St. Paul daily globe., 1893-05-21
LITTLE HEADWAY
Made by the Home Rule Bill in
Committee During the Past nc
Week. I %
Premier Gladstone Determined to
Pass the Bill by the Middle
of July.

LONDON, May 20.-The question still
confronting the government is: chow
can the persistent obstruction of Bal
four. Chamberlain and Churchill be re-
duced to minimum" Another week
has been passed in factouS, fruitless,
platudinous discussion, and the home
rule bill has been moved hardly
a hairs breadth near the Liberal
goal. Neither the unstinted appli-
cation of the closure, nor the self
enforced reticence OF the Irish mem
bers has been sufficient to expedite
the work in committee to even partial
satisfaction of Mr.. Gladstone. The
ministers have been forced to their
wits ends to devise some heroic means
to stop the interminable flow of talk in
when the opposition are trying to drown
the purposes of the government. Their
plan is now to accelerate the commit
tees progress clause by ella use by sus-
pending the IL o'clock rule in he Whit
Suntide recess. The home 'rule bill
would then be debated day after day
and night after night to the exclusion
OF everything else. Mr.. Gladstone is
understood TO approve of this plan. The
old man has been driven to corner by
his antagonists. He has developed
the pugnacity Of his younger days,
and has now rallied himself to
find his way out. Obstruction has
not discouraged him, as it has some of
his followers, but has served merely to
strengthen his energy and determine to
force victory quickly from the minority.
He has made 1t known privately in min
isterial circles that the bill must be
brought through the house of commons
| by the middle Of July. Without fixing
| the exact date for reporting the bill, he
| has formed bill for the purpose of de-
| termining approximately the final day
| of the committee stage. At the begin
| ming of every week he will arrange with
| the cabinet for the amount of work to
be done in the succeeding days, and will
specify the clauses which must be
| passed before the next weeks work
shall be begun. No protest or plea for
fair play from the obstructioniSts will
be permitted to thwart the programme
| thus laid out. If necessary for the ful-
| fillment of his plan, some clauses will
| be forced to vote without any prellm-
| mary debate whatever.
| Already the house committee has
divided twenty-four times on two
clauses, to say nothing OF the divisions
| on motions for the closure. with four
| pages OF dIn6ilulIlculS DclllNu bllCill, tIlo
| members still see fifty pages awaiting
debate and division. Nine pages OF
amendments have been added since the
committee began sitting. Nor is this
| all. In the last week alone several hun
dred amendments, which were not
printed, have been noticed IN COM
mittee. No government making the
least pretensions of regulating the ia!
cilitating public business could long
tolerate such outrageous filibnsterlng
without losing all prestige. The oppoz
sition are chuckling over the fact that
they have compelled the committee to
sit thirteen times to pass the hrst seven
lines of a bill which covers twenty
pages. The record is, in fact. beyond
all precedent in the parliamentary his
tory of Europe. The reform bill in
1882, against which all the possibilities
Of obstruction were believed to have
been exhausted, was kept in committee
altogether just twenty-five days.
| The prospect of all-night sittings is