Questions must be brief and relevant. No member may ask an excessive or unreasonable number, nor may he couch them in lengthy terms. They may not be framed argumentatively nor contain personal charges against individuals. The Speaker is empowered to disallow any question if he thinks fit, and often interposes to check supplementary questions which are not relevant, or which constitute an abuse of the right to interrogate Ministers; and the latter are always at liberty to refuse an answer on the grounds that a reply would be contrary to the public interest. Whenever our relations with foreign Powers are in any way strained, certain members seem to take a delight in asking questions calculated to hamper the movements of the Foreign Office, or to provide other nations with all the secret information they desire. And it is not always expedient or easy for Ministers to refuse to satisfy the thirst for knowledge of their friends or opponents, or to try and choke off the inquisitive or importunate with evasive answers. It was always said that "Darby Griffith destroyed Lord Palmerston's first Government," by asking perpetual questions which the Premier answered with a "cheerful impertinence which hurt his parliamentary power."[391] And the amount of patience and tact displayed by modern Ministers in replying to frivolous or petty queries is always a subject of admiration to the stranger. [391] Bagehot's "English Constitution," p. 181. Members no doubt feel it their duty to provide their constituencies with some material evidence of their parliamentary labours, and no easier method can be imagined than the asking of questions on subjects in which they possibly take not the slightest interest. Some politicians openly confess that their secretaries have orders to make out a regular weekly list of conundrums which they can hurl at the heads of unoffending Ministers, with no other purpose than that of showing their constituents that they are taking an active interest in the affairs of the nation. The criticism made by a parliamentary writer fifty years ago is equally applicable to-day. "It would seem to be the chief amusement of some members diligently to read the newspapers in the morning, and to ask Ministers of State in the afternoon if they have read them too, and what they think of them."[392] [392] "Edinburgh Review," January, 1854, p. 254. The growth of this yearning for information is very clearly shown by a glance at the parliamentary statistics for the last hundred years. In 1800 not a single question was put during the whole of one session. In 1846 the number of questions asked with due notice was sixty-nine. In 1850 the number had risen to 212, in 1888 to 5000; in 1901 over 7000 questions were put, and to-day the number is still steadily increasing.