In order to ensure a proper acquaintance with the provisions of ' private bills, some of which are very voluminous, the House of Commons have adopted a rule requiring breviates of the bills to be laid before them six days before the second reading, and breviates of the amendments made by the committee, before the house take the report into consideration.
Conferences between the two Ilouses.–The progress of bills in each house of parliament having been detailed, it still remains to describe the subsequent proceedings in case of difference between them. When a bill has been returned by either house to the other, with amendments which are disagreed to, a conference is desired by the house which disagrees to the amendments, to acquaint the other with reasons for such disagreement ; iu order, to use the words of Hatsell, " that after considering those reasons, the house may be induced, either not to insist upon their amendments, or may, in their turn, assign such arguments for having made them, as may prevail upon the other house to agree to them. If the Louse which amend the bill are not satisfied and convinced by the reasons urged for disagreeing to the amendments, but persevere iu insisting upon their amendments, the form is to desire another conference • at which, in their turn, they state their arguments in favour of the, amendmenta, and the reasons why they cannot depart from them; and if, after such second conference, the house resolve to insist upon disagreeing to the amendments, they ought then to demand a free conference, at which the arguments on both sides may be more amply and freely discussed. If this measure should prove ineffectual, and if, after several free conferences, neither house can be induced to depart from the point they originally insisted upon, nothing further can bo dune, and the bill must be lost" Whether the conference be desired by the lords or by the oommons, the former have the sole right of appoiuting the time and place of meeting. The house that seeks the conference must clearly express in their message the subject upon which it is desired, and it is not granted as a matter of course. There are many instances to be found in the Journals in which a conference has been refused, but not of late years. The reasons that are to be offered to the other house are
prepared by a committee appointed for that purpose, who report them for the approval of the house. These reasons are generally very short, but in some cases arguments have been entered into at considerable length. The conference is conducted by " managers " for both houses, who, on the part of the house desiring the conference, are the members of the committee who have drawn up the reasons, to whom others are occasionally added. Their duty is to read and deliver in the reasons with which they are entrusted to the managers of the other house, who report them to the house which they represent. At a free con ference the managers on either side have more discretion vested in them, and may urge whatever arguments they think fit. A debate arose in a free conference, which was held in 1836, in reference to amendments made by the lords to a bill for amending the Act for regulating Municipal Corporations, and the speeches of the managers were taken in short-hand and printed. While the conference is being held, the business of both houses is suspended until the return of the managers.
Amendments made to bills by either house are not the only occa sions upon which conferences are demanded. Resolutions of import ance, in which the concurrence of the other house is desired, are communicated in this manner. Reports of committees have also been communicated by means of a conference. In 1829 a conference was demanded by the commons to request an explanation of the circum stances under which a bill that had been amended by the lords had received the royal assent without being returned to the commons for their concurrence. The lords expressed their regret at the mis take, and stated that they had themselves been prepared to desire a conference upon the subject, when they received the message from the commons.
Conferences were formerly held in the Painted Chamber, but since the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament after the fire in 1834, they have been held in one of the lords' committee rooms.