22 MARCH 1913, Page 2

Mr. Asquith, who met the suggestion in a sympathetic spirit,

while demurring to Lord Robert's view of the attitude of the public to the House and the decline in importance of the private member, expressed substantial agreement with his main complaint. If, however, all Bills were to go to Grand Committees, the machinery of this pro- cedure would have to he considerably amended. He was sceptical as to the practicability of Lord Robert Cecil's plan for dealing with obstruction, but he readily admitted that the time had come to submit the consideration of rules of procedure and the expediency of readapting them to the conditions under which they now worked to a really authoritative Select Committee, of which a substantial majority should be unofficial.