KILLING TIME.
WE have before alluded to a charge which has been brought against the new members of the House of Commons, and those who have found their way into it in consequence of the operation of the Reform Bill, of having taken up the time and wearied out the patience of the old men of business, by long speeches and needless motions. The folly and injustice of this accusation we took some pains to demonstrate ; and thought that we had exposed it pretty effectually, by means of a table, which proved to every one who could read figures, that in point of fact the new members had taken up very little of the time of the House. We proved, taking the Mirror of Parliament for our guide, that up to. the 14th of March the speeches made by the old members had been in the proportion of more than four to one in number to those made by the new ones, and that the space which they occupied in the columns of the Mirror was in the same proportion. It is quite clear that the " Parliamentary languor " of which the Chronicle, and after it the Globe, have been complaining very earnestly, is not produced "by the experimental motion-making with which certain new and unpractised members are eternally afflicting the House." Still, however, it is an undoubted fact that public business has been badly managed by our Representatives. But whom are we to blame for that? Is it the fault of the "brothers BULWER," whom the Chronicle especially holds up to reproof for hindering the progress of weighty matters, that the
England knows that nothing would have
House, is one of the grossest pieces of effrontery to be found in the records of political partisanship.
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