Tam about to presenta brief and popular description of the House of Commons as it: has been during recent years and is likely to be in the immediate future.
Before doing so, however, it may be well for me to remind my renders of the claim have to attempt such a task as this, In other words, what. is my practical and porsonal knowledge of the House of Commons? Well: Iwas there for ten years, that is, from 1885 to 1895. During that decade excepting autumnal intervals of travel, I pare my whole time and thoughts to Par-linment. I attended every sitting from its beginning to its end. I saw everything and heard everything, almost without ox-I was present in almost every division—in round numbers I voted in about three thousand divisions—I_ always heard the question put by the Speaker before we proceeded to divide upon it, and in every instance I had my own notion ro-garding its merits. If in any case I was not present in " division—it was not one in a hundred—the cause was either casual illness, or attendance on obligatory duty jin the School Board for London, of which I was the Financial Member. Nor did the work end here. I took a full, perhaps even more than a full share, in the Committee work which is one of the heaviest burdens which a parliamentarian has to bear. I served on several Select Committees whose proceedings were protracted over many week—of one of these, a peculiarly laborious one, I was Chairman. I was more than once Chairman of Private Bill Committees, for the trial of lengthy and complicated cases in which leaders of the Parliamentary Bar were practising on both sides. I was always a member of the Public Accounts Committee, and, for two busy years, its Chairman—all which nec-assarily afforded me a complete insight into Parliamentary Finance. I was always a member of one of the Grand Committees on which the House had delegated the work of the Committee Stage for Bills which were referred to it, and these were many. Moreover, my decade was as arduous
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.