This speech was received cordially by the Unionist Mem- bers,
though Mr. Courtney pointed out the danger that there might not be sufficient time to get through all that would be needed between the early part of January and the middle of March, and that there would then be no means of preventing a collapse, while Sir John Mowbray suggested that he hoped the Government would be warned by their own experience and by that of their predecessors against overloading their legisla- tive programme. The Opposition have been exulting all the week with the wildest screams of delight over Mr. Balfour's proposal as equivalent to acknowledging the certain defeat of the Bill. And certainly the dragging discussions of the week, which have hardly got the first line of the first clause through Committee, do not give much hope that any large part of the Bill can be passed between the early part of January and the middle of March. There is, however, nothing to prevent Mr. Balfour from reconsidering his proposal in the light of these discussions of the Committee on the Bill. We suspect that recourse to an autumn Session is inevitable if the Bill is to pass before the prorogation.
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