When a bill passed by one House is amended by the other, it is sent back for the consideration of those amendments. If they are agreed to, the bill is ready for the royal assent. If not, the bill is returned, and a committee is appointed to frame a message to the other House, stating the reasons for disagreement.[277:3] The other House may, of course, waive its amendments, insist upon them or modify them, and the bill might thus, with new changes, go back and forth between the Houses indefinitely. Formerly it was the habit, when the Houses failed to agree, to appoint managers to hold a conference, but this practice has fallen into disuse,[277:4] and in the case of government bills--almost all important bills to-day are government bills--negotiations are carried on between the ministers and the leading peers who oppose them. [Sidenote: Summary of the Procedure.] Leaving out of account the first reading, which rarely involves a real debate, the ordinary course of a public bill through the House of Commons gives, therefore, an opportunity for two debates upon its general merits, and between them two discussions of its details, or one debate upon the details if that one results in no changes, or if the bill has been referred to a standing committee. When the House desires to collect evidence it does so after approving of the general principle, and before taking up the details. Stated in this way the whole matter is plain and rational enough. It is, in fact, one of the many striking examples of adaptation in the English political system. A collection of rules that appear cumbrous and antiquated, and that even now are well-nigh incomprehensible when described in all their involved technicality, have been pruned away until they furnish a procedure almost as simple, direct and appropriate as any one could devise. Many old forms remain, but they have been shorn of their meaning, and often amount to nothing but entries in the journal. Even the first reading, which seems anomalous, has its use. A real debate at that stage occurs only in the case of great party measures, where both sides of the House want to be familiar with the scope of the bill, the objections that may be made to it, and the way it strikes the public, before the first effective debate upon its merits opens. The procedure upon money bills, which appears at first sight still more arbitrary, and complex, is perfectly rational also, and the differences from the method of passing ordinary measures arise from the nature of the case. There can be no doubt about the general principle of the annual appropriation bill. Supplies must be voted to carry on the government, and the only questions arise over particular grants. Hence there is no object in opening with a first or second reading, and the procedure begins in committee. But in order to understand how this works out one must again go back to the technical rules. FOOTNOTES: [265:1] _Cf._ Redlich, 474-78. [265:2] S.O. 33.