THE SECOND HALF OF THE SESSION.
The progress of legislative work since the reassembling of Parliament after the Whitsuntide recess can hardly be satisfactory to those who had hopefully expected that the present session would have been prolific in useful legislation. Week has followed week, and the time allotted to "private members" has been again and again curtailed, and yet, in spite of altered rules, ministerial appeals, and the not infrequent application of the "Closure," the parliamentary machine continues to move slowly and heavily, and once more it appears that, in order to enable Ministers to terminate the session within a reasonable time, resort must be had to the unwelcome process of an autumn session; and even so the present year will witness, though in a lesser degree, a repetition of the failure of performance which has disappointed the parliamentary promise of so many sessions in the past. It would be hard indeed if the Government were to be blamed for this untoward position of affairs. It may of course be alleged that they have undertaken more business than could well have been accomplished within the seven months which are usually allotted to the sittings of Parliament; and there will be doubtless urged against them all those charges of mismanagement and miscalculation which it is the natural function of an Opposition to use as legitimate weapons with which to attack their opponents upon the Treasury bench. But those who, sensible of the mischief which alike attends hurried legislation and the neglect of popular wants, endeavour to form an impartial judgment upon the causes which have produced these results, will be inclined to apportion such blame as may be fairly imputed between the Government and the Opposition, and further to inquire whether, after all, it may not be our system of parliamentary government which is mainly the cause of the continual legislative disappointments which are the subject of our complaints. The real truth is, that we are paying the price of the improved representative system which we enjoy. In old ante-Reform times men were returned to Parliament for various reasons and for different qualifications. In the present day, whatever other qualifications he may possess, a member of the House of Commons must be more or less able to make a speech, and to captivate the ears of the democratic constituencies which return our legislators to Parliament. As most of the latter imagine themselves to be possessed of this particular qualification in a greater rather than a less degree, and as the constituencies expect their representatives to display in Parliament the oratorical gifts which have won their own sweet suffrages, it follows that the number of orators within the House of Commons has become indefinitely multiplied, and the length of speeches and of debates enormously increased. It is not our province to indicate the remedy at the present moment; but it is easy to see that where 670 persons have to transact business, each of whom has a right to speak, if he pleases, every day, and upon every subject, and the greater
