(To THE EDITOR 07 THE " SPECTATOR.") Sia, — Lord Hugh Cecil
contends that the proposal which he advocates " is merely to modify the procedure by which Parlia- ment gives consent to laws relating to the Church." He says that, in the case of measures " opposed by a strong body of opinion," the Government would always give a day for discussion. Now, a day means only seven hours—from four o'clock to eleven—and even that short space of time cannot be very often extorted from any Government. As the best will have to be made of these rather infrequent opportunities, the measures brought forward may be expected to contain several, and perhaps many, provisions of varying degrees of importance, and exciting varying degrees of opposition. With a measure of that character before it, how will the House spend its seven hours? In a second-reading debate, at the end of which the whole measure will be carried or rejected on a division, or in a sort of Committee-stage discussion, with details examined and amendments moved, and, as likely as not, very little progress by eleven o'clock? But the question has no practical importance. In whatever way the discussion may be conducted, measures " opposed by a strong body of opinion " cannot be intro- duced, considered, and finally settled, except by rejection or with-
drawal, in seven hours.—I am, Sir, &c., A. A. B.
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