is proposed by the Amendment-I do likely, during the course of debate, that not know that the hon. Member for Fins- the Minister, by means known to all of bury supported the Amendment? [Mr. us, can intimate to the Speaker that the W. M. TORRENS: Yes, Sir; I did.] time is approaching when he shall make Well, I did not gather it from what I a proposition that the debate shall close, heard of the speech; and I do not think and the Speaker, in all probability, if anybody else gathered it. I know it the Minister is judicious, if he has not was somewhat cheered by hon. Gentle- pressed his authority too far, will take men opposite, perhaps in that sense; the hint; and if the Minister makes a but then they are always very ready to proposition, the Speaker, in all probacheer anything from this side of the bility, will support it, and do what the House that attacks Her Majesty's Go-Resolution requires him to do. But by vernment. Now, what is it that the this you are introducing into a very Amendment proposes ?-because that is critical matter-because we all admit, the real point we are to discuss. It pro-I as freely as anyone, that it is critical, poses this-that, in calling into action the Resolution that is to be passed, an opinion should be expressed by some Minister of the Crown-I suppose the First Minister of the Crown necessarily, if he be present in the House-and the Ministerial majority, for he is the Representative of the Ministerial majority, and will not act contrary to the opinion of the majority by whom he is supported; and, therefore, the majority of the House, speaking through the Minister, is to call into action the opinion and the declaration of the Speaker as to when the cloture is to be brought into play. The idea that we are to keep this question free from Party seems to be entirely given up by the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dungarvan, because, first of all, the most distinguished Member of the Party in the House is the Prime Minister. The most important portion of the House, as a Party in numbers, is the majority by which the Prime Minister is supported; and that majority, and that Minister, before anything can be done, has to intimate by standing up at this Table, I suppose, and calling upon the Speaker, and making an observation that he thinks the debate ought to close, declaring that the sense of the House is in favour of its being closed, and thereupon the Speaker proceeds to take his part in the transaction. Now, the hon. Member for Finsbury spoke about former Speakers being connected with great political Leaders, being on terms of friendship with them-some of them, indeed, I think he said, even taking part in debate, as is done by the President of the House of Lords. Well, we must be sensible, all of us, that if this matter is to be transacted by alliance between the Minister and the Speaker, then it is very VOL. CCLXVIII. [THIRD SERIES.] and not at all, if it could be avoided, a pleasant matter-that there should be any limitation of the power of debate, or the prolongation of discussion in the House. But if it is to be done in any way, it seems to me of all ways the worst that the Minister of the Crown, the trusted guide of the majority, should take action, and call upon the Speaker to act. The Minister is not-I will not say an independent, but he is not an impartial person. The Minister has his majority, and he has his policy; he has his Bills and his Supplies; and all the great work of the Session, and some of it, as we know, difficult and crowded towards the end of the Session; he has every reason, for the purpose of furthering his own policy and that of his Party, to call into action this Resolution, probably far sooner, and probably far more often, than would be done if it was left entirely in the impartial hands of the Speaker. I agree entirely with the charming account which the hon. Member for Finsbury drew of the confidence which all Members of the House have in the Speaker. It has been so for the very long time I have been in the House. I have always felt there was no question in which I could not go up to the Speaker and take his advice, and I believe he would give me his advice in as friendly and free a manner as he would to any Minister of the Crown sitting on this Bench. But if a Minister whom we do not always like very well[Mr. WARTON: Hear, hear!]-the hon. and learned Member cheers that sentiment-where, I say, we do not like him very well, sitting in Opposition, we are not very much in favour of some portion of his policy-we object to it-I should not like, certainly, if I were on that side of the House, and the late Government [Sixth Night.] 8 P would shut out the Minister from any extra power on this matter over that of any other Member of the House. sitting here, that the right hon. Gentleman (Sir Stafford Northcote) should be able to get up, any time during the debates, especially towards the end of the MR. NEWDEGATE: What I said Session, and that he should then call was, that I thought by courtesy the duty upon the Speaker to put in action the ought to devolve on the Leader of the Resolution and to stop the debate. I House or the Leader of the Opposition. believe the motives which would press upon the Minister would be ten times stronger, and come to him ten times more often, to stir him to action than would be the case if the whole power were left in the hands of the Speaker. Tho hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) surprises me very much. He says that the clôture is an abominable thing, or used some other disagreeable word. He has been the advocate for many years past of some measure of this kind, or for this object. I do not know why he objects to the proposition of the Government. At any rate, I can understand why he objects to the proposition of the Amendment. He sees, as I see, that the Amendment is the very thing that an unscrupulous Minister sitting on this Bench would ask the House to agree to, because it gives greater power to the Minister, it lessens immensely the power of the minority, it takes out of the hands of the most impartial man within these walls the decision of a very important question in which we are all, and in which minorities especially, are particularly concerned, and therefore I must say I am astonished that Members opposite should take the course they do. They took a wrong course, I think, upon the other question to which I have already referred, and I think now they are proposing what is much less moderate than that which the Government has proposed. I am not allowed to speak, of course, of the opinion of the Speaker in the Chair; but I judge and believe that any Speaker-the present one in the Chair or his successors-would prefer that he should be left to his own impartial judgment on all matters of this kind rather than he should be subjected to the hints, the proffered alliance, the urging and stimulating of a Minister of the Crown, who might ask him, under certain circumstances, to help him out of a difficulty that might have arisen. If I were a Member of a small minority, or of any minority, I should like to take the course of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate). I MR. JOHN BRIGHT: That is exactly what I understood the hon. Gentleman to say. The hon. Gentleman complains, and condemns the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and my right hon. Friend, because they have not done all he thinks they ought in a particular case; but surely if he leaves it entirely to the Minister of the day, and shuts out the Speaker altogether, then the question becomes a pure question of Party. Nothing, in my opinion, could be more unfair, and more unreasonable to a minority, and especially to small minorities, which, towards the end of the Session, are often the most troublesome in preventing the transaction of Business. Now, I put it to hon. Members, if this matter is to be done at all, if there is to be any mode of bringing a debate to a close by the general sense of the House, when that debate has been protracted to an unconscionable. length, is it not better to adopt the proposition which the Government has offered to the House, a proposition, I say, conspicuous in its moderation, rather than, so far as we have gone, the Amendments offered-the Amendment of two-thirds, or that of handing over to the initiative of a Minister, or of shutting out the only absolute impartial authority in the House? I do not claim to be impartial at all. I am a Member of a Party anxious to do certain things, and am always very glad when we have a majority on a division. I do not complain of any man acting honestly and honourably with and for his Party; but with the feelings that we have against our opponents, and in favour of our own policy, I think the less this matter is intrusted to any Member on either side of the House, or to any handful or number of Members, the better, and that all that has been said by the hon. Member for Finsbury and others as to the character of the Speaker, and the manner in which all men in the House wish that that character should be permanently and for ever sustained, I think, wishing that done, it is our secure interest that to the Speaker should be committed this delicate power, I that it should be strengthened; but he and that all men in the House and every could not understand how hon. Gentleminority would feel that when the House men opposite could support it. He was has been called to decide the question of opinion that you could not obtain the whether a debate should be prolonged clôture by a majority unless some Amendor not by the Speaker, and the decision ment of this kind was added to the Rewas against the prolongation of the solution. The Speaker, when he informed debate, I think he would feel he had the House that a debate had lasted long been better treated, and more consis- enough, would have to consider whether tently with the character and practice of it was reasonably certain that the clôture the House, than if the Leader of the would pass or not, because, if it did not majority of the House should get up pass, the Speaker would be in an enand by his fiat should put a stop to the tirely false position. He apprehended debate. Therefore, on the ground that that the Speaker never would say that those fears with regard to the minority, it was the general sense of the House and those fears with regard to the effect that a debate should close unless he was of this proposition on the character of pretty certain that there was a large the Speaker are exaggerated, and with- majority in favour of it; and that was out any sensible foundation, I think why he said this Amendment would that the proposition made by Her Ma- render it far more probable that it would jesty's Government is one of as great be cloture by a simple majority than was moderation as it is possible to offer on ever likely to be the case so long as the a case of this kind; and, therefore, I matter was left entirely in the hands of hope that the Resolution as it is offered the Speaker. The effect of such an to the House will be sustained by the Amendment as the present would be to shift the responsibility from the Speaker to its proper place-namely, to the Ministers of the Crown. It had been said that the Speaker was the natural protector of minorities; but why, if so, did they not vote with him for the Amendment? What was the alternative proposed? The hon. Member for North Warwickshire had enunciated the very Republican doctrine that they were all equal. House. MR. CHAPLIN said, he found himself in a somewhat difficult position, for while he disliked the hon. Member for Dungarvan's Amendment, he did not care very much for the Amendment to it moved by his noble Friend the Member for Middlesex. Yet, on the whole, he liked the original Resolution less than either of the Amendments. He had always held that it was unfair to place on the Speaker the very unenviable responsibility of taking the initiative in this matter. He thought the initiative ought to rest in the hands of the House, and that they alone ought to be responsible for whatever decision was taken. Inasmuch as the Amendment, to a certain degree, mitigated the evils of which he complained, he preferred it to the original Resolution. His objection to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dungarvan was that it raised an inequality that did not exist at present between Ministers of the Crown and other Members of the House. That, to his mind, was fatal to it. It was modified by the Amendment of the noble Lord; but he should not be satisfied with any Amendment, except one which would place the initiative in any Member of the House. MR. LABOUCHERE said, he should vote for the Amendment, because he was in favour of the clôture, and was anxious MR. NEWDEGATE: I referred to Members in the House, not all mankind. MR. LABOUCHERE said, he held that even in that House Ministers of the Crown were superior to ordinary Members, and they had special reasons and rights to interfere to bring a debate to a close, on account of the responsibility that lay on them alone in regard to the conduct of the Business of the House. Although he was anxious that the clôture should pass in a strong form, he would not vote for the Amendment as he proposed to do if the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House had stated that by that issue the Government would stand or fall, because, knowing, as he did, that the right hon. Gentleman had more experience in Parliamentary matters than anyone then present, he should be bound, under such circumstances, to support him. They had had two speeches from the Treasury Bench, one from the Prime Minister, and the other | what did the Resolution propose? Up from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; and he must say he never heard two worse speeches from those right hon. Gentlemen in his life. The reason of that, no doubt, was because in their hearts they were not opposed to the Amendment. He felt, therefore, that he should only be supporting the policy they were in favour of by voting against them on this particular occasion. MR. GRANTHAM said, that the Resolution proposed that the responsibility should mainly devolve on the Speaker; but when they came to the latter part, and interpreted that by the speech of the Prime Minister, it was quite evident that the responsibility was to be taken away, and it was to devolve on the majority. The basis of the Prime Minister's speech was that the House had always been governed by a majority. The obvious conclusion was that this question was to be determined by the House independently of the Speaker. That being so, he agreed with the principle of the Amendment, that if the majority of the House was to determine the matter, it ought to be done on the responsibility of a Minister of the Crown. He objected to the Amendment as it stood, because if the initiative were left to a Minister that would make it a Party question. He wished to avoid that, and for that reason he would prefer that it should be left in the hands of the Speaker with some limitation. It was not desirable that it should always be a Party question. He believed in the independence of Speakers in the future, and he preferred to trust the Speaker rather than a majority or a Minister. The Resolution was inconsistent with itself; it was drawn on the principle that the Speaker was to be responsible; but towards the close it was provided that the question was not to be decided in the affirmative without the support of so many Members; and for that reason he said the power of the Speaker was taken away. If a majority was to have the power, it was far better that a Minister of the Crown should be responsible. For these reasons, he should vote for the Amendment, although he disliked it. MR. HICKS said, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster had asked what the Amendment proposed. He ventured to ask the Government another question, to this time there seemed no agreement as to what it did mean. Did it mean that the initiative was to rest with the Speaker, or did it mean that it was to rest with the power behind the Prime Minister? The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster had spoken of the Speaker receiving a hint from someone; if he had been earlier in the House he would have heard his hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire say that the Speaker should receive hints from both sides. If that were so, how was he to be independent? The great thing was to have the Resolution made clear and simple, for, tyrannical as the Motion was, it was better that it should be passed than that they should pass something which no one could understand. SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: Sir, I do not propose to detain the House for any length of time; but I am anxious to say one word, especially in consequence of the speech of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere). It is perfectly true, I must say, that there is some difficulty in deciding upon the vote that we ought to give upon such a question as this, and for this reasonthat we are entering into the discussion and settlement of a Resolution with the whole scope and object of which a great many of us entirely disagree. It is extremely difficult, therefore, when you come to judge the different points in the Resolution, to consider how far we ought to take one course or another with reference to the particular question raised. I confess I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) in the general view he expressed on the subject. I am not very much charmed with the Amendment proposed; but I think it a less evil than the Resolution as it stands, and I will explain in a moment why I think so. The difficulty that I feel in regard to the whole proposal is, that it is a proposal, assuming that it is to be a Resolution which is to give the power of closing a debate to a bare majority, which is essentially of a Party character. We cannot disguise that fact from ourselves. If you are prepared to say you would only give that power to a large majority, such as two-thirds, you would be obviously placing the matter on a wholly different footing, and giving the great bulk of the House, irrespective of Party, the option of saying that, at a certain time, debate, he would feel himself bound to they had enough of the discussion. But put the Question. [Mr. GLADSTONE diswhen that had been suggested, the objec- sented.] The right hon. Gentleman tion was taken that you could not agree (Mr. Gladstone) shakes his head. I do to that, because, if you did, you would not say that a strong Speaker, like the be making the minority parties to a Gentleman who at present occupies the question which ought to be decided by Chair, might not stand against such the majority. The majority ought to action; but it would be very difficult for rule, and that is why we insist on a an ordinary Speaker, subject to the pressimple majority deciding in this matter. sure which would be put on him both in But the majority means the Party of the the House and out of the House, to Government of the day, unless you mean refuse, in the circumstances, to put the a snap majority an accidental ma- Question. You, therefore, put the jority that happened to be in the House Speaker into an unfair position by throwat a particular time. You can hardly ing upon him the initiative; and I do mean that you are thinking of an acci- not scruple to say that of the two proposals dental majority, but of the permanent before the House, the less objectionable majority of the House. If that is to be is that the clôture Motion should come the case, and if the object in passing from those who occupy a responsible this Resolution is not to save time in position. I am, therefore, inclined to irrelevant debates, but that you may vote for the Amendment of the hon. enable the Ministry to go on and carry Member for Dungarvan. Not that I do measures to which they attach import- not feel the disadvantage of putting the ance, we have to consider what is the initiative in the hands of the Minister of object of calling on the Speaker to origi- the day. I can perceive cases in which nate a Motion for the closing of the the Minister would abuse the power of debate. If the question were one which bringing about the close of a debate; was to be decided according to the feel- but, of the two evils, I believe the lesser ing of the great majority of the House is that we should be entirely above board of the majority and the minority-in what we are doing, and put the rethen I could understand the Speaker, sponsibility on the proper shoulderswithout imparting the least Party charac- these being the shoulders of the Minister to his action, might say-"I think ter of the Crown. the House is now desirous of closing this debate." But if that is not to be so, and the Speaker is to be called upon to ask the House whether they wish to close a debate when he perceives the evident sense of the House to be so and so, what is meant by the evident sense of the House? You have defined that by saying it is a bare majority. If it is, therefore, in the mind of the Speaker that there is a bare majority in favour of closing the debate, it may be fairly argued and defended that the Speaker is bound to put the Question. Let us take a case which may frequently occur. There is a debate of great importance, which lasts, perhaps, two days, and the question arises whether the debate should be adjourned again. The Government, or the majority, oppose it, and a large minority vote for it. The practice now would be that the majority, if they insist on continuing the debate, divided two or three times, would be sure to carry the Motion; but if the Speaker perceives that the minority were not in favour of adjourning the COLONEL MAKINS said, that when he first saw the Amendment on the Paper he felt inclined to oppose it; but, considering it in connection with the original Resolution, he had reluctantly arrived at the conclusion that it was better, in the interests of the House, to vote for itand this for two reasons. In the first place, he thought it would be a more honest way of dealing with the question. The object of the Rule, as he understood it from the description given by the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for India (the Marquess of Hartington), was to enable the Government to carry out the programme which they laid before the country at the General Election in 1880. If that were so, then it was more honest that the closing of a debate should be at the instance of the Government, and it was not desirable that they should be able to shield themselves behind the Speaker. If they were allowed to do so, and the Speaker's decisions were in their favour, of course those decisions would be perfectly satisfactory to them; but if the Government made mistakes, and the [Sixth Night.] |