On Wednesday afternoon Mr. Asquith moved the first two of
the much-discussed amendments to the Standing Orders. The first empowers the Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means to accept a Motion for the Closure whenever he is in the chair. The amendment having been carried by 199 votes to 75, Mr. Asquith moved that when a Motion for the Closure on a clause, or part of a clause, was made, the Chair- man should have power to reserve amendments for consideration before the Closure was enforced. This power of selection, he argued, was not even an innovation ; it merely regularised pro- cedure already sanctioned. Mr. Balfour described the proposal as a plan. to put the House under martial law, and held that it imposed obligations on the Chairman and Deputy-Chairman irreconcilable with their party. attachments. The Liberals who supported the proposal, including Mr. Harold Cox, did so on the ground that it was a great improvement on the " guillo- tine " ; but Mr. Ramsay Macdonald insisted that, as a corollary, the status of the Chairman and Deputy-Chairman should be rendered independent of parties. An amendment to exclude the Committee stage of the Finance Bill from the scope of the Resolution having been rejected, the Resolution was agreed to after. Mr. Asquith had again expressed his desire for the appointment of a Committee of Business on which non-official Members should preponderate in number.
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