Mr. Hanbury-Tracy on Friday week asked for a Committee to
consider the whole question of Parliamentary Reporting, and especi- ally the expediency of an official and verbatim report of debates in the House of Commons. We have commented on his proposal else- where, but must mention here that it roused a keen interest and a lively debate, in which it was conclusively shown that the news- papers—the Times and Standard excepted—were ceasing to report the debates, that nothing was reported after 12.30 a.m., and that the public appetite for debates was diminishing. Mr. Gladstone supported the proposal, on the ground that reporting was declining, and so did Mr. Bright ; but it was opposed by Sir S. Northcote, as tending to multiply speeches addressed to constituents, as an encouragement to newspapers to condense still farther, and as a provocation to continual debates on the merits of the reports of speeches. Mr. Dodson also thought an official and verbatim report would be "a huge necropolis of bygone speeches "—which is true, but assumes that it must be verbatim—and the motion was at last defeated by a vote of 152 to 128. An official report, there- lore, not verbatim, but after the old and good fashion of the Times and Chronicle, will probably be established next year, to the great comfort of all Englishmen who care to see the House of Commons retain its hold over the opinion of the country. Its tendency just now is to become an unreported debating-club.
Previous page
