We cannot say that we like the plan of voting
important clauses without debate, but we are bound to admit that the Opposition, or, rather, the House as a whole, is to blame for this quite as much as the Ministry. No one will, we think, deny that plenty of Parliamentary time has been allotted to the Bill if all the hours given to discussion are reckoned up. If there has been inadequate discussion on certain poifts, this inade- quacy has been due to the fact that there was a waste of Parliamentary time at previous stages. The House never seems able to husband its resources in the matter of debate.
• wfll devote many hours to personal and petty points, and then appear surprised and indignant that no time is left for essential changes. So a spendthrift wastes his money on trifles, and then finds he has nothing left wherewith to pay his rent. The sense of unreality in the debates caused by the Closure, has been increased by the feeling that the Govern- ment are keeping their real concessions for the struggle with the Lords, and that we do not as yet know on what points the Cabinet mean to be adamant and where they will yield. As we have said elsewhere, we shall be surprised if in the end the Spectator's five points do not appear in the Act.
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