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IX.

Procedure of deliberative bodies.

Growing evil of the intolerable length of Debates.

Hurried decisions might be obviated by allowing an interval previous to the vote.

The oral debate reviewed.—­Assumptions underlying it, fully examined.

Evidence that, in Parliament, it is not the main engine of persuasion.

Its real service is to supply the newspaper reports.

Printing, without speaking, would serve the end in view.

Proposal to print and distribute beforehand the reasons for each Motion.

Illustration from decisions on Reports of Committees.

Movers of Amendments to follow the same course.

Further proposal to give to each member the liberty of circulating a speech in print, instead of delivering it.

The dramatic element in legislation much thought of.

Comparison of the advantages of reading and of listening.

The numbers of backers to a motion should be proportioned to the size of the assembly.

Absurdity of giving so much power to individuals.

In the House of Commons twenty backers to each bill not too many.

The advantages of printed speeches.  Objections.

Unworkability of the plan in Committees.  How remedied.

In putting questions to Ministers, there should be at least ten backers.

How to compensate for the suppression of oratory in the
House:—­Sectional discussions.

The divisions occasioned at one sitting to be taken at the beginning of the next.

Every deliberative body must be free to determine what amount of speaking it requires.

The English Parliamentary system considered as a model.

Lord Derby and Lord Sherbrooke on the extension of printing.

Defects of the present system becoming more apparent.

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Notes and References in connection with Essay VIII. on Subscription

First imposition of Tests after the English Reformation.

Dean Milman’s speech in favour of total abolition of Tests.

Tests in Scotland:  Mr. Taylor Innes on the “Law of Creeds”.

Resumption of Subscription in the English Presbyterian Church.

Other English Dissenting Churches.

Presbyterian Church in the United States.

French Protestant Church—­its two divisions.

Switzerland:—­Canton of Valid.

Independent Evangelical Church of Neuchatel.

National Protestant Church of Geneva.

Free Church of Geneva.  Germanic Switzerland.

Hungarian Reformed Church.

Germany:—­Recent prosecutions for heresy.

Holland:—­Calvinists and Modern School.

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