OF 
 
 'ARLIAMENTARY 
 
 PROCEDURE 
 
 LUCY
 
 PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE.
 
 Infcap. 8vo, price is. each, 
 
 THE VOTER'S GUIDE and CANVASSER'S 
 MANUAL ; a Popular Explanation of the Law 
 relating to Elections and Electioneering." With 
 Introduction and Full Index. By J. TREVOR 
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 THE BALLOT ACT for PARLIAMENTARY 
 and MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS. By W. A. 
 
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 THE HISTORY of REFORM. By ALEXANDER 
 PAUL. Fifth Revised and Enlarged Edition.
 
 POPULAR HANDBOOK 
 
 OF 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY 
 PROCEDURE 
 
 HENRY W. LUCY 
 
 LONDON 
 
 GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS 
 BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL 
 
 NEW YORK: 9 LAFAYETTE PLACE 
 1886
 
 LONDON : 
 BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
 
 TO 
 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 SIR T. ERSKINE MAY, K.C.B., 
 
 THE HIGHEST AUTHORITY ON PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE, 
 
 THIS LITTLE BOOK 
 ! 
 
 WITH KRSPECT AND ESTEEM. 
 
 2224056
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 AT the opening of the Parliament of 
 1880, an edition of this Handbook was 
 published, but is now out of print. I 
 have carefully revised it, bringing it down 
 to the latest date, and have added two 
 new chapters. The title sufficiently 
 explains its object. It is an attempt to 
 describe, in simple language and within 
 moderate compass, the manner in which 
 business is conducted in the House of 
 Commons, and is especially designed to 
 make the time-honoured intricacies of 
 Parliamentary debate and procedure in- 
 telligible to the newspaper reader, who
 
 viii Preface. 
 
 may not have access to the more elaborate 
 and expensive authorities. It will also be 
 found of some use to members of the 
 Parliamentary Debating Societies which 
 most big towns possess. 
 
 REFORM CLUB, 
 
 January, 1886.
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Birth of Parliamentary Rules The Sovereign and 
 Parliament Parliament and the Press The Disci- 
 pline of the House 1 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 First Hours of a New Parliament Summons to the Lords 
 Election of Speaker Swearing-in The Speech 
 from the Throne The Address .... 24 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Smallness of the House of Commons The Best 
 Time to see the House Vested Interests Private 
 Business First Readings The House in Committee. 44 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Procedure in Committee The Speaker and the Chairman 
 Naming Members Notices of Motion Balloting 
 for Precedence An Ingenious Conspiracy . . 55
 
 Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 TAGE 
 
 Private Days and Public Days "On Going into Com- 
 mittee of Supply " Forcing a Division The Pre- 
 vious Question 65 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Putting the Question Preparing for a Division A 
 Minority of One The Tellers The Sand-glass 
 Who cut the Bell-wire ? " Ayes to the Right, Noes 
 to the Left ! " The Division Lobbies Announcing 
 the Figures The Casting Vote . . . .72 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Talking out a Bill Morning Sittings Counting Out 
 
 " Forty ! " Counts-out in Committee . . . . 83 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Necessity for doing Something Increase of Business 
 Epidemic of Speech-making Special Wires A 
 Reported Speech that was Never Delivered Asking 
 Questions 89 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 An Autumn Session The New Rules How they have 
 Worked How affected by Changes in New Parlia- 
 ment . 94
 
 POPULAR HANDBOOK 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Birth of Parliamentary Rules The Sovereign and Parlia- 
 ment Parliament and the Press The Discipline of the 
 House. 
 
 THE elaborate yet simple rules which guide 
 Parliamentary procedure, which at one time 
 seemed to fit all circumstances like a silken 
 glove, and to control all episodes as with an 
 iron vice, have had parallel growth with the 
 establishment of the British Constitution. 
 Parliament began to feel and exercise its 
 great power in the reign of the Stuarts, and 
 speedily found the necessity for making rules
 
 which should complete its influence by enabling 
 it to control its own members. There are 
 now among the Standing Orders of the House 
 of Commons regulations made by the Par- 
 liament in which Cromwell sat, and others 
 of the same date exist in a modified form. 
 The fundamental principle of Parliamentary 
 debate resolves everything within the narrow 
 limits of a question put from the Chair, to 
 be fully debated, sometimes amended, and, if 
 necessary, divided upon. This procedure was 
 settled in the reign of James I., and Shake- 
 speare was alive when there was entered on 
 the Journals of the House the standing order, 
 " That nothing passes by order of the House 
 without the question, and that no order be 
 without the question affirmative and nega- 
 tive." This direction is observed to the 
 present day in the minutest detail, and in 
 the most formal manner. 
 
 A study of the forms of the House and 
 of its manifold rules of debate would of itself
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 
 
 constitute an interesting and instructive 
 lesson in English history. It would be easy 
 to trace the growth of the power of Parlia- 
 ment, synchronal with the establishment of 
 the rights of the people, to observe its chang- 
 ing attitude towards the Crown, an attitude 
 always effusively loyal except where it has 
 become necessary to go the other extreme, 
 marked by cutting off a Sovereign's head. 
 But, plainly discernible beneath this assump- 
 tion of humility, has ever been the assertion 
 of popular rights as opposed to monarchical 
 aggression. There was a time, even so late 
 as that of the Georges, when the sovereign 
 had a very real and personal influence upon 
 the action of Parliament. A Minister of 
 State might be ordered to attend upon the 
 Sovereign and directed straightway personally 
 to convey to an opponent the seals and the 
 insignia of office, of which he was himself 
 relieved without notice, or without reason 
 other than the King's whim. During the
 
 long series of years in which Mr. Glad- 
 stone and Air. Disraeli were alternately in 
 power, many circumstances have been taken 
 into account in estimating from time to 
 time how long one or the other was likely 
 to retain office. But, between 1868 and 
 1874, for example, no one engaged in 
 such speculation had occasion to consider 
 the possibility of the Queen's sending for 
 Mr. Gladstone, telling him she did not want 
 him longer to be Prime Minister, and in- 
 structing him to go to Mr. Disraeli and 
 inform him that he was thereafter to be 
 Premier. 
 
 The times have changed marvellously, 
 even within the last half century, and Par- 
 liament and its leaders are now answerable 
 directly and solely to the people. In in- 
 creasing measure the personal power of the 
 Sovereign is becoming a myth. Neverthe- 
 less, the old forms remain intact ; and when 
 the newly elected Parliament shall be
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 1 5 
 
 summoned, the Speaker standing humbly at 
 the bar of the House of Lords will inform 
 the representatives of the Sovereign that " in 
 obedience to Her Majesty's commands, Her 
 Majesty's faithful Commons in the exercise 
 of their undoubted right and privilege have 
 proceeded to the election of a Speaker, 
 and as the object of their choice he now 
 presents himself at your bar, and submits 
 himself with all humility to Her Majesty's 
 gracious approbation."- The Speaker will be 
 comforted with the assurance that " Her 
 Majesty most fully approves and confirms 
 him as the Speaker," which being happily 
 arranged, the Speaker next by " humble 
 petition to Her Majesty will pray that the 
 Commons may be confirmed in all their 
 undoubted rights and privileges." 
 
 This, now a mere form, was once a real 
 thing, and in the very act of affirming the 
 rights and privileges claimed with an almost 
 servile submission to royal approval, we find
 
 1 6 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 that mixture of manly assertion and loyal 
 obsequiousness before noted as full of sig- 
 nificance to the student of English history. 
 In earlier days the Speaker on these occa- 
 sions, whilst soliciting approval of the choice 
 of the Commons, was wont to add " that if 
 it be Her Majesty's pleasure to disapprove of 
 this choice, Her Majesty's faithful Commons 
 will at once select some other member of 
 their House better qualified to fill the station 
 than himself." As the Commons grew in 
 power this was more than they could stomach, 
 and many years ago the phrase was quietly 
 dropped. 
 
 It would be impossible to overstate the 
 sacredness of the rules of the House of 
 Commons as they are regarded by the House 
 itself. The minutest and apparently the 
 most trivial rule is sanctified by age, and if 
 it has no particular bearing upon existing 
 affairs, still it did its work in past ages, and 
 possesses that claim upon attention and
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 1 7 
 
 respect which a veteran of the Peninsular 
 War holds upon the public of to-day. There 
 is nothing the House shrinks from with 
 more genuine horror than a proposal to alter 
 an old rule of procedure. It will disestablish 
 a church or pass a Reform Bill with a 
 lighter heart than it will agree upon an 
 amendment to a Standing Order affecting a 
 particular procedure which Parliament has 
 been in the habit of following since the 
 Restoration. This is a wholesome feeling, 
 and has its recommendation in the discipline 
 and order which formerly existed within the 
 House of Commons. But, at the same time, 
 it is not without some inconvenience, and 
 from time to time succeeds in placing an 
 illustrious body in an undignified position. 
 . Amongst the oldest and most deeply- 
 rooted traditions of the House of Commons is 
 the supposition that it carries on its debates 
 in secrecy from the outer world. In this very 
 year of grace and manifold newspapers, there
 
 1 8 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 is in existence in the House of Lords a stand- 
 ing order which declares : " That it is a breach 
 of the privilege of this House for any person 
 whatsoever to print or publish in print any- 
 thing relating to the proceedings of the House 
 without the leave of the House." This bears 
 date February 27, 1698. On March 20, 1642, 
 the House of Commons resolved : " That what 
 person soever shall print or sell any Act or 
 passages of this House, under the name of a 
 diurnal or otherwise, without the particular 
 license of this House, shall be reputed a high 
 contemner and breaker of the privilege of 
 Parliament, and shall be punished accord- 
 ingly." In 1694 the Commons further ordered, 
 " That no news-letter writers do, in their 
 letters or other papers that they disperse, pre- 
 sume to intermeddle with the debates or any 
 other proceedings of this House." Little 
 more than a hundred years ago on March 3, 
 1762 George III. having just ascended the 
 throne, an order of equal stringency, one of a
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 1 9 
 
 series promulgated during the previous cen- 
 tury, was added to the Order Book of the 
 House of Commons. 
 
 These orders remain unrepealed to this 
 day ; and as there exists nothing in the shape 
 of an order recognising the service or the 
 existence of the Press, it is presumable that 
 the House would be able to act upon them, 
 supposing an hon. member were to frame a 
 suitable resolution. The relations of Parlia- 
 ment and the Press are in fact in an anoma- 
 lous condition, which Englishmen would be 
 the first to laugh at if they were brought 
 under their notice as a story of a country 
 beyond the sea. The bodily presence of 
 representatives of the Press within the pre- 
 cincts of Parliament is recognised by both 
 Houses in a manner which, though perhaps 
 grudging, is nevertheless substantial is satis- 
 fying if not satisfactory. There is a Press 
 gallery in each House, with writing rooms 
 and other conveniences for the use of re-
 
 2O A Popular Handbook of 
 
 porters. Within the last dozen years the 
 recognition of the Press by the House of 
 Commons has taken the long stride indicated 
 by the admission of the fact that representa- 
 tives of the Press do not live upon pen-nibs or 
 the bindings of their note-books ; and eight or 
 nine years ago an audacious First Commis- 
 sioner of Works went the length of partition- 
 ing off a section of a corridor in which the 
 representatives of the London journals might 
 buy and eat cold meat at discretion. Early 
 in the Parliament of 1880 reforms in the same 
 direction, but on a much larger scale, were 
 carried out. Upon the retirement of Colonel 
 Forester, Assistant Serjeant-at-Arms, the 
 lower portion of his residence was utilised as 
 private rooms for Ministers whose convenience 
 in this respect had been shamefully neglected. 
 The upper part of the building was made over 
 for the convenience of the Press, and a com- 
 fortable and well served dining-room provided 
 together with, additional writing-rooms. This
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 2 1 
 
 circumstance, trivial in itself, may be the be- 
 ginning of the end. But as yet the end is far 
 off. The relations of the Press and Parlia- 
 ment are continually reaching a crisis, and of 
 late scarcely a Session has passed over with- 
 out a debate arising thereon. New members, 
 struck with the grossness of the anomaly, 
 attempt to reduce it to the basis of common 
 sense ; whereupon arises a debate which is 
 instructive as showing how deeply rooted in 
 the House of Commons is the antipathy to- 
 wards changing a rule of procedure, even 
 when no one finds it possible to defend it. 
 
 The rules relating to the Press are the only 
 ones which challenge serious exception in the 
 journals of the House of Commons. For the 
 rest they are, in the main, devised with 
 supreme wisdom, and formulated with singular 
 skill, though it is true that in later years they 
 have occasionally proved unequal to the strain 
 of organised and unscrupulous obstruction. 
 The best test of the successful adjustment of
 
 22 
 
 the machinery of debate in the House of 
 Commons is for anyone intimate with its 
 working to visit another assembly any other 
 in the world, from a vestry hall to Versailles, 
 or from a meeting of a Town Council to a 
 Session of the United States Congress. He 
 cannot fail to be struck with the difference in 
 the tone of the two assemblies, the advantage 
 on the side of the House of Commons being 
 due, first, to the existence of an admirable 
 code of regulations ; and secondly, to the 
 obedience which even the most undisciplined 
 member is fain to pay to their enforcement 
 
 What these rules are, and how they affect 
 Parliamentary procedure, may perhaps be 
 best illustrated by describing the House of 
 Commons in detail. There are some men to 
 whom procedure in the House of Commons is 
 so familiar that it will seem puerile to enter 
 upon a detailed explanation of words or 
 phrases. But there are many more to whom, 
 whilst the words and phrases are familiar
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 23 
 
 enough, being daily met with in the course of 
 newspaper reading, their meaning is absolutely 
 unknown, or at best obscure. For the sake 
 of completeness, and with due deference, I 
 shall take the liberty of supposing that the 
 reader knows absolutely nothing about proce- 
 dure in the House of Commons.
 
 24 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 First Hours of a New Parliament Summons to the Lords 
 Election of Speaker Swearing-in The Speech from the 
 Throne The Address. 
 
 ACTUALLY the first transaction that takes 
 place at Westminster in connection with the 
 assembling of a new Parliament is a meeting 
 between the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery 
 in Great Britain and the Clerk of the House 
 of Commons. To the latter, the Clerk of the 
 Crown solemnly hands a large roll, that 
 delivered in connection with the Parliament 
 of 1886 will be the largest known in English 
 history, upon which is written the names of 
 members returned to serve in Parliament. 
 Members assemble at two o'clock, a motley 
 crowd without a Speaker, a Chairman of 
 Committees, or, in the event of a new 
 Ministry having accepted office, a leader on
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 25 
 
 the Treasury Bench. They are members of 
 a House not yet constituted, and have no 
 legislative functions. To the throng presently 
 enters Black Rod with a message from the 
 Lords Commissioners. In ordinary times the 
 entrance of Black Rod is a solemn ceremony. 
 At his approach the door is jealously closed, 
 and it is only upon his peremptorily knocking 
 and having satisfactorily answered the 
 challenge that he is admitted. Then he 
 marches up the floor of the House, thrice 
 making lowly obeisance to the Mace, and with 
 marked courtesy invites members of " this 
 honourable House " to repair to the House of 
 Lords. On the day of the meeting of a new 
 Parliament, Black Rod assumes a jaunty, not 
 to say a domineering manner. He bows to 
 no one, has no reference to make to this 
 honourable House, but simply invites or 
 rather commands " gentlemen " to cross over 
 to the other Chamber. 
 
 The procession of the Commons towards
 
 26 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 the House of Lords is on this day different 
 from ordinary occasions when the House is 
 fully constituted. Then the Speaker in wig 
 and gown, accompanied by his chaplain and 
 
 i 
 
 preceded by the Serjeant-at-Arms with Mace 
 on shoulder, goes with stately tread across the 
 corridor, accompanied by a throng of members. 
 As yet there is no Speaker, nor has the Mace 
 emerged from the honourable obscurity in 
 which it has remained since the dissolution. 
 In answer to the summons from the Lords, the 
 Clerk of the House goes first, and gentlemen 
 struggle on behind, a tumultuous crowd, 
 largely composed of new members who are 
 determined not to miss anything. 
 
 Arrived in the House of Lords, the Com- 
 mons, brought up at the Bar, behold seated 
 on a bench under the shadow of the Throne 
 five figures in red cloaks slashed with ermine, 
 and having on their heads quaint three-cor- 
 nered caps. Once more the Commons are 
 reminded of their inchoate condition. Later
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 2 7 
 
 in the session, when the Speaker and the 
 Mace appear at the Bar in response to respect- 
 ful summons, the five cloaked figures on the 
 bench greet the visitors with stately courtesy, 
 thrice uplifting their three-cornered hats. 
 Now they slay the strangers with a stony 
 stare, and curtly inform them that " it is her 
 Majesty's pleasure that they shall forthwith 
 proceed to the choice of some proper person 
 to be their Speaker." Further, they are to 
 present " such person " on the following day 
 at two o'clock for her Majesty's royal appro- 
 bation. 
 
 The crowd huddled in the narrow space 
 below the Bar thereupon turn and race along 
 the corridors, towards the House of Com- 
 mons, anxious to obtain a seat for the 
 approaching ceremony. When order is re- 
 stored the Clerk at the Table rises and points 
 with his finger towards some member with 
 whom arrangement has been made to propose 
 the election of a Speaker. On peril of his
 
 28 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 life, or at least his liberty, the Clerk must 
 speak no word, but only dumbly point. The 
 member thus indicated rises and proposes 
 that such a member shall " take the chair of 
 this House as Speaker." The motion is 
 seconded, and is usually supported by the 
 Leader of the House, and, if there is no con- 
 test, by the Leader of the Opposition. The 
 formal question that the member thus desig- 
 nated do take the chair is not put, for the 
 sufficient reason that there is no one to put it. 
 The Speaker-elect is literally " called " to the 
 chair. In response, he stands up in his place, 
 and having expressed his sense of the honour 
 proposed to be conferred upon him, submits 
 himself to the House. He is again " called," 
 and his proposer and seconder approaching 
 him, conduct him to the chair. 
 
 This is presuming the most desirable case, 
 rarely departed from in recent times, of the 
 unanimous election of a Speaker. Should 
 there be opposition, the two candidates,
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 29 
 
 having been proposed and seconded, make a 
 brief speech. Then the Clerk, now privileged 
 to break the silence that has hung around him, 
 puts the question that the member first pro- 
 posed do take the Chair of this House as 
 Speaker, and after this comes the division. 
 
 However elected, whether unanimously or 
 after a division, the new Speaker is conducted 
 to the Chair by his proposer and seconder. 
 Standing on the upper step, he makes humble 
 acknowledgment of the great honour conferred 
 upon him, and beseeches the assistance of 
 hon. members in carrying out the Rules of the 
 House and preserving order. He seats him- 
 self in the Chair, and the Mace, which has 
 hitherto lain perdu, is produced by the Ser- 
 jeant-at-Arms and laid upon the table. Then 
 follow congratulations, generally offered by 
 the Leader of the House and the Leader of 
 the Opposition, and the House straightway 
 adjourns till the next day. 
 
 The stranger will not recognize from the
 
 3O A Popular Handbook of 
 
 gallery the figure of the Speaker in long full- 
 bottomed wig and flowing gown. The Speaker, 
 like the butterfly, emerges by degrees from 
 his chrysalis state. On the second day of a 
 new Parliament he does not presume to reseat 
 himself in the canopied chair which he had 
 occupied for a few minutes on the previous 
 day, nor does he array himself in full costume. 
 He wears ordinary court dress, and what is 
 known as a bob wig, in which costume he 
 takes the chair at the table usually occupied 
 by the Clerk of the House or the Chairman of 
 Committees. Once more Black Rod appears, 
 and with greater deference than was displayed 
 on the day before, desires the immediate 
 attendance of gentlemen in the House of 
 Peers. The Speaker-Elect, followed by a mob 
 of members, goes over to the House of Lords, 
 and presenting himself at the Bar in the name 
 and on behalf of the Commons of the United 
 Kingdom, lays claim to their ancient and un- 
 doubted rights and privileges, especially to
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 
 
 freedom from arrest and molestation for their 
 persons and servants, to freedom of speech 
 and debate, to free access to Her Majesty 
 whenever occasion may require, and, finally 
 and generally, that the most favourable con- 
 struction may be put upon all their proceed- 
 ings. The Lord Chancellor graciously assures 
 him, in the name of the Queen, that this 
 prayer shall be granted, and once more the 
 Commons wend their way back to their own 
 House. 
 
 It is one of the curious customs of Parlia- 
 ment that the Speaker always assumes that 
 he has been in the House of Lords by him- 
 self, and that no one but he knows what took 
 place there. Certainly he is always careful 
 upon his return immediately to inform the 
 Commons of the purport of his visit, telling 
 them how he had been to the House of Lords 
 where Her Majesty had been pleased, through 
 her Commissioners, to approve the choice the 
 House had made of him to be their Speaker,
 
 32 A Popiilar Handbook of 
 
 and how he had in their name and on their 
 behalf, by humble petition to Her Majesty, 
 laid claim to their ancient rights and privi- 
 leges, which Her Majesty had confirmed to 
 them in as full and ample manner as they 
 have been heretofore granted or allowed by 
 Her Majesty, or any of her Royal predecessors. 
 Once more, for the third time, the Speaker 
 makes respectful acknowledgment of the 
 high honour the House had done him, and 
 reminds members that the first thing is to 
 take and subscribe the oath by law required. 
 The Speaker sets the example, and standing 
 upon the upper step of the chair solemnly 
 takes and subscribes the oath. Next he signs 
 the Roll of Parliament, and, retiring for a few 
 moments, returns in the full dress of the 
 Speaker. 
 
 Meanwhile two tables are brought in by the 
 attendants, for the first and last time in the 
 history of a Parliament permitted to cross the 
 bar whilst the House is sitting. Copies of the
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 33 
 
 oath and the Bible are sprinkled about the 
 table. The first to take the oath and sign 
 the Roll after the Speaker are the mover and 
 seconder of the motion for his election. Then 
 the Clerk at the Table proceeds to call upon 
 members in alphabetical order of their con- 
 stituencies, beginning with the counties, and 
 in a few moments the tables are crowded. 
 Six or eight members take hold of a copy of 
 the Bible, and the Clerk of the House, stand- 
 ing at the head of the table reads the oath 
 aloud, at the conclusion of which members 
 kiss the book. They are then conducted by 
 the Clerk to the Speaker, each one being in- 
 troduced by name. The Speaker shakes hands 
 with them, another batch come up to the table, 
 and so hour after hour the proceedings mono- 
 tonously meander to the end. 
 
 No record is kept of members who have 
 been sworn in, and it will be seen that it 
 would be quite easy for a member who for 
 any reason did not want to take the oath, to
 
 34 
 
 evade the ceremony. If he took his seat on 
 the next day, or the day following, it would 
 be assumed that he had taken the oath, and 
 there is certainly no one who has a right to 
 question him. With members returned at 
 bye elections the ceremony is more isolated, 
 and, therefore, more notable, as was shewn in 
 the various attempts made by Mr. Bradlaugh 
 to take the oath. There is a resolution dated 
 the 23rd of February, 1688, which to this day 
 controls this matter. It directs that new 
 members are to walk up the floor of the 
 House between two members, making their 
 obeisance as they go, " that they may be the 
 better known to the House." Members seated 
 upon a general election are not required to 
 produce certificates that their return has been 
 certified by the Clerk of the Crown to the 
 Clerk of the House. That is done en bloc, 
 and is taken for granted in individual cases. 
 But every member returned to Parliament 
 after a general election on coming to the
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 35 
 
 table to be sworn must produce his certificate, 
 a necessity which imposed a serious difficulty 
 upon the present Lord Chancellor, Lord Hals- 
 bury, when, on the 6th of March, 1877, ne > as 
 Sir Hardinge Giffard, member for Launceston, 
 came to be sworn in. The hon. and learned 
 gentleman had left his certificate in his hat 
 on the seat under the gallery where he had 
 awaited the summons to the table, unmind- 
 ful of which fact he proceeded in the presence 
 of a crowded and hilarious House to search in 
 his pockets for the missing document. 
 
 After the swearing-in of members has been 
 completed, supposing the Government who 
 had dissolved the late Parliament are con- 
 firmed in office, business proceeds in due 
 course. But in the more common case of a 
 change in the Government following upon the 
 General Election, an adjournment takes place 
 for a time sufficiently long to enable Ministers 
 to secure their re-election. By a rule whole- 
 some in its design but carried to a ludicrous 
 
 c a
 
 length that demands early re-adjustment, 
 members accepting direct from the Crown 
 offices of profit thereby vacate their seats, 
 and must seek re-election. When the new 
 Ministers are thus confirmed in their places 
 the House re-assembles and once more Black 
 Rod, now with lowly obeisance and bated 
 breath, appears upon the scene and " desires 
 the presence of members of this honorable 
 House to hear the Royal Speech read." 
 
 In the last hours of the Parliament of 1874 
 this procedure threatened a constitutional diffi- 
 culty. Gen. Knollys was at that time Black 
 Rod, and Sir George Bowyer, a great stickler 
 for constitutional etiquette, had publicly taken 
 note of the circumstance that Black Rod, 
 contrary to established usage and the privi- 
 lege of the Commons, had "required" the 
 attendance of members at the House of Lords 
 instead of " desiring " it. On the 24th of 
 March, 1880, Black Rod came to deliver his 
 last message to the Disraelian Parliament.
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 3 7 
 
 His mission was to bid their attendance in 
 the other House, in order to hear the Lords 
 Commissioners give their assent to certain 
 Bills. What would he do on the present 
 occasion ? Would he deliberately affront the 
 Commons, and if he did, would he be sup- 
 ported by the Lords, and would there be a 
 conflict between two of the Estates of the 
 Realm r Happily General Knollys did not 
 prove contumacious, and the members pre- 
 sent with a sigh of relief heard him " desire " 
 their attendance, refraining from the more 
 peremptory form which had aroused the in- 
 dignation of Sir George Bowyer. 
 
 The Speaker, with the Mace borne before 
 him, the Chaplain in his robe walking behind, 
 the principal members of the Government fol- 
 lowing, and then a long array of members, 
 proceed to the bar of the House of Lords, 
 where the five cloaked figures on the bench 
 before the Woolsack graciously acknowledge 
 the Speaker's presence by saluting him three
 
 38 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 times. The Royal Commission having been 
 read, the Lord Chancellor proceeds to read 
 the Queen's Speech " in the Queen's own 
 words" as he says, with a lack of veracity 
 immemorial custom has consecrated. This 
 done, the Speaker, the Mace, the Chaplain, 
 Ministers and members return to their own 
 House, where the Speaker, with that affecta- 
 tion of confidential communication already 
 noted, informs the House where he has been, 
 and having, as he says, " for greater accuracy," 
 procured a copy of the Queen's Speech, he 
 solemnly reads it word for word as if the 
 members present had not been crowded at his 
 back when five minutes earlier the Lord 
 Chancellor read it in the Lords. But before 
 the Speaker thus addresses the House a very 
 curious and significant action is taken, so 
 quietly that it probably escapes the notice of 
 members. The Commons are well inclined to 
 live on good terms with the other House, will 
 even respond to their summons, and will be
 
 Parliamentary Procedure, 39 
 
 content with apparent humility to stand at 
 their Bar. But the Commons of England are 
 independent alike of the Crown and of the 
 Peerage, and with intent to indicate this, 
 some Bill is taken up and read a first time 
 before the Commons will condescend to listen 
 to report upon a matter comparatively so im- 
 material as the Speaker's visit to the House 
 of Lords. When they have considered their 
 own business, they will attend to the House 
 of Lords and its proceedings. 
 
 As soon as the Speech has been read, a 
 motion for an Address to Her Majesty is 
 made and seconded. It is another of the 
 quaint customs of the House of Commons that 
 the proposer and seconder of the Address 
 always appear in uniform. Gentlemen hither- 
 to unsuspected of any connection with either 
 of the services appear in military or naval 
 uniform, and as some mild and blushing 
 member rises in unaccustomed military array, 
 the whispered enquiry goes along the benches,
 
 4O A Popular Handbook of 
 
 " Who has tied Dolabella to this sword ? " 
 There are few tasks more difficult for a mem- 
 ber of Parliament than that of moving the 
 Address, unless it be the task of seconding it. 
 There is no room for originality of speech or 
 independence of thought. Like the Address 
 itself, the speeches must be an echo of the 
 document which the Lord Chancellor has read 
 from the Woolsack " in the Queen's own 
 words." It is practically the Ministerial pro- 
 gramme of the legislative labours of the 
 coming Session. The mover and seconder 
 being Ministerialists par excellence, have only 
 to echo the phrases of the Speech from the 
 Throne. 
 
 But though there is a great deal of mum- 
 mery and waste of time in the ceremony of 
 moving and seconding the Address, the occa- 
 sion itself is often one of serious import. 
 This is the pretext upon which the Opposition, 
 if they are so minded, give battle to Ministers. 
 An amendment upon the Address is equivalent
 
 Parliamentary Proceditre. 4 1 
 
 to a vote of censure on the Ministry, and if 
 the amendment be carried, Ministers forthwith 
 retire. In cases where such catastrophe is 
 avoided, a select Committee is appointed to 
 draw up the Address to be presented to Her 
 Majesty in response to the Speech. The 
 names of the Committee are recited by the 
 Speaker, and the gentlemen called upon 
 immediately leave the House, returning in 
 suspiciously brief time with a lengthy Address 
 which they report to the House, and it is 
 forthwith accepted. The Address is an inane 
 composition, which takes up, paragraph by 
 paragraph, the Queen's Speech, echoing with 
 approval its declaration. As a matter of fact, 
 the men who prepare the Queen's Speech 
 prepare the Address in reply, and it would be 
 as unreasonable to expect the two documents 
 to differ as it would have been to expect that the 
 correspondence which Mr. Toots conducted 
 with himself at Dr. Blimber's should be of a 
 controversial character.
 
 42 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 When the Queen has made a Speech from 
 the Throne in person, the address is presented 
 by the whole House, unless her Majesty should 
 be in the country where she generally 
 manages to be on such occasions. The cere- 
 mony of presenting the Address by the whole 
 House, now practically obsolete, was rather 
 impressive. The Speaker, with a select 
 number of members of the House, proceeded 
 to the Palace, and being admitted to the 
 Throne Room the Speaker read the Address 
 to her Majesty, the members who moved and 
 seconded it standing on his left hand. In the 
 usual case of the Queen being in the country 
 at the opening of Parliament the Address is 
 formally lodged by certain members of the 
 Privy Council. 
 
 When, in olden times, the Address had 
 been presented by the whole House in the 
 manner indicated, the Queen's answer was 
 eported to the House by the Speaker. In 
 recent times the formal reply to the Address
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 43 
 
 is brought in by one of her Majesty's House- 
 hold (usually the Comptroller), being a mem- 
 ber of the House. He stands at the Bar, 
 distinguished by his uniform, holding a white 
 wand in his left hand and a roll in his right. 
 The Speaker taking notice of him, he, stand- 
 ing at the Bar, reads the reply, all members 
 uncovering. Having made an end of read- 
 ing he advances up the floor of the House, 
 bowing thrice, and hands the document to the 
 Clerk at the table, who puts it in the bag 
 whence it wends its way by due stages to the 
 paper-mill. But long before the Queen's 
 most gracious reply to the Address is re- 
 turned, the Commons, emancipated from the 
 trammels of the opening ceremony, have 
 gladly got to work, and the clash of party 
 warfare rings through the House.
 
 44 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Smallness of the House of Commons The Best Time to 
 see the House Vested Interests Private Business First 
 Readings The House in Committee. 
 
 ONE of the first things that strikes a visitor 
 to the House of Commons is, the smallness of 
 the Chamber itself. The mind, accustomed 
 to associate momentous events with Parlia- 
 mentary debates, insensibly builds for honour- 
 able members a lordly pleasure-house. Per- 
 haps no one who has read or thought much 
 about the House of Commons has entered it 
 for the first time without a feeling of disap- 
 pointment. Much, of course, depends upon 
 the time of the visit. When a great debate is 
 on, when the floor of the House is densely 
 crowded, and when honourable members, 
 overflowing, fill the galleries that run the 
 length of the Chamber there^is no spectacle
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 45 
 
 which, for intensity of interest and subdued 
 excitement, can successfully compare with 
 the House of Commons. But these occasions 
 are rare, and the chances are much more in 
 favour of a stranger entering the gallery at a 
 moment when he may find the House repre- 
 sented by ten or fifteen gentlemen reclining in 
 various attitudes of listlessness, whilst one 
 addresses them at what promises to be inter- 
 minable length. 
 
 The time when the House is certain to 
 be seen in one of its best forms is at the 
 hour of commencement of public business. 
 Except on Wednesdays, when it meets at 
 noon, or when special forenoon sittings are 
 ordered on Tuesdays and Fridays, when it 
 meets at two, or on occasional Saturdays at 
 the end of the Session when there is no set 
 hour for either beginning or ending the 
 House of Commons meets at a quarter to 
 four. 
 
 The first business accomplished is the brief
 
 46 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 religious service conducted by the chaplain. 
 There is always a full muster at prayers, more 
 especially when any interesting debate or 
 episode is anticipated at a later period of the 
 sitting. Doubtless a spirit of devotion is the 
 principal incentive to this unanimity of action. 
 But there is also a temporal advantage con- 
 nected with the observance, and it may be 
 here noticed, once for all, how, even in the 
 smallest detail, the rules of the House are 
 framed with the design to obtain a desirable 
 end without the appearance of compulsion. 
 The difficulty of seating in orderly fashion 670 
 gentlemen, who are in constant attendance 
 throughout a Session of six months, appears a 
 trivial matter, but is really full of subtle diffi- 
 culties. As there are not 670 seats in the 
 chamber, it obviously would be impossible 
 definitely to assign a seat to each member, 
 and even if it were possible, it would be un- 
 necessary, as the attendance of members 
 varies. It was essential to invent a self-
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 47 
 
 adjusting rule, and this was done by the pro- 
 mulgation of the simple decree that members 
 who desire to secure a seat for the evening 
 may do so by being in attendance at prayer- 
 time. To this end a small brass slide has 
 been fixed in the back of each seat, and cards 
 are provided on which a member may write 
 his name, and so label a particular seat. This 
 done, the seat is secured for the rest of the 
 night, and he may claim it on returning from 
 temporary absence of whatever duration. 
 
 Nearly every member of the House of Com- 
 mons has his particular seat ; but, with the ex- 
 ception of Ministers and ex-Ministers, he has 
 no prescriptive right to it in continuity, and the 
 inassailability of his tenure varies with his per- 
 sonal standing in the House. To mention two 
 instances that will illustrate what is meant: 
 Mr. Henley always sat on the corner seat of 
 the third bench behind the Liberal Leaders. 
 In the last Parliament Mr. Newdegate was, 
 with equal regularity, to be found on the corner
 
 48 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 seat of the fourth bench below the gangway on 
 the Opposition side. Neither of these gentle- 
 men had any officially recognised right to his 
 position, and Mr. Newdegate secured his only 
 by unvarying punctuality at prayer-time. But 
 no one would have thought of taking advan- 
 tage of Mr. Henley's omission of the usual 
 form to oust him from his place. Another 
 bribe to devotion is that only those present at 
 prayers are allowed to ballot for places in 
 the Ladies' Gallery, for which there is great 
 demand. 
 
 The House conducts its religious service 
 with closed doors, but as soon as prayers are 
 over, strangers are admitted. Private business 
 is then proceeded with, and though it may 
 extend over half-past four to whatever period 
 of the evening may be necessary for its com- 
 pletion, public business may not, except by a 
 resolution of the House, be commenced before 
 half-past four. This rule, however, only holds 
 good up to Easter, after which date private
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 49 
 
 business is so much reduced that the hour is 
 altered to a quarter past four. 
 
 "Private business" includes all Bills pro- 
 moted by railway companies, gas companies, 
 water companies, municipal corporations, or 
 private individuals, and all measures of a purely 
 local character. The metropolis is the only 
 locality that is allowed to have its private 
 Bills treated as public ones, which is, by the 
 way, a great saving of expense to the metro- 
 polis. As far as Parliamentary procedure is 
 concerned, transactions under this head are, 
 with rare exceptions, purely formal in either 
 House. Private Bills go through all the 
 forms of public measures, with the exception 
 that, whilst the latter are only occasionally 
 referred to Select Committees, the former are 
 invariably so dealt with. Public Bills, even 
 if sent to a Select Committee, have still the 
 ordeal of Committee of the whole House, 
 whereas private Bills have not. In the House 
 of Commons the first and second reading of a
 
 50 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 private Bill are, in almost all cases, matters 
 of form and of course, though it is quite open 
 to any member to oppose them at these stages. 
 When a private Bill has been read a second 
 time, it is relegated to a Select Cmmittee, 
 where all the real business of consideration, 
 amendment, acceptance, or rejection is accom- 
 plished. If a Select Committee pass a private 
 Bill, it comes back to the House for a third 
 reading, and is then sent on to the Lords or 
 the Commons, according to the House in 
 which it may have originated, and there goes 
 through a similar course, previous to receiving 
 the Royal assent. A public measure, whether 
 brought in by a private member or by a Minister, 
 can be introduced only after due notice has 
 been given. A member announces that on a 
 certain day he will move for leave to introduce 
 a Bill. On the appointed day he makes the 
 motion without except in the case of impor- 
 tant measures introduced from the Treasury 
 Bench making a speech.
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 5 1 
 
 Not in accordance with any written law, but 
 as a matter of custom and courtesy, all Bills 
 are allowed to pass their first reading un- 
 challenged. Isolated cases occur when the 
 rejection of a Bill is moved on its first reading. 
 But a member taking such a course is ex- 
 pected to justify it by showing that there are 
 exceptional and grave reasons for departing 
 from the usage. Among the many sugges- 
 tions made for easing the strain on the legis- 
 lative machine, it has been proposed to modify 
 this course, and to clear off in their initial 
 stage measures which have no chance of be- 
 coming law. The advantage of this innova- 
 tion would, however, chiefly affect the appear- 
 ance of the order book. The time of the 
 House occupied by the formality of asking 
 and obtaining leave to introduce a Bill is 
 infinitesimal. Leave obtained, the Bill is 
 printed, and a day is named for the second 
 reading, a stage at which the real tug of war 
 commences.
 
 52 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 When a Bill has passed its second reading, 
 it is understood that the House approves its 
 principle, and will consider its details. This 
 is done in Committee of the whole House, an 
 assembly which differs only in matters of 
 form from the House of Commons itself. 
 When the Hotise is sitting, the Speaker pre- 
 sides, and the mace is laid upon the table. 
 When the House goes into Committee, the 
 Speaker retires, the mace is removed from the 
 table, and the Chairman of Committees, a 
 salaried officer elected with every Parliament, 
 seats himself, not in the Chair, but at a chair 
 at the head of the clerks' table. 
 
 The principal essential difference between 
 procedure in Committee and in the House 
 is that, whilst under the latter condition 
 of affairs members may speak only once 
 on a particular question, they may in Com- 
 mitteeand some do address the Chair 
 twenty or, if they please, a hundred times. 
 One result of the reasonable application
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 5 3 
 
 of this rule is, that the Committee is a 
 more business-like body than the House 
 itself. No man makes a speech to his con- 
 stituents in Committee, or uses the Chairman 
 as a telephonic means of communication with 
 the listening world outside. 
 
 It often happens that not more than twenty 
 or thirty men out of all the House of Commons 
 remain at work upon a Bill in Committee. 
 But these are the men out of the aggregate 
 of 670 members who are practically acquainted 
 with the subject matter. They talk in a con- 
 versational way, and argue points in a plain, 
 earnest, business-like fashion, highly conducive 
 to the accomplishment of good work. A Bill 
 is talked over, clause by clause, and word by 
 word, and when a Committee of the House of 
 Commons has been quietly hammering away 
 at it for several successive nights, the proba- 
 bilities are that, in spite of party prejudices and 
 personal interests influences not absolutely 
 unknown in application even to measures of
 
 54 ^ Popular Handbook of 
 
 public work-a-day interest there has been 
 fashioned about as good a piece of legislative 
 workmanship as human skill, knowledge, and 
 experience can devise.
 
 Parliamentary Proceditre. 5 5 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Procedure in Committee The Speaker and the Chairman 
 Naming Members Notices of Motion Balloting for 
 Precedence An Ingenious Conspiracy. 
 
 A BILL cannot be rejected in Committee, 
 though it may be so emasculated by the re- 
 jection or alteration of an important clause 
 that its promoters may deem it useless to 
 proceed further with it. Failing this extreme 
 course, the Committee, having gone through 
 a Bill, clause by clause, and amended it or 
 approved it, the Chairman u reports it to the 
 House." At this stage fresh debate may 
 arise, new clauses may be added, clauses 
 approved in Committee may be rejected, or 
 the Bill may be thrown out. If it escape this 
 ordeal, it is ordered to be read a third time, 
 when its opponents, if they can even now
 
 56 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 muster a majority, may yet throw it out. 
 Having passed a third reading, it is sent up 
 to the House of Lords, where it goes through 
 all these processes over again. If the Lords 
 make any alteration, the Bill will return to 
 the House of Commons, who will consider the 
 Lords' amendments. There remains only the 
 Royal assent, which given, the Bill becomes 
 an Act, and is added to the statute book. 
 
 It may be mentioned here that, while under 
 all circumstances the Speaker is invariably 
 addressed and alluded to by his title, the 
 Chairman of Committees is, when actually in 
 the Chair, always addressed by name. Ad- 
 dressing members by name or alluding to 
 them by name is a breach of order more 
 quickly resented than any other. Yet, there 
 are times when names may be used without 
 exciting a burst of indignation. Thus, when 
 a member nominates a Select Committee, he 
 mentions the proposed members by name. 
 But he may do so only when, at the outset, he
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 5 7 
 
 recites the names in catalogue. If he, or any 
 other member, alludes to the nominees in the 
 course of his speech, he must designate them 
 by the name of the constituencies they repre- 
 sent. In the same way, when the Speaker 
 calls upon a member to address the House, 
 he names him. But should the Speaker refer 
 to a member in the course of any observations 
 he may offer on points of order the only 
 topics open to him he must use the Parlia- 
 mentary mode of reference. 
 
 This seems a small matter, but it is not 
 without its significance and practical use. It 
 helps in no slight degree to maintain through- 
 out the speeches a tone of high courtesy, or, at 
 worst, of animosity decently disguised. An 
 hon. member, if he were at liberty to talk 
 about Mr. Biggar, for example, might, out of 
 the fulness of his heart, lapse into expressions 
 which would considerably lower the standard 
 of debate. But by the time he has given 
 utterance to the resonant phrase " the hon.
 
 58 A Popular Handbook oj 
 
 member for Cavan," he has time to recollect 
 the circumstances under which he speaks, and 
 so modifies his expressions. Out of the House, 
 members are of course at liberty to refer to 
 each other by name, and any newspaper taken 
 up during the flow of recess oratory will show 
 how different is the tone of personal refer- 
 ence as compared with that dignified style 
 which prevails where "all are honourable" 
 members. 
 
 Through the first half of the session the 
 amount of private business is sufficient fully 
 to occupy the preliminary half-hour. But, as 
 already stated, soon after the Easter Recess, 
 the amount of private business has usually 
 been so far diminished that a quarter of an 
 hour is, on the average, found sufficient for its 
 disposal, and a resolution is proposed and 
 agreed to that public business shall commence 
 at a quarter past four. 
 
 The business of the House of Commons for 
 each evening is set forth in an agenda called
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 59 
 
 " The Orders of the Day." The first proce- 
 dure, after the Speaker's cry of " Order ! 
 order ! " follows upon the stroke of half-past 
 four and announces the commencement of 
 public business, is the giving of notices of 
 motion. It is, of course, desirable that a 
 favourable occasion should be seized by a 
 member having charge of a motion, and there 
 is consequently much manoeuvring for prece- 
 dence. The stranger in the gallery will hear 
 the Speaker call out the name of members in 
 what appears to be chance succession. The 
 member addressed will thereupon arise, read 
 out his notice, and give place to another in 
 quite a different part of the House, upon 
 whom the eye of the Speaker may, still by 
 chance as it appears, next have fallen. But 
 no place is left for chance in English Parlia- 
 mentary procedure. 
 
 What really happens in respect of notices 
 
 of motion is this ; On the table at which the 
 
 i clerks sit there lies a long sheet of paper,
 
 60 A Popiilar Handbook of 
 
 ruled, and having printed figures down the 
 side of it. Members desiring to give notice 
 of motion go up to the table, and write their 
 names on this list. Small bits of paper, 
 bearing numbers corresponding to those on 
 the list, are twisted up and placed in a box 
 before the clerk. When " notices of motion " 
 are called on, the clerk puts his hand in the 
 box, and draws out one of the pieces of paper, 
 calling aloud the number he finds thereon 
 say the figure is 44, and that, to use a name 
 not unfamiliar on the notice paper, Mr. Parnell 
 has chanced to write his name on the line 
 numbered 44. The clerk calls out the num- 
 ber ; the Speaker, who has meanwhile been 
 furnished with the list of names, on referring 
 to it, finds that Mr. Parnell is number 44, and 
 thereupon calls him by name. Mr. Parnell 
 thus has the first choice of unoccupied days 
 within the period of one month from the date 
 of the sitting. The process is repeated till 
 the contents of the box are exhausted, and
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 6 1 
 
 the list of notices of motion is concluded. 
 Motions are taken in the House in the order 
 in which notice has been given, and it is 
 obviously a matter of prime importance to 
 obtain a good position. 
 
 Before placing his name on the notice- 
 paper, and awaiting the chance of the ballot, 
 a member will have carefully studied the 
 order book, and will have ascertained what 
 days within the month have already been 
 appropriated. It will, in fact, be necessary 
 to have obtained a perfect mastery of the 
 chronology of desirable days, for it is only in 
 case he has the good fortune to be called first, 
 that he has a tolerable choice, or on Tuesdays 
 and Fridays a full choice. If he is second or 
 third on the ballot list, hon. members who 
 have gone before will naturally have taken 
 the best days, and he must, without a mo- 
 ment's hesitation, make his selection from 
 the remainder. It often happens that, when 
 there is a long list of notices of motion,
 
 62 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 members who have placed their names on 
 the list, and who are not called till after ten 
 or a dozen members have made their selection, 
 postpone their intention of fixing a day. 
 Whereupon will be seen the phenomenon, so 
 perplexing in the Strangers' Gallery, of hon. 
 members called upon by name and answering 
 only by taking off their hats and saluting the 
 Speaker. 
 
 In the session of 1876 an ingenious con- 
 spiracy was entered upon by the Home Rule 
 members, with the object of obtaining what 
 the Speaker subsequently stigmatised as ' an 
 unfair advantage ' in respect of precedence for 
 notices of motion. They had agreed upon a 
 group of some ten subjects which they desired 
 to bring under the notice of the House. 
 There being at the time about forty Home 
 Rulers in attendance at the House, copies of 
 these ten motions were placed in the hands 
 of each, with a common understanding as to 
 which it was most desirable to give preference,
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 63 
 
 The whole forty then wrote their names down 
 on the notice-paper, and of course each had 
 a chance in the ballot box. On the names 
 being called out, the first Home Ruler who 
 got a place gave notice to move for leave to 
 introduce the particular measure, or to move 
 the particular resolution, which it had been 
 privately agreed was of prime importance. 
 The second man called secured the next best 
 place open for the measure of second import- 
 ance, and so on, through the list. The chances 
 of any particular measure w T hich the Home 
 Rulers had in charge were thus exactly forty 
 to one against the opportunity of any measure 
 whicft any other private member advocated. 
 The plan succeeded admirably, and the House 
 was mystified and surprised at the good luck 
 which attended Home Rule members, and se- 
 cured for them the best nights of the session. 
 Some weeks later, when all the mischief was 
 done, Captain Ritchie drew the attention of 
 the Speaker to the facts. But the Home
 
 64 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 Rulers were able to bear with equanimity the 
 solemn rebuke of the right hon. gentleman, 
 for they had gained all they wanted, at least 
 for the session.
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 65 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Private Days and Public Days "On Going into Committee of 
 Supply " Forcing a Division The Previous Question. 
 
 ABSOLUTELY the most favourable position 
 for a private member having charge of a 
 resolution is the first place on the orders for 
 a Tuesday night, though the satisfaction of a 
 successful balloter who has secured this place 
 is tempered by the possibility of being counted 
 out. The best chance for a private Bill is first 
 place on Wednesday. The days open to pri- 
 vate members having charge of motions are 
 Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Wednes- 
 days being confined to Bills. Mondays and 
 Thursdays are Government nights. Wednes- 
 day is a bad day for a member who desires 
 to bring a Bill to an issue, unless he has first 
 place, because, as all discussion peremptorily
 
 66 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 closes at a quarter to six, if he begins late his 
 opponent may shelve him by the simple ex- 
 pedient of continuing to talk till the hand of 
 the clock touches the quarter, when, as if he 
 were part of the clock machinery, the Speaker 
 will rise and declare the debate adjourned. 
 By determined talking this may happen even 
 to the Bill that is first on the list. In some 
 respects, Friday is a better night than Tues- 
 day, the average of counts out being consider- 
 ably less. Committee of Supply is always the 
 first order of Friday night, and private mem- 
 bers bring on their grievances in the form of 
 amendments to the main proposition. Thus, 
 if the Government want money, it is their in- 
 terest to keep a House in the expectation that, 
 when all the notices of motion are disposed of, 
 what they regard as the real business of the 
 evening will commence. 
 
 These remarks apply to the member who 
 has obtained the first place on the Orders. 
 For the second, and still more for others who
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 67 
 
 may follow, there is a danger peculiar to 
 Friday nights, which makes the date one to 
 be avoided. Friday is nominally a Govern- 
 ment night, and, as I have said, the first 
 order of the day is always Supply ; that is to 
 say, Government desire to move the House 
 into Committee, in order to obtain votes of 
 money on account of the various Services* 
 But, in accordance with the constitutional 
 maxim which concedes to Englishmen an 
 opportunity of grumbling when they are 
 about to pay money, it is a rule of the House 
 that private members may bring forward what 
 they hold to be grievances in the shape of 
 amendments to the main proposition, which 
 is, that the House shall go into Committee of 
 Supply. The member who has obtained the 
 first place on the list brings forward his 
 grievance, has it debated, and probably divides 
 the House upon it. It is the custom of the 
 House of Commons to divide always on the 
 original question, and the proposition put 
 
 D 2
 
 68 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 from the chair on Friday nights is ' that I do 
 now leave the chair.' If that is negatived, 
 the next thing done is to put the amendment 
 as a substantive motion, and, except in cases 
 of wilful obstruction, the House does not divide 
 again, but accepts the amendment. In these 
 circumstances the position of the member who 
 stands second on the list is vastly improved. 
 The motion to go into Committee is made 
 again, and he brings forward his particular 
 grievance, which he has formulated in the 
 shape of an amendment, and which may be 
 pressed to a division. 
 
 But supposing, as generally happens, the 
 Government, opposing the first amendment, 
 defeat it in the division lobby, or cause it to 
 be negatived without division. In either case 
 none of the succeeding amendments on the 
 paper can be urged to a division. The 
 question before the House is, that it shall 
 resolve itself into Committee of Supply. 
 That has been agreed to upon a division, or
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 69 
 
 by negativing the amendment, and there is 
 an end to the matter. But whilst they may 
 not take the opinion of the House on the 
 questions they bring forward, members who 
 follow with amendments may have them fully 
 debated, and, as many a dreary and profitless 
 Friday night testifies, they are not slow to 
 avail themselves of this privilege. Of late an 
 attempt has been made to qualify the state 
 of affairs by establishing the rule that the 
 subject-matter of motions brought forward on 
 going into Committee of Supply must relate 
 to the particular Service on account of which 
 money is to be voted. This, however, is 
 limited to Mondays, and has merely the effect 
 of classifying the debates, and has in no 
 degree stopped the aggregate torrent of talk. 
 This rule with respect to Friday nights opens 
 a field for a good deal of party manoeuvring, 
 in \vhich the Government of the day have the 
 whip hand. An amendment standing second 
 or third on the list may be one on which it
 
 /o A Popular Handbook of 
 
 would be exceedingly awkward to divide. 
 The first amendment offers a convenient and 
 infallible means of avoiding the dilemma. 
 The mover may have been ' got at ' by those 
 who would force the obnoxious division, and 
 he may, at the conclusion of the debate, ex- 
 press himself satisfied, and refuse to divide. 
 If he were allowed to withdraw his amend- 
 ment the critical motion No. 2 would follow, 
 and the pending division would take place 
 upon it. But there are ways of forcing a 
 division; and a single member refusing his 
 assent to the withdrawal of an amendment 
 duly moved can, even against the expressed 
 wish of the rest of the House, have the ques- 
 tion put from the Chair. If he can find a co- 
 teller, he can even force a division. Failing 
 that, the purpose hinted at is nevertheless 
 accomplished, for when the question has been 
 put and the House has, by its unchallenged 
 voice, declared its desire to go into Com- 
 mittee, the issue is as completely settled as if
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 7 1 
 
 a division had taken place, and consequently 
 none of the subsequent amendments can be 
 put to the vote. 
 
 Sometimes a motion is opposed by moving 
 * the previous question/ This is usually done 
 when the objection is rather addressed to the 
 opportuneness of the time of moving than to 
 the substance of the motion ; and the mode 
 of putting the question to the House is very 
 puzzling, even to members of considerable 
 experience.
 
 72 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Putting the Question Preparing for a Division A Minority of 
 One The Tellers The Sand-glass Who cut the Bell- 
 wire? "Ayes to the Right, Noes to the Left" The 
 Division Lobbies Announcing the Figures The Casting 
 Vote. 
 
 A QUESTION, in the House of Commons is 
 decided either by voice or vote. When a 
 debate is brought to a conclusion, the Speaker 
 rises and reads aloud the motion which has 
 been brought forward. If there is an amend- 
 ment, he reads that also ; but what the House 
 first divides on is always the original ques- 
 tion. Say, to take the briefest form of ques- 
 tion, that the original motion was the second 
 reading of the Church Steeple Bill. The 
 Speaker will say, " Church Steeple Bill ; the 
 original motion was that the Bill be now read 
 a second time, since which an amendment has
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 73 
 
 been made to leave out the word c now,' and 
 insert ' on this day six months.' The question 
 is, that this Bill be now read a second time." 
 On this formula the House divides. If the 
 majority be in the affirmative, the Bill is 
 ordered to be read a second time. If the 
 majority be the other way, the main proposi- 
 tion is declared lost, and the Speaker, imme- 
 diately upon reading the figures of the division, 
 says, " The question is, that this Bill be read 
 a second time this day six months." Under 
 ordinary circumstances, the Opposition accept 
 their defeat, and do not raise their voice 
 against the decision of the Speaker, that " the 
 ayes have it." But they may, if they please, 
 divide again on this question, and may even 
 raise a fresh debate upon it. If no amend- 
 ment has been moved, the question is put 
 " that the Bill be now read a second time." 
 
 When the Speaker has put a proposition 
 before the House, he invites those in favour 
 of it to say " aye," and those who oppose it to
 
 74 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 say " no." Then follow two responsive shouts, 
 and forming a judgment on the respective 
 volumes of sound, the right hon. gentleman 
 declares that he thinks " the ayes have it," or 
 " the noes have it," as the case may be. Should 
 this decision be challenged, even by a single 
 voice, the House will be cleared for a division. 
 If the dissentient voice is literally one, the 
 Speaker will ask the hon. member to name a 
 teller. If he cannot do so, the ruling of the 
 Speaker becomes final, as on a division there 
 must be two tellers on each side. But the 
 House must divide if there are two tellers, 
 even though, as happened more than once 
 during the campaign of obstruction in the 
 last Parliament, there be none for them to 
 tell. 
 
 During the debate on Dr. Kenealy's motion 
 for re-opening the case of the Claimant, 
 Major O' Gorman saved Dr. Kenealy, and 
 his co-teller, Mr. Whalley, from the queer 
 eminence of having constituted themselves
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 75 
 
 tellers in a division wherein worse plight 
 than that of the needy knife-grinder they 
 had no followers to tell. Amid uproarious 
 cheers, the Major emerged from the otherwise 
 empty lobby devoted to the " ayes," represent- 
 ing in his person the full numerical strength 
 of the minority. 
 
 On party divisions, the tellers are the 
 Whips on either side. In divisions on ques- 
 tions raised by private members and opposed 
 by the Government, the mover and seconder 
 tell for "the motion," and the Ministerial 
 Whips for " the Government." A division 
 being insisted on, the Speaker directs strangers 
 to withdraw, and simultaneously a sand-glass, 
 which stands on the clerks' table, is turned, 
 and through all the passages and Committee 
 Rooms of the House is heard the tinkling 
 of the electric bell. Formerly the order for 
 strangers to withdraw was literally carried 
 out, the strangers' galleries being cleared. 
 But now only the seats under the gallery, to
 
 which a few strangers are admitted by special 
 order, are cleared a reasonable precaution, 
 seeing that these seats are actually on the 
 floor of the House, and (as has happened, at 
 least once, according to well-authenticated 
 history) a stranger straying into the lobbies 
 might actually figure as a unit in the division 
 list. The sand-glass takes two minutes to 
 run out, during which time the bells are 
 furiously twanging all over the House, and 
 hon. members, who have been in the reading 
 room, library, dining room, or even out on the 
 terrace, come hurrying in to vote. 
 
 When St. Stephen's Club was opened, its 
 proximity to the House suggested the con- 
 venience of connecting it with the system of 
 division bells, so that supporters of the Govern- 
 ment, accustomed to congregate there, might 
 have due notice of a pending division. One 
 night, during the session of 1875, a Bill, in 
 which the Home Rule members were deeply 
 interested, was in Committee. The supporters
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 7 7 
 
 of the Government were so far amenable to 
 the injunctions of the Whip that they would 
 come in to vote ; but they positively declined 
 to remain to hear the debate. Thus, when- 
 ever a clause was reached on which a division 
 was challenged, there was the sound of hurry- 
 ing feet along the subway that connects the 
 Club with the House, and an overwhelming 
 contingent of hon. members arrived to vote 
 down the opposition. About eleven o'clock a 
 most important clause was reached, and a 
 division was challenged. The electric bells 
 rang out the usual summons ; but, to the con- 
 sternation of Sir William Dyke and Mr. Winn, 
 and to the unutterable indignation of Sir. 
 Michael Hicks-Beach, then Secretary for 
 Ireland, the Ministerial majority mysteriously 
 diminished, and even vanished, the Home 
 Rulers carrying their point. Upon investiga- 
 tion, it was discovered that something had 
 happened to the communication between the 
 division bell of the House and the bell in
 
 78 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 St. Stephen's Club it was in the days of the 
 late Mr. Ronayne, who was a practical en- 
 gineer as well as a man of great humour 
 and the indignation of the Ministerial Whip 
 was equalled only by the consternation of the 
 contingent of hon. members at the Club when 
 they heard there had been a division. 
 
 When the last grain of sand in the glass 
 has run out, the Speaker rises and cries, 
 " Order ! order ! " This is a signal to the 
 doorkeepers to close and lock the doors, and 
 members arriving thereafter cannot vote. 
 This, it may be mentioned, touches the precise 
 meaning of the small paragraph frequently 
 seen in the newspapers on the morning after 
 a division in respect of which constituencies 
 are likely to look up the division list to see 
 how their member voted. When Mr. Marma- 
 duke Montblanc is " accidentally shut out from 
 the division lobby, and prevented from voting " 
 in such and such a division, it simply means 
 that Mr. Marmaduke Montblanc was dining,
 
 Parliamentary Procediire. 79 
 
 or smoking a cigar on the terrace, or was 
 writing letters whilst the debate was going on, 
 and was not able to arrive at the House before 
 the door was shut. 
 
 The doors being locked and profound silence 
 reigning within the House, the Speaker pro- 
 ceeds to put the question as above described. 
 He again takes the sense of the House by the 
 cry of "aye," and "no," and declares which way 
 according to his opinion, the majority goes. It 
 sometimes happens that the spirit of sportive- 
 ness which is always latent in the House of 
 Commons has suggested the pushing of 
 matters to this extreme, and that there is no 
 real intention of going to a division. In these 
 circumstances the Speaker's ruling is not 
 challenged, a second time, and the motion is 
 declared to be either negatived or carried 
 without a division. Should the division be 
 persisted in, the Speaker directs " the ayes to 
 the right," " the noes to the left," and names 
 the tellers for either party.
 
 8o A Popular Handbook of 
 
 Outside the Chamber, and running parallel 
 with its length, are the division lobbies. Into 
 one or other of these, according as they vote 
 "aye" or "no," the members pour. The 
 tellers make their way in pairs to the head of 
 the lobbies, a teller for the ayes pairing off 
 with a teller for the noes, an arrangement 
 which prevents contention as to results. 
 Members pouring in at one end of the lobby 
 work their way up to the other, at which 
 stands a wicket guarded by two clerks, who 
 have on a desk large pieces of pasteboard, on 
 which are the names in alphabetical order of 
 every member of the House. It is the busi- 
 ness of these clerks to know every member 
 by sight; and, as each passes through the 
 wicket, his name is ticked off on the list. 
 
 A few paces further on, the two tellers 
 stand face to face ; and, as the members pass 
 between them, one of the tellers calls aloud 
 the growing numbers. When the last 
 member has passed through, the ticked
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 8 1 
 
 pasteboard is sent off to the printers to 
 appear next morning as the division list, and 
 the tellers entering the House communicate 
 in turn the figures to the clerk at the table, 
 who writes them down on a piece of paper, 
 which he hands to the principal teller for the 
 majority. The four tellers walking some 
 paces down the floor of the House turn round, 
 and advancing abreast towards the Speaker, 
 with obeisance twice repeated, the teller who 
 holds the paper reads out the figures. The 
 paper is then handed to the Speaker, who 
 also reads out the result of the division, 
 adding, " the ayes have it," or " the noes 
 have it," according as the majority have 
 gone. 
 
 Neither the Speaker nor the Chairman of 
 Committees, being actually in the chair, votes 
 unless the division result in a tie, when the 
 President gives the casting vote. This is a 
 contingency which does not frequently arise, 
 but it has happened more than once under
 
 82 
 
 circumstances of great excitement. To cite 
 two instances of comparatively recent date 
 the Church Rates Abolition Bill was, in the 
 Session of 1861, thrown out by the casting 
 vote of the Speaker, and in 1864, the Tests 
 Abolition (Oxford) Bill was read a third time 
 through the intervention of the same agency.
 
 Parliamentary r ~ Procedure. 83 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Talking out a Bill Morning Sittings Counting Out 
 " Forty ! " Counts-out in Committee. 
 
 A BILL or a Resolution may be got rid of 
 with equal effect by other means than a vote. 
 Wednesday afternoon, as has already been 
 hinted, offers facilities for shelving a measure, 
 which, if used to the full, cannot fail of 
 success, as was shown on a memorable occa- 
 sion in the Session of 1877, when the House, 
 meeting at four o'clock on a Tuesday after- 
 noon, sat till after six on the following day, 
 having remained in session for twenty-six 
 and a half hours. There is no recognised 
 limit as to the duration of a sitting on Mon- 
 day, Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday. 
 
 In the case of a morning sitting, the House
 
 84 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 meets at two o'clock and the sitting is 
 suspended at seven, being resumed at nine, 
 when it may proceed indefinitely. But on 
 Wednesday the House meets at twelve, 
 and must, unless the Standing Order be 
 suspended by special vote, adjourn at six. 
 The measure of discussion is limited by the 
 reduction of a quarter of an hour, and at a 
 quarter to six even though a member 
 addressing the House be in the middle of a 
 sentence the Speaker rises and calls on the 
 next business, the debate thus interrupted 
 being adjourned. As a matter of form, the 
 adjournment takes place till the " next day." 
 As a matter of fact, it is indefinite ; for, every 
 available day of the Session being appro- 
 priated, the member in charge of the Bill has 
 no chance of renewing the discussion. 
 
 Thus, if a Bill be brought in on a Wed- 
 nesday, an adversary may, single-tongued, 
 succeed in throwing it out, even though the 
 House should otherwise unanimously desire
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 85 
 
 to pass it. There is a well-authenticated case 
 of a member (the late Air. Vincent Scully), 
 who rose to move the rejection of a Bill at 
 one o'clock on Wednesday afternoon. Whilst 
 keeping strictly within the forms of the 
 House, he indulged in a long dissertation 
 which lasted up to a few seconds of a quarter 
 to six. Turning towards the clock and 
 noting the precise moment, the hon. member 
 observed : " After these few preliminary 
 observations I will now proceed to consider 
 the principle of the Bill." Whilst he was yet 
 uttering the sentence, the hand of the clock 
 touched a quarter to six, the Speaker rose, 
 and the debate was adjourned. 
 
 Another weapon in the armoury of Opposi- 
 tion is the "count out," perhaps one of the 
 most useful agencies in Parliamentary pro- 
 cedure. A quorum in the House of Commons 
 consists of forty members ; and, of course, no 
 business may be discussed save in the pre- 
 sence of a quorum. But, as a matter of fact,
 
 86 
 
 a great deal of business is accomplished, or, 
 at least, a great many hours are got through 
 by the House of Commons, in the presence of 
 from five to fifteen gentlemen. The non- 
 existence of a quorum is a circumstance of 
 which the Speaker does not take notice unless 
 his attention be directly called to it. It was 
 formerly the practice of a member desiring to 
 bring about " a count " to approach the 
 Speaker covertly from behind his chair, and 
 whisper in his ear, and it was the etiquette of 
 Parliamentary reporters not to mention the 
 name of the often welcome interloper. Of 
 late years the more manly practice is growing 
 for members to rise in their place, and openly 
 call the Speaker's attention to the fact that 
 there are not forty members present. 
 
 However the process be accomplished, the 
 Speaker immediately rises, and announces 
 that his "attention has been called to the 
 members present," concluding with the in- 
 junction that " strangers will withdraw."
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 87 
 
 Thereupon takes place the procedure de- 
 scribed in connection with a division. The 
 sand-glass is turned ; the electric bells rattle 
 throughout the House the announcement of 
 the imminence of a count; and the same 
 interval of two minutes is allowed to members 
 to congregate. A count, however, differs from 
 a division, inasmuch as the doors are left 
 open, and members coming in whilst the 
 Speaker is counting are included in the 
 members, and sometimes save the House. 
 When the sand is run out, the Speaker begins 
 to count, using his cocked hat to point to 
 individual members as he enumerates. He 
 counts audibly, pointing to each member in 
 succession. If he finds forty members on the 
 benches, he, without remark, resumes his 
 seat, and the interrupted orator proceeds. 
 If there are less than forty, he concludes the 
 enumeration with the cabalistic words, " the 
 House will now adjourn ; " and, forthwith, at 
 whatever hour it be, the House adjourns,
 
 88 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 and the motion and its advocate are effectually 
 disposed of. 
 
 It sometimes happens that the House may 
 be adjourned upon a count, through the pro- 
 cess of a division. If the House divides, and 
 the division list shows an aggregate of voters 
 less than forty, the absence of a quorum is 
 demonstrated, and the House forthwith ad- 
 journs. Counts can also take place in 
 Committee. But if it be found that forty 
 members are not present, an adjournment 
 does not thereupon take place. The Speaker 
 is sent for, the fact is reported to him, and he 
 again counts. Sufficient members to form a 
 quorum may, by this time, have arrived, in 
 which case the Committee resumes. But if it 
 should still be found that there are not forty 
 present, an adjournment takes place.
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 89 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Necessity for doing Something Increase of Business Epidemic 
 of Speech-making Special Wires A Reported Speech 
 that was Never Delivered Asking Questions. 
 
 THESE rules of debate and these formulae of 
 procedure have enabled Parliament to carry 
 on the business of the nation through two 
 centuries. There have been occasional hitches, 
 which had led to proposals of reform. Some- 
 times a little tinkering has been permitted, 
 and in 1882 a winter Session was devoted to 
 the work with what result the next chapter 
 shows. But oftener Lord Melbourne's his- 
 torical suggestion, "Can't you let it alone ? " 
 has been followed. The time is, however, not 
 far distant, when the urgent necessity for 
 again considering the forms of Parliamentary 
 procedure with the view of establishing per-
 
 90 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 manent reform will be frankly acknowledged 
 and boldly met. 
 
 The rules of debate were made at a time 
 when the business of the Legislature was infi- 
 nitely less extensive and less complicated than 
 at present. Business has increased with the 
 growth of the nation ; and, even in enlarged 
 degree, has grown the capacity for talk. 
 There was a time when speech-making in the 
 House of Commons rested with a few tongues. 
 Infinitely the larger proportion of members 
 were content to put in an appearance during 
 a debate, and to vote when required. But 
 the extension of the press, and, above all, the 
 institution of Special Wires as a medium of 
 communication between the metropolis and 
 provincial newspapers, have changed all 
 that. 
 
 We are naturally loth to acknowledge the 
 potency of small matters in great connections. 
 It is nevertheless a fact that the creation of 
 the Special Wire is an event which has had a
 
 Parliamentary Procedure, 9 1 
 
 serious effect upon Parliamentary procedure. 
 Men will not often speak in an assembly 
 which will not hear them, nor before repre- 
 sentatives of the Press who do not notice them. 
 But the cheapening of telegraphic communi- 
 cation, leading to the institution of Special 
 Wires, has created a system by which speeches 
 of members are reported verbatim in the local 
 newspapers. Thus we have members speak- 
 ing, not to the House of Commons, but to their 
 constituencies ; a state of affairs which, whilst 
 it adds to the inherent dreariness of a particu- 
 lar speech, makes its delivery imperative. In 
 former days, when a man had prepared a 
 speech, and found that the House was deter- 
 mined not to hear it, he, after a fair show of 
 resistance, was accustomed to give way. Now, 
 when a member has prepared a speech, he 
 takes into consideration the circumstance that 
 the papers which his constituents read have 
 made arrangements for fully reporting it. The 
 local journal may, indeed, as has happened in
 
 92 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 recent Parliamentary history, already have 
 the speech in type ; whence it becomes clear 
 that the speech must be recited, though the 
 Heavens fall, amid the clamour of an angry 
 House. 
 
 Another tendency which serves to lengthen 
 proceedings in Parliament, and to shorten the 
 time for doing business, is the habit of asking 
 questions, not necessarily trivial in themselves, 
 but, when put in the Imperial Parliament, 
 suggestive of wasted human breath and intel- 
 lect. This has grown enormously within the 
 last twenty years, as statistics will show. In 
 *857, 451 questions were put during the 
 Session. In 1867, they were more than 
 doubled, amounting to 912. In 1877 they 
 were trebled, reaching the number of 1,343. 
 A corresponding increase in the actual time 
 of the sitting has followed upon this develop- 
 ment of Parliamentary curiosity. In 1857 the 
 House sat 903 hours. In 1867, it sat 1,043 
 hours; and in 1877, it sat 1,200 hours, less
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 93 
 
 one. What this process of asking questions 
 means will appear on consideration of the fact 
 that, in 1877, upwards of 80 hours, a period of 
 time equal to two full Parliamentary weeks, 
 were occupied in asking questions and answer- 
 ing them ! In later sessions, up to and 
 specially inclusive of 1885, this proportion 
 has vastly increased. When we take into 
 consideration that the putting of questions is 
 often the preliminary step to raising a dis- 
 cussion, it will appear that herein lies a 
 useful clue to the much-deplored loss of time 
 in Parliament.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 An Autumn Session The New Rules How they have Worked 
 How affected by Changes in New Parliament. 
 
 IN the winter of 1882, the House of Com- 
 mons, goaded to desperation by the successful 
 tactics of the obstructionists, met in special 
 session, determined to deal once for all with 
 the condition of disorder into which the 
 assembly had been brought by the action of 
 a small body of men who cared neither for 
 the Speaker nor for public opinion. The 
 result of protracted labours is embodied in 
 the following new rules, which are now in- 
 corporated with the Orders of Procedure in 
 the House of Commons. 
 
 i. Putting the Question. When it shall
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 95 
 
 appear to Mr. Speaker, or to the Chairman of 
 Ways and Means in a Committee of the 
 whole House, during any debate, that the 
 subject has been adequately discussed, and 
 that it is the evident sense of the House, or of 
 the Committee, that the question be now put, 
 he may so ^inform the House or the Com- 
 mittee ; and, if a motion be made " That the 
 question be now put," Mr. Speaker, or the 
 Chairman, shall forthwith put such question ; 
 and, if the same be decided in the affirmative, 
 the question under discussion shall be put 
 forthwith : Provided that the question, " That 
 the question be now put," shall not be decided 
 in the affirmative, if a division be taken, unless 
 it shall appear to have been supported by 
 more than two hundred members, or unless 
 it shall appear to have been opposed by less 
 than forty members and supported by more 
 than one hundred members. 
 
 2. Motions for Adjournment before Public
 
 96 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 Business. No motion for the adjournment of 
 the House shall be made until all the ques- 
 tions on the Notice Paper have been disposed 
 of, and no such motion shall be made before 
 the Orders of the Day, or Notices of Motions 
 have been entered upon, except by leave of 
 the House, unless a member rising in his 
 place shall propose to move the adjournment, 
 for the purpose of discussing a definite matter 
 of urgent public importance, and not less than 
 forty members shall thereupon rise in their 
 places to support the motion; or unless, if 
 fewer than forty members and not less than 
 ten shall thereupon rise in their places, the 
 House shall, on a division, upon question put 
 forthwith, determine whether such motion 
 shall be made. 
 
 3. Delates on Motions for Adjournment. 
 When a motion is made for the adjournment 
 of a debate, or of the House, during any
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 97 
 
 debate, or that the Chairman of a Committee 
 do report progress, or do leave the Chair, the 
 debate thereupon shall be confined to the 
 matter of such motion; and no member, 
 having moved or seconded any such motion, 
 shall be entitled to move, or second, any 
 similar motion during the same debate. 
 
 4. Divisions. After the House has entered 
 upon the Orders of the Day or Notices of 
 Motions, when, after the House has been 
 cleared for a division, upon a motion for the 
 adjournment of a debate, or of the House 
 during any debate, or that the Chairman of 
 a Committee do report progress, or do leave 
 the Chair, the decision cf Mr. Speaker, or of 
 the Chairman of a Committee, that the Ayes 
 or Noes have it is challenged, Mr. Speaker or 
 the Chairman may, after the lapse of two 
 minutes, as indicated by the sand glass, call 
 upon the members challenging to rise in 
 
 E
 
 98 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 their places, and, if they be less than twenty 
 in a House of forty members or upwards, he 
 may forthwith declare the determination of 
 the House or of the Committee. 
 
 5. Irrelevance or repetition. Mr. Speaker, 
 or the Chairman of Ways and Means, may 
 call the attention of the House, or of the 
 Committee, to continued irrelevance or tedi- 
 ous repetition on the part of a member ; and 
 may direct the member to discontinue his 
 speech. 
 
 6. Postponement of Preamble. In Committee 
 on a Bill, the Preamble do stand postponed 
 until after the consideration of the Clauses, 
 without question put. 
 
 7. Chairman to leave the Chair without Ques- 
 tion. When the Chairman of a Committee 
 has been ordered to make a report to the
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 99 
 
 House, he shall leave the Chair without 
 question put. 
 
 8. Half -past Twelve o' Clock Rule. That, 
 except for a Money Bill, no Order of the 
 Day or Notice of Motion be taken after 
 half-past Twelve of the clock at night, with 
 respect to which Order or Notice of Motion a 
 Notice of Opposition or Amendment shall 
 have been printed on the Notice Paper, or if 
 such Notice of Motion shall only have been 
 given the next previous day of sitting, and 
 objection shall be taken when such Notice 
 is called. That motions for the appointment 
 or nomination of Standing Committees and 
 Proceedings made in accordance with the 
 provisions of any Act of Parliament or Stand- 
 ing Order, motions for leave to bring in Bills, 
 and Bills which have passed through Com- 
 mittee of the whole House, be excepted from 
 the operation of this Order. Provided, That
 
 ioo A Popular Handbook of 
 
 every such Notice of Opposition or Amend- 
 ment be signed in the House by a member, 
 and dated, and shall lapse at the end of the 
 week following that in which it was given. 
 Provided also, That this Rule shall not apply 
 to the nomination of Select Committees. 
 
 9. Order in Debate. Whenever any member 
 shall have been named by the Speaker, or by 
 the Chairman of a Committee of the whole 
 House, immediately after the commission of 
 the offence of disregarding the authority of 
 the Chair, or of abusing the Rules of the 
 House by persistently and wilfully obstruct- 
 ing the business of the House, or otherwise, 
 then, if the offence has been committed by 
 such member in the House, the Speaker shall 
 forthwith put the question, on a motion being 
 made, no amendment, adjournment, or 
 debate, being allowed, " That such Member 
 be suspended from the service of the House ; "
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 101 
 
 and if the offence has been committed in a 
 Committee of the whole House, the Chairman 
 shall, on a Motion being made, put the same 
 question in a similar way, and if the Motion 
 is carried shall forthwith suspend the pro- 
 ceedings of the Committee and report the cir- 
 cumstance to the House ; and the Speaker 
 shall thereupon put the same question, with- 
 out amendment, adjournment, or debate, as if 
 the offence had been committed in the House 
 itself. If any member be suspended under 
 this Order, his suspension on the first occasion 
 shall continue for one week, on the second 
 occasion for a fortnight, and on the third, or 
 any subsequent occasion, for a month : Pro- 
 vided always, That suspension from the 
 service of the House shall not exempt the 
 member so suspended from serving on any 
 Committee for the consideration of a Private 
 Bill to which he may have been appointed 
 before his suspension: Provided also, That
 
 IO2 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 not more than one member shall be named at 
 the same time, unless several members, pre- 
 sent together, have jointly disregarded the 
 authority of the Chair : Provided always, 
 That nothing in this Resolution shall be 
 taken to deprive the House of the power of 
 proceeding against any member according to 
 ancient usages. 
 
 10. Debates on Motions for Adjournment. 
 If Mr. Speaker, or the Chairman of a Com- 
 mittee of the whole House, shall be of opinion 
 that a Motion for the Adjournment of a 
 Debate, or of the House, during any debate, 
 or that the Chairman do report progress, or 
 do leave the Chair, is an abuse of the Rules 
 of the House, he may forthwith put the ques- 
 tion thereupon from the Chair. 
 
 1 1 . Consideration of a Bill, as amended. 
 When the Order of the Day for the Considera-
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 103 
 
 tion of a Bill, as amended in the Committee 
 of the whole House, has been read, the House 
 do proceed to consider the same without ques- 
 tion put, unless the member in charge thereof 
 shall desire to postpone its consideration, or 
 a Motion shall be made to re-commit the Bill. 
 
 12. Notices on going into Committee of 
 Supply. That, whenever the Committee of 
 Supply stands as the first Order of the 
 Day on Monday or Thursday, Mr. Speaker 
 shall leave the Chair without putting any 
 question, unless on first going into supply on 
 the Army, Navy, or Civil Service Estimates 
 respectively, or on any Vote of Credit, an 
 Amendment be moved, or question raised, 
 relating to the Estimates proposed to be 
 taken in Supply. 
 
 13. That the first seven and the last three 
 of the said Resolutions be Standing Orders 
 of the House.
 
 IO4 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 II. STANDING COMMITTEES. 
 
 i. Standing Committees on Law and Courts of 
 Justice, Trade, &c. That two standing Com- 
 mittees be appointed for the consideration of 
 all Bills relating to Law and Courts of Justice 
 and Legal Procedure, and to Trade, Shipping, 
 and Manufactures, which may, by order of 
 the House, in each case, be committed to 
 them ; and the procedure in such Committees 
 shall be the same as in a Select Committee, 
 unless the House shall otherwise order: Pro- 
 vided, that strangers shall be admitted, except 
 when the Committee shall order them to with- 
 draw : Provided also, That the said Com- 
 mittees shall be excluded from the operation 
 of the Standing Order of July 2ist, 1856, and 
 the said Committees shall not sit, whilst the 
 House is sitting, without the order of the 
 House : Provided also, That any Notice of
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 105 
 
 Amendment to any Clause in a Bill which 
 may be committed to a Standing Committee 
 given by any honourable member in the House 
 shall stand referred to such Committee : Pro- 
 vided also, That twenty be the quorum of 
 such Standing Committees. 
 
 2. Nomination by Committee of Selection. 
 That each of the said Standing Committees do 
 consist of not less than sixty, nor more than 
 eighty, members, to be nominated by the 
 Committee of Selection, who shall have re- 
 gard to the classes of Bills committed to such 
 Committees, to the composition of the House, 
 and to the qualifications of the members 
 selected ; and shall have power to discharge 
 members from time to time, and to appoint 
 others in substitution for those so discharged. 
 The Committee of Selection shall also have 
 power to add not more than fifteen members 
 to a Standing Committee in respect of any
 
 io6 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 Bill referred to it to serve on the Committee 
 during the consideration of such Bill. 
 
 3. Appointment of Chairman. The Com- 
 mittee of Selection shall nominate a Chair- 
 men's Panel to consist of not less than four 
 nor more than six members, of whom three 
 shall be a quorum ; and the Chairmen's Panel 
 shall appoint from among themselves the 
 Chairman of each Standing Committee, and 
 may change the Chairman so appointed from 
 time to time. 
 
 4. Commitment and Report of Bills. That 
 all Bills which shall have been committed 
 to one of the said Standing Committees, 
 shall, when reported to the House, be pro- 
 ceeded with as if they had been reported from 
 a Committee of the whole House : Provided, 
 That the provisions of the Standing Order 
 (Consideration of a Bill as amended), shall
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 107 
 
 not apply to a Bill reported to the House by 
 a Standing Committee. 
 
 5. Duration of Resolutions. That the four 
 preceding Resolutions be Standing Orders of 
 the House until the end of the next Session of 
 Parliament. 
 
 The First Rule, disguised under the innocent 
 term of "putting the question," is the famous 
 Closure Rule. Upon this the longest and 
 most acrimonious debate of the session arose. 
 The Conservative?, with a constitutional and 
 long-proved jealousy for freedom of speech, 
 bitterly fought the Government on the question. 
 They foretold a condition of affairs in which 
 debate would become a mockery. The Resolu- 
 tion was called " The Gagging Rule," and it 
 was carried in face of a combination of Con- 
 servatives and Parnellites only by a very 
 small majority. In recalling these heated
 
 io8 A Popular Handbook of 
 
 debates, it is almost comical to reflect upon 
 the subsequent history of this portentous rule. 
 It has, in brief, become a dead letter. Speaker 
 and Chairman of Committees alike have 
 shrunk from the responsibility of deciding 
 upon what is " the evident sense of the House," 
 and the consequence has been that, though a 
 score of times occasion has arisen when the 
 Closure Rule might with public advantage 
 have been applied, it has only once been 
 taken from the armoury in which it was placed 
 amid so much foreboding. 
 
 The Second Rule, dealing with motions for 
 adjournment before public business, has proved 
 effective in limiting the successes of individual 
 eccentricity. The necessity for it was created 
 by a habit cultivated by Mr. O'Donnell, 
 Mr. Biggar, and one or two other notabilities, 
 of interposing at question time, and moving 
 the adjournment in order to make a speech, 
 the principal design of which was to waste
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 1 09 
 
 time. This it prohibited, and it also had the 
 effect of investing a motion for adjournment 
 at question time with something more of 
 gravity. It necessitated bustling about before 
 the House met, and securing the co-operation 
 of forty members. There have been several 
 occasions within the last three years when 
 this effort deliberately made has failed. 
 Mr. Parnell, for example, could not always 
 count upon forty supporters for an obstructive 
 motion of this kind. But the regular Opposi- 
 tion were rarely at a loss, and in one week 
 moved the adjournment three times. In the 
 new Parliament, Mr. Parnell, with his in- 
 creased following, will, of course, be able 
 to set this Rule at nought whenever he 
 pleases. 
 
 The Third Rule, limiting opportunities to 
 move or second motions for the adjournment, 
 and contracting openings for discursive debate 
 thereupon, has worked well.
 
 no 
 
 Another most excellent Rule is Number 
 Four, which authorises the Speaker or Chair- 
 man to call upon members who challenge his 
 decision to stand up in their places, and if 
 there be less than twenty in a House of forty 
 or upwards, permitting him forthwith to 
 declare the determination of the House or 
 Committee. This Rule, like Number One, 
 was constructed with an eye to Mr. Parnell's 
 party, and during the last Parliament fre- 
 quently prevented loss of time through vexa- 
 tious divisions. But with Mr. Parnell's added 
 forces its chances of doing good are practically 
 abrogated. 
 
 The Fifth Rule, arming the Speaker or 
 Chairman with power to direct a member 
 guilty of continued irrelevance or tedious re- 
 petition to discontinue his speech, has been 
 frequently invoked with wholesome result by 
 Mr. Peel. 
 
 Rules Six and Seven each take away an
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 1 1 1 
 
 opportunity of obstructing the progress of a 
 Bill upon technical grounds. 
 
 The Half-past Twelve Rule has always been 
 a bone of contention in the House of Commons. 
 It simply provides that after half-past twelve 
 no opposed business may be entered upon. 
 It frequently weighs heavily upon members in 
 charge of a Bill who have been made victims 
 of that blocking system of which Mr. Biggar 
 was Allah and Mr. Warton his Prophet. But 
 these are abuses of a system which beyond 
 doubt conduces to the convenience of the 
 great body of members, and to the proper 
 performance of public business. Before this 
 Rule came into operation members interested 
 in a Bill were bound to hang about till all 
 hours of the night up to the very close of the 
 sitting. Now they may go away at half-past 
 twelve, assured that the object of their parti- 
 cular interest cannot be discussed at the 
 current sitting.
 
 112 
 
 Rule Nine, dealing with the suspension of 
 members, is designed to countercheck an 
 obvious opening for obstruction. If, a member 
 being " named," a resolution were moved for 
 his suspension, it is obvious that, following 
 the ordinary rules, a whole night might be 
 taken up in debating the subject. Rule Nine 
 provides that the question shall be put with- 
 out amendment, adjournment, or debate. Rule 
 Ten, giving the Speaker or Chairman of Com- 
 mittees power to cut short a discussion on the 
 adjournment, has a promising look about it ; 
 but, like the Cloture Rule, it has been allowed 
 to fall into desuetude. Rule Eleven is framed 
 with the object of hastening the progress of 
 Bills ; and Rule Twelve seems, upon the face 
 of it, to put an end to the gross waste of time 
 that used to take place on Supply nights. 
 Whenever Supply was put down, members 
 were accustomed to preface it with what is 
 called a notice of amendment, raising all
 
 Parliamentary Procedure. 1 1 3 
 
 kinds of questions, which must necessarily be 
 discussed before Supply was entered upon. 
 The consequence frequently was that whilst 
 the House of Commons had been engaged in 
 discussing the reason why a postmistress at 
 Ballyhooley was refused an extra pound a 
 year salary, or in debating upon the alleged 
 attack by a police officer on some Irish vil- 
 lage, the question of voting millions of money 
 was deferred till after midnight, and taken up 
 by a jaded and angry Committee. 
 
 The Rule which, once having gone into Com- 
 mittee of Supply, permits the House on sub- 
 sequent Mondays and Thursdays straightway 
 to return to Committee, has had much of its use- 
 fulness destroyed by an ingenious manoeuvre. 
 Members cannot now discuss the postmistress 
 or policeman before going into Committee. 
 But there is nothing against their doing so in 
 Committee ; and it has come to pass that the 
 speeches that used to be made with the
 
 Speaker in the Chair are now delivered in 
 Committee, and Supply is no more forward 
 than it used to be. 
 
 The scheme of Grand Committees, elaborated 
 in the second portion of the new rules, struck 
 a direct blow of all at obstruction. If, as 
 was intended, all Bills relating to Law and 
 Courts of Justice, to trade, shipping, and 
 manufactures, might be relegated to a Com- 
 mittee sitting up stairs, the strain on the 
 House of Commons would be immensely 
 relieved, and the opportunities of obstruction 
 correspondingly restricted. For one session 
 the Grand Committees had a fair chance, and 
 worked wonders. The Bankruptcy Bill, which 
 had sat like a nightmare over several Parlia- 
 ments, was disposed of in a single session, 
 and so was the Patents Bill. The obstruc- 
 tionists, alive to the situation, bent all their 
 efforts towards preventing the reappointment 
 of the Grand Committees, and last session the
 
 Parliamentary Procediire. 115 
 
 Government did not even dare to make the 
 proposition. But the principle of devolution 
 illustrated in the action of the Grand Com- 
 mittees is the true principle, and, fully recog- 
 nised, will eventually work out the salvation 
 of the House of Commons as a business 
 assembly. In some form or other, doubtless 
 in wider bearing than that of Grand Com- 
 mittees, it will have to be adopted by the 
 Legislature.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ADDRESS to the Queen, 
 
 amendment on, 40 
 
 drawing up, 41 
 
 moving and seconding, 39, 40 
 
 presentation, 42 
 
 reply to, 42 
 Adjournment, motions for, 95, 108, 109 
 
 debates on, 96, 102 
 
 BALLOTING for precedence of notices of motion, 60 
 Biggar (Mr.), 57, 108, III 
 Bills in Parliament, 
 
 commitment and report of, 106 
 
 consideration of, as amended, IO2 
 
 counting out, 85 
 
 days for motions, 65 
 
 first and second readings, 50, 72 
 
 hastening progress of, 1 12 
 
 in Committee, 50, 55 
 
 preamble, postponement of, 98 
 
 private, 49, 58 
 
 reported to the House, 55 
 
 Royal assent, 56
 
 1 1 8 Index. 
 
 Bills in Parliament continued. 
 
 Standing Committees, 104 
 
 talking out, 66, 83, 85 
 
 third reading, 56 
 Black Rod, 
 
 at the meeting of a new Parliament, 25, 30, 36 
 
 formula of words used by, must be strictly followed, 36 
 Blocking system, in 
 Bowyer (Sir Geo.) and Black Rod, 36 
 Bradlaugh (Mr.) and the Parliamentary oath, 34 
 Bye-elections, certificates required by members returned, 34 
 
 CASTING-VOTES of Speaker and Chairman of Committee, 81, 82 
 Chairman of Committee, 52, 56, 81, 98 
 
 mode of addressing, 56 
 Church Rates Abolition Bill (1861), 
 
 casting vote given by Speaker, 82 
 Clerk of the Crown, 24, 34 
 Clerk of House of Commons, 24, 26, 33 
 Cloture Rule, 94, 107, 112 
 
 a dead letter, 108 
 Committee of the whole House, 
 
 counts-ouc in, 88 
 
 procedure, 52, 55, 95 
 Committee of Selection, 105 
 Committee of Supply, 66, 67 
 
 notices on going into, 103 
 
 waste of time on supply nights, 112, 113 
 Counts-out, 85 
 
 in Committee, 88 
 
 DEBATES, irrelevance or repetition in, 98, no 
 new rules, 96, 102 
 presumed secrecy of, 17
 
 Index. 119 
 
 Devolution, the true remedy for obstruction, 115 
 Divisions, preparing for, 75, 78 
 
 new rules affecting, 97 . 
 
 tellers on, 75, 7981 
 Division lobbies, So 
 
 FORESTER (Col. ), reforms on retirement of, 20 
 
 GIFFARD (Sir H.), incident connected with swearing-in, 35 
 Grand Committees, 104, 106 
 
 re-appointment prevented by the obstructionists, 1 14 
 
 HENLEY (Mr.), seat occupied by, in the House, 47 
 Home Rulers, ingenious conspiracy by, 62 
 House of Commons, 
 
 adjournments of, 35 
 
 asking questions, 92 
 
 best time to visit, 45 
 
 Clerk of, 24, 26, 33 
 
 contrasted with other assemblies, 22 
 
 Ladies' Gallery, ballot for places in, 48 
 
 long sittings, 83 
 
 members at bar of House of Lords, 25, 30, 37 
 
 private business, 49 
 
 quorum in, 85, 88, 105 
 
 religious service, 48 
 
 rules of, II, 46 ; new, 94 107 
 
 seats occupied by members. 47 
 no prescriptive right, 47 
 
 smallness of chamber, 44 
 
 swearing-in members, 33 
 House of Lords, 
 
 Commons at bar of, 25, 30, 37
 
 1 20 Index. 
 
 IRRELEVANCE or repetition in debate, 98, 1 10 
 
 KENEALY (Dr.), 74 
 
 Knollys (Gen.), Black Rod, 36, 37 ' 
 
 LADIES' Gallery, ballot for places, 48 
 Lords Commissioners, 25, 26, 31, 37 
 
 MEMBERS of House, 
 
 at bar of House of Lords, 25, 30, 37 
 "named" by Speaker, loo, 112 
 seats occupied by, 47 
 swearing-in, 33 
 
 no record kept, 33 
 when they may be alluded to by name, 56 
 
 NEWDEGATE (Mr. ), seat occupied by, in the House, 47 
 Notices of motion, 59 
 
 balloting for precedence, 60 
 
 OATH, Parliamentary, 32 
 
 resolution respecting members returned at bye-elections, 34 
 taken in alphabetical order of constituencies, 33 
 
 Obstruction, 94, in, 112 
 
 devolution the remedy for, 115 
 
 O'Donnell(Mr.), 108 
 
 O'Gorman (Major), 74 
 
 "Orders of the Day," 59, 96 
 
 PARLIAMENT, growth of power of, 1 1 
 meeting of new, 25, 30, 36 
 
 personal influence once exercised by Sovereign, 13 
 Roll of, 24, 32
 
 Index. 121 
 
 Parliamentary debate, fundamental principle of, 12 
 Parliamentary privileges, 15, 30, 32, 36, 39 
 Parliamentary rules, birth of, 1 1 
 
 new, 94 107 
 
 Parnell (Mr.) and obstruction, 109, HO 
 Prayers in the House, 48 
 Press and Parliament, 19, 2 1 
 
 standing orders of both Houses relating to, 1 8 
 Previous question, moving the, 71 
 Private Bills, 49, 58 
 
 best days for introducing, 65 
 Privilege, breaches of, 18 
 Procedure, reverence for rules of, 16, 22 
 
 new rules, 94 107 
 
 QUEEN'S Speech, 
 
 Address in reply to, 39, 41 
 Queen's answer, 42 
 
 reading of, 38 
 
 Questions asked in House, statistics concerning, 92 
 Quorum, non-existence of, 86, 88 
 
 REFORM needed in Parliamentary procedure, 89 
 Reporters, tardy recognition in the House, 20 
 Ritchie (Capt), 63 
 Roll of Parliament, 24, 32 
 Ronayne (Mr.), 78 
 Royal Commission, 38 
 Rules of House, II, 46 
 new, 94 107 
 
 ST. STEPHEN'S Club, electrical communication with House cut, 
 76
 
 122 Index. 
 
 Scully (Mr. Vincent), Bill "talked out" by, 85 
 Serjeant-at-Arms, 26, 29 
 
 Sovereign, personal influence on the action of Parliament for- 
 merly exercised by, 13 
 Speaker, casting vote of, 81 
 
 election of, 15, 28 
 
 mode of addressing, 56 
 
 putting the question, 79, 95 
 Special wires, 
 
 effect on Parliamentary procedure, 90 
 Speech-making, epidemic of, 91 
 Standing Committees, 104, 114 
 
 appointment of chairman, 106 
 
 quorum of, 105 
 Strangers' Gallery, 75 
 Supply, Committee of, 66, 67, 103, 112 
 Suspension of members, 100, 1 12 
 Swearing-in members, 33 
 
 TELLERS in divisions, 75, 79 81 
 Tests Abolition (Oxford) Bill (1864), 
 casting vote given by Speaker, 82 
 
 WARTON (Mr.), in 
 Whalley (Mr.), 74 
 Whips, Parliamentary, 75 
 
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