t was understood until quite lately that any motion made in
the House, even the most formal and technical, might be opposed, and,
if opposed, might be debated for any length of time, without the
Speaker having the power to intervene and cut short the most barren and
meaningless discussion.

[Sidenote: 1831--Parliamentary procedure]

When the House goes into committee, according to the formal
Parliamentary phrase, the temptation to obstruct becomes indefinitely
multiplied, for in committee a member can speak as often as he thinks
fit on the subject--or, at least, such was his privilege before the
alterations adopted in very recent years. It may be well to explain to
the general reader the meaning of what takes place when the House goes
into committee. When a Bill has passed through its first and second
reading it is understood that the main principles of the measure have
been agreed upon, and that it only remains for the House to go into
committee for the purpose of considering every clause and every minute
detail of the Bill before it comes up to the House again for its third
and final reading. Now the House, when it goes into committee, is
still just the same House of Commons as before, except that the Speaker
leaves the chair and the assembly is presided over by the Chairman of
Committees, who sits not in the Speaker's throne-like chair, but in an
ordinary seat at the table in front of it. There is, however, the
important difference that, while in the House itself, presided over by
the Speaker, a member can only speak once on each motion, in the
committee he can speak as often as he thinks fit, and for the obvious
reason that, where mere details are under consideration, it was not
thought expedient to limit the number of practical suggestions which
any member might desire to offer as the discussion of each clause
suggested new possibilities of improvement. By the alterations
effected recently in the rules of procedure the Speaker of the House,
or the Chairman of Committees, obtains a {161} certain control over
members who are evidently talking against time and for the sake of
wilful obstruction; but in the days of Lord John Russell's Reform Bill
no such authority had been given to the presiding officer.

The very motion--in ordinary times a purely formal motion--which had to
be passed in order that the House might get into committee, gave to the
opponents of reform their first opportunity of obstruction. The m