ducted during the small hours of the morning, when the few members attending are weary, sleepy, and inattentive, and when all decent people ought to be in their beds. There is no insurmountable obstacle of any kind to prevent the House meeting at noon, and separating at such an hour as to put an end to the during dinner and after dinner performances.

Some enthusiastic but not very well-informed or considerate people have been writing lately in favour of increasing indefinitely the length of the sessions. This would be the worst plan of all. If the House met every year early in January, and sat, with, say, a fortnight's holiday in May, until the end of July, or seven months in the year, it would spend as long as, if not a longer time than, any other legislative body; and to impose any serious extension of such a period on fagged and wearied members would not be conducive to wise and beneficent legislation.

Whilst it would be most undesirable to prolong the period during which the House is in session, the constituencies have a right to expect that no portion of that period should be wasted as it is now. Tuesdays and Fridays are set aside as private members' nights, and the order of precedence is balloted for a month before. The House, as a body, is not consulted as to the subjects to be discussed; that is left entirely to the chance of the ballot-box; and when an uninteresting or disagreeable topic, or an unpopular member, obtains in this haphazard manner the first place, the consequence very often is a count out during the dinner-hour and the loss of an entire evening. There is a variety of matters of importance and of great interest in the eyes of the public which ought to be debated, but many of them are shut out by the operation of a plan which gives an equal opportunity to nostrums and hobbies about which the nation cares not a On Wednesdays, Bills brought in by private members are considered, and the order in which they are taken is fixed in a similar manner by lot, so that many of these days are simply wasted in discussing measures of the least possible importance, whilst others, loudly called for by the constituencies, are shelved for the year by the unfortunate result of one day's ballot. Thus three days in the week may be, and sometimes are, lost for the purposes of useful legislation. Why should not the general sense of the House be taken in regard to what motions and what Bills should have precedence? The country is scarcely aware of the number of hours wasted in dehating matters of little practical value. No doubt it is desirable

straw.

that private members should be enabled to bring forward their proposals, but it would be far better to give up to the Government a part of the time at present allotted to them, rather than have it frittered away as it is under the existing arrangement.

It would tend very much to expedite public business if Govern

ment would announce fewer Bills at the commencement of each session, and only bring in others when considerable progress has been made with those of primary importance, at the same time resolutely setting their face against all attempts to make them reveal their subsequent intentions or to force their hand. A surprising number of precious minutes is annually wasted in fishing interrogatories of this kind, and motions having a similar object on going into Committee of Supply.

There has recently been developed a new kind of obstruction of a somewhat refined and perplexing nature, with which it is not very easy to deal, but which threatens to prove a serious obstacle in the path of any Administration desirous of giving effect to the popular mind in their legislative programme. Gentlemen who do not see the extreme danger of playing pranks with Parliament, and thus thwarting the popular desire for certain reforms, have begun to talk against time on Bills and motions preceding, among the orders of the day and in the notices, those which they desire to stop. Of course, under the New Rules of Procedure adopted last year, the Speaker or the Chairman of Committees, as the case may be, would be entitled when this intention was avowed, or when it was too clumsily concealed not to be apparent to everyone, to interfere aud stop the discussion; but it is quite possible to conduct the operation in such a deft and delicate manner as to baffle the best efforts of the presiding officer, at all events until much mischief has been done.

In the cause of decency and order it was very proper to invest him, as was done last November, with additional powers, and all the proceedings then adopted were in a right direction, with a view of restraining, not liberty, but undue license of debate, and giving time for that legislation which the country demands; but it has long been my opinion that much more drastic steps will require to be taken, and that many more years cannot be allowed to elapse without an entire re-arrangement of the business of the House, so as to make it more of a legislative machine and less of a debating society. Many of us advocated the Closure long before it came prominently into notice: it is a power which is possessed by most assemblies, and ought to be possessed by all; but the great evil of which we complain at present, is not the inordinate length of debates, but the excessive number of opportunities given to vain men, and bores, and obstructives, to stop the business of the nation; and most reformers will soon find out the truth of an observation of mine made in the course of the Closure debate, and much jeered at at the time by the opponents of Her Majesty's Government, that the New Rules were of a very mild character indeed.

Nothing can be more unsatisfactory than the present procedure with respect to the principal measures of the Session, which, instead

of being discussed continuously on their various stages, are put down for a Monday, resumed on the Thursday, perhaps on the Monday afterwards, perhaps not for a fortnight or three weeks, the House meantime being engaged in listening to orations from bores, or debating Bills believed in only by the gentlemen whose names are on their backs, sometimes not even by all of them.

As a consequence of the very unsatisfactory manner in which the business of the House of Commons has been conducted for a series of sessions, the absence of any considerable progress in passing measures desired by the people, the substitution of debates on Ireland for legislation for Great Britain, and the general squandering of time, it is expected that the next general election will witness a greater change in the personnel than has taken place during this century. No one need be surprised that many members interested in social and political reforms, and anxious to see Bills passed to meet the changing wants of the people at large, should feel disinclined to spend so much of their time in an assembly which seems, to a great extent, to have lost its power of doing work, and in other respects to have fallen from its high position of influence and dignity.

It would tend greatly towards the more rapid and efficient conduct of public business if the members of the House of Commons were reduced, and great would be the gratitude which the country at large ought to feel towards any Government which had the courage to make such a proposal in connection with the re-distribution of seats. It used to be said of the Commons that there was safety in a mob under competent leaders, but of late years the rank and file are not so ignorant and careless as they used to be. Most of them now attend assiduously in their places, think for themselves, and want to speak, and their very numbers impede the work which they are sent there to perform. It is not in the least necessary when small boroughs are disfranchised to bestow their members upon other constituencies; the little villages in Ireland, for example, which have separate representatives, should be thrown into the counties, and the same course ought to be taken with many places, nearly if not quite as insignificant, in the South of England. There could not be the slightest difficulty in thus bringing down the number to 500 or even 450, and in my view that would constitute a much more manageable, workmanlike, and, in all probability, efficient and respected House of Parliament.

It is hoped and believed that the institution of Grand Committees will go a long way towards restoring the working power of the House of Commons, and enabling it to overtake some portion of that legislation which has been so long neglected, but the magnitude of the arrears is too great to be removed by a single beneficial change. This is the fourth session of the present Parliament, and as yet only

the fringe has been touched of the programme announced by Mr. Gladstone as the exponent of the nation's mind; and if we are to go on at this rate, it will take many years and many Parliaments to carry it out in its entirety. It must furthermore be kept in mind that most of the Bills recently so stoutly obstructed have not been of a political character. What amount of opposition and delay may we expect to measures affecting the representation of the people? The running with footmen has wearied us, how shall we contend with horsemen? If we have found commercial and agricultural subjects anything but "a land of peace," is it not likely that the re-distribution of seats will prove the "swelling of Jordan?"

Of course, after the work of the autumn session, there is a natural disinclination to reopen questions of procedure in the meantime and until it is seen what, if any, practical effect has been produced by the changes then made; but there are those who have long thought that the disease lies deeper than can be reached by the medicine lately prescribed, and that as time goes on, and the multiplying wants of a community of such varied interests as ours demand a prompter response to the will of the people, it will be found necessary, having regard to the foregoing premises, to make greater alterations in the mode of conducting the business of the House of Commons.

WILLIAM EDWARD BAXter.

THE OXFORD MOVEMENT OF 1833.

A

WISH has been expressed that, as one of those who took part in the well-known movement of 1833, I should place on record my own reminiscences of its commencement. Unwilling as I am to obtrude upon notice a name which possesses little claim to attention, I yet could not resolve to refuse compliance with a suggestion which might possibly have some better result than the gratification of curiosity; and it seemed, too, that there would be less difficulty than formerly in complying with such a wish, because few indeed are left who can now be affected for good or ill by what may be said. The originators of that movement, with the exception of Cardinal Newman and myself, are no more. Even the disciples of the former have been outlived by their far-famed master. Thus I have to speak on a subject which can at present awaken few susceptibilities in the church of which I have the honour to be a member. I think that in treating of the subject under consideration nothing will escape me which may cause pain to any one now living, or involve the necessity of controversy. Opinions must necessarily be expressed on various points which will not coincide with those which may be entertained by some of my readers; but opinions are free, and in expressing my own I lay no claim whatever to infallibility.

In these days a new generation has arisen-the sons and grandsons of those who were in their prime in 1833. They see the Church of England as it now is; but few men living have before their mind's eye the condition of the Church half a century since. I have thought that, looking to the times which may be before us-to the dangers, the trials, the sorrows perhaps, which the Church may have to encounter, it may be well that the voice of experience should remind +hose whose lot may be cast in troublous times, of trials which happened