Speaker’s Bill

WE cannot congratulate the Central Legislative Assembly on the trend of the debate that took place at its meeting on Tuesday on Speaker Vithalbhai Patel’s Bill. The consideration of the Bill for the repeal of certain repressive laws was adjourned for a few days with the professed object of enabling the non-official members to discuss informally with government members and understand the actual position and come to some arrangement on the question. This would have been a very commendable course if there had been the least chance of such an arrangement being reached. As it is, both the Home Member and the Law Member, and especially the former, made it quite clear that the government was not in favour of the Bill in any form or shape and would be no party to the repeal of any of the several Bills which Patel was anxious to remove from the Statute Book. In the circumstances, an informal discussion between the government and the non-official members will, we fear, be so much time and labour thrown away. Of course, one can easily understand Patel’s own eagerness to come to a settlement with the government, if possible. He wants his Bill to become law, and it cannot possibly become law in the existing conditions in the teeth of official opposition. After the Legislative Assembly, there is the Council of State, and the position of the government in that House is stronger than in the Assembly. And even if by some chance the Bill is passed by both Houses it is still possible for the Viceroy to withhold his assent and for the King-Emperor to disallow it on the advice of his constituted advisers.