LORD REDESDALE'S 25TH OF JULY.
Tim inextinguishable faculty of hope is miraculously exemplified by Lord Aberdeen's having some expectation of results from Lord Redesdale's resolution, that no bill shall be read a second time in the House of Lords after the 25th of July, with certain exceptions. Lord Redesdale "thinks that the resolution will expedite the pro- gress of public bills " • and in spite of fifty years' experience as to the fruitlessness of attempts i empts n the same direction, Lord Aberdeen, "though not sanguine," does think "that. it might produce some- thing" to remedy the evil! It is the -same story over again, to which we are treated almost every session. About Easter, their Lordships, like the Commons, begin to weary of their work, and to sigh for "an early close of the, session " ; hints then arise that Peers and Members will put their shoulders to the wheel and wind up business in July. May comes—Ame—july; and it is at last with a hasty effort, aided by "the massacre of the innocents," that work is brought to a termination late in August. Govern- ment takes more nights; injunctions fall from experienced states- men against long speeches and set debates—and there have really been improvements in that particular ; but yet we always find the House of Lords driven to gallop over bills in the last weeks of the session, and some important measures are handed over to that workman who never arrives—next year. Parliament sits again ; the bills are discussed again; and again it turns out that they can- not be passed "at this late period of the session." The grounds of Lord Redesdale's expectation are not sufficient : private bills have been expedited by an arbitrary rule of the kind ; but then it should be remembered that the promoters of private bills are subject to Parliathent—are at the mercy of either House, and are not a coordinate jurisdiction. The House of Commons is very likely to resent any such strict requirement on, the part of the Lords; and perhaps the feeling which will be roused by Lord Redesdale's resolutions could not be better expressed than if Mr. Thomas Dunoombe were to move a resolution in reply—That the House of Lords may go to Bath.
The resolution demands an impossibility. The House of Com- mons cannot go through the work, for the twofold reason that the work is too much to be done within the time, and that the method of executing it prevents expedition. Every measure in the Com- mons must go through seven stages at least, and the stages may be increased to eight or nine. One of the stages may be sub- divided into many ; and every Member, by the growing usage of the House, considers himself at liberty to discuss every point, not 'only once but several times over. " Freedom of discussion," it is called; and as the House of Commons has to transact the local business of every county and parish in the kingdom, besides its proper imperial business, evidently the hun- dreds of bills which come before it in a session cannot be discussed, reconstructed, and finished off, within the comparatively short space of six or seven months. Parliament will never escape "this late period of the session," until parishes and counties be permitted to retain their own proper business, and until a better intelli- gence amongst private Members enable them to know their places, and to put some kind of wholesome restraint upon their tongues, as well as make a distinction between freedom to debate and an habitual indulgence in the intoxication of prolixity.
In the mean time however, the most effectual check upon the dilatoriness at which Lord Redesdale is striking is to be expected from Ministers. The private business and the business of private Members may be left to shift for themselves; but those measures which protract a session—which compel the attendance of Parlia- ment until they are finished—are the more important bills, with which in the main the existence of the Ministry, is identified. The first step towards getting them pressed forward, is to divide
them well between the two Houses; and yet how little improve- ment in that respect is observed in the present session ! The second is, to permit no trifling with the details of measures—that fertile source of delay. Want of purpose in Ministers, or want of firmness, sometimes takes the guise of an overstrained candour, and invites the efforts of Members in general to keep back a measure for the purpose of introducing " improvements." The fact is, that a Ministerial measure can seldom be improved by the Members at large : they have not possession of the requisite information at the time ; they have not the set- tled and concentrated purpose which ought to reside in the Cabinet ; they are themselves distracted by great diversities of view, which neutralize each other; and they oftener succeed in mutilating, enfeebling, or entangling a measure, than in doing it any service. A Ministry which has the ability to secure a strong position, and which knows its power, should feel that it has a duty in exercising that power for the public advantage, and should steadily refuse to admit that tampering with details which is a growing fashion. If the present Government had acted with greater firmness, we should not have seen the irresponsible majority of the Commons getting a clause of the Oxford University Bill into a Gordian entanglement, which almost required some Alex- ander to cut it,—Alexanders being precisely the commodity most deficient in our days. While the system remains unaltered in its essentials, the Government must be considered answerable for the delays ; and if the Queen desires to escape to the sea-side or High- land delights of summer, she must look to her Cabinet, and not to Lord Redesdale or the Speaker, to tell her the reason why she cannot get away from London before the middle of July.
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