Trade to compel the metropolitan water companies to provide a constant supply of pure water at such a pressure that it may reach the top storeys of the highest houses in the several districts of the companies.

The survey here attempted is far from complete; and it makes no pretensions to legal accuracy. Many subjects have been omitted altogether because of their technical character, and only those statutes which may be considered as types of modern legislation have been selected for notice.

CHAPTER VIII.

CONDUCT OF BUSINESS DURING THE SESSION.

THE reader who has had the patience to peruse the foregoing epitome will have means of judging whether the time of Parliament has been spent unprofitably in 1871.

The statement that the session has been unfruitful is absolutely untrue. The number of Acts passed, the variety of their purposes, and the magnitude of the interests with which they deal, are evident proofs that the activity of Parliament has not abated, but much increased. The great measure which provides the necessary means for reorganising the Army may certainly be compared for importance with even those monuments of the two previous sessions-the Irish Church Act and the Irish Land Act. The defence of the whole country depends on the choice of competent military officers, and it is no small matter, that, with the full assent of the nation, an iniquitous system of trafficking in offices of the highest responsibility has been abolished.

Every one of the Bills to which the Queen referred in her Speech at the beginning of the session was introduced into Parliament. The Universities Tests Act has given to the great seats of learning the boon of religious liberty, while it studiously requires the continued use of the English liturgy for the benefit of members of the Church. The legislation respecting trades unions has secured those associations a due pro

tection of their funds, and at the same time has imposed a severe check upon trade outrages. The Judicial Committee Act provides for the first time a regular staff of judges to hear appeals in colonial and ecclesiastical causes. The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, the value of which is indicated by the fact that it has never once been put into operation, has been repealed. An important part of the comprehensive scheme for readjusting local rates has been carried into effect by the Act which constitutes the new department of local government. With respect to the sale of intoxicating liquors, Parliament has taken the necessary preliminary step of restraining the creation of new vested interests, and the discussion upon the Licensing Bill will materially facilitate future legislation. The same remark applies to the Scotch Education Bill, and with increased force to the Ballot Bill. The prolonged and minute discussions on every clause have served to eliminate a vast number of disputed points. The greater part of the controversies respecting the mode of voting are virtually settled. Consequently it may be anticipated that the progress of the Bill next session will be rapid; and, as the House of Lords does not usually reject more than once a measure which has passed the House of Commons, it is probable that the old constitutional method of anonymous voting will be re-established next year. Of the nine subjects of legislation comprised in the Ministerial programme, four have been dealt with entirely, two others have been dealt with partially, and with respect to the remaining three considerable progress has been made by means of parliamentary discussion.

It has been sometimes affirmed that if the Government had been contented with a smaller programme, they might have accomplished more-that a large part of the session was fruitlessly occupied in the discussion of

measures which were ultimately abandoned or rejected. But the objectors do not condescend to be definite. They do not venture to point to any Bill in particular -the Ballot Bill, for example-and to assert that the debates upon it have not cleared the way to future legislation.

The objection comes with especially bad grace from those who either aided and abetted, or at least did not openly rebuke, the obstructives, by whom the House of Commons was set at defiance during a great part of the session. The waste of time was principally caused by that insolent abuse of the forms of procedure to which the obstreperous faction had recourse to delay the Army Bill and Ballot Bill. It is absolutely incredible that the House of Commons will again suffer itself to be overpowered by a few noisy but otherwise obscure members. Every court of justice and tribunal in the kingdom is armed with power to enforce order, but the supreme representative assembly has fettered. itself by rules which almost invite disorder.

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A select committee appointed to consider the best means of promoting the despatch of public business in the House' made a timid report in March which deals very inadequately with the subject. The chief opportunities of impeding public business are motions on going into committee of supply and motions of adjournment. There were in 1871 seventeen divisions on going into committee of supply, all of them upon subjects not connected with supply. Members took this opportunity of discussing and dividing upon such topics as the new Code for elementary education, Convents, Epping Forest, Irish railways, Lotteries, the MartiniHenry rifle, Approaches to the House, Railways to India, and Foreign Decorations.

The motion for going into committee of supply affords scope for a general survey of the universe. The

discursive talk goes on hour after hour without any limit or restraint except that imposed by the discretion of the talkers. Would any other debating assembly in the world tolerate such licence? The practice of allowing infinite discourse before supply is founded on the principle that grievances are to be considered before supply. That grand old principle was, in the days of the Stuarts, the most potent means of asserting constitutional rights. But at present the rule which gives precedence to grievances has been so absurdly distorted that it is a mere caricature. It has lost its old significance. It is simply a means of gratifying the vanity of the talkers, and of hindering urgent public business.

Another similar abuse is the practice of repeatedly moving adjournments. Some lingering sense of decency has hitherto restrained the use of this obstructive process; but in the last session it was applied with impudent frequency. There were twelve divisions on motions that the House do adjourn, twenty on motions that the debate be adjourned, and seventeen on motions in committee that the chairman report progress or leave the chair. To those who know anything of the usage of Parliament, these figures tell their own tale. They represent a long weary struggle of the overworked Ministers and the wearied House to get through its appointed labours in the face of remorseless opposition. The amount of fatigue endured was almost without precedent. The session of 1870 was considered very laborious, but that of 1871 was far more laborious. The period occupied was longer, the sittings were longer and more numerous, and the divisions were more frequent. Whatever the faults of the House of Commons and of the Cabinet may be, certainly idleness is not to be reckoned among them.

A policy such as that pursued by the present Government must of necessity provoke the opposition of hosts

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