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 Where, what Mr. Mitchell Henry called, the non-working hat comes in is in the practice of members gathering before prayer time and placing their hats on the seat they desire to retain. That is a preliminary that receives no official recognition. "No prayer, no seat," is the axiom, and unless a member be actually present in the body when the Chaplain reads prayers, he is not held to have established a claim. Thus his spiritual comfort is subtly and indispensably linked with his material comfort.

There is nothing new under the glass roof of the House of Commons, not even the balloting syndicates, of which so much has been heard since the Session opened. Fifteen or sixteen years ago the Irish members astonished everybody by the extraordinary luck that attended them at the ballot. The ballot in this sense has nothing to do with the electoral poll, being the process by which precedence for private members is secured. When a private member has in charge a Bill or resolution, much depends on the opportunity he secures for bringing it forward. Theoretically, Tuesday, Wednesday, and (in vanishing degree) a portion of Friday are appropriated to his use. On Tuesday he may bring on motions; on Wednesday advance Bills; and on Friday raise miscellaneous questions on certain stages of Supply. On days when notices of motion may be given there is set forth on the Table a book with numbered lines, on which members write their names. Say there are fifty names written down—or four hundred, as was the melancholy case on the opening night of the Session—the Clerk at the Table places in a box a corresponding number of slips of paper. When all is ready for the ballot, the Speaker having before him the list of names as written down, the Clerk at the Table plunges his hand into the lucky-box and taking out, at random, one of the pieces of paper, calls aloud the number marked upon it.

Say it is 365. The Speaker, referring to the list he holds in his hand, finds that Mr. Smith has written his name on line 365. He thereupon calls upon Mr. Smith, who has the first chance, and selects what in his opinion is the most favourable day, ceteris paribus, the earliest at liberty. So the process goes through till the last paper in the ballot-box has been taken out and the list is closed.

It is at best a wearisome business, a criminal waste of time, useless for practical purposes. It was well enough when Parliament was not overburdened with work, and when the members balloting for places rarely exceeded a score. But when, as happened on the opening day of the Session, two of the freshest hours of the sitting are occupied by the performance, it is felt that a change is desirable. This could easily be effected, there being no reason in the world why the process of balloting for places on the Order Book should not be carried out as was the balloting for places in the Strangers' Galleries on the night Mr. Gladstone introduced his Home Rule Bill. On that occasion the Speaker's Secretary, with the assistance of a clerk, and in the presence of as many members as cared to look on, arranged the ballot without a hitch or a murmur of complaint from anyone concerned. The sooner the public balloting is relegated to the same agency the better it will be for the dispatch of public business. With it should disappear the consequent wanton waste of time involved in members bodily bringing in their Bills, a performance that appropriated nearly half the sitting on the second day of the Session.

The spread of the syndicate contrivance would happily hasten the inevitable end. It was by means of the syndicate, though it was not known by that name, or indeed at first known at all, that the Home Rule party managed in the Parliament of 1880-85 to monopolize the time pertaining to private members. Their quick eyes detected what is simple enough when explained—that the ballot system contained potentialities for