changeableness of naval policy, and the House had endorsed this view. Sir William Harcourt, however, was indignant over what he seemed to regard as a wholly new and terrible attempt to deprive Parliament of its control over naval expenditure. He charged the Chancellor of the Exchequer with throwing into confusion the whole financial system of the country, and with abandoning principles for which he had formerly been one of the greatest sticklers. He protested against the future resources of the country being mortgaged, and submitted that it would have been more straightforward if the Government had proceeded by way of loan.

Mr. Goschen replied that undoubtedly there would have been an easier course to pursue, but it would not have been sound finance. What the Government had done was to spread the charge for the Naval Defence Act over a period of years, as was done in the case of the Mobilisation of Forces Act in 1872, and this was done in order to insure that the naval policy adopted in 1889 should be carried out. He further protested with some vehemence against Sir W. Harcourt's "gigantic exaggeration; but, for some reason, the Opposition leaders seemed to fancy they had discovered a serious flaw in the Ministerial procedure, for Mr. John Morley (Newcastle) hastened to support his colleague by denouncing the defence as "an audacious avowal of a most unconstitutional doctrine."

Mr. Goschen (St. George's, Hanover Square) replied again, and having been taunted with the fact that he himself protested in 1879 against a similar procedure when adopted by Sir Stafford Northcote, he admitted the fact, but declared that he had modified his views since, because he had become convinced of the necessity of having a continuous naval policy, and therefore had not been unwilling to "weaken the control of Parliament" over the construction of the fleet. "What!" asked Sir William Harcourt, "to weaken the control of Parliament over the defences of the country?" "Yes," replied Mr. Goschen, "because we shall have a stronger navy, and I am sure the country will forgive any little complication that may be caused." Sir William Harcourt immediately proceeded to denounce Mr. Goschen as "a once Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was arguing in favour of ship-money; adding that he had made "the very speech Charles I. would himself have made had he been a Liberal Unionist Chancellor of the Exchequer." Then, turning to Mr. Balfour, he denounced the Chief Secretary as "a youthful Strafford," who, as the author of coercion, could not be expected to respect constitutional principles in finance or in anything else." Mr. Balfour, in reply, pointed out how the right hon. gentleman seemed to have completely forgotten the debates of three years before, adding that if our shipbuilding programme could have been carried out within a year it would have been wrong to spread the expense over more than one year, but it took a longer

6

time to build a ship now than formerly, and the present arrangement had been made in consequence of that exigency.

The discussion was continued for some time, but at length the vote was agreed to without a division, so that the vehement opposition of the Liberal leaders was wholly unintelligible to those outside the House. No further difficulties were raised as to the remaining votes, which were granted without alteration, but in the discussion of the vote for naval ordnance, the whole weight of argument was on the side of those who protested against the continued production of costly and unwieldy guns. Lord George Hamilton, whilst abstaining from any definite promise, indicated the willingness of the Admiralty to suspend the further arming of ships with 110-ton guns, or even 87-ton guns, although such might be still regarded as necessary for battery defence.

The Civil Service Estimates in the House of Commons attract so much more detailed notice than either those for the Army or Navy, and their discussion each year is hailed with delight by critics and economists of every class, desirous of airing their grievances or of displaying their aptitudes for public affairs. Intelligent or effectual criticism is never expected, the Ministry of the day having always in readiness a sufficient number of supporters to prevent the reduction of any contemplated or incurred expenditure; whilst constitutional rules prevent the increase by private members of any grants which may seem inadequate. The total sum required for the service of the year 1891-92, spread over seven classes of expenditure, was 16,516,0291., or more than half a million (614,5167.) in excess of the requirements of the preceding year, and this, without any reference to the future charges entailed by the "Free Education" policy subsequently accepted by the House of Commons. The chief causes of increased expenditure were :-Class I., Public Works and Buildings, an increase of 445,500l. to be incurred for light railways in Ireland, under the Act of 1889; Class II.. Public Departments, an increase of 193,5891. required to meet the cost of the decennial census. Class IV., Education, increased provisions for elementary education, 188,650l. The requirements of the Revenue Department, of which the expenditure is voted separately, had also risen from 11,307,358. in 1890-91 to 11,736,8971. for 1891-92, almost entirely due to the increased rates of pay and allowance to the Post-office sorting clerks and the Telegraph staff.

Some of the votes of Supply led to interesting discussion, and much light was thrown upon the proceedings of the Government in various places and countries. On the vote for the relief of distress in Ireland (55,831l.), for which a nominal sum of 5,000l. had been taken on account before Christmas, Mr. Balfour was able to place before the House (March 12) the plan he had set on foot for dealing with distress in Ireland. He described what had been done in connection with the construction of light railways-a work not undertaken for the relief of distress,

but hastened in its progress and made ancillary to that reliefand explained that 8,000 men had been employed upon these railways and over 40,000l. spent in wages. Two new lines had been commenced since the beginning of the year; the maximum amount of employment for unskilled labour had been provided, and no person in a state of acute distress who resided near the lines had been refused the opportunity of employment. The House was much amused when he went on to show, as a "conclusive proof" that the works fully supplied the demands for labour, that in many of the districts the men employed had "struck" for shorter hours or higher pay, though the wages ranged from 118. to 14s. per week. The scheme for the reclamation of land had to be abandoned, notwithstanding the quantity of land which seemed to need reclaiming, because either the landlord could not show a sufficiently good title to it, or there were in existence too many subsidiary rights of grazing, turbary, passage, and the like. An experiment in forestry had, however, been started on one hillside of 1,000 acres, where the only tenant, a priest, gave up all his rights for nothing, and the landlord sold the land for 10s. an acre, and information was being obtained from the Continent, where forestry was largely and profitably carried out, as to the proper steps to be taken. Assistance had been offered by the Government in many places for the supply of turf for fuel, but as yet it had not been taken advantage of. He described the means taken for provisioning the scattered islands on the west coast, which were sometimes inaccessible from the mainland for days and weeks together, and he explained the way in which seed potatoes had been provided, though not without some frauds on the part of the contractors and also on the part of the tenantry who received the supplies. The other relief works, mainly road construction, were also described, together with the great difficulty of ascertaining where they were really needed through the existence of acute distress. In some cases he had offered free lodging, free bedding, free cooking, and 12s. a week to men who would not come to be employed. In one instance nine men appeared, of whom five were so drunk that they could not work, and the other four accepted work, but soon abandoned it. The wages given in ordinary cases were 78. a week, and only those who were in need were employed. The total number of men employed on these works was 7,392, and they had received in wages 21,1591., the expenditure now going on at the rate of about 3,000l. a week. When Mr. Balfour had finished his statement considerable discussion followed, mainly of a friendly character, Mr. J. Morley expressing a general approval of the policy pursued, and the vote was agreed to. Then there was another discussion on the vote for light railways, but this at last was closured, and the vote carried by 150 to 40, after two or three divisions had taken place, the chief objection taken being that the transactions in which the Treasury had

engaged with contractors and others were extravagant and unbusinesslike.

The only other debates of importance which engaged the attention of the House of Commons before Easter were those raised on Mr. Stansfeld's (Halifax) miniature Reform Bill and Mr. Jesse Collings's Small Holdings Bill. Mr. Stansfeld's motion (March 3) took the form of a resolution which declared "That, in the opinion of this House, it is needful to amend and simplify the laws relating to the qualification and registration of Parliamentary electors; and especially to provide (a) that no person shall be permitted to vote in more than one electoral area during the continuance of one and the same register; (b) that the term of qualification shall be reduced to not more than three months; (c) that registration superintendents shall be appointed who shall be officially responsible for superintending the preparation of accurate lists of voters." He spent considerable time in explaining to an almost empty House that the laws relating to the qualification and registration of voters were complicated and costly in every way.

Mr. Howorth (Salford, S.) moved an amendment, which, while admitting the desirableness of amending the present registration system, declared that no alteration of the present law should be considered which did not provide that the different parts of the United Kingdom should be represented proportionately to their population. Mr. Howorth was very severe upon Mr. Stansfeld for his "parochial arguments" and "commonplace rhetoric," and urged Mr. Gladstone to give that justification for the motion which had been wholly wanting in Mr. Stansfeld's speech. He made much of the fact that the last Reform Bill was the result of a "diplomatic arrangement" between the two great parties in the State, which was understood to aim at comparative finality in the process of tinkering with the Constitution. In reply to this challenge Mr. Gladstone spent half an hour or so in supporting the original motion with a skill and animation which had as yet been wanting from his own side, and once more showed his easy mastery of all the arts of debate. He ridiculed the notion that one admitted grievance was not to be got rid of because its removal would leave another one unredressed, and reminded the Conservatives that their proper course was at all events to pass so much of Mr. Stansfeld's motion as they agreed with, even if they rejected the rest. He denied that the last Reform Bill was passed as the result of a "diplomatic arrangement," and excused its not containing the provisions now sought to be introduced on the ground that it had to be confined "within the very narrowest limits," because, if its authors had attempted to cover every possible point, they would have been "lost in the wilderness of detail," the opportunities for opposition would have been multiplied a hundredfold, and that the then Government would have themselves become, through defective arrangement,

the assassins of their own progeny. He attacked the plural vote, and said of it that it was a mere lottery, for it was not the best, the wisest, or even the wealthiest of the upper classes who enjoyed it, but only those who happened to keep their names upon their University books, or who had property in more than one county. It had nothing whatever to do with wealth, rank, excellence of character, or distinguished public service, and its only virtue, if it were a virtue, was that the working man was absolutely excluded from it. He laughed at the amendment as practically saying "We admit you have a grievance in not being upon the register, but we will not remove that grievance by placing you upon the register, because you are already suffering, as Englishmen, from the under-representation of your country." He dwelt on the want of generosity of those who opposed the motion, for, though it might be found "by the aid of a microscope and an arithmetic table" that England was slightly under-represented in comparison with the other three countries which made up the United Kingdom, no complaint was ever made by Englishmen when they had 500 seats in Parliament, while Scotland had only forty, and Ireland, which at that time had nearly a third of the population of the entire kingdom, had only 100 members. As it was, England possessed more than twothirds of the whole voting power of the House of Commons, and she had always used her "vast preponderance" to take care that her own affairs were first attended to, while those of the other countries were "borne down, overruled, and cast out of the House." England also enjoyed another great advantage in the fact that she kept the Imperial Parliament "at her own fireside," and he thought she had no title to complain, seeing "the vast power she possessed, and the use she made of it."

Mr. Chamberlain (Birmingham, W.) followed with a clever speech, which threw the other occupants of the front Opposition bench and the Opposition generally into a state of great resentment and indignant warmth. He frankly admitted the existence of registration grievances; but he pointed out that, though Mr. Gladstone pledged himself six years ago to take up the question,. he failed to do it when he came into power. Mr. Gladstone might say that more urgent business intervened, but the present Government might say exactly the same thing. Mr. Chamberlain proceeded to argue against the adoption of abstract resolutions, and provoked much laughter when he quoted Mr. Gladstone's arguments against them on many previous occasions. There was more laughter when he quoted from a speech made by Sir George Trevelyan in 1885, declaring that when the then Reform Bill had passed "no living man would be troubled with the franchise again," that it would be "settled on a permanent and solid basis,' and that it "admitted all who should be admitted and excluded all who should be excluded;" and Mr. Chamberlain next showed how incomplete Mr. Stansfeld's proposal was, as it did not touch a