PUBLICITY OF PROCEEDINGS.
OF all checks to misconduct, and incitements to good behaviour, publicity is the most powerful. But the House of Commons has never sanctioned the promulgation of their proceedings, and only winks at the imperfect publicity they now receive.
All that is done by the House itself is, first to print, for the use of its members, what is called the VOTES, a sufficient specimen of which we have already given. This paper is printed daily—that is, each Parliamentary day. Once a week the JOURNALS of the House are printed. These contain the information given by the Vote-paper, only expressed in a more amplified phraseology, it is whimsical, that the Journals, after being thus printed, are written, to be rendered evidence. The House further prints Petitions, Returns, Reports of Committees, Bills, for the use of the members : but the officers are allowed a perquisite from print- ing a greater quantity than the members require, and selling the overplus to the public. The only substantial publicity which is given to the proceedings of Parliament is by REPORTING,—a practice now barely tolerated, not authorized, by the House. Hence the members do not admit the accuracy of the reports of their speeches, and disputes of an undignified and indecorous kind every now and then take place between the Members and the Press.
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