n first ouse on

confirm

Chapter Parliament. If the committee report that the order
XXXI.

ought to be confirmed, the bill, if amended, is ordered for
consideration or, if not amended, for third reading—and
is sent in due course to the second house.

If no hostile petition is presented-or if a petition be Procedure
presented but a motion for a joint committee is either hoh
not made or not carried 2—the confirming bill in the bills to
house in which it originates is deemed to have passed order on

which an the stage of committee. The order for its consideration in there is made immediately after its second reading (or after been held, any unsuccessful motion for a joint committee 3), and after joint com

mittee is being considered and read the third time the bill is sent to appointed. the second house.*

The procedure in the second house upon a bill to con- Procedure firm any order upon which an inquiry has been held may in

way house be very shortly stated. After being brought from the upon bills

to confirm house in which it originates, it is read the first time and order on second time. Between these two stages no such length of time need intervene as is necessary in the first house, been held. as it is not competent for parties to present a petition against an order when the confirming bill reaches the second house, nor, consequently, for a member to move that it should be referred to a joint committee. In the second house the stage of committee is deemed to have been passed in the case of every bill confirming any order on which an inquiry has been held.

If in the first house no motion for a joint committee has been carried, the bill in the second house, after being read a second time, is ordered to be considered as if reported by a committee, and proceeds to its third reading in the ordinary manner.?

If, on a motion made and carried in the first house, the bill has been referred to a joint committee, it is

Sec. 9 (2); 159 C. J. 290; 136
L. J. 239.

• 156 C. J. 231 ; 133 L. J. 249.

Sec. 9 (1); 94 Parl. Deb. 4 s. 537 (Secretary for Scotland).

deemed, when in the second house, to have passed the Chapter

XXXI. stage of committee;' and should it be a bill that has originated in the Lords, it is not only deemed, when in the Commons, to have passed the committee stage in the latter house, but, immediately after its second reading there, the order for the third reading is made.2

It may be noted that in the contingency just mentioned—that is to say, where a bill, for the confirmation of an order upon which there has been an inquiry, originates in the Lords and is there referred to a joint committee-no opportunity is provided for amending it (except verbally) during its subsequent passage through the Commons, the only stages through which it passes in the latter house being those of first, second, and third reading. 8

CHAPTER XXXII.

Chapter ΧΧΧΙΙ. Table of Contents. See Intro duction.

LOCAL AND PERSONAL, AND PRIVATE, ACTS OF PARLIAMENT.

dod

cal

etion

AFTER they have received the royal assent, private bills Private

bills, when are divided into three classes of Acts: (1) Local and passed, personal, declared public; (2) Private, printed by the

into three King's printers; and (3) Private, not printed.

classes of

Acts. (1) With the exception of any Inclosure, or Inclosure and (1) Lo Drainage Acts, all the bills which by standing order No. 1 and per.

sonal Acts. (of both houses) are divided into the two classes so frequently referred to, are included, when passed, in the category of local and personal Acts. Until 1798 such Printed in

na a separate Acts were printed with the other statutes of the year, and col. were not distinguishable from public Acts except by the which now

also incharacter of their enactments; but since 1798 they have cludes

Public been distinguished and printed in the separate collection Acts of a known as “Local and Personal Acts.” And since 1868, as already mentioned (supra, p. 685), a considerable class of Acts, previously included in the collection of public general Acts, have also been printed among the local and personal Acts. They are Acts which, though passed as public bills, are local in their character, and Acts for the confirmation of Provisional Orders and of Orders under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act.4

Acts.

Declared Every local and personal Act passed before the year Chapter to be

XXXII public

1851 contained a clause declaring that it “shall be a _
public Act, and shall be judicially taken notice of as
such."! But by Lord Brougham's Act of 1850, for
shortening the language of Acts of Parliament, the inser-
tion of this “public” or “evidence" clause in every
local and personal Act was rendered unnecessary by a
general enactment, which is now contained in the Inter-
pretation Act of 1889, and which declares that every Act,
unless it contains an express provision to the contrary,
shall be a public Act and shall be judicially taken notice

of as such.
(2) Private (2) From 1798 to 1815 the private Acts, not declared
Acts,
printed. public, were not printed by the King's printers, and could

only be given in evidence by obtaining authenticated copies
from the statute rolls in the Parliament Office. But since
1815, the greater part of such private Acts have been
printed by the King's printers, and have contained a clause
declaring that a copy so printed “shall be admitted as
evidence thereof by all judges, justices, and others ;” and
since 1851 this "evidence clause " has been retained, with
the addition of an enactment that the “Act shall not be
deemed a public Act.” These Acts consist almost ex-
clusively of Estate Acts and of any Inclosure, or Inclosure
and Drainage, Acts.

Chapter
XXXII.

(3) The last class of Acts are those which still remain (3) Private

Acts, not unprinted: they consist of name, naturalization, divorce, printed. and other strictly personal Acts.?