NEW RULES OF PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE.

Evening Star, Issue 7495, 13 April 1888, Page 1

NEW RULES OF PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE.

The enormous waste of time and the delay of business which the present Standing Orders of the House of Representatives permit have induced the Government to propose amendments therein, which previously to the meeting of Parliament will, it is understood, be submitted to honorable members individually by circular. The most important of these amendments, of which we gave a brief sketch in our issue of yesterday, are evidently based on the " Rules of Procedure" proposed by Mr Gladstone in 1882, which, with certain not very material alterations, were adopted. More ample powers than even these rules give have since been conferred on the Speaker of the House of Commons, but there is [ no intention on the part of our Ministers to resort to the cloture, but simply to regulate the order of business so as to economise valuable time and enable proper attention to be paid to the more urgent affairs of the colony. There will probably be much difference of opinion as to the substitution of day sittings for midnight and the small hours, but the idea is at least well worthy of consideration, and there is much to be said in its favor, especially since Ministers, who would be the persons chiefly inconvenienced, believe it to be practicable. The late Mr Macandeew, a parliamentary veteran, always strongly advocated this change of hours; and the same opinion has been long held by other members of experience. The matter would seem to have been very carefully thought out, and every contingency provided for, in the proposals of the Government.

The reforms indicated in the direction of restricting the right of moving adjournments of the House and of limiting the duration of speeches touch on much more dangerous ground, in that they might appear to infringe that liberty of speech which is an essential element in parliamentary government The proposals of Mr Gladstone in respect to motions for adjournment were to thp following effect: —'• That no " motion for the adjournment of the "House shall be made except by " leave of the House before the Orders " of the Day or notices of motion have " been entered on," and " that when a " motion is made for the adjournment « of the debate or of the House during "any debate, or that the Chairman of "a Committee report progress or do " leave the Chair, the debate thereon "shall be strictly confined to the " matter of such motion; and no " member having spoken to any such " motion shall be entitled to move or "second any similar motion during " the same debate, or during the same "sitting of the Committee. *' The House debated the first of these rules quoted at great length, the upshot being that it was adopted with amendments, so that motions for adjournment before the Orders of the Day could be made in three cases only—when the House should be unanimously in favor of hearing the mover ; when the mover's request stating urgency should be supported by forty members; or when on the demand of ten members the question of leave should be determined in the affirmative on a division. The second rule cited was speedily disposed of, the only alteration being the omission of the word "strictly," which thus allowed a reasonable latitude for debate. It may be mentioned that these two rules, as originally drafted —not in the form adopted by the House of Commons—were recommended, in 1882, by the Standing Orders Committee of the House of Representatives to be adopted as Standing Rules and Orders of the House. It is, therefore, no new-fangled notion of the Premier to burke debate, as no doubt the Opposition, will be loud in asserting. In respect to limiting the duration of speeches, Ministers probably have again followed Mr Gladstone, who proposed "That Mr Speaker, or the "Chairman of a Committee (».&, of "the whole House, or of Ways and " Means, or Supply), may call the attention of the House or of the Com"mittee to continued irrelevance or "tedious repetitions on the part of "a member, and may direct the "member to discontinue his speech." The experience of last session certainly points to the necessity of some effective means being adopted to check the talking against time so frequently persisted in for mere purposes of obstruction. No Government can fairly be held responsible for carrying on business if sitting after sitting the time of the House is thus wasted and the patience of members literally exhausted. There will, without doubt, be found honorable gentlemen prepared to argue that proposals of this nature abridge the liberty and trench on the rights of the people through their representatives. All that they aim at is the abridgment of the license of unreasonable or unruly representatives. As matters stand in regard to adjournments, the majority are at the mercy of a garrulous minority. Seventy or eighty members, who come to the House to transact business, not to speak of Ministers themselves, have to wait until perhaps half a dozen talkative men have ventilated their petty grievances. In reference to the long rigmaroles of irrelevance and repetition with which the House is almost daily afflicted, will it not be a crowning mercy to have those honorable gentle* men whom Nature has armed with the weapon Samson used to smite the Philistines peremptorily shut up ?

It is not now suggested for the first time that, with great advantage, the whole system of putting questions to Ministers may be amended. An hour or two, sometimes a longer period, is daily expended in getting through the "questions" on the Order Paper. Ministers propose that the custom in some foreign legislatures should be adopted, avid rdi questions, with the Ministerial replies thereto, printed and circulated with the Order Papers. Under the existing Standing Orders, it is certainly strictly laid down that no member in putting a question to a Minister shall do more than simply explain what is the information he requires ; but practically the opportunity is often seized of speaking at some length, and this is seldom interfered with by the Speaker unless matter clearly debatable is introduced. Under the new arrangement question and answer would appear together, each in a well-considered and succinct, form, and time equal at the least to that of one whole sitting day would be saved every week.