The Special Areas Bill In regard to the location of
industry generally and the question of the limitation of the expansion of London in particular, the Government promises a Royal Commission; but Royal Commissions too regularly spell delay for this to be a satisfactory solution to the immediate problem ; at any rate, concentrated work and an early report are essential in this case. The debate on the Special Areas Bill in the House of Commons on Tuesday was disastrously restricted by the Chairman's ruling that not only could not new expenditure, but not even alternative ways of spending the sums specified in the Bill, be discussed. The Opposition, thus muzzled, created an uproar which was the more un- reasonable because on Tuesday Sir Donald Somervell, for the Government, had promised that, if after consultation with the Opposition it were considered desirable, a special enquiry should be held into the working of the Standing Orders under which the amendments had been ruled out of order. If the fault is indeed with the Standing Orders, and not with what Mr. Lloyd George called the demoniac ingenuity of the Government in drawing up the money resolution, it can only be deplored that Parliament should be prevented by its own procedure from giving any adequate discussion to one of the Government's most important and controversial measures.
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