The sitting from 5 o'clock up till midnight on Tuesday
was
almost entirely consumed by the protests of champions of the liberty of debate against the proposed time-limit in the new Question Rule, though Mr. Balfour was able to show that the average time occupied under the existing system was less than that now proposed.—It may be noted that Mr. Bryce and Mr. Sydney Buxton were the only members of the Opposition Front Bench who took part in the debate.—After Mr. Balfour had made concessions in regard to the time-limit for the handing in of questions, and sacrificed the paragraph im- posing the duty of arranging the order of the questions on the officials of the House, the rule as amended was put as a whole at 1 a.m., but owing to the uncompromising attitude of the Nationalist Members the sitting was prolonged till 5.30 am., when the House adjourned. The adjourn- ment of the debate, moved by Mr. Bryce, was debated for an hour and a half, and in all ten divisions were taken before the House adjourned on the Motion of Mr. Balfour, a Motion resisted by the same Nationalists who were so anxious to go home four hours earlier. On the resumption of the debate on Thursday the rule dealing with the allotting of time to private business and other minor rules were debated, Major Rasch's proposal that no one should be allowed to speak on a private Bill for more than ten minutes being defeated by 270 to 94. During the debate Mr. Balfour made the important announcement that be was going to ask the House to appoint a Committee to inquire into the whole question of Private Bill procedure, with a view to facilitating their release from this burden, and stated that he looked forward to the time when this particular work might well be delegated to some machinery outside the House.
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