There is only one thing to do when one's schoolmaster
has caught one out in an indefensible defence of a blunder, and that is to apologize. On Monday the Westminster Gazette showed that we were mistaken in thinking that under the Parliament Act a Bill could be reserved for the Royal Assent till after a dissolution. As the Westminster Gazette points out, the new enacting clause states that the Bill was passed by "the Commons in this present Parliament assembled." It might be argued, no doubt, that the words "unless the House of Commons direct to the contrary" might be used to suspend the Bill, but we think that argument would be too subtle. Those words were no doubt only put in to cover the with- drawal of a Bill in some great national emergency. We apologize therefore to the Westminster Gazette in the fullest possible way.
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