Wednesday's sitting was fertile in Parliamentary surprises. On the House
going into Committee on Sir J. Blundell Maple's Service Franchise Bill, which re-enfranchises police- men and shop-assistants living in cubicles, Mr. McKenna's amendment providing that the fact of an employer living on his business premises should not disqualify his assistants from voting was carried by 58 to 40. This extension of the franchise, though repudiated by Sir J. Blundell Maple, may be regarded by all Unionists without misgiving. The carrying of an amendment having secured the Report stage of the Bill, the Liberals dropped their further amendments, and the Committee at once passed to the consideration of Mr. Robson's Half-Timers Bill. Here Mr. Whiteley's three amendments were promptly ruled out of order by Mr. Lowther, and the Bill went through in a few minutes. As a result of this sudden collapse a number of private Bills came on for discussion,—some in the absence of their promoters. The episode has been commented on in some quarters as furnishing reprehensible evidence of Mr. Balfour's relaxation of Government control on Wednesdays. We cannot, however, profess great regret in view of the practical result achieved in the case of Mr. Robson's Bill, especially when the Daily Chronicle admits that as "the chances were that Sir Blundell Maple would resist all amendments on his Bill, a small group of Radicals would thereupon have found it neces- sary without any unfriendliness to the Children's Bill to fight all the afternoon."
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