MINISTERIAL REPORT AT THE OPENING OF EACH SESSION.
WE have shown how the House may best husband its time, and carry forward its labours by a judicious apportionment of them among its nu- merous members ; and how, by the application of an ordinary principle, in a regular, uniform, and constant manner, through the medium of a well-organized Board, instead of Commissions appointed on the spur of the moment, and each prosecuting, according to its own plans, in- quiries into some isolated department of legislative statistics, the House maycollect, arrange, and exhibit, in an intelligible and practical form, a mighty mass of materials on which to exercise its powers. There remains only one recommendation to make—Government must second the efforts of the House. The meagre generalities of the King's Speech have long been the subject of complaint and ridicule ; and the only excuse for their conti- nuance is the supposed necessity of a unanimous response from the Le- gislature to the Royal Message. We shall not stop to examine the value of this argument; but, allowing it all that its advocates can desire, there is no reason, even on the assumption that etiquette precludes the King from telling Parliament any thing that Parliament did not previously know, and from stating any proposition from which Parliament can by possibility dissent, that the various departments of the King's Govern- ment should rest content with a communication in which nothing is communicated.
We propose, therefore, that, with the King's Speech, there shall
• This would give each on an average about 20 Public and 30 Private Bills to ex- amine; that is, supposing the House to sit 150 days, 1 Bill for each 3 days of the Session.
come down to Parliament a Report, not for discussion, but informa- tion from each department of the State, setting forth the actual condi- tion of the department, and directing the attention of the House to those points in which its advice may be called for, as well as present- ing an outline of all legislative measures, in connexion with each de- partment, which circumstances will, in the course of the session, render necessary. In this way, the Nation will receive, at the beginning of the session, instead of the middle or end,-and as a well-considered report, not a loose and often unconnected speech,- THE FINANCIAL REPORT, Of BUDGET, from the Treasury ;
A REPORT ON HOME, OY FOREIGN, AND ON COLONIAL AFFAIRS, from the Home, Foreign, awl Colonial Offices respectively ;
A REPORT ON TRADE AND COMMERCE, from the Board of Trade ; ' A REPORT ON THE NAVY, from the Admiralty; A REPORT ON TnE ARMY, from the War Office.
Thus, at the commencement of every session, we shall have, on the one hand, a full and complete report on the state of the Nation, and the views and intentions of its Rulers; and, on the other, such a return of facts, on every subject to which legislation extends, as will enable the House to try the views of the Government, how far they are sound, and their intentions, how far they are practicable; and to carry them into effect, certainly, readily, and completely.
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