News of the Week
ON the night of Thursday, June 14th, the House of Commons rejected by 266 votes to 220 the motion that the Prayer Book Measure, 1928, should be presented for the Royal Assent. A majority of English members voted in the minority. We recorded as they took place the actions and formalities which preceded the motion since the rejection of the 1927 Measure last December by 240 votes to 207 ; the debates and voting in Convocation and the Church Assembly. The Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament had examined the new Measure and given a reasoned report which went beyond a nihil obstat. They examined closely the changes submitted since last December and " would not recommend any interference with the decisions of the Church Assembly " on questions of doctrine or ceremonial. The changes were, as our readers know, designed to meet objections which seemed to weigh with the Commons so far as the Bishops could judge from the debate, objections concerned with misunderstandings of intention, such as those about the Prayers for the King and the repetition of the Black Rubric, and with the much more serious matter of the Reservation of the Elements.
* *
