Both Houses of Parliament met at noon on Friday week,
and in the Commons a number of questions were addressed to the Prime Minister by members of his party with a view to his considering the desirability of a new Standing Order empowering the Commons to pass through all its stages in one sitting any Bill which had failed to pass into law by reason of the action of the Peers. Sir Henry Campbell- Bannerman assured them that while unable to give a definite reply on that occasion, the question would receive most serious attention. The amendments of the Lords to the Education (Provision of Meals) Bill, by which Scotland is excluded from
its scope, were subsequently accepted under protest, the Prime Minister describing them as the most remarkable case of the inversion of authority that had ever come under his notice. It wag, however, too late to send the Bill back ; it was a question of life or death, and if the Bill was to be saved, he feared they must bow before the decree of the Lords. The Premier's protest was endorsed by several Liberal and Labour Members, but Mr. Harold Cox, with characteristic indepen- dence, found fault with the Lords, not for amending the Bill, but for not rejecting the whole of it.
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