The remaining time before the Easter adjournment was filled up partly by minor Government Bills. The East African Protectorates Loan Bill (April 7) authorised the Treasury to lend 3,000,000_l._ to the Governments of British East Africa (l,855,000_l._), Nyasaland (816,000_l._), and Uganda (329,000_l._). The trade, the Colonial Secretary explained, was outstripping the facilities for communication. The Bill was passed with a little adverse criticism. So was the Mall Approach Improvement Bill, enabling the London County Council to approve the Charing Cross Approach to the Admiralty Arch. The cost, 115,000_l._, was to be shared equally between the Council, the Westminster City Council, and the Commissioners of Works, and the First Commissioner would have a veto on the architectural design of buildings erected by the County Council on the superfluous land taken. A significant contribution towards suffrage reform in the future was afforded by a debate on the "alternative" or preferential vote, a device favourably viewed by most of the speakers, but left an open question by the Government. The debate on the adjournment (April 7) was ingeniously used to revive the subject of the obstruction of debate by "blocking motions," a practice condemned by the House in 1907 (A.R., 1907, pp. 74, 166). A week earlier attention had been called to the blocking of a resolution on divorce proposed by Mr. France (L.), through the introduction of a Divorce Bill by Lord Hugh Cecil (U.), who declined, when appealed to by the Speaker, to desist, though the Bill, as the Speaker said, was obviously a bogus one. By way of retaliation, and also to call attention to the necessity of getting rid of this practice of obstruction, Liberal members put down 160 notices of motion designed to bar out all possible subjects from the debate on the adjournment, in which any matter not thus barred can be discussed. A few questions were raised, less for their own sake than to exhibit the ingenuity of the raisers. Eventually a stormy debate was raised by Mr. Amery (U.) on the reticence of Ministers, which developed into a fresh conflict over the Ulster "plot." The adjournment, however, was carried by 171 to 21; and four weeks later the abuse of "blocking motions" was at last disposed of by a new Standing Order, to the effect that in determining whether a discussion was out of order on the ground of anticipation, the Speaker should have regard to the probability of the matter anticipated being brought before the House within a reasonable time. This reproduced the chief recommendation made by a Committee in 1907.