to whom others are sometimes added. It is then brought in and read a first time, and a day is fixed for the second reading, which generally leaves a sufficient interval for the printing and circulation of the bill.

It has been already said that the second reading is the occasion on which a bill is more particularly discussed. Its principle is at that time made the subject of discussion, and if it meet with approval, the bill is committed, either to a committee of the whole house or to a select committee, to consider its several provisions in detail. A committee of the whole house is in fact the house itself, in the absence of the Speaker from the chair; but the rule which allows members to speak as often as they think fit, instead of restricting them to a single speech, as at other times, affords great facilities for the careful examination and full discussion of details. The practice of referring bills of an intricate and technical description to select committees has become very prevalent of late years, and might be extended with advantage. Many bills are understood by a few members only, whose observations are listened to with impatience, and thus valuable suggestions are often withheld in the house, which in a committee might be embodied in the bill. By leaving such bills to a select committee, the house is enabled to attend to measures more generally interesting, while other business, of perhaps equal importance, is proceeding at the same time; and it has always the opportunity of revising amendments introduced by the committee.

into consideration. After the report has been agreed to, the bill with the amendments is ordered to be engrossed previous to the third reading. A proposition was made not long since, but without success, for discontinuing the custom of engrossment upon parchment, and for using an examined copy of the printed bill, signed by the clerk of the house, for all the purposes for which the engrossed copy is now required.

The third reading is a stage of great importance, on which the entire measure is reviewed, and the house determines whether, after the amendments that have been made on previous stages, it is fit on the whole to pass and become law. The question, "that this bill do pass," which immediately succeeds the third reading, is usually no more than a form, but there have been occasions on which that question has been opposed, and even negatived. The title of the bill is settled last of all.

An interval of some days usually elapses between each of the principal stages of a bill; but when there is any particular cause for haste, and there is no opposition, these delays are dispensed with, and the bill is allowed to pass through several stages, and occasionally through all, on the same day.

This statement of the progress of bills applies equally to both houses of parliament. There is however a slight distine tion in the title of a bill while pending in the lords, which is always entitled "an act," whether it has originated in the lords or has been brought up from the

commons.

When the commons have passed a bill, they send it to the lords by one of their own members, who is usually accompanied by not less than eight other members. The lords send down bills by two masters in chancery; unless they relate to the crown or the royal family, in which case they are generally sent by two judges.

MENT.

Private Bills. In deliberating upon private bills parliament may be considered as acting judicially as well as in its legislative capacity. The conflicting in

terests of private parties, the rights of individuals, and the protection of the public have to be reconciled. Care must be taken, in furthering an apparently useful object, that injustice be not done to individuals, although the public may derive advantage from it. Vigilance and caution should be exercised lest parties professing to have the public interests in view should be establishing, under the protection of a statute, an injurious monopoly. The rights of landowners among themselves, and of the poor, must be scrutinised in passing an enclosure bill. Every description of interest is affected by the making of a railway. Land, houses, parks, and pleasure-grounds are sacrificed to the superior claim of public utility over private rights. The repugnance of some proprietors to permit the line to approach their estates-the eagerness of others to share in the bounty of the company and to receive treble the value of their land, embarrass the decision of parliament as to the real merits of the undertaking, which would be sufficiently difficult without such contentions. If a company receive authority to disturb the rights of persons not interested in their works, it is indispensable that ample security be taken that they are able to complete them so as to attain that public utility which alone justified the powers being intrusted to them. The imprudence of speculators is to be restrained, and unprofitable adventures discountenanced, or directed into channels of usefulness and profit. In short, parliament must be the umpire between all parties, and endeavour to reconcile all interests.

The inquiries that are necessary to be conducted in order to determine upon the merits of private bills are too extensive for the house to undertake, and it has therefore been usual to delegate them to committees. To prevent parties from being taken by surprise, the standing orders require certain notices to be given (to the public by advertisement, and to parties interested by personal service) of the intention to petition parliament. The first thing which is done by the commons on receiving the petition therefore is to inquire whether these notices have been properly given, and if all other

forms prescribed by the standing orders have been observed. This inquiry is confided to a committee, who report their determination to the house. It will be necessary here to explain the constitution of this committee. Until very recently it was the practice for the Speaker to prepare "lists" of members who were to form committees on bills relating to particular counties, in such a manner as to combine a fair proportion of members connected with the locality, with the representatives of places removed from any local influence or prejudice. Each of these lists consisted of upwards of a hundred members, any five of whom formed the committee. This system was liable to many objections. The number of the committee was too great to allow any responsibility to attach to the members. They were canvassed to vote by each of the opposing parties without having heard the evidence or arguments on either side; and were sometimes induced to crowd into the committee-room and reverse decisions which had been arrived at after long and patient inquiry. These evils led to an entire alteration of the sys tem. All petitions for private bills are now referred to the same select committee which is appointed at the beginning of each session, and is composed of members whose habits of business and practical acquaintance with this branch of legislation constitute them a tribunal in every respect superior to the old list committees. To facilitate these proceedings they divide themselves into four or six sub-committees.

The report which this committee makes to the house is simply whether the standing orders have been complied with or not. If it be favourable, leave is at once given to bring in the bill; if not, it is referred to another committee also appointed at the beginning of the session, and called the "committee on standing orders," whose province it is to inquire into the circumstances of the case, and report their opinion as to the propriety of dispensing with the standing orders, of requiring notices, or imposing new conditions. If this committee decide that the parties are not entitled to indulgence, it is still competent for the house to relax

its standing orders, as it does not by any means delegate its authority; yet in prac tice the report is final. Attempts are sometimes made to overrule it, but very rarely with success.

When nothing has occurred to obstruct the progress of the bill, it is read a first time; after which three clear days must elapse before the second reading, the bill being printed and delivered to members in the interval. The principle is now considered by the house, as in the case of public bills; and if the question for reading the bill be carried, it is then committed to a select committee. The constitution of committees on petitions has already been explained. While the list committees were resorted to, both the petition and the bill itself were referred to the same committee, but at present a new mode of appointing committees is in operation. It has been tried for a short time only, and must be tested by further experience before any decided opinion can be given upon its merits. The lists which have already been described are much reduced in number, and a committee of selection is appointed, to whom members upon the list must signify their intention to attend throughout the whole proceedings before they are permitted to vote. To these the committee of selection add a certain number of other members not locally interested, in such a proportion as they may think fit. Since 1844 committees upon railway bills consisting of five members only have been specially nominated by the committee of selection.

In committee, the bill, if opposed, undergoes a severe examination. Petitions against it are presented to the house and referred to the committee, who hear counsel and examine witnesses. The principle of the bill has been by no means established by the second reading, for the preamble is discussed in the committee, and if it be determined by them that it has not been proved, there is an end of the bill. The report is ordered to lie upon the table, and generally no further notice is taken of it. The house indeed seems to delegate its authority more entirely to the committee on a bill than to any other committee, as it allows them to decide

against a principle in favour of which it has already declared an opinion; however it has sometimes interfered in a manner which will be best explained by briefly detailing the cases. In 1836 the committee on the Durham (South-West) Railway Bill reported, according to the usual form, that the preamble had not been proved to their satisfaction; upon which they were ordered to re-assemble for the purpose of reporting specially the preamble, and the evidence and reasons in detail on which they had come to their resolution. The detailed report was accordingly made, but the decision of the committee was not further questioned. In 1837 the bills for making four distinct lines of railway to Brighton had been referred to one committee. An unprecedented contest arose among the promoters of the competing lines; and at length it was apprehended that all the bills would be lost by the combination of three of the parties against each of the lines on which the committee would have to determine separately. This consequence was prevented by an instruction to the committee to make a special report of the engineering particulars of each of the lines, to enable the house to determine which to send back for the purpose of having the landowners heard and the clauses settled."

If the committee allow that the allegations of the preamble have been proved, they proceed to consider the bill clause by clause. But before we quit the subject of the preamble, the modern practice concerning railway bills may be adverted to. There are so many grounds upon which the preamble may fail to be proved, and so many points on which the committee should be informed before a just decision can be given, that in 1836 a rule was established which obliges the committee to report in detail. On receiving the report, the house is now acquainted with the chief particulars from which the expediency of the measure may be collected. The length of the line, the probable expense of the works, and the sufficiency of the estimates,-the revenue expected from passengers and from agricultural produce or merchandise, with the grounds of the calculation,

the engineering difficulties,-the gra dients and curves, are all distinctly stated. This system might be extended, with great advantage, to other classes of bills; but is confined at present to railway bills alone. Much attention has been paid of date to the improvement of the modes of conducting private business, and it is not improbable that detailed reports may form part of the future recommendations of committees, on whom the task of suggesting further improvements may be imposed.

It has been said that public bills are occasionally referred to select committees; these however must also pass through a committee of the whole house. Private bills are committed to select committees only. Bills for divorces, by a standing order, were committed, like public bills, to committees of the whole house, until the 11th February, 1840, when an order was made for referring them to a select committee of nine members.

It will not be necessary to pursue any further the progress of private bills, which differs only from that already described in respect of bills of a public nature, in the necessity for certain specified intervals between each stage, and for notices in the private bill office.

In the House of Lords, when a private bill is unopposed, it is committed to the permanent chairman of committees, and any other peers may attend; but when a bill is to be opposed, the committee on standing orders inquires whether the standing orders have been complied with, and if so, the bill is referred to a committee of five appointed by a standing committee of five peers, to whom is confided the duty of selecting all committees on opposed bills, according to the circumstances of each case.

In order to ensure a proper acquaintance with the provisions of private bills, some of which are very voluminous, the House of Commons have lately adopted a rule requiring breviates of the bills to be laid before them six days before the second reading, and breviates of the amendments made by the committee, before the house take the report into consideration. These are prepared by the ex

aminer of election recognizances and counsel to the speaker.

Conferences between the two Houses.The progress of bills in each House of Parliament having been detailed, it still remains to describe the subsequent proceedings in case of difference between them. When a bill has been returned by either house to the other, with amendments which are disagreed to, a conference is desired by the house which disagrees to the amendment, to acquaint the other with the reasons for such disagreement; in order, to use the words of Hatsell, "that after considering those reasons, the house may be induced, either not to insist upon their amendments, or may, in their turn, assign such arguments for having made them, as may prevail upon the other house to agree to them. If the house which amend the bill are not satisfied and convinced by the reasons urged for disagreeing to the amendments, but persevere in insisting upon their amendments, the form is to desire another conference; at which, in their turn, they state their arguments in favour of the amendments, and the reasons why they cannot depart from them; and if after such second conference the other house resolve to insist upon disagreeing to the amendments, they ought then to demand a free conference,' at which the arguments on both sides may be more amply and freely discussed. If this measure should prove ineffectual, and if, after several free conferences, neither house can be induced to depart from the point they originally insisted upon, nothing further can be done, and the bill must be lost." An interesting occasion on which all these proceedings were successively adopted has recently occurred. A free conference had not been held since 1702, until a contest arose in 1836 upon amendments made by the lords to a bill for amending the Act for regulating Municipal Corporations.

Whether the conference be desired by the lords or by the commons, the lords have the sole right of appointing the time and place of meeting. The house that seeks the conference must clearly express in their message the subject upon which it is desired, and it is not granted as a