ing that it was the evident sense of the House that the debate should close. But it was possible, and conceivable, that the Chair might make a mistake. He spoke with all respect for the Chair. The Chair might make a mistake in interpreting the impatience of the House. He presumed the desire to stop a debate would be intimated by a manifestation of impatience. But there was the difficulty to be overcome of deciding how much of that impatience was directed against the Member who was addressing, or endeavouring to address, the House, and how much against a continuance of the debate. These were two very different things. Then there was another difficulty in interpreting the preponderance of voices in the House. Sir Erskine May, in 1871, when asked by the Select Committee whether the Speaker or Chairman might be intrusted with a power of putting a Question if, in his opinion, "a decided expression of voices" was in favour of it, replied-" No; because the giving of the voices was so very uncertain and indistinct." If this Resolution were passed, a difficulty of an opposite kind would beset the Chair. Any manifestation of impatience at present was intended to have its effect merely on the Member who was addressing the House. Clamour had no direct influence on the decision of the House; but pass this Resolution, and would not clamour and counter clamour become directly influential? They would then be in danger of having what the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Thorold Rogers) described as manifestations of prodigious impatience. They were told there was not now the same loyalty and deference to the general feeling of the House as formerly. He was afraid, if they passed this Resolution, there would be, at least, no improvement in that respect. Then, it was said, why should not a majority rule? and they had been told how many important measures had been carried by a mere majority. Well, the answer was obvious. The majority, certainly, might rule; but after debate. There was an implied condition in their proceedings that there must be full debate before there was a decision. If it was said that on this principle the House might never come to a decision at all that a debate might be carried on ad infinitum-it might be replied that the one extreme was not more absurd than the other, and that on the principle of it being in the power of the majority to stop a debate when it pleased, why not dispense with debate altogether? Why not, after ascertaining that there was a majority, pass all the Bills introduced by the Government, without debate? It was said that, after all, the introduction of the clôture was not a formidable thing, for they virtually had it at present; but the clôture they had now was by consent of Parties-a very different thing from the Rule proposed by the Government. On every ground it was desirable, if there was to be clôture at all, that it should be by the act of the general body of the House, and nothing less-desirable for the influence of the Chair, desirable for the amenities of Parliamentary life, and desirable for the value of Parliamentary decisions. If a debate was brought to a close by a vote representing the general sense of the House, it would be accepted as an act of the House; but if it were closed by a vote representing less than that-a vote representing the will of one Party, or a mere majority-then it would be received as a Party move, and would be resented accordingly. Why, then, if cloture was to be introduced, was it not proposed on the lines of the Order of last Session, requiring a majority of 3 to 1? Prime Minister objected to "an artificial majority constructed in ingenious ways." That, he said, did very well last year, the features of the occasion being peculiar; but was not the clôture intended now only for peculiar and extraordinary occasions? This, at least, might be said that to adopt the principle of last Session's Order, and require a majority of 3 to 1, would be consistent with what they assumed was the intention of Government-with making the Rule applicable only to the occasion when there was in its favour the evident sense of the House. And yet, while the condition of requiring a certain proportionate majority was set aside as inapplicable to present circumstances, this very Resolution contained in one part of it the condemned principle. The House was already familiar with the eccentricities of the arithmetical puzzle contained in the Resolution. He would not refer to that matter further than to call the attention of the House to the curious result that, according to this Resolution, while a minority, however small, might suc The cessfully resist a majority of 100, and | and he had the credit of introducing, while a minority of 40 would successfully resist a majority of 200, a minority of 200 would be helpless against any majority, even against a majority of only 201. The Home Secretary compared the cloture to the hydrants and hose which were had ready in case of fire; but the illustration was not altogether perfect. Hydrants and hose were not likely to be used except in case of fire; there was no temptation to use them-there was every inducement not to use them-until they were absolutely necessary. But it was different with the clôture. There might be a desire to put it in force before there was necessity for it. There might be a simulation of fire for the sake of bringing the hose into play. What was to be feared was that under the operation of this Resolution, if it were carried, Parliaments might come to forget the intention with which the clóture was introduced; and, being found a convenient mode of extinguishing debates, it might be put in use whenever it suited the convenience of the Party which had the majority. But was the cloture necessary? The principal evils which obstructed Business were to be remedied, as had been shown, by the other Resolutions, on which there would not be much difficulty in bringing the House to a general understanding, and which need not be, and were not likely to be, discussed in a Party spirit. Several experienced Members had expressed the opinion that if these other Resolutions were passed, it would not be necessary to introduce the clôture in any form whatever; and certainly it would appear reasonable not to make the clôture the first step, but a last resort, and, therefore, allow it to be one of those measures which the House might adopt in future years, if the other reforms which were about to be proposed, and on which the House was pretty well agreed, should unfortunately prove to be inadequate. For these reasons, he should vote for the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Brighton (Mr. Marriott). MR. ANDERSON said, he was not going to answer the speech of the hon. Member who had just sat down, as he agreed with almost every word of it, although speaking from the opposite side of the House. A few hours ago he heard an eloquent speech from the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Wodehouse), while attempting to advocate clôture, the strongest argument against it that any Member had yet propounded from that side of the House. The hon. Member said that the repugnance to the clôture evidenced on the Conservative side of the House would end the moment that Party had power to inflict the clôture on a Liberal minority. That argument, he thought, used in favour of the clôture, ought to weigh very much with Members on the Liberal side of the House against it. It was because he remembered what power the Conservative majority had between 1874-80 that he was so adverse to giving that arbitrary power to any Government whatever. In that Parliament he was himself what he supposed advocates of the clôture would call an Obstructive. He recollected very well, in the first Session of 1880, spending a whole Wednesday in speaking himself, or getting other Scotch Members to speak, against the proposal of the Tory Government to force upon the country the legalizing of the use of cabs at elections. Well, if the Tory Government had had the power of clôture they could have shut up the debate immediately. His obstruction on that occasion was perfectly successful, for he succeeded in exempting Scotland and Ireland from the iniquity of having cabs thrust upon the boroughs at election times. Another occasion was the Cattle Diseases Bill, in which he had assisted the President of the Board of Trade and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland in a very considerable amount of obstruction against that measure. They believed that the measure would have the effect of raising the price of the food of the people; and they were successful in modifying it. But if there had been the power of cloture they would not have been able to do any of those things. He admitted the position he held was an extremely painful one. He did not like to speak against the Party with whom he generally acted. The other day a youthful Member, the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. George Russell), had the audacity to say that such Members were deserters of their Party. Deserters were those who changed their opinions; not those who clung to them. Every leading Member on the Front Bench was committed in opposition to the clôture. The Prime Minister, by his [Fourth Night.] D 2 Nineteenth Century article, was committed. [Mr. GLADSTONE: No, no!] He would withdraw that statement, as the Prime Minister was best entitled to interpret what he really meant. He could only say many understood it to be a condemnation of the clôture. Well, other Members on the Front Bench were committed against the clôture by the Committee of 1878. He himself sat on that Committee, and remembered perfectly well, when the clôture was proposed, the Gentleman who proposed it (Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen) was almost alone in its support. What did they see now? That Gentleman now wrote to The Times to say that if he had been permitted to express his full views on that occasion it would have been shown that the clôture he proposed was of a very much milder character than the one now under consideration. The unanimity of that Committee, drawn from all parts of the House, showed that there would have been unanimity of the House against it, if the clôture on that occasion had been proposed in the House. He thought, therefore, he was entitled to say he was not changing his opinions or deserting his Party. It was the Leaders who were deserting their old opinions, and who were forcing the Party at the point of the bayonet to do a thing distasteful to them-a thing that was not truly Liberal in principle. ["No, no!"] Hon. Members said he was wrong in that. Well, hon. Members of the Liberal Party, who thought coercion and clôture were Liberal principles, were welcome to their opinion. Well, there had been a great many fallacies imported into the debate. On the last night of the debate they had the Home Secretary, whose argument was most fallacious. The Home Secretary insisted there was nothing before the House but the original Resolution of the Prime Minister and the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Brighton (Mr. Marriott). He said some hon. Members wanted a two-thirds or a three-fourths majority; but it was no use to discuss that, as it was not before the House and could not be brought forward, because the proposal of the hon. and learned Member for Brighton was mere negation; and if they rejected the Resolution they could do nothing else than accept the negation. That he could show was a complete fallacy, although a the Prime Minister seemed to approve of the sentiments of the Home Secretary. The Speaker had ruled that when the Question was about to be put, he would put it in such a way that, even if accepted, it would still be in the power of the House to introduce a two-thirds or three-fourths Amendment afterwards. Supposing, however, even the Resolution was negatived, then the Amendment would become the substantive Resolution, and might be amended by putting in a two-thirds or three-fourths provision, or in any way they pleased. Therefore, whether the first Question put to the House was affirmed or rejected, the House could still amend the proposal, and was not shut up to the negation. He quoted the Rule from Sir Erskine May, page 301, to prove the fallacy used by the Home Secretary. He had said that he felt himself in a painful position. He had listened with much attention to the speech of the Prime Minister, earnestly hoping that he would be able to provide him with some argument to his conscience that would enable him to vote for this Resolution. But he had been unfortunate. He failed to find any. He recognized, as the Prime Minister did, the difficulty in which the House was placed, partly from having too much to do, and partly from Obstruction. There was a necessity, he recog nized, for great changes in the Rules, and he recognized that many of the Rules proposed were exceedingly good, and would, directly and indirectly, deal both with Obstruction and with the difficulty of having too much to do. But what he failed to recognize was that the cloture was in any sense necessary. The clôture seemed to him to deal not so much with Obstruction as with that wholesome opposition which was the life and soul of government by Party. By that means the minority of this year became the majority of future years, and expressed itself at last as the will of the nation. It was not desirable that that should be done away with. The Prime Minister's arguments were unanswerable as regarded the necessity for some change in the Rules. But not only he, but most of those who had followed in the same direction since, had supported the clôture simply because some change was necessary. Hon. and right hon. Members on both sides of the House agreed that great changes were necessary; but that did not at all prove that the clôture | Minister's other Rules, leaving out the was the right remedy. The noble Mar- clôture, they would have sufficient control quess the Secretary of State for India of the time of the House. They were (the Marquess of Hartington) said that told that the cloture worked well in other the question before the House was whe- Parliaments, and a number of hon. ther the existing limitations of debate Members had cited America, for instance; were sufficient for the purposes in view. but even if it did well in other ParliaWell, that was not, he maintained, the ments, he did not think it was any proof to question before the House at present. take an isolated Rule and bring it away The question that was before the House from all its surroundings, and say that was whether the clôture was the right because it worked well under certain remedy. That, and that alone, was the conditions elsewhere it would work well point they ought to keep to in arguing here. The curse of their Procedure was this matter. He had been at a loss to not the number of speeches, but the know what the strong desire for the length of the speeches. It was what the clôture really meant. Did it mean that President of the Local Government as soon as they got the 1st Rule it was Board called that night "unrestricted loto be used to rush through the House quacity," the loquacity of such Members all the rest of the Rules? Or did say, as the Attorney General for Ireland, it mean that when they got the 1st who spoke for three hours, and would Rule all the other Rules were to be not consent that a single sentence of his dropped as useless? The Prime Minister speech should be delivered during the had failed even to show any good reason dinner hour. He did not wish to say a for placing this clôture Rule first. He single disrespectful word of the Attorney had not justified that. He had failed to General for Ireland. His speeches had show that, even if he had had the cloture a great deal in them, and they sparkled from the beginning of the Session, he with "bulls;" but no amount of brilwould have saved one hour from the liancy would redeem a speech of three many that had been wasted. If he could hours from the charge of taking up too show that he would have saved time he much time. He should like to see that would regard that as the strongest argu- checked in some way. He should like ment that could be used against the to see restriction that was not suppresclôture, because it would prove that they sion. The clôture that was now proposed were disposed to use it improperly. At was a suppression. The constituencies no time during this Session could it have were constantly sending up to the House been used without hardship and oppres a great number of Members who were not sion. If, however, some of the other only capable of addressing the House Rules of the Prime Minister had been intelligently, but whom their constituents passed at the beginning of the Session, desired to do that; and as they could not particularly Rules 2 and 12, which could add to the time at their disposal they have been done with comparative ease, were bound to apportion it with some the House would have been relieved of kind of equality, so that a greater numa great deal of that Obstruction and loss ber of speakers might have some small of time from which it had since suffered. slice of it. He had mentioned America. That would have enabled them imme- Hon. Members were not aware, probadiately to enter upon a position of com- bly, that there were means in America parative relief. They would have re- for reducing this unrestricted loquacity. moved a good deal of Obstruction, and In America a speaker was allowed to that loss of time from which the House read a few words of a large manuscript had suffered so much. He saw no other speech, and thereupon to move that the ground the Government could have in speech be held as spoken. Thus time asking the clôture than to pass a new was saved. The next day in the Public Coercion Act for Ireland. Unless that Record the speech appeared as if spoken was their object he failed to see any at full length. When hon. Members other. It would have been well for them advocated the clôture here they had better to have tried some beneficent legislation take this accompaniment of it and see before confessing that they could do how they would like it then. No doubt nothing without the cloture. They did this cutting down of long speeches saved very well without it in 1880 and in 1881, so much time that it was not necessary and with the assistance of the Prime so often to apply the clôture, and so it [Fourth Night.] wanted to do for private Members, but even gave them a proscribed list. To be sure, the name of the hon. Member for Aylesbury did not appear in that list; but he could assure the hon. Member that if at any future time he should venture to have sufficient courage to act an independent part, and not go always slavishly with his Party, he might very soon find his name on the proscribed list. The clôture never was intended to do anything for private Members, and it never would do anything for them. Another thing he had to complain of was that they were not allowed to consider the Rule upon its own merits. He thought he had shown what the feeling of the House was in old time against it. If they were allowed now to vote for it on its own merits it would be sent almost unanimously out of the House. They were told they must consider it on something totally alien to its own merits was said to work well in America. It seemed to him, if they were to give an arrogant majority this power of clôture, they would need to have shorter Parliaments than they had now-[Opposition | cheers]-to make sure that the arrogant majority was really interpreting the will of the people. He saw that the Leader of the Opposition cheered that sentiment; but when he was Leader of the House during the Tory Government, from 1874 to 1880, those on the Liberal side of the House thought that during that term of six years the right hon. Gentleman and his Party did not represent the feelings of the people. It was because that happened then, and might happen again, that he thought that if the majority was to have this power of clôture, they ought to have along with it shorter Parliaments, in order that the will of the people should be better known. They might also be obliged to ballot for who was to have the honour of address--namely, the merits of the Ministry ing the House, because the natural tendency of the clôture would be not to shorten speeches, but to lengthen them. As a smaller number of speeches were to be heard, the result would be that the chance of catching the Speaker's eye would be rarer than ever, and those who were lucky enough to catch it would trespass more upon the time. There was another objection he had to the clôture, and that was that it would tend more to the practice of arranged debates -mere tournaments between the two Front Benches-in which private Members would be absolutely nowhere. The other night the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. George Russell), in a clever and eloquent speech, but sadly wanting in knowledge of the ways of the House, drew a beautiful but illusive picture of what the cloture would do for private Members. He said he had been writhing under the dark chain of silence that had been inflicted upon private Members, and that the clôture would relieve them from this. He (Mr. Anderson) should like to know what it was to do for private Members except obliterate them altogether. It was never intended to do anything for private Members. Even without the knowledge of the ways of the House, which longer experience of it would have given him, the hon. Member might have learned sufficient from the speech of the Secretary of State for India, who not only told them what he that supported it. That was the point of view from which he was bound now to consider it. He admitted that he considered it from that point of view with very great pain. He saw the Government which he had always admired more than any other, and which he believed could more than any other do good service to the country. He saw them deserting old principles, and aiming at arbitrary power, and must vote, he was told, with them on pain of losing his seat, of having a Dissolution, or of what was of infinitely more consequence, the country losing the services of a great and wise Government. That put him in a great difficulty indeed, and it put a great many other Members in a great difficulty. He was told the other day that not less than 100 Members of the Liberal Party disliked this clôture very much, and that if only it was to be decided on its own merits they would vote against it; but what they had to consider was this-that they saw the Tory Party, whom they did not usually look upon as defenders of popular right of any kind, posing on this occasion as champions of freedom of speech. He might think they were quite right in doing so, and yet have some little suspicion of their motives. He might fancy, indeed, that their zeal was quickened into this action by the belief that they had found a weak place in the armour of the Government, and that they thought |