to bring before the House had to be either silenced altogether or pushed
into a horrid and ghastly hour when either he would not be listened to
by a dozen members, or would perhaps be guillotined out of a hearing by
the count out. Let me further explain, for I wish to make the whole
scene intelligible to every reader. Tuesdays and Fridays belong to
private members as well as Wednesdays, and on Tuesdays and Fridays
accordingly private members bring forward motions on some subjects in
which they are especially interested. In order to get these Tuesdays and
Fridays, they have to ballot--so keen is the competition for the
place--and if a member be lucky enough to be first called in the ballot,
he gives notice of his motion, and for the Tuesday or the Friday the
best part of the sitting is as much his as if it belonged to the
Government.

[Sidenote: Salaried Members--Railway Rates--Bimetallism.]

Now several members are interested in the question of payment of
members, and for Tuesday, March 21st, or some such day, there was a
motion down for payment of members. Dr. Hunter is interested in the new
railway rates, and for Tuesday, March 14th, he had a motion down in
reference to railway rates. Finally, several members are interested in
bimetallism, and for Tuesday, February 28th, a motion on this subject
was designed. What, then, Mr. Gladstone proposed meant that Dr. Hunter
could not propose his motion of railway rates; that the member
interested in payment of members could not propose his motion; that the
motion on bimetallism could not be proposed; in short, that these
gentlemen, and their motions and their time, should be swallowed up by
the voracious maw of the Government. This description will suffice to
bring before the mind of any reader the difficulty and danger of the
situation.