Counted Out When private members complain, as they regularly do,
that the Government takes too much of the time of the House, the Government with equal regularity replies that private members make little use of such time as is allotted to them. Last Friday's proceedings were a case in point. The House met at 11, gave a third reading to two useful little measures, the Solicitors Bill and the Summary Jurisdiction (Appeals) Bill, and was counted out at 1 o'clock, when the Matrimonial Causes Bill was again up for second reading. Doubtless the Bill, which would make incurable insanity, enduring for at least five years, a ground for divorce, is disliked in some quarters, but the subject is important enough to demand serious consideration by the House. Yet not forty legislators could sacrifice part of their week- end in order to debate the Bill, presumably because it was not a Government measure. If not forty private members out of 615 will attend the House on a Friday private members deserve all they get.
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