The debate on the London Bill was continued on Thursday.
Though Mr. Asquith attacked the Bill with great vehemence, his speech was anything but convincing. Mr. Courtney, on the contrary, made a most useful and impressive speech. He pressed the House to look at the Bill apart from the precon- ceptions and associations with which it had been connected. "The Bill had been condemned not so much for what was in it as for what had been read into it." The Bill did not go as far as the suggestions of Mr. Courtney's own Commission— notably in regard to the formation of a strong central body— but it might possibly be regarded as "a part performance of what the Commission had suggested." Mr. Courtney ended by a characteristic appeal to the Leader of the House to watch the course of argument, and not to trust entirely to the force of votes. Whether Mr. Balfour will be able to do this must, of course, depend on the action of the other side. If they produce a heated atmosphere and treat the Bill as a purely party matter, a purely party matter it will become.
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