house,
which have been committed from the great haste and
necessary carelessness with which these bills are considered.
Some 12 years ago I called your lordships' attention to this
subject, and I at that time proposed a measurs to which I
had the satisfaction of obtaining your lordships' concur-
rence, for enabling the House of Lords, and vice versa, the
House of Commons, to take up at the commencement of
the next session the bills which should make their appear-
ance as remanets from the session before. I am per-
fectly satisfied that in one mode or other, if we desire to
obviate the evils of the present system, we must come to
some understanding by which the principle embodied in
that bill shall be adopted. The measure received very
general concurrence on the part of your lordships. I am
afraid I must make one illustrious exception in the person
of my noble friend the Chairman of Committees, who op.
posed alike its principle and details. The noble lord on
the woolsack, I recollect, was favourable to the plan
proposed in the bill, but objected to its being introduced
into an Act of Parliament, and suggested that the same
object might be effected by resolutions of the two houses.
Now, I am not about to make any distinct proposition
to your lordships. I have desired to call your lord-
ships' attention to the state of public business at the
present moment, and to the absolute necessity there will
be of sacrificing a great portion of the bills now standing
on the paper, and thereby rendering useless the labours of
this and of the other House of Parliament. And more
especially I would say that it is a matter for the sincerest
regret that those measures for the consolidation of the
criminal law which were sent down from this house, as
to which all parties were agreed, have been left, I know not
why, except for the great press of other business, to so late
a period of the session that there is little probability of their
passing the House of Commons, notwithstanding that but
slight or no opposition is made to them. (Hear.) But if an
illustration be needed ;of the importance of our being able
to carry on legislation from one session to another, I cannot
have a better example than is afforded by the Bankruptcy
Bill. That was a measure with regard to which probably a
much larger number of members in proportion to those who
attend in your lordships' house than in the House of Com-
mons were fully informed and competent to decide. The
550 clauses of that bill ought to have been elaborately dis-
cussed in both houses, but after two or three nights in corn •
mittee, and before half its provisions have been gone
through in the House of Commons, it is found absolutely
necessary, I understand, to abandon the bill, and all the
labour bestowed upon it has been consequently lost. But,
supposing that bill had come up to us in the month of
August, what would have bean the alternative placed before
us ? We should have been Galled on to abandon and throw
over altogether this very material alteration, and I hope
very great amendment, in the commercial law and practice
of this country; or else to pass on credit, and without due
consideration, a bill of 500 clauses, on a subject as to which
a vety large number of those in your lordships' house are
peculiarly qualified to judge and to give sovid opinions.
(Cheers.) I take that as an example of the position in which
we should have been placed if this bill, which unfortunately
has not received the sanction of the House of Commons,
had been sent up to your lordships. I ask what can be a
course more prudent than that a bill which has been passed
by the Lower House, and the principle of which has re-
ceived the sanction of your lordships, should be left over for
the consideration of its details to the commencement of the
next session of Parliament, when we know that a general
complaint is made at the commencement of every session
that we have little or no business before us, and that in the
interval bills which have passed the House of Commons
will be submitted to examination and criticism by the pub-
lic generally, so that your lordships in approaching the
consideration of these measures will have the opportunity
of knowing, not only the opinions put forward by the
other house, .but the view taken by the public of
their principles and details. (Hear, bear.) That appears
to me the plain and obvious solution of the difficulty. Of
course, such a plan could only be carried out with the
sanction and concurrence of the House of Commons, in
such cases as they were satisfied in the next session to ac-
cept the decision of the House of Lords as amendments to
their bill, instead of beginning over again from the begin-
ning and carrying it through all the different stages, by
which so much time was previously lost. An arrangement
of this nature would afford the two houses the amplest
means of deliberation, while the public would obtain the
benefit of well considered instead of hasty and ill-consi-
dered legislation. (Hear, hear.) Of course it would be
perfectly competent to the other or to either House of Par-
liament to decline taking those amendments into conside-
ration, and to drop the bill if they thought fit to do so, but
I am quite sure the business of the house would be much
facilitated and the interests of the country greatly advanced
by any agreement come to between the two houses for the
purpose of carrying into effect the principle, at all events,
which I have stated to your lordships, and to which
I endeavoured 12 years ago to obtain the sanction of Par-
liament. It is said the effect of this bill will be to encou-
rage attempts at legislation, that persons will bring for-
ward bills hoping, though they may not pass in one ses-
sion, that ultimately they may become law. For my part,
I cannot help thinking that, although it might afford en-
couragement to the introduction of measures, it would at
the same time afford the best means of giving to those mea•
sures, when they were introduced, the fullest and most im•
partial consideration. Moreover, there is at present great
temptation in the House of Commons to the promoters of
bills to hurry them forward in order that they may be
brought under the consideration of this house within the
time limited for your lordships' sitting. On the other
hand, there is equal temptation to the opponents of bills,
however valuable and important they may be, to interpose
unnecessary obstructions by way of delay, and delay only,
with the security that if they can only postpone the pass-
ing of the bill till after the period fixed by your lordships'
resolutions it will be altogether lost. Now, Ido not consi-
der in ordinary cases that such is a fair mode of opposition
to measures in the other House of Parliament; and I am
quite sure a great motive for that kind of resistance would
be taken away if the persons resorting to it were aware that
even if they succeeded in protracting the passing of a bill
beyond a particular time it would not have the effect of de-
stroying it altogether and of rendering it necessary to begin
next year all over again, but would only cause the post-
ponement of its consideration to another session, when the
other house would be able to deal with it as it thought fit.
I do not pretend to point out to your lordships the mode in
which the object to which I have directed attention is to be
attained, but I think you will be satisfied that the present
state of legislation is not satisfactory to this house, to the
other house, nor to the country—(hear)—that many and
very valuable measures which well deserve to pass are lost,
that much valuable time is sacrificed in either hot.se, and
that with regard to the legislation which does take place, a
great portion of it is of necessity so hasty and inconsiderate
as to require very early and frequent amendment. My lords,
all these things are of constant annual recurrence; and ac-
cording to the mode in which business is conducted, I see no
hope that they will not continue to be of annual recurrence.
I know no possible mode of counteracting the evil effect of
this waste of the greater part of the session, save by en-
abling measures to be postponed from July to February, as
they may now be postponed from February to July, and as
they are sometimes deferred by a prorogation or even by a
dissolution of Parliament. I think I am not mistaken when
I say that after the dissolution of 1859, this house, at all
events, passed a resolution declaring that private bills which
had reached a certain stage should be allowed, when Par-
liament met again, to be resumed at the point at which
they had been left by the dissolution. I do not propose
any rule of this kind with regard to a dissolution, because
it must alter the constitution of the House of Com-
mons, which agreed to the bill, and consequently that
house may refuse to receive as mere amendments
alterations to the measures passed by their predecessors.
But with regard to the prorogation, I cannot see any rea •
sonable ground why the same power should not exist of
postponing a bill over a prorogation that may be applied
indefinitely to the adjournment of Parliament, even al-
though it may be from February to July. There are vari -
ono modes in which this object may be effected. The mode
adopted in 1848, which received the general concurrence of
your lordships, was the framing of an act enabling both
houses to take the course which I have described. It was
not thought expedient, however, in the House of Commons
to press the consideration of that act, which accordingly
fell to the ground, and the question has not since been re-
newed. Another mode was suggested by the noble lord on
the woolsack—namely, that the two houses should simul-
taneously appoint committees which might be placed in
communication with each other, and on their separate re-
ports, corresponding with each other, resolutions might be
passed which would accomplish the desired object. I do
not know whether any advantage would be derived in this
case from a conference between the two houses ; the in-
stances, at all events, are very rare in which a question has
been referred to a joint committee ; but in some one of these
modes I do think it most important that the opinion of both
houses should be taken, and that means eb,4l be die-