The Edinburgh Review Volume 169 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1889 Excerpt: ...of Mr. Gladstone when in office, but which, in his late speech at Birmingham, he actually had the audacity to place to the account of the mismanagement of the Government. Questions at the rate of from fifty to eighty per diem--a splendid opportunity for badgering ministers--motions for the adjournment of the House, useless divisions every time the Government propose to vary the course of business, by sitting after twelve o'clock, or by taking from private members additional time, endless repetition of the same arguments to empty benches, long after any members can be got to listen to them, --these are the methods by which the public time is wasted. The due protection of the business of the country will, sooner or later, necessitate a change, whereby the ministers of the Crown will have time left to them for something besides attendance on a House of Commons in such a condition as this. The malady to which the House is a victim is not easy to treat. It is not the attempted carrying out of the threat indulged in by some foolish Home Rulers Nothing can be more absurd in itself than the submission of the entire estimates of the nation in detail for the examination of the whole House of Commons in Committee. Doubtless the work would be much more effectually done if the estimates, or certain classes of estimates, were referred to a strong standing committee. Criticism would be more intelligent, and much time would be saved. The fact is, however, that criticising the national accounts and the national expenditure, though the immediate business of the House in Committee, is not its sole, and often not its principal, function. In many cases voting the estimates is equivalent to voting approval of a policy; and every vote, moreover, affords an opportunity, which elsew...