"The Press” In 1864

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30529, 26 August 1964, Page 16

"The Press” In 1864

AUGUST 26 FUTILE OPPOSITION Mr Maude is as eminently unsuitable as a leader of Opposition as he was as a leader of Government, for he manages to put his proposition into forms which it is impossible the House can accept, even if it were inclined to do so. There is something so absurd in the proposal to refuse to pass formal votes about which there is no difference of opinion, that no men of ordinary sense are likely to act otherwise than as the House did on Wednesday night—reject it by a large majority. May we be allowed, however, to remark that the

c ourse adopted by the Secretary, of making his financial motion on a motion to go into a Committee of Supply, is not quite right or conveni•jnt? The financial statement ought to be made to the Committee of : Supply, whose duty it is ’to deal with it—not to 'the House. In England, that statement is made in the Committee of Ways and Means, and either upon a formal motion winch is not likely to be debated, or on an important motion on which the debate is to be adjourned. There is a convenience in this course, because it affords an opportunity of allowing members to ask a great

many questions in explanation of the speech of the Finance Minister, and to receive answers on a variety of points, which cannot be done where the speech is made in the House on the motion “that the Speaker do leave the chair,” to which a member can of course only speak once. The objection of Messrs Moorhouse, Maude and Ollivier to the disintegration of the estimates, and to bringing them down separately and by different Ministers, is'only an instance of how extremely ill-informed those gentlemen are on the most elementary points connected with the forms of Parliament