BILL PROCEDURE.

OUTLINE A man, or a corporation, or the Privy Council, having decided to promote a bill for enactment, then had to enter into the complexities of parliamentary bill procedure. The rules were well established by the beginning of Elizabeth's reign. The bills, written on paper, except that bills graced with the royal sign manual appeared on parchment, were given to the clerk of one House or the other who then passed them to his Speaker (or lord chancellor); he in turn was supposed to bring bills before the House in the order in which he had received them, except that bills coming from monarch or Council enjoyed precedence, but it seems that in this respect Speakers exercised a good deal of discretion. The bill received three readings in its House of origin, though as a rule the full text was read out only on the first occasion; thereafter the summary breviate, which if it was not attached to the bill by the promoter the Speaker was expected to prepare for himself, sufficed. The effectiveness of the first reading may be gauged from the accuracy with which diarists recorded the essential provisions of bills which they can hardly ever have had a chance to see for themselves. Their descriptions are often much fuller than the summary titles used by the clerks in the Journals, and since so many failed bills are lost they often give us the best indication of the contents. Occasionally the bill was debated on first reading but practice was against it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]