QUESTIONS IN PARLIAMENT [To the Editor of Tiir. SPECTATOR.] SIR, ---Mr.
R. L. Kitehing's suggestions of the kind of questions that a member of the House of Commons may ask of Ministers betray an almost pathetic lack of knowledge of Parliamentary procedure. Four of his five questionS on the supply of milk to school children are quite Out of order, and would not be accepted by the Clerk of the House from any member. Such questions must be confined to specific cases, with names and places indicated ; a minister may not be asked what is happening in " many school areas " or in " some rural dis- tricts," nor is he to be expected to say what " the weight of medical opinion " or the " accepted view of the medical profession " is upon any matter whatever. The one relevant question relates to something that may have happened at Rotherham, and it would -probably be in order. • Most Members of Parliament have to learn the rules of 'procedure—as the late 'I'. M. Healy admitted that he did— by breaking them ; but they need not expose • themselves to a rebuff from the clerks at the table by proposing to ask, questions at large.
Forty years' experience as an observer of the working of the rules of both Houses must be my warrant for this letter. --I am, &c.,
Press Club, E.C. 4. FREON. J. HIGOINBOTTOM.
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