Sunday in Scotland It is a pity that Mr. D.
M. Mason's Scottish Sunday Trading Bill should have been wrecked on a technicality. In what was, for a Friday, a fairly full House, the closure of the debate (to prevent the Bill from being talked out) was moved and carried by the comfortable margin of 61 to 42, but it turned out that under a Standing Order it was necessary for 100 members to support a closure resolution. -- The measure has therefore lapsed, but it is to be hoped that it will be revived before long in the same or a modified shape. There is still a strong feeling in Scotland regarding Sunday observance, and tradesmen who share it, or at any rate defer to it, are put in an unfair position if one or two of their competitors keep open on Sundays and profit thereby. This is one of the cases in which it is not unreasonable to bring a small minority into line by legal means, as the Government spokesman in the debate on the lapsed Bill recognized. The principle should be established, with exceptions to cover such cases as the sale of refreshments, petrol and medicines.
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