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In order to the due examination of Local Bills and increasing the facilities for passing such Bills, your Committee submit the following proposals : — (1.) That at the commencement of every session a Local Bills Committee, consisting of ten members, be appointed, to whom all Local Bills shall stand referred after their first reading, —the Committee to report whether the Standing Orders have been complied with, and to suggest such amendments as they may think proper, and to report when necessary upon the merits of the Bill. (2.) Local Bills reported on by the Local Bills Committee shall be set down for second reading on the following Thursday, on which day Orders relating to private members' Local Bills shall have precedence of Notices of Motion. If the House approve of allowing Orders relating to Local Bills to have precedence on Thursdays, Standing Order No. 81 will have to be altered, and a new Order framed as regards Thursdays. Proposed New Standing Orders. 81. Notices of Motion take precedence of Orders of the Day on Wednesdays, unless the House shall have otherwise directed. 81a. Orders of the Day relating to Local Bills take precedence of Notices of Motion on Thursdays, but all other Orders of the Day shall be set down on that day after Notices of Motion. Procedure of the House. The Committee recommend the following alterations in the procedure of the House:— (a.) That, with the exception of Ministers, and the Chairman cf Committees as regards sessional notices, a member on rising to give a notice shall be restricted to giving one notice until other members shall each have had an opportunity of giving one notice. (b.) That, with a view to limiting the continuance of Notices of Motion on the Order Paper, all notices which have not been dealt with within four weeks from their appearance on the Order Paper shall be struck off the Paper, subject always to the right of renewal. (c.) That in future Standing Order No. 178, which prescribes the minimum and maximum of the number of members to compose a Committee and the quorum thereof, be strictly enforced, and no deviation therefrom allowed, unless by a suspension of that Order. G. Maurice O'Roeke, 9th December, 1879. Chairman. By Authority: Geokge Didsbcky, Government Printer, Wellington.—lB79. Price 3d.]