house to which the bill is sent, orders it to be laid aside, and another embodying the amendments to be prepared and brought in, which is proceeded with and passed, as an original bill of the latter house.1

2346. A bill may be thus laid aside immediately upon its being introduced, or after it has been proceeded upon, and at any stage, or in any interval, of its progress; as, for example, after being ordered to a second reading,2 or at the time appointed therefor,3 or upon the report of the committee upon it; and, in two instances, it appears from the journals, that the motion to lay aside was allowed to supersede a motion that the bill be now read a second time, but the propriety of this course, supposing the entry in the journals accurate, may well be questioned.5

2347. A proceeding not unlike the laying aside of a bill, is to resolve to proceed no further with it, without taking any measures for the introduction of a new one. Thus, where a bill from the cominons was twice read in the lords, and committed, and the committee reported, "that they had gone through the bill and made some amendments thereunto; but, upon consideration of the whole matter, find several things contained in the said bill unparliamentary and unprecedented, intrenching on the rights and privileges, and derogatory to the honor of the house, and therefore did not think fit to proceed any further in the bill, without having the direction of the house;" it was thereupon ordered, "that this house will proceed no further on consideration of the said bill." 6

SECTION IV. DROPPING.

2348. When any of the regular proceedings upon a bill has been assigned for a particular day, and thus made an order of the day for that day, as, for example, when a bill has been read the first time, and ordered to be read a second time on a given day, if any thing occurs to prevent the order from being proceeded with on that day, it becomes what is called a dropped order. The most common occasion on which an order drops, is when the house is adjourned by the speaker for want of forty members. The same thing occurs when, for any other cause, the orders of the day are not proceeded with, before the adjournment of the house for the

day. Sometimes an order is dropped, in consequence of the adjournment of the house over the day assigned.

2349. In all these cases, the course of proceeding is to take up the business precisely at the point where it was left, or to renew the order for a subsequent day. An order may also be dropped, in consequence of no motion being made for the reading of it, or if read, of no motion being made for proceeding with it. This is a mode usually resorted to, when the parties to a private bill, or the members interested in and having the charge of a public one, desire to abandon it; they can effect their object by simply refraining from making the motions which are necessary to carry it forward. Proceedings thus abandoned are seldom renewed; instances, however, have occurred, in which public or private bills, which have been dropped by their original promoters, in consequence of amendments being introduced by their opponents, have been taken up and carried forward by other members.1

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.

OF COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN THE TWO HOUSES RELATIVE TO THE REASONS OR GROUNDS FOR THE PASSING OF BILLS.

2350. When one house passes a bill and sends it to the other, it offers no inducements or reasons for passing the bill, in order to obtain the concurrence of the latter, other than the statements of such grounds or reasons which appear in the preamble. The facts or reasons there stated, when they are of a public nature, are equally in the possession of the house to which the bill is sent; and the freedom and independence of each branch require that these facts and reasons should be left to exert their proper influence, without further interference.

2351. When a bill has passed in one house, and been sent to the other, the provisions of which bill have been grounded, not upon general notoriety, but upon special facts that are necessary to be proved by evidence, it is usual for the house to which the bill is sent, at any stage of the proceedings, when it thinks proper, either by a message, or at a conference, (usually the former,) to ask infor

1 May, 488.

mation of the grounds and evidence upon which the bill, or some particular clause of it, has passed; and this evidence, whether arising out of papers, or from the examination of witnesses, is, in general, immediately communicated.2

2352. The right to request, and the obligation to furnish, the grounds and evidence upon which a bill is passed, are restricted to those grounds upon which the passing of the bill is placed by the house in which it originates, that is, to the facts recapitulated or documents mentioned in the preamble, and on which the bill is avowedly founded. When, however, a bill is judicial in its nature, as affecting the legal rights or private property of individuals, the evidence on which it is founded may be requested, and ought to be communicated, even when the bill itself contains no statement of the facts, or states facts the evidence of which does not in the preamble.4

appear

2353. In order to obtain the desired information, a message is to be sent to the house by which the bill is passed, requesting that house to communicate to the other the evidence on which the former passed a bill entitled, etc., or to communicate a certain document, or papers, particularly specified in the message. On receiving this message, the house may proceed at once to consider it, in which case, if there is no objection to granting the request, the practice is, to send the papers or documents by the messengers; or, a time may be assigned for the consideration of the message, in which case, the messengers are dismissed with the answer, that the house will send an answer by messengers of their own.

2354. If the house, of which the request is made, declines acceding to it, on the ground that the case is not one in which it is the right of the other house to request information, the answer is, that they have taken the message into consideration, but conceive that it has not been the practice of parliament, for the house making the request to desire the evidence upon which the other has passed bills of this nature, and that they think this reason sufficient for not giving any further answer.

2355. If this answer should not prove satisfactory, the other house renews the request, declaring at the same time, that it is according to the practice of parliament, to which the former replies, stating more fully the reasons for declining; as, for example, where the lords requested the commons to communicate the evi

1 Comm. Jour. XXXV. 392.

2 Hats. III. 70, 71.

3 Parl. Reg. (2), XX. 247, 248.

4 Hats. III. 70, note.

dence, on which they passed a bill for settling an annuity on the duke of Athol, to which the commons declined to accede, and the lords renewed the request, the commons replied, that as the nature of the bill mentioned in the message was for the express purpose of making a disposition of public money, the commons conceive that the claim asserted in the message is not warranted by the practice of parliament, and doth intrench upon the rights and privileges of the commons, from which they can never depart.1

2356. Or the reason may be stated at once, in the first instance; as, for example, where the house of commons, in answer to a request from the house of lords, for the information upon which the former had passed a bill, returned an answer, that they conceive it has not been the practice of parliament for either house to desire of the other the information on which they have proceeded in passing any bill, except where such information has related to facts stated in such bill as the ground and foundation thereof; and that the commons think this reason sufficient for not giving, at this time, any further answer to the message.2

2357. In the cases above alluded to, the communications were all made by message. It would seem, however, to be more consonant with the usages of parliament, that, where the communication is for any purpose beyond the merely making or granting the request, especially where the request is declined for reasons stated, it ought to be made by means of and at a conference.

2358. The evidence, thus desired by the one house of the other, usually exists in a form in which it can be at once communicated, as, for example, where the testimony of witnesses has been taken by a committee, and the minutes of it reported and printed; but, where this is not the case, the course is to refer it to a committee to state the matters-of-fact. Thus, where the commons passed a bill, which was sent to the lords, and there read a first and second time, and committed, the lords informed the commons, "that the mattersof-fact suggested in the said bill as the ground and foundation upon which it seems to have proceeded, in the house of commons, so far as relates to certain persons therein named, not appearing sufficiently before the lords," they desired the assistance of the commons, in order to have the state of the said matters-of-fact more fully laid before them. The commons thereupon appointed such members as were of the committee of secrecy, by whom the general subject had been investigated, a committee to state those mat

1 Comm. Jour. LX. 462, 471, 497.

2 Comm. Jour. XLI. 842, 847.

ters-of-fact, upon which the provisions were grounded, which related to the persons in question. The committee made a statement accordingly, which was delivered to the lords, agreeably to their request, at a conference.1

2359. In order to determine upon the particular documents or papers to request the communication of, the two houses proceed differently. The votes of the commons being printed from day to day, the lords may have recourse to them, and send for such papers as they read of therein; but the votes of the lords not being printed, and the commons consequently having no such means of information, their only regular course is to appoint a committee to search the lords' journals,2 which are open to inspection as public records, and, upon the report of the committee, to send for such papers and documents as they think proper.3

2360. It is not regular for either house to proceed further than to request, or to communicate, the grounds and evidence upon which a bill has passed; to ask why the house, where the bill took its rise, passed it in such or such a manner, or to acquaint the house. to which it is sent, that it has passed unanimously, are objectionable proceedings. It has not, however, been unusual, for either house to remind the other of a bill, which, from its importance, has appeared to deserve greater despatch, than the house to which it was sent seemed inclined to give it.5

6

2361. There is one exception to this rule, of those bills, which, by the custom of parliament, must originate in the one or the other, and not indifferently in either, of the two houses; as, for example, money bills, or bills for the expenditure of public money, which can only originate in the house of commons. In the case of such bills, or clauses of a similar character in other bills, it is not according to the custom of parliament, for the house which passes the bill, although sometimes requested by the other, to communicate the grounds and evidence on which they are passed.7

2362. As one house, when it passes a bill, and sends it to the other, gives no reasons, nor can be required to give any, except what appear on the face of the bill; so, neither does the house which amends a bill give any reason for its amendment, nor can properly be required to give any,

1 Comm. Jour. XIX. 630, 631; Hatsell, IV. 13, and note.

2 The minutes of the proceedings in the lords are now published from day to day, but it does not appear that the practice above stated has been changed. May, 198.

every amendment being sup

3 Hatsell, III. 143, 144, 145.

4 See Comm. Jour. XVIII. 625, 626.

5 Hatsell, III. 71.