We are far from satisfied at the way in which
the Bill has gone through the Committee stage. Time has been expended on the discussion of comparatively trivial matters, and withheld from the discussion of provisions of real importance. Possibly this was inevitable if the Bill was to get through this Session, but it is nevertheless to be deplored. It seems to us that the Government made, as almost all Governments do, a capital error in not taking the question of time into consideration at the very beginning of the Session, and then apportioning it more adequately to the different clauses of the Bill. For ourselves, we would much rather see the Closure applied to the generalities of the first and second reading debates than to the details in Committee. Why should not a Minister in charge of a Bill of the first importance explain to the House the time intended to be given to the Bill at the end of his first-reading speech ? Under such a system there would be far less cause for com- plaint.
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