In fact the House of Commons spends so much time in debating each bill that it gets through its work slowly; and whereas many other popular chambers are reproached with legislating too much, Parliament is accused of legislating too little. Moreover the House of Commons suffers less from an excess of the easy good nature, which, in America at least, is the parent of many ill-considered and unwise laws; yet the present rule does act as a serious check upon the persistent member with a mission, and perhaps it kills off, on the whole, more bad bills than good ones.
Suspending Private Bills.
There is, however, a class of measures on which the rule, if carried out strictly, would have a distinctly injurious effect. These are the private bills—a term applied to projects which relate to private or local interests, such as bills for the extension of a railway, or for authority to supply water, gas, tramways and the like. Legislation of that kind is, as we shall see, conducted in Parliament by a semi-judicial process, and as it is highly expensive for both sides, it would be unreasonable that the closing of the session, for reasons quite unconnected with these matters, should oblige the promoters and objectors to incur the cost of beginning proceedings all over again. In practice this seldom happens, for in the few cases where such a bill cannot be completed before the end of the session it is usually suspended by a special order providing that the stages it has already passed shall be formally taken at the opening of the next session, so that the bill really begins its progress again at the point it had already reached. When, as in 1895, Parliament comes to an untimely end in the midst of a session, a general provision of this kind is made suspending all unfinished private bills, and thus a great deal of unnecessary hardship is avoided.
FOOTNOTES:
[239:1] In a couple of instances natives of India have been elected.
[240:1] The question was raised in 1801 in the famous case of Horne Tooke, and set at rest for the future by an Act of that year: 41 Geo. III., c. 63. The provision in regard to the Roman Catholic clergy was made in 1829: 10 Geo. IV., c. 7, § 9.
[240:2] 33-34 Vic., c. 91.
[240:3] A cause that disqualifies will not always unseat. For the latter purpose bankruptcy and lunacy must have continued six months. Rogers, II., 43, 44.
[240:4] 6 Anne, c. 7, §§ 25, 26. Referred to in the Revised Statutes as 6 Anne, c. 41.