which provided for aid being given in cases of exceptional agricultural distress from the purchasers' insurance and reserve funds, and moved the omission of Sub-section 1. The debate was continued at another sitting (May 4), when the amendment was negatived. Numerous other amendments were also discussed and rejected at the same sitting. The Committee agreed to an amendment moved by Mr. Sexton (Belfast, W.), providing that the purchase annuity should be reduced after eighteen years to such sum as, in accordance with the prescribed tables, and after allowing for the purchasers' insurance money, would replace at the end of the term the advance with interest at the rate of 4 per cent. per annum (May 5). A long debate arose on a motion by Mr. Knox (Cavan, W.), at the same sitting, to omit a sub-section giving the Lord-Lieutenant power to determine that the annuities should continue for more than five years to be 80 per cent. of the annual value, and the amendment was negatived by the narrow majority of 12. After a further discussion on the powers of the Lord-Lieutenant under the sub-section it was decided that he should only act on the report of the Land Commission. Several other amendments to the same sub-section were moved and rejected at the next two sittings (May 6 and 7), and Clause 5 was passed.

Mr. T. Healy (Longford, N.) moved an amendment to Clause 6-which related to the limitation of advances-omitting the first sub-section by which advances for pasture land or nonresidential holdings were prohibited (May 7). A long discussion ensued, extending over parts of two sittings, and the Government ultimately assented to Mr. Healy's proposal. Mr. Balfour, however, stipulated for a new sub-section, providing that the money to be advanced should be mainly spent upon holdings below the annual value of 30l. Amendments for limiting the advances to be made, first to 5,000,000l. and afterwards to 30,000,000l., as well as other amendments, were negatived (May 8). The next sitting of the Committee (May 11) was almost entirely occupied with amendments that were rejected. Clause 6, indeed, was an object of persistent, though of futile, attack, for four other amendments to it were moved at a later sitting and rejected (May 12), and the clause was then passed. Clause 7, which did not receive much opposition, was passed at the same sitting. Clauses 8 and 9 were agreed to after a short discussion, some unimportant amendments being made in the former (May 13). Clause 10, which had reference to the tenure of office of the Land Commissioners, was warmly contested (May 13 and 14), but the various amendments proposed were rejected, and the clause was passed. The succeeding clauses, down to and including Clause 17, were all agreed to (May 14).

Between six and seven o'clock on the following evening all the original clauses of the bill-nineteen in number-had been disposed of, and nothing remained save the consideration of some

new clauses and the schedules. The Government had tried to come to some arrangement previously, to the effect that all the new clauses should be postponed to the report stage, except a new one proposed by Mr. Balfour as to the treatment of holdings of less annual value than 301., which it was suggested should be dealt with after the holidays. But Mr. Sexton (Belfast, W.) and Mr. Arthur O'Connor (Donegal, E.) insisted that new clauses of theirs should also receive exceptional treatment. Mr. Shaw Lefevre (Bradford) entreated them to give way, and let the House have a full week of holiday; but the two members flatly refused to do so. In the result the adjournment for Whitsuntide, instead of being taken, as was intended, for a full week, was limited to little more than half that period.

The other business at this time before Parliament was meagre and unimportant. Questions were asked in both Houses (April 24) in reference to the reported massacre at Manipur of Mr. Quinton, Chief Commissioner of Assam, and other British officials; and again (May 1) in regard to the report that the action of the Manipuris had been caused by a treacherous attempt to arrest the Senapatti. On the first occasion papers were promised; on the second the Government had received no information substantiating the report. Lord Monkswell, in the House of Lords, moved the second reading of the Copyright Bill (May 11), by which it was proposed to abolish the necessity for an alien to reside in this country in order to obtain copyright; to fix the duration of literary copyright at the term of the author's life, plus thirty years; to give novelists the exclusive right of dramatising their own works; and to continue the copyright in works of art to the artists and not to the buyers. In the short debate which followed the Lord Chancellor stated that the matter was engaging the attention of the Government, and, if possible, they would propose legislation upon it at some future time. Though, therefore, the bill was read a second time it was not proceeded with. On the following day (May 12) the Marriage Acts Amendment Bill-a measure introduced by the Bishop of London, requiring persons married by a clergyman to furnish him with the same particulars that are supplied to a registrar-was read a third time and passed. The bill was sent to the House of Commons, but was not proceeded with in that House.

A resolution against the multiplication of deer forests in the Highlands of Scotland was moved in the House of Commons (April 24) by Mr. A. Sutherland (Sutherland), who suggested that no land at a lower altitude than 1,000 feet above the sealevel should be allowed to be converted into forest. The Lord Advocate ridiculed the notion that the reconversion of the recently afforested land into large sheep farms would in any way benefit the Crofters, and Mr. Chaplin (Sleaford) complained of the exaggerated statements made in regard to deer forests. The

motion was negatived by 120 to 73. Mr. John Ellis (Rushcliffe) moved a resolution in favour of the reduction of the number of publichouses, and for intrusting to local authorities further powers of control over the issue of licences (April 28). The resolution was an attempt to emphasise, by a declaration from Parliament, a recent decision of the House of Lords in the case of Sharp versus Wakefield. The eagerness of the Temperance party, however, to hasten the full attainment of their hopes defeated its own ends. Mr. Fulton (West Ham, N.), in the course of an exhaustive analysis of the Licensing Acts, maintained that a large proportion of the owners of licensed houses had a vested interest in their licenses, and urged that it would be most unfair to confiscate their property without compensation. He formulated this view in an amendment. Mr. J. Morley (Newcastle-on-Tyne) contended that the case of Sharp versus Wakefield, and the reception of the Government compensation proposals last year, had given notice to the trade that the reduction of licences was imminent. It being admitted that the existing number of licences was excessive and that local control by popularly-elected bodies was desirable, if the principle of local veto was accepted it was necessary to consider to what kind of popularly-elected body the power of control should be intrusted. The county councils ought for their own sake to be spared the performance of this duty, and he should prefer the institution of an authority constituted ad hoc. The question was one which no Government could afford to ignore, but he emphatically repudiated the notion that the principle of compensation would be assented to by the nation. Mr. Ritchie (St. George's, E.), while admitting that the number of publichouses was grossly excessive, attributed the excess in a large measure to the action of the Temperance party, and claimed that, if the proposals of the Government in 1888 had been accepted, the object aimed at by Temperance reformers would to a great extent have been accomplished. He next commented on the divergence of opinion among the advocates of temperance as to the manner in which the local authority should be constituted, pointing out that Mr. Gladstone and others had distinctly declared against an authority ad hoc. Under these circumstances he held that it behoved any Government dealing with the question to approach it with great caution. He acknowledged, however, the desirability of carrying into effect the principle of a local veto, while he insisted that it could not be carried out unless the right to equitable compensation was admitted. The discussion was continued by Sir Wilfrid Lawson (Cockermouth) and other members, and the amendment was ultimately carried by 190 to 129.

The second-reading debate of the Leaseholders' Enfranchisement Bill, introduced by Mr. J. Rowlands (Finsbury, E.), resulted in the rejection of the measure by 181 to 168 (April 29). The object of the Bill was to enable all leases and sub-leases having

twenty years to run, and leases for lives, to be enfranchised by the lessees, the purchase price in case of dispute between the lessor and lessee to be settled by the county court. Mr. Matthews (Birmingham, E.) pointed out that the measure proposed to remedy isolated cases of injustice by doing signal injustice to all lessors. At its next sitting (April 30) the whole time of the House of Commons-with the reservation of a single Wednesday for the Women's Franchise Bill-was claimed by the Government for the Irish Land Purchase Bill. Ultimately it was agreed that the whole time of the House should be given to this measure until it had passed through Committee.

Leave was given to Sir Henry James (Bury) to bring in a bill to facilitate the resignation of members (May 5). The measure originated in the difficulty presented by the existing plan of vacating seats by applying for the Chiltern Hundreds. The stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds being an office under the Crown, though a nominal one only, it could not be conferred upon a member against whom any charge had been preferred. The case of Captain Verney (Bucks, N.), who was at the time awaiting trial on a charge of misdemeanour, was an illustration of the difficulty. A member resting under suspicion might very properly wish to retire from Parliament, but the existing system gave him no chance of doing so. The bill was brought in but was not proceeded with. Capt. Verney was convicted, on his own confession, of the misdemeanour alleged against him, and he was expelled from the House (May 12) on the motion of Mr. W. H. Smith (Strand), seconded by Mr. Campbell-Bannerman (Stirling). The motion was seconded and carried in silence, but in the speeches of the mover and seconder on a previous motion, for taking the matter into consideration, the warmest sympathy was expressed for the family of the offending member, his fatherhimself a former member of the House-being described by Mr. Campbell-Bannerman as "a model, a type, and an example of what a high-minded and public-spirited gentleman should be."

Parliamentary work was too exacting to admit of much extraParliamentary oratory on the eve of Whitsuntide, and, with one or two exceptions, the few speeches of Parliamentary leaders were not political. Mr. Goschen was a guest at a Mansion House banquet to the Governor and Directors of the Bank of England (May 6), and made some observations on a suggestion for the introduction of 11. notes. Although, he said, many people maintained that the 11. note would be a most popular form of currency, there were a great many persons who preferred the sovereign. Most London men preferred the sovereign to the 17. note. At one time men came to him to say that there was nothing that would be so pleasant as to be able to send 17. notes from one end of the country to the other; at another time they called them" dirty," and they even believed they would carry infection. But he had not learned from any statistical sources

that the 17. note in Scotland had rendered the Scotch people less healthy than their brethren in the south. He himself preferred a sovereign to a 17. note, unless through the issue of the 11. note a great national object could be achieved, and that was the point upon which he would argue it, when the time came, with the bankers and the public. He was much opposed to anything that would weaken the currency. He wanted to see it stronger, and not weaker, than it was at the present moment. He was not content that our stock of gold at the centre-the smallest of any in the great centres of banking or of commerce in any part of the civilised world-should be at the mercy of a sudden desire of seizing gold on the part of our neighbours abroad as it was now. Speaking on the same day at a banquet given by the National Union in honour of the Army and Navy, Lord George Hamilton said that the present administration had maintained the Navy at a cost diminished by 20 per cent., and had saved 50 per cent. in time in the construction of their ships.

Sir William Harcourt delivered two speeches in Devonshire, at Newton Abbot (May 11) and Crediton (May 12). At the former place he declared that the gain made by the Liberal party in elections since 1886 came to at least 20 per cent., and said that if at the General Election there was anything like the result which had occurred upon the eighty or ninety seats vacated since 1886, the Liberal party would have a majority in the next Parliament as great as that which the Unionists had in 1886. This indicated the determination of the people to condemn the present Government and restore to power the great statesman who was displaced in 1886. When a week or two ago whispers of dissolution were heard in the House of Commons the cry of free education was raised to carry the agricultural labourers with a rush. Sir William thought free education a very good thing, and he fought for it in 1883. It was amusing to him, recollecting those times, that the man who now proposed free education was Mr. Goschen, who then declared it was the wickedest, most socialistic, and most subversive proposal it was possible to make. The Government calculated that by free education they were going to win thousands of votes. According to the Unionist papers it had caused the clergy and farmers to damp off; but that was no reason why they should not be kept to it. The Tories were not the fathers of free education; they were stepfathers, and the Liberals must look after the bringing up of the child. If the State was to pay for education, the public must have control. They must not let one or two persons -the squire or the parson-who frequently found very little of the money, have the sole control and the sole determination of what was to be the character of the teaching, the choice of master, and all those things upon which the future of the child. depended, and in which the parent ought to have a voice. That was what they understood by free education, and if they did not