suffocation. Then the proceedings of the committee are secret. "It is not usual for the committees to open their sittings often to those who desire to be heard with regard to pending questions; on the contrary, they are privileged and accustomed to hold their sessions in absolute secrecy." Occasionally, however, a committee will hear arguments on the matter before them, whether from their colleagues of the House or from outsiders interested in the question. To these remarkable characteristics is to be added the fact that the committee is permitted to control the time during which its report on bills referred to it is under consideration by the House. The procedure in this respect is so characteristic of the American Parliamentary system, that we shall quote Mr. Wilson's account of it. "It is the established custom of the House to accord the floor for one hour to the member of the reporting committee who has charge of the business under consideration, and that hour is made the chief hour of debate. The reporting committee-man seldom, if ever, uses the whole hour himself for his opening remarks; he uses part of it, and retains control of the rest of it; for by undisputed privilege it is his to dispose of, whether he himself be upon the floor or not. No amendment is in order during that hour, unless he consents to its presentation. And he does not, of course, yield his time indiscriminately to any one who wishes to speak. He gives way, indeed, as in fairness he should, to opponents as well as to friends of the measure under

his charge; but generally no one is accorded a share of his time who has not obtained his previous promise of the floor, and those who do speak must not run beyond the number of minutes he has agreed to allow them. He keeps the course, both of debate and of amendment, thus carefully under his own supervision as a good tactician, and before he finally yields the floor, at the expiration of his hour, he is sure to move the previous question. To neglect to do so would be to lose all control of the business in hand; for unless the previous question is ordered, the debate may run on at will, and his committee's chance of getting its measure through slip quite away, and that would be nothing less than his disgrace. He would be all the more blameworthy because he had but to ask for the previous question to get it. The previous question once ordered, all amendments are precluded, and one hour remains for the summing-up of the same privileged committee-man before the final vote is taken and disposed of."

These Parliamentary practices would not be intelligible without a statement of the amount of business which the American Congress is called upon to deal with. When we remember that it is free from all Home Rule business-all domestic legislation-the numbers are sufficiently startling. The following figures are taken from the Century article already referred to, and they relate to the first session of the forty-ninth Congress, which began on the 7th December 1885, and ended on the 5th August 1886 :—

C

Pages of the Congressional Record filled, 9,000.

These figures show a very great increase in the mass of business over previous sessions—an increase, moreover, which has been steadily going on for many years past. The compiler of these figures declares that, outside of one or two Acts, the mass of legislation consisted mainly of private legislation, interesting only to certain constituents of the more skilful members of Congress, and of such "public" legislation as Acts permitting the erection of bridges at specified points, and Acts for the erection of public buildings, interesting only to larger or smaller groups of other skilful or fortunate Congressmen.

The committee system, of which these are the

results, appears to deprive the House effectually of the conduct of its own affairs. Mr. Wilson declares that the chairmen of committees are the real leaders of the House, corresponding, as far as there is anything corresponding, to the Ministry in the English House of Commons; but he points out that there is no cohesion among them. On the contrary, they are composed of "selfish and warring elements; for chairman fights against chairman for use of the time of the Assembly, though the most part of them are inferior to the chairman of Ways and Means, and all are subordinate to the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations." The severity of the competition may be estimated from the statement of Senator Hoar, that in an ordinary Congress with two sessions, covering together a period of ten months, the average amount of time available for an ordinary committee in which to report upon, debate, and dispose of all the subjects of general legislation committed to its charge is not more than two hours.

Nothing but the most drastic kind of closure could enable such a system to work at all; but the excessive stringency of the rules of Congress is mitigated, it would seem, by an equally excessive leniency on special occasions. The close of a session is marked, not, as with us, by a massacre of the innocents, but by a wholesale suspension of the rules of the House. Senator Hoar is of opinion that the majority of the bills which get through are carried by means of a suspension of the rules. "On Mondays and during

the last ten days of the session, any member may move to suspend the rules and pass any proposed bill. It requires two-thirds of the members voting to adopt such a motion. Upon it no debate or amendment is in order. In this way if two-thirds of the body agree, a bill is, by a single vote, without discussion and without change, passed through all the necessary stages, and made a law so far as the House of Representatives can accomplish it; and in this mode hundreds of measures of vital importance receive, near the close of an exhausted session, without being debated, amended, printed, or understood, the constitutional assent of the representatives of the American people."

After such statements as these, one is not surprised that impatient Americans should declare, as the writer in the Century does, that the National Congress has become the most incapable legislative body in the constitutional world. Without accepting that verdict, we may point out some of the consequences which follow from the legislative methods which have been described. One of these is the disappearance of the habit of debate, already noticed, and which Mr. Wilson brings out with admirable clearness and force. Congress has ceased to be a great instrument of public discussion, and the popular House is less. given to debating than the Senate. Neither House has that hold upon the public mind which is given to both Houses of Parliament by the system of open controversies and serious debate under the great