Bird Notes and News 



27 



that milliners will do more than give the movement 

 passive support. 



" K, however, you could impress these facts 

 on those in our trade who are ignorant of them, and 

 would ask the whole mass of millinery workers to write 

 to their M.P.'s and ask them to support the Bill, 

 something might be done. If, in addition, a few people 

 in really high positions would let it be known that they 

 disapprove of the wearing of any feathers other than 

 those of birds bred for their flesh or plumage, I believe 

 those who desire to see the Bill become an Act would 

 not have long to wait." 



BILL No. 10. 



Why was not the Plumage Bill, the tenth of 

 the kind introduced into Parliament, among 

 the tale of sheaves of the Parliamentary harvest 

 of 1920 ? The question is asked, and may well 

 be asked, not only in this country, but by 

 ornithologists the world over who have a notion 

 that the British Parliament exists to carry out 

 the expressed wishes of the British electorate. 

 The history of the Bill is briefly this. It was 

 introduced on Feb. 13th, read a second time 

 by 61 votes to 8 on May 15th, and was one 

 of the first Bills of the session to be committed. 

 On behalf of the Government Mr. Montagu 

 said that Ministers desired to see it passed ; 

 as was indeed to be expected, seeing that it 

 was but a continuation of work to which the 

 Government itself put its hand in 1914. On 

 every occasion when a division was taken (and 

 the occasions were many) the majority in 

 support of both principle and detail, and against 

 every attempt to enfeeble its provisions, was 

 such that no possible doubt could exist as to the 

 Committee's wish and intention. Yet the 

 result is a blank, and the fight must begin 

 over again. 



It is commonly said that the Bill failed to 

 pass because of the continued want of interest 

 and of a quorum in Committee. This assertion 

 is a mere begging of the question. Incidents 

 outside and inside the House no doubt militated 

 heavily against Committee attendances ; but 

 the plain truth of the matter lies in the fact 

 quickly made obvious that those who attended 

 on behalf of the Bill were but wasting their time. 

 What man could wish to spend his mornings in 

 Committee Room 14 listening to the dreary 

 farce performed by Mr. Bartley Denniss, 

 Colonel Archer-Shee, and Commander Williams 

 as the Three Multiloquent Brothers in "A 

 Talk against Time " ? Had each clause been 

 put to the vote after one hearing of objections 

 raised against it, the whole thing would have 

 been through in three or four sittings. But 

 the farce went on and on ; and after the recess 



— during which some changes had been made 

 in the supers of the play under a supposition 

 that this might make business move — the 

 curtain was rung down on the plea that no 

 time remained for the final Act of the piece. 



It may be argued that the Bill was brought 

 forward at an unwise time, when Government 

 could not help it forward, and that some of its 

 supporters might have handled their case 

 more judiciously. But Bills far more conten- 

 tious, far less unanimously called for, and also 

 suffering from no-quorum committees, got 

 home. 



The trade have affirmed, first, that opposition 

 in Committee was so strong that no headway 

 could be made with the Bill ; and secondly, 

 that the prejudices of the Committee were 

 so strong that no headway could be made with 

 arguments against it. One statement is as 

 false as the other. Except from some five or, 

 doubtfully, six members who for unknown 

 reasons chose to support a trade denounced 

 by Parliament and people, there was no opposi- 

 tion to the Bill. The complaint of prejudice is 

 on all-fours with the plaint of Punch's dissen- 

 tient juryman, who never in his life came across 

 eleven more obstinate men. The whole country 

 is " prejudiced " against this wasteful, useless, 

 discreditable business which brings neither 

 grit to the nation nor gain to the workers, a 

 trade founded on profiteering at the world's 

 cost and bolstered up from first to last by false- 

 hood and dissimulation. The whole country is 

 sick of it, and sick of the quibbling and garbling 

 put up in its defence. The crying need is 

 for the Bill, the whole Bill, the Bill 12 years 

 overdue, the Bill 12 years delayed by sheer 

 obstruction. 



Why, then, with Government and people 

 alike desiring the measure, is a little knot of 

 moneyed traders enabled to laugh at both 

 people and Parliament ? Is the farce to be 

 renewed next session, or will the Government 

 straightly take the matter in hand and put the 

 Bill through without further dilly-dallying 

 and disputation ? 



The Executive Committee of the Women's 

 National Liberal Federation has passed reso- 

 lutions regretting the loss of the Bill, deploring 

 the " continued inaction of the Government 

 a,fter its publicly-declared sympathy with the 

 Plumage Bill, and calling on them to give 

 whatever facility may be necessary to enable the 

 Bill to become law without delay " ; and also 



