In reply to Mr. Rathbone, yesterday week, Mr. Gladstone made
a formal statement in the House of Commons that "he could not hesitate to say, with increasing strength of convic- tion, derived from weeks' and months' experience, that the question of the organisation of the arrangements of the House in such a way as to restore it,—for he must use that expression, —to its full efficiency, had become one of the first order, not only in point of magnitude, but in point of claim for preced- ence ;" and- it is fully understood that if there is no reason before then for departing from the programme, the reorganisa- tion of the Standing Orders will be made one of the first duties of Government for the next Session. It is generally believed that there is an influential party in the Cabinet for introducing the agency of Grand Committees, to some extent nationally classified, for the purpose of relieving the House of labour, and the idea probably is that this may serve as a reasonable conces- sion to the Home-rule principle. Of course any suggestion, if deliberately adopted by the Cabinet, will be considered and canvassed with great respect by the Liberals of this country ; but, for reasons which we have elsewhere indicated, we cannot at present believe in the efficacy of these Grand Committees ; we think that they would not materially affect—unless, indeed, they seriously aggravated — the difficulties of the present situation.
