The most expeditious and every way satisfactory means to the end
that has now been defined would be the appointment, at an early
stage of the session in October, of a Joint Committee of Conference.
To this committee should be referred:
(_a_) The question: How many of the Resolutions of 1883, or of
the "several recommendations therein contained," is it either
practicable or desirable to approve at once?
(_b_) The question: How may such of the Resolutions of 1883 as
are too good to be lost, but not in their present form good enough
to satisfy the Church, be so remoulded as to make their adoption
probable in 1889?
(_c_) All new propositions of improvement that may from time to
time during the session be brought to the notice of the Convention,
either by individual members or by memorials from Diocesan
Conventions. Such a Committee of Conference, holding daily
sessions of three or four hours each, would be able in due
time to report a carefully digested scheme which could then be
intelligently discussed. By this method a flood of frivolous and
aimless talk would be cut off without in the slightest degree
infringing or limiting the real liberty of debate.
But even if the Convention were to show itself reluctant to give
to a select committee so large a power as this of preparing an
_agenda_ paper, it still would be possible to refer to such a
committee the subject-matter of so many of the resolutions as
might chance, when put upon their passage, to fail by a narrow vote.
It is to be remembered that the various recommendations contained
in the resolutions of 1883 are to be voted upon _in ipsissimis
verbis_. There will be no opportunity for the familiar cry: "Mr.
President, I rise to propose an amendment." The resolution, or the
section of a resolution, as the case may be, will either be approved
just as it stands or condemned just as it stands. In this respect
there will be an immense saving of time. Most of the tediousness
of debate grows out of the natural disposition of legislators to
try each his own hand at bettering the thing proposed; hence
"amendments," "amendments to amendments," and substitutes for the
amendment to the amendment. Even the makers of parliamentary law
(much enduring creatures) lose their patience at this point, and
peremptorily lay it down that confusion shall no further go.
But to return to the supposed case of a proposition lost because
of some slight defect, which, if only our Medo-Persian law had
permitted an amendment, could easily have been remedied. Surely
the sensible course in such a case as that would be to refer the
subject-matter of the lost resolution to the Committee of Conference,
with instructions to report a new resolution to be finally acted
upon three years hence. So then, whether there be given to the
Committee of Conference either the large power to recommend a
carefully thought out way of dealing with all the material _en
bloc_, or the lesser function of sitting in judgment on new
propositions, and of remoulding rejected ones, in either case
there could scarcely fail to result from the appointment of such
a committee large and substantial gains.