Speeches are limited to one hour, subject to a power to extend this time by unanimous consent, and may, in committee of the whole House, be limited to five minutes. So far as I could learn, this hour rule works very well, and does not tend to bring speeches up to that length as a regular thing. A member is at liberty to give part of his time to other members, and this is in practice constantly done. The member speaking will say: "I yield the floor to the gentleman from Ohio for five minutes," and so on. Thus a member who has once secured the floor has a large control of the debate.

The great remedy against prolix or obstructive debate is the so-called previous question, which is moved in the form, "Shall the main question be now put?" and when ordered closes forthwith all debate, and brings the House to a direct vote on that main question. On the motion for the putting of the main question no debate is allowed; but it does not destroy the right of the member "reporting the measure under consideration" from a committee, to wind up the discussion by his reply. This closure of the debate may be moved by any member without the need of leave from the Speaker, and requires only a bare majority of those present. When directed by the House to be applied in committee, for it cannot be moved after the House has gone into committee, it has the effect of securing five minutes to the mover of any amendment, and five minutes to the member who first "obtains the floor" (gets the chance of speaking) in opposition to it, permitting no one else to speak. A member in proposing a resolution or motion usually asks at the same time for the previous question upon it, so as to prevent it from being talked out.

Closure by previous question is in almost daily use, and is considered so essential to the progress of business that I never found any member or official who thought it could be dispensed with. Even the senators, who object to its introduction into their own much smaller chamber, agree that it must exist in a large body like the House. To the inquiry whether it was abused, most of my informants answered that this rarely happened, while one, a gentleman officially connected with the House for thirty years, during fourteen of which he had been clerk, went so far as to say that he had never known a case of abuse. This is attributed to the fear entertained of the disapproval of the people, and to the sentiment within the House itself in favour of full and fair discussion, which sometimes in

duces the majority to refuse the previous question when demanded by one of their own party, or on behalf of a motion which they are as a whole supporting. "No one," they say, "who is bona fide discussing a subject in a sensible way, would be stopped by the application of the previous question. On the other hand we should never get appropriation bills through without it."

Notwithstanding this powerful engine for expediting business, obstruction, or, as it is called in America, filibustering, is by no means unknown. It is usually practised by making repeated motions for the adjournment of a debate, or for "taking a recess" (suspending the sitting), or for calling the yeas and nays. Between one such motion and another some business must intervene, but as the making of a speech is "business," there is no difficulty in complying with this requirement. No speaking is permitted on these obstructive motions, yet by them time may be wasted for many continuous hours, and if the obstructing minority is a strong one, it generally succeeds, if not in defeating a measure, yet in extorting a compromise. It must be remembered that owing to the provision of the Constitution above mentioned, the House is in this matter not sovereign even over its own procedure. That rules are not adopted, as they might be, which would do more than the present system does to extinguish filibustering, is due partly to this provision, partly to the notion that it is safer to leave some means open by which a minority can make itself disagreeable, and to the belief that adequate checks exist on any gross abuse of such means. These checks are two. One is the fact that filibustering will soon fail unless conducted by nearly the whole of the party which happens to be in a minority, and that so large a section of the House will not be at the trouble of joining in it unless upon some really serious question. Some few years ago, seventeen or eighteen members tried to obstruct systematically a measure they objected to, but their number proved insufficient, and the attempt failed. But at an earlier date, during the Reconstruction troubles which followed the war, the opposition of the solid Democratic party, then in a minority, succeeded in defeating a bill for placing five of the southern States under military government. The other check is found in the fear of popular disapproval. If the nation sees public business stopped and necessary legislation delayed by factious obstruction, it will

visit its displeasure both upon the filibustering leaders individually, and on the whole of the party compromised. However hot party spirit may be, there is always a margin of moderate men in both parties whom the unjustifiable use of legally permissible modes of opposition will alienate. Since such men can make themselves felt at the polls when the next election arrives, respect for their opinion cools the passion of congressional politicians. Thus the general feeling is that as the power of filibustering is in extreme cases a safeguard against abuses of the system of closure by "previous question," so the good sense of the community is in its turn a safeguard against abuses of the opportunities which the rules still leave open. One exSpeaker, who had had large experience in leading both a majority and a minority of the House, observed to me that he thought the rules, taken all in all, as near perfection as any rules could be. This savours of official optimism. We all know the attachment which those who have grown old in working a system show to its faults as well as to its merits. Still, true is it that congressmen generally complain less of the procedure under which they live, and which seems to an English observer tyrannical, than do members of the English House of Commons of the less rigid methods of their own ancient and famous body. I know no better instance of the self-control and good humour of Americans than the way in which the minority in the House generally submit to the despotism of the majority, consoling themselves with the reflection that it is all according to the rules of the game, and that their turn will come in due course. use the power of closing debate as stringently at Westminster as it is used at Washington would revolutionize the life of the House of Commons. But the House of Representatives is an assembly of a very different nature. Like the House of Commons it is a legislating, if hardly to be deemed a governing, body. But it is not a debating body. It rules through and by its committees, in which discussion is unchecked by any closing power; and the whole House does little more than register by its votes the conclusions which the committees submit. One subject alone, the subject of revenue, that is to say, taxation and appropriation, receives genuine discussion by the House at large. And although the "previous question" is often applied to expedite appropriation bills, it is seldom applied till opportunity has been given for the expression of all relevant views.

To

The rules regarding the procedure in committee of the whole House are in the main similar to those of the British House of Commons; but the chairman of such a committee is not (as usually in England) a permanent chairman of Ways and Means, but a person nominated by the Speaker on each occasion. No member can speak twice to any question in Committee of the Whole until every member desiring to speak shall have spoken.

The House has a power of going into secret session whenever confidential communications are received from the President, or a member informs it that he has communications of a secret nature to make. But this power seems to have been rarely used, certainly never of late years. Every word spoken is reported by official stenographers and published in the Congressional Record, and the huge galleries are never cleared.

The number of bills brought into the House every year is very large, averaging over 7000. In the thirty-seventh Congress (1861-63) the total number of bills introduced was 1026, viz. :613 House bills, and 433 Senate bills. In the forty-sixth it had risen to 9481, of which 7257 were House bills, 2224 Senate bills, showing that the increase has been much larger in the House than in the Senate. In the forty-ninth Congress (188587) the number was rising still further, the number up to July 1886 being 12,906, exclusive of 277 joint resolutions. In the British House of Commons the total number of bills introduced was, in the session of 1885, 481, of which 202 were public and 279 private bills.1 America is, of course, a far larger country, but the legislative competence of Congress is incomparably smaller than that of the British Parliament, seeing that the chief part of the field both of public bill and private bill legislation belongs in America to the several States. By far the larger number of bills in Congress are what would be called in England "private" or "local and personal" bills, i.e. they establish no general rule of law but are directed to particular cases. Such are the numerous bills for satisfying persons with claims against the Federal Government, and for giving or restoring pensions to individuals alleged to have served in the Northern armies during the War of Secession. It is only to a very small extent that bills can attempt to deal with ordinary private law, since nearly the whole of that topic belongs to State legislation. It is need

1 The session of 1886 was cut short by a dissolution, and therefore is not a typical case.

less to say that the proportion of bills that pass to bills that fail is a very small one, not one-thirtieth. As in England so even more in America, bills are lost less by direct rejection than by failing to reach their third reading, a mode of extinction which the good-nature of the House, or the unwillingness of its members to administer snubs to one another, would prefer to direct rejection, even were not the want of time a sufficient excuse to the committees for failing to report them. One is told in Washington that few bills are brought in with a view to being passed. They are presented in order to gratify some particular persons or places, and it is well understood in the House that they must not be taken seriously. Sometimes a less pardonable motive exists. The great commercial companies, and especially the railroad companies, are often through their land grants and otherwise brought into relations with the Federal Government. Bills are presented in Congress which purport to withdraw some of the privileges of these companies, or to establish or favour rival enterprises, but whose real object is to levy blackmail on these wealthy bodies, since it is often cheaper for a company to buy off its enemy than to defeat him either by the illegitimate influence of the lobby, or by the strength of its case in open combat. Several great corporations have thus to maintain a permanent staff at Washington for the sake of resisting legislative attacks upon them, some merely extortionate, some intended to win local popularity.

The title and attributions of the Speaker of the House are taken from his famous English original. But the character of the office has greatly altered from that original. The note of the Speaker of the British House of Commons is his impartiality. He has indeed been chosen by a party, because a majority means in England a party. But on his way from his place on the benches to the Chair he is expected to shake off and leave behind all party ties and sympathies. Once invested with the wig and gown of office he has no longer any political opinions, and must

In the British Parliamentary session of 1885, out of 202 public bills brought in, 144 passed the House of Commons, and several of these were rejected by the House of Lords. Of these 144 public bills 116 had originated in the House of Commons, 28 in the House of Lords, 54 were Government bills, 62 "provisional order" bills, only 28 bills of private members. Of the 279 private bills 203 passed. The number of public bills introduced is increasing in England, but not so rapidly as in America. In the session of 1888, 282 (besides 45 provisional order bills) had been introduced in the House of Commons up to 13th July, a few of them brought from the House of Lords.