The proceedings in Parliament have not been of great significance
during the week. In the House of Lords the most important alteration made in the Education Bill has been the excision of the clause creating a special Educational Council for Wales. The House of Commons has devoted the greater part of the week to the consideration of the Town Tenants (Ireland) Bill. This is a private Member's Bill, and the Government have begun to show a strange policy towards such measures. The old practice was for the House to give its opinion of a private Member's Bill after a Friday afternoon's debate, and such opinion was regarded as no more than the expression of the views of the House, and not as an act in a legislative process. But the Government have now begun to adopt such Bills after second reading, and in all their crudity and incoherence to force them through the House by means of a docile majority. The Trade Disputes Bill in its ultimate form was virtually a private Member's Bill, so was the Land Tenure Bill, and so is the present measure. The whole practice seems to us to be not only a betrayal of the confidence of the House, but a most vicious and destructive method of legislation. Mr. Balfour's protest on Monday was unanswerable. A Bill requires the assistance of skilled draftsmen in its preparation, assistance which no private Member can command.
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