on for urging that the Speaker
should be allowed to leave the chair at once, and that the House go
into committee in order to consider the details of the measure.
Thereupon several of Mr. Brown's friends arise, and one after another
expound, at great length, their reason for supporting Mr. Brown. The
ministers, by this time, have made up their minds that the best course
they can follow is to let Mr. Brown's friends have all the talk to
themselves, but some independent members on the side of the Government
are sure to be provoked into making speeches denouncing the
obstructives and thereby only helping to obstruct. At length, when all
Mr. Brown's friends have had their say--and Mr. Brown, it will be
remembered, cannot speak again on this particular question--a division
is taken on his amendment, and the amendment is lost. Then the
question is put once more for the Speaker to leave the chair, and
instantly Mr. Jones, another Tory member, springs to his feet and moves
as an amendment, not that the House do now adjourn, but that this
debate be now adjourned, which, as every one must see, is quite a
different proposition. On this new amendment Mr. Brown is quite
entitled to speak, and he does speak accordingly, and so do all his
friends, and at last a division is taken and the amendment of Mr. Jones
has the same fate as the amendment of Mr. Brown, and is defeated by a
large majority. Up comes the question once more about the Speaker
leaving the chair, and up gets Mr. Robinson, {163} another Tory member,
and moves that the House do now adjourn, which motion is strictly in
order, for it is quite clear that the House might with perfect
consistency refuse to adjourn at midnight and yet might be quite
willing to adjourn at four o'clock in the morning. On the amendment of
Mr. Robinson his friends Brown and Jones are of course entitled to
speak, and so are all their colleagues in the previous discussions, and
when this amendment too is defeated, then Mr. Smith, yet another Tory
member, rises in his place, as the familiar Parliamentary phrase goes,
and moves that this debate be now adjourned. This is really a fair
summary of the events which took place in the House of Commons on this
first grand opportunity of obstruction, the motion to enable the House
to get into committee on the details of the Reform Bill.

[Sidenote: 1831--The Reform Bill in committee]

It was half-past seven in the morning when the out-wearied House
co