The Solicitor-General (Sir E. Clarke) made a strong speech on
Thursday in the Town Hall, Bermondsey, on the absolute necessity of reforming the Procedure of Parliament if the poli- tical institutions of this country were not to fall into hopeless 'disorder. He did not support strongly the Chancellor of the Exchequer's proposal to enable the House of Commons to close -debate when it pleased, though he said nothing against it, except that, even if passed, that would not be adequate. He -evidently wished to abolish the power now granted to obstruc- tives to discuss any out-of-the-way question of emergency if there were forty Members to support the motion, and he advocated the House of Commons' taking into its own hands the conduct of its -own business, and abolishing ballots for precedence altogether. Farther, he supported very strongly the proposal to take up in a subsequent Session the measures partially discussed in a previous Session, at the point at which the discussion of them was then dropped.
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