When a bill which has passedone house has been amended in the other, it must be returned, with the amendments, to be again considered in the house from which it had come • and it cannot be submitted for the royal assent until the amendments have been agreed to by that house. In case of a difference of opinion between the two houses, the rules of proceeding between the two houses, according to Mr. May. (Usage, 6T. of Parliament, p. 255), are as follows :—" Let it be supposed that a bill sent up from the Commons has been amended by the Lords and returned ; that the Commons disagree to their amend up reasons, and desire a con feree db ; that the conference is held, and the bill and reasons are in possession of the House of Lords. If the Lords should be satisfied with the reasons offered, they do not desire another conference, but send a messenger to acquaint the Com mons that they do not insist upon their amendments. But if they insist upon the whole or part of their amendments, they desire another conference, and communi cate the reasons of their perseverance." The usage of parliament precludes a conference, and to proceed fiirther a free conference is requisite.. Here, in stead of a formal communication of rea sons, the proceedings partake of the nature of a debate: if neither Lords nor Commons give way at this conference, there is little prospect of terminating the disagreement ; but a second free conference may be held if the house in possession of the bill re solves upon making soncessions. It may be added that the almost uniform practice in both houses, when it is intended, not to insist upon the amendments, has been to move affirmatively "to insist," and then to negative that question.. (Hatsell, Pre cedents ; May, Usage, tc. of According to the standing orders of the House of Lords (see Order CIECVIII. of 7th of July, 1819),. no bill regulating the conduct of any trade, altering the laws of apprenticeship, prohibiting any manufac ture, or extending any patent, can be read a second time until a select committee shall have inquired into and reported upon the expediency of the proposed regu lations. By the standing orders of the Commons no bill relating to religion or trade can be brought into the house until the proposition shall have been first con sidered and agreed to in a committee of the whole house; and the house will not proceed upon any bill for granting any • money, or for releasing or compounding any sum of money owing to the crown, but in a committee of the whole house. No bill also can pass the house affecting the property of the crown or the royal prerogative without his Majesty's consent having been first signified.
Private bills are such as directly relate only to the concerns of private individuals or bodies of individuals, and not to mat ters of state or to the community in ge neral. In determining on their merits
Parliament exercises judicial as well as legislative functions. In some cases it might be doubtful whether an act ought to be considered a public or a private one; and in these cases a clause it commonly inserted at the end of the act to remove the doubt. Private bills in passing into laws go through the same stages in both houses of parlia ment with public bills : but relating as they do for the most part to matters as to which the public attention is not so much alive, various additional regulations are established with regard to them, for the purpose of securing to them in their progress the observation of all whose in terests they may affect. No private bill, in the first place, can be introduced into either house except upon a petition stat ing its object and the grounds upon which it is sought ; nor can such petitions be presented after a certain day in each ses sion, which is always fixed at the com mencement of the session, and is usually within a fortnight or three weeks there after. In all cases the necessary docu ments and plans must be laid before the house before it will proceed in the matter, and it must also have evidence that suffi cient notice in every respect has been given to all parties interested in the measure. To a certain extent the con sent of these parties is required before the bill can be passed. For the numerous rules, however, by which these objects are sought to be secured, we must refer to the Standing Orders themselves.
An important respect in which the pas sage through parliament of a private bill differs from that of a public bill is the much higher amount of fees paid in the case of a private bill to the clerks and other officers of the two houses. Although the high amount of the fees payable on pri vate bills has been the subject of much complaint, and is undoubtedly, in some cases, a very heavy tax, it is to be re membered that the necessary expense of carrying the generality of such bills through parliament must always be very considerable, so long as the present secu rities against precipitate and unfair legis. lation shall be insisted on. The expenses of agency, of bringing up witnesses, and the other expenses attending the making application to parliament for a private bill, at present often amount to many times as much as the fees. These fees, on the other hand, are considered to be some check upon unnecessary applications for private bills, with which it is con tended that parliament would otherwise be inundated. The misfortune is, that it is not the most unnecessary applications which such a check really tends to pre vent, but only the applications of parties who are poor, which may be just as pro per to be attended to as those of the rich.