Now this absurdity has been boldly grappled with there is hope that another anachronism may be relegated to its appropriate limbo. It is quite time the House of Commons, if it is to vindicate its claim to be a business assembly, should make an end of the whole machinery of the Address in reply to the Speech from the Throne. This, also, was well enough in the days of Old Sarum. It is now, for all practical purposes, as archaic as the hunt for traces of Guy Fawkes, which to this day precedes the opening of each Session, and it is not nearly so picturesque. The object with which debate on the Address was originally devised was to provide convenient opportunity of challenging the existence of the Government, or at least of seriously debating some crucial line of their policy. It was a full-dress affair, chiefly confined to the giants of debate. If business were not meant, the conversation was usually brought to a conclusion before the dinner-hour on the opening night of the Session. It was confined to the mover and seconder of the Address, the Leader of the Opposition who criticised the Ministerial programme, and the Leader of the House who replied. There, as a rule, was an end of it. Even if fighting were meant and a division contemplated, it was only on rare occasions that the combat was carried over a single night. The House cheerfully sat till one or two in the morning to reach a conclusion of the matter. The last time the House of Commons completed the debate on the Address at a single sitting was in the first Session of the Parliament elected in 1874. That same Parliament saw the birth of a party which, in a few years, changed many things in the ordinary procedure of the House of Commons. It was the Irish members, with Mr. Parnell and Mr. Biggar just coming to the front, who discovered the opportunities latent in the ceremony of debate on the Address for obstructing business and embarrassing the Ministry. The lesson was quickly assimilated by other factions, and of late years it has come to be a matter of course that debate on the Address shall be extended beyond a week. Last year ten of the freshest days of the young Session were thus wasted. If the Address were the only opportunity presented for raising miscellaneous questions of public interest, the procedure would be defensible, even commendable. What happens is, that on the Address prolonged preliminary conversations take place round subjects which already stand upon the agenda of business, and will, in due course, be discussed again at further length, upon a notice of motion or the introduction of a Bill. [Illustration: MR. FENWICK.]