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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9435, 5 August 1889, Page 4

Tub questions involved in the new course of procedure initiated by Major Hamlin, as Chairman of Committees, are more serious than appeared at first. The standing orders only provide two questions that can be put by the Chairman of Committees beyond the subject directly under consideration. The one is that he report progress and ask leave to sit again ; the other that lie leave the chair. In the former case the Speaker resumes, the Chairman then reports to him what the committee has clone, and the Speaker proceeds with other business, or adjourns the House on motion being made. In the second case the Chairman merely reports to the Speaker that he has been ordered to leave the chair. The Bill under discussion is killed for the time, and can only be brought-up by beginning de novo and going through nil, the past stages. But. the Chairman of Committees has always been allowed of his own will to leave the chair for the usual adjournments for dinner or refreshment. He merely announces his intention to resume at a certain hour. During the stonewalling lie took it on himself to adjourn for twenty-four hours at a time. His right to do this has been questioned. Had he adjourned in the usual course the Speaker must have resumed the chair and adjourned the House. The next sitting would then have begun a new day; petitions could have been presented and questions as-ked. But the stonewallers would also have been able to oppose vigorously the Representation Bill again going into committee. All this, however, was avoided by the unusual course adopted by the Chairman, who thus laid himself open to the charge, no doubt groundless, of unduly favouring Ministers in their tactics to force the Bill through committee. The course which he took was full of danger as a precedent, and ought not to be allowed to become one. If lie was able to adjourn on his own motion for twenty-four hours, he could do so for a longer period, and might continue, even in Committee of Supply, without reporting progress to the House; members would"thus be deprived of their constitutional and almost only opportunity to seek redress of public or private grievances. Much indignation was expressed by many members, but the chairman was supported by the Government and a majority. The Speaker always refuses to listen to any complaints of what is (lone in committee, unless referred to him by the committee itself. The only mode, therefore, of bringing the subject before him is by a motion, of which due notice must be given. This means that the notice would stand on the Order Paper, going lower down daily, and be practically of no value. The point, however, is of such importance that we trust means will be found to prevent its becoming a dangerous precedent, as it ovidently is now.