If I might be allowed to assume such an extension of the device of seconding motions, I could make a much stronger case for the beneficial consequences of the operation of printing speeches without delivery.  The House would never be moved by an individual standing alone; every proposal would be from the first a collective judgment, and the reasons given in along with it, although composed by one, would be revised and considered by the supporters collectively.  Members would put forth their strength in one weighty statement to start with; no pains would be spared to make the argument of the nominal mover exhaustive and forcible.  So with the amendment; there would be more put into the chief statement, and less left to the succeeding speakers, than at present.  And, although the mover of the resolution and the mover of the amendment would each have a reply, little would be left to detain the House, unless when some great interests were at stake.

Of course the preparation of the case in favour of each measure would be entrusted to the best hands; in Government business, it would be to some official in the department, or some one engaged by the chief in shaping the measure itself.  The statement so prepared would have the value of a carefully drawn-up report, and nothing short of this should ever be submitted to Parliament in the procuring of new enactments.  In like manner, the opponents and critics could employ any one they pleased to assist them in their compositions, A member’s speech need not be in any sense his own; if he borrows, or uses another hand, it is likely to be some one wiser than himself, and the public gets the benefit of the difference.

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[OBJECTIONS TO DIRECT PRINTING OF SPEECHES.]

I may now go back for a little upon the details of the scheme of direct printing, with the view of pressing some of its advantages a little farther, as well as of considering objections.  I must remark more particularly upon the permission, accorded to the members generally, to send in their speeches to be circulated with the proceedings.  This I regard as not the least essential step in an effective reform of the debating system.  It is the only possible plan of giving free scope to individuals, without wasting the time of the assembly.  There need be no limit to the printing of speeches; the number may be unnecessarily great, and the length sometimes excessive, but the abuse may be left to the corrective of neglect.  The only material disadvantage attending the plan of sending in speeches in writing, without delivery, is that the speakers would have before them only the statements-in-chief of the movers of motion and amendment.  They could not comment upon one another, as in the oral debate.  Not but this might not:  be practicable, by keeping the question open for a certain length of time, and circulating every morning the speeches given in the day previously; but the cumbrousness