23 JUNE 1906, Page 2

On Monday in the House of Commons the Prime Minister

moved the Closure Resolution on the Education Bill. He disliked these " irregular interfererlces with full debate," but they were unavoidable in the absence of systematic methods of procedure. Mr. Balfour moved an amendment condemning the Resolution as an attempt to closure a Bill as to which the House was still largely in the dark. The whole debate had an air of good-humoured farce. Mr. Balfour said the thing which the Leader of the Opposition is expected to say in attacking a course which he had himself adopted in the past and is quite ready to adopt again. Such speeches are the• tribute which our party system exacts from consistency. On a division Mr. Balfour's' amendment was rejected by 341 votes to 171.