But how to guard against it was a puzzle to which no ...

But how to guard against it was a puzzle to which no obvious answer was forthcoming. Four years later, on the introduction of Forster's Coercion Bill-the fifty-eighth, someone calculated, since the Union-a forty-hours sitting was brought to an end by the intervention of the Speaker, acting on his own responsibility and from a sense of duty to the House.

Parnell had paralysed the law in Ireland, and the legislature at Westminster.

The legislature could protect itself by new rules for the conduct of debate. But the framing of those rules with due regard to freedom of speech and the rights of minorities was not easy, and it was not of good omen that the oldest and most august of Parliaments should have to borrow from the youngest and most uproarious, the device of cloture, to preserve its dignity and efficiency.

And, that nothing might be wanting to impair the repute of the House, night after night, and session after session, it found itself employed in extruding Bradlaugh, whose only difference with many of those who voted against him / her was that they did not believe in God and he said he did not. Devolution was one remedy for congestion, and one of the most tempting arguments for Home Rule was that it would get rid of the Irish, and Irish legislation, together.