Why should not all questions be put on private Members'
nights P The practice would be a capital test of the sincerity of obstractives, while serious questions could be answered just as fully. As it is, the Government loses four hours of its limited time in answering questions, most of which are only invented in order to delay business, while the Members care so little for their nights, that they constantly allow the House to be counted out. It was counted out on Tuesday, for the eighth time this Session, after a debate on Mr. Errington's "Mission," raised to create a false prejudice that Mr. Gladstone was trafficking with Rome; and a speech from Sir J. McKenna on Irish taxa- tion, which so bored everybody that he was not allowed to finish. The time would be much more usefully employed in answering questions which, as they would not help to exhaust "the Glad- stone period," would be fewer, more brief, and confined to sub- jects of some possible importance. At present, the Irish Members are quite capable of spending an hour in asking whether Sir E. Thornton speaks with the Euglish or Irish accent in Washington, and whether he ought not to be instructed to use both.
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