The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1901-08-10
And Forcibly Exposes the Utter Breakdown
of the Legislative Machine
at Westminster
The Dreary and Dismal Farce of Bringing
Irish Members to the House
for Expulsion.

In the House of Commons on Mon
day night, July Is, Mr.. John Redmond.
chairman Of the Irish Party, delivered
Il great speech of protest against the
motion of Mr.. Arthur Balfour propos-
ing to give three additional days to
Supply, with the view to bringing the
remaining business OF the session to n
close. Mr.. Redmond, who was re-
ceived with loud Irish cheers, said he
opposed the motion root and branch.
He knew that it had been customary
mt that period of every session for the
House Of Commons, in order to close
up the work Of the session, to grant
special facilities to the government for
their business, and under ordinary cir
cumstances the House would not hesi-
tate to pass the resolution moved by
the leader of the House. But the cir
cumstnnces under which the motion
was moved that afternoon were not
ordinary circumstances. There never
had been, in the memory Of the oldest
member, such waste Of time by the
government Of the day rs there had
been this year Opposition cheers), and
there never had been in his experience
session in which The business of the
government had been so completely
mismanaged. There had never been Il
more complete neglect of the legisla-
tive duties Of the government on n
more useless number Of meaures intro
duced in this session. There had been
an abolute backdown of the parlla-
mentary machine. An unparalleled
demand had been made upon the time
of the House, and the closure had
never been more remorselessly applied,
or the rights and privileges of the hon
Orable members taken away, than by
the first lord of the treasury (cheers).
Admittedly this was the strongest gov,
ernment, numerically, of modern times.
with it's majority of $50 Mt the last
general election. But yet there was u
difficulty in keeping its supporters,
with the result that government ma
jorities had been us low as IL and 20,
and often only 80 or 40 (Hear, hear.
This government had greater powers
for facilitating business than any gov
ernment Of modern times. The closure,
too, had been more frequently used.
He found that in this session already
the closure had been moved and car
rled more than twice us often as it was
last year for the whole session (Na.
tionalist cheers). The moving of the
closure did not mean the smooth prog
ress Of business Opposition and Ma
tionalist cheers. Did anybody deny
that? (An honorable member-Yes.) Let
them take as an examle the finance
bill, around which there were more
angry passions and greater dissension
than around any measure yet intro,
duced. 1t dealt with budget of
200 100000. 1t dealt with q war
NAou''u ""'SA ACASS VAiIy puSSiOus
were aroused and it necessarily lasted
long time. But what was the expert
ence Of the House? BY the exhibition
Of little spirit Of conciliation, Of good
temper, and OF consideration for the
feelings Of those who were opposed to
it, the chancellor of the exchequer pi-
loted the bill through the House with
out once using the closure (Nationallst
cheers). He congratulated the right
honorable gentleman on the favorable
contrast his policy presented in it's re-
suits to that shown in matters not half
SO controversial, but dealt with in a
totally different spirit, with the result
that the committee weapon of coercion
was used time after time.
The House Of Commons had been
brought to pretty pass Qoud Opposi-
tion and Nationalist cheers). He found
that there were 144 votes to be passed.
OF these only GA had been disposed Of
on the 22nd Of July, leaving 98 votes
still to be discussed. Last year things
were far better, for on July %, 1900,
out Of $50 votes there were only 40
which remained to be disposed of.
They were now within two, three, or