A peculiar provision was made for the designation of the chairman. At the beginning of each session the Committee of Selection appoints a chairman's panel of not less than four nor more than six members, and this body selects from among its members the chairmen of the standing committees[270:1]--a device intended to secure continuity of traditions and experience in the presiding officer. For the rest, the standing orders prescribed that the procedure in standing committees should be the same as in select committees;[270:2] but it would be more accurate to say, as May does,[270:3] that their proceedings were assimilated, as far as possible, to those of a Committee of the Whole House, for they were created to do precisely the same work.[270:4] They were to collect no evidence, examine no witnesses, but simply to debate the clauses of the bill in detail, being in fact a substitute for the Committee of the Whole; that step in the procedure upon a bill being entirely omitted when a bill goes to a standing committee. For this reason they are miniatures of the House itself, representing all the parties there in proportion to their numbers. They are samples that stand for the complete House, and like the Committee of the Whole they do not report their opinions, but report the bills referred to them with or without amendments. In one respect only does their position differ materially from that of a Committee of the Whole. If the Committee of the Whole makes any amendments in a bill, they can be considered again, and further amendments can be made, upon the report stage. But if it makes no amendments, there is no report stage. This was equally true of the standing committees, so that if they did not amend a bill referred to them, the House never had an opportunity to do so, but must pass or reject the bill as first introduced; and, in fact, standing committees have been charged with refraining from minor changes in order to prevent amendments, which might hinder or delay the passage of the bill, from being proposed in the House itself.[270:5] This raised so much objection that in 1901 the standing orders were changed so as to require a report stage in the House on all bills from standing committees whether amended or not.[271:1] [Sidenote: Kind of Bills Referred to Them.] The standing committees were designed primarily to deal with a technical class of bills, where the discussion of details would not be of general interest.[271:2] For reasons that will be described hereafter, it has been recognised that the bills referred to them ought to be of a non-contentious nature, that contentious measures, which arouse strong party feelings, are not suited for their consideration. This is the general principle, not always observed in practice, and there is sometimes a sharp difference of opinion upon the question whether a particular bill is contentious or not. [Sidenote: Their Utility.]