Shorter and less frequent speeches were recommended rather than tried. More relief ...

Shorter and less frequent speeches were recommended rather than tried. More relief was promised by the creation of two Standing Committees, on Law and Trade.

But the physical fact remained that there were not hours enough in the day for the House to get through its work, if half the hours were spent in the repetition of exhausted arguments and motions to adjourn.

The New Rules of 1882 were designed to strengthen the hands of the Speaker or Chairman in controlling the course of debate: to reduce the opportunities of talking at large: to deliver the House from the habitual offender, while leaving it still at the mercy of the habitual bore. On the whole they produced their intended results: an occasional Irish night wasted less time than a constant blockade: they are the basis of modern Parliamentary procedure.

But by the older hands they were accepted as a humiliating necessity; another melancholy proof that the days of government by gentlemen were over.