Slot-Machine Contraceptives
While it is satisfactory that the Home Secretary should have acted so promptly in the matter of the sale of contraceptives from slot- machines, it may be questioned whether to frame a model bye-law and send it down to the local authorities with the recommendation that they should adopt it quickly is the best way of dealing with the matter. Local authorities are often dilatory, and prompt action Is what is required in this case. The attitude of the House of Commons when the matter came up last week made it clear that a one-clause Bill with much the same content as the bye-law would go through with virtually no opposition. There are advantages in putting the' authority of Parliament behind a prohibition of this kind ; it is no a good case for local option, which is what the bye-law method entails. The fear that a debate on such a Bill would spread far beyond the limits of the measure does not seem siubstantial.
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