view of parliamentary deliberation it was a very imperfect instrument, for all the clauses after the sixth were put to vote without amendment or debate.[299:1] [Sidenote: Closure by Compartments.] The defect of the guillotine, that it resulted in needlessly long discussions on a few early clauses, to the entire neglect of the rest, was largely remedied in the case of the Home Rule Bill of 1893. After twenty-eight nights had been spent in committee on the first four clauses, the House, on June 30, adopted a resolution that debate on clauses five to eight should close on July 6, on clauses nine to twenty-six on July 13, on clauses twenty-seven to forty on July 20, and on the postponed and new clauses on July 27.[299:2] This form of procedure, sometimes called closure by compartments, has the merit of distributing the discussion over different parts of the measure, and of affording at least a probability that any provision exciting general interest will receive some measure of attention. It was used again on the Evicted Tenants Bill in 1894,[299:3] and the Education Bill in 1902;[299:4] and may now be said to have become a regular, because a necessary, practice in the case of difficult and hotly contested measures. But save in the case of supply, it has been the subject of a special resolution passed for a particular bill, under what have been treated as exceptional conditions, and it has found no mention in the standing orders.[299:5] [Sidenote: Closure of Supply.] The guillotine has been applied more systematically to supply. Formerly the estimates were taken in their order, with the result that much time was wasted early in the session over trivial matters, like the repairs of royal palaces in Class I.; while great appropriations of important departments were rushed through at the fag end of the session.[300:1] But at the instance of Mr. Balfour a sessional order was passed in 1896 allowing in that session twenty days for supply, with a provision for taking a vote, without further debate, on every grant left when the days expired, the time allowed being, he thought, about the average amount heretofore devoted to the subject.[300:2] As the grants in supply, unlike the clauses of a bill, can be brought before the House in any order that the minister may choose, there was not the same need of a closure by compartments; but in order to remove any fear that the government might hold back certain appropriations, Mr. Balfour said that the important grants, and those which any group of members wanted to discuss, would be taken first.[300:3] The resolution was renewed from year to year[300:4] until by the new rules of 1902 it was permanently embodied in the standing orders.[300:5]