The Select Committee of the House of Commons on the
business rules has made its Report, the main suggestions of which are two,—first, that the Speaker may propose that an Obstructive whom he has found it necessary to 44 name " shall, after being heard for ten minutes, be, in the discretion of the House, suspended for that sitting ; and secondly, that whenever a motion to adjourn, or report progress, or that the Speaker leave the Chair, is made by less than twenty Members, there shall be no division. The Speaker is to
call up the Members and count them, instead. This plan, which is akin to the French plan of voting "by rising and sitting," will save much time, and seems a good one, but the suspension is of no use. It will take the Speaker a whole night to suspend forty Members, and all the Home-rulers will dispute his decisions, and compel him to name them one after another. Expulsion, followed, if necessary, by a disqualifying Bill, must be the ultimate cure for deliberate obstruction.
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