The Committee for Privileges of the House of Lords, who
reported last March in favour of Lady Rhondda's petition for a writ of summons, on Tuesday gave their reasons for. rejecting it. The Lord Chancellor, who had caused the Committee to change their minds, argued at great length that the patent creating Lord Rhondda a Viscount did not and could not grant to his daughter and heiress the right to sit in Parliament. He then dealt briefly with the Sex Disqualification• (Removal) Act of 1919, urging that Parliament could not have meant by the " vague and general " words of the Act to effect a " revolu- tionary change " in. the privileges of. the House of Lords. Lord Haldane, who dissented, pointed out that the Act was intended to get rid of the general disqualification which the law imposed on the mere ground of sex. It was, in fact, a revolutionary measure. If peeresses were net to benefit by the Act they would remain subject to the disabilities from which other women were freed. The Committee; by twenty votes to four, agreed with the Lord Chancellor, but hifeargument will convince few women and not many men.
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