variety of questions which Mr. Chamberlain himself, in due season, was prepared to support, including manhood suffrage, the payment of members, and equal electoral districts. The motion before the House only touched, in fact, "a little corner" of a great question, which, it was hoped, would serve the party to which Mr. Stansfeld belonged, and left out of view half-a-dozen other matters of greater importance, some of which would undoubtedly tell against that party. It was not the time for a new Reform Bill, within only six years of the passing of the last one, and the raising of a new reform agitation would only paralyse everything else and indefinitely delay social reforms which the country wished to see made. Now that they had got an improved Parliamentary machine they should "turn to and use it, and not begin tinkering it again." This was no time for Parliamentary reform, still less for "such a paltry reform" as Mr. Stansfeld proposed.

Sir G. Trevelyan (Glasgow, Bridgeton), replying to Mr. Chamberlain's strictures on his speeches in reference to the last Reform Act, maintained that the support he intended to give to the resolution was in no way incompatible with the attitude he took up in 1884. The resolution did not propose to alter the balance between one constituency and another, and he denied that if it were carried into effect it would necessitate a redistribution of seats.

The President of the Local Government Board, Mr. Ritchie (Tower Hamlets), admitted that some reform in the machinery of registration was needed, though he contended that the resolution went much further and aimed at a fundamental alteration of the franchise. The Government would be glad to deal with the question of registration if they thought a measure could be got through without obstruction, but they did not think it expedient or to the interest of the people that they should embark upon a general scheme of electoral reform.

Mr. Courtney (Cornwall, Bodmin) remarked that he was not satisfied with our system of registration, and would prefer to see the Scotch system applied to England. He would also like to see the qualification term reduced; but with regard to the question of plural voting, he thought it of small importance, except in the case of a bye-election.

On a division, Mr. Stansfeld's motion was negatived by 291 to 189, showing a very much larger majority than had been anticipated, as the Unionist Liberals had mustered in great force to support the resolution, but the Irish Home Rulers for the most part were absent. It was a curious commentary, moreover, on this motion that a bill brought forward by a number of Liberal members was withdrawn (March 18) without debate, whilst a similar bill for Scotland had been similarly treated (Feb. 23).

Mr. Jesse Collings's (Birmingham, Bordesley) Small Holdings bill met with no more practical result, although on its second reading (March 11) it obtained a succès d'estime. The bill, which provided facilities for the acquisition of land by rural labourers, was framed

The bill

on the lines laid down by the Select Committee of 1888. gave to local authorities power to hire as well as to purchase land, and also provided that a portion of the money should be paid down, the interest on the remainder being left as a perpetual quit rent. By this system the owner would be relieved from the competition of the capitalists and the men who wanted to buy land in order to relet it, and he would only have to compete with people who wanted the land for cultivating purposes.

The Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Chaplin (Lincolnshire, Sleaford), while defending the attitude he took in regard to small holdings in 1882, admitted that he had altered some of his views, and, though he was still opposed to the compulsory acquisition of land for the purpose of creating small holdings, he heartily concurred in the principle of the bill, and contended that the main object of Parliament in dealing with the subject should be to create a race of owners who should be dependent upon no one. Touching upon the details of the bill, he questioned the wisdom of leaving the local authority to carry out the scheme; but, assuming this to be agreed to, he thought the powers of purchase should be limited to the district of the local authority or a neighbouring district, and the power of sale limited to residents within the same locality. The whole project, which was one requiring to be dealt with with great care, was only an experiment; but he thought it was a reasonable experiment and one that might be safely tried. To insure success, however, the land acquired must be good, the price not excessive, and care must be taken that the holders were provided with the necessary buildings.

Sir W. Harcourt (Derby), who congratulated Mr. Chaplin upon his conversion to his present opinions, challenged the Government to bring forward their own measure. He should accept the second reading of the bill merely as a declaration that the creation of small holdings was a good thing, that it must be carried out by the local authority, and that means and facilities for carrying it out must be provided; but he maintained that no satisfactory solution of the question would be arrived at until a local authority was created which would have power to acquire land compulsorily, as well as the power, not only of buying it, but of transferring it; and the vendor must be able to part with it. But the main question was, Where was the promised bill of the Government ? He admitted that the bill did not give all that might be desired, but it was merely an experiment, in regard to which it was necessary to proceed tentatively and with care, and he had no doubt that, if in the course of time it became necessary to give the local authority compulsory powers to acquire land, Parliament would not hesitate to do so.

With this chorus of approval, it was natural that the bill should have been read a second time without a division, but its promoter profited little by this expression of approval. No subsequent opportunity for pushing it through Committee occurred,

and the leader of the House, judging from representations madeto him, did not see his way to giving Mr. Collings special facilities for passing a measure for which the Ministry ought more properly to have been responsible. The result was that no further progress was made in a matter which all sides of the House judged to be of pressing importance-to the agricultural labourer.

The Temperance question-in which not a few Liberals were anxious that their leaders should take a decisive step before the General Election-was brought before the House on various. occasions, and several bills for limiting the issue of licences or otherwise locally controlling the liquor traffic were brought in. On only one bill—that relating to Wales-was any direct issue challenged. The second reading of the Liquor Traffic Local Veto (Wales) Bill was moved (March 18) by Mr. W. B. Rowlands. (Cardiganshire), who appealed to the House to pass it on the ground that it was earnestly desired by an overwhelming majority of the Welsh people. The Government had allowed it to be understood that they left their supporters to act independently on the subject, but practically the majority of its opponents came from the Ministerial side of the House. The rejection of the bill was moved by the Marquess of Carmarthen (Lambeth, Brixton), and seconded by Mr. T. Maclean (Oldham), who contended that it was an unjust, intolerable, and impracticable measure, which would give rise to illicit drinking and increased demoralisation. The Home Secretary, Mr. Matthews (Birmingham, E.), remarking that the Government did not intend to influence their supporters to vote either for or against the Bill, admitted that an enormous amount of mischief resulted from excessive drinking, and, after tracing the history of licensing legislation, pointed out the great difficulty of dealing with the question, and expressed his belief that there were many directions which opened up a prospect more hopeful than the rough and coarse method of total prohibition. The bill was unjust and arbitrary, with nothing to alleviate its harshness, and it would absolutely put a stop to the trade of a vast number of persons who had just as. much right to the consideration of the House as other lawabiding citizens, and whose trade had been fostered and protected by the Legislature.

Mr. J. Morley (Newcastle-on-Tyne), pointing out that the House had already accepted the principle of local control, contended that if it were conferred on elective bodies it would be practically giving to localities a power of veto, and therefore the taunt that a measure of this kind would enable a majority to tyrannise over the minority was beside the question. The transfer of licensing control to the county or municipal councils. or to any other elected body would fail to give effect to the principle of direct local veto, which was the natural and indispensable complement of popular control, and he ridiculed the notion that

a large landowner should be allowed to suppress publichouses on his property whether the people of the locality liked it or not, and that the people themselves should not have the same power. He would not, however, pledge himself to support all the details of the bill.

After a few more speeches on both sides the House divided, and the second reading was carried by a majority of six, 185 to 179, amidst great cheering from the Temperance party. The bill on the next day was finally got into Committee, but no further progress was made with it, and its supporters had to be content with the "moral victory" which they had gained. A decision given by the House of Lords (sitting as a Court of Appeal) was, however, of far greater practical value. The case known as Sharp v. Wakefield raised the question of the right of the licensing justices to refuse to renew publichouse licenses. The Law Lords decided that they possessed an absolute, though not an arbitrary, discretion in the annual renewal as well as in the first issue of licenses. By this decision the claim to legal -compensation was at once barred, and the licensed victuallers and their supporters found themselves suddenly thrown back upon the moral claim which a hitherto protected class of traders might be able to sustain. In this particular case the legal judgment left no room for doubt; the House of Lords, consisting of the Lord Chancellor, Lords Bramwell, Herschell, Macnaghten, and Hannen, were unanimous in affirming the decision of the Master of the Rolls and Lords Justices Fry and Lopes, who, in their turn, had affirmed the judgment of three judges of the Queen's Bench Division. The case arose out of the refusal of the justices of the Kendal Division of Westmoreland to renew the license for the Lowbridge Inn at Hawkmere, on the ground that there was no longer necessity for a licensed house at that spot. The owner of the inn appealed against this decision on the ground that on an application for the renewal of existing licenses the justices were not entitled to inquire into the wants of the neighbourhood, but the justices at Quarter Sessions upheld the view of the licensing justices, holding also that the remoteness of the premises from police supervision was a further reason for withholding the license.

The conflict between labour and capital, of which the strikes on the Caledonian Railway, at the Cardiff Docks, and in other places gave evidence of the current prevailing in almost every trade, whilst the arguments and pleas put forward by the promoters of these movements, bore witness to a wide extension of Socialistic tendencies among the working classes. In Parliament, on the platform, and in private endeavour the willingness to recognise the new state of things was abundantly shown. Mr. Channing's motion for the reduction of the hours of railway servants had indeed been negatived in the House of Commons, but a few days after the President of the Board of Trade con

sented to the appointment of a Commission to investigate the alleged grievances. The Cheap Trains (London) Bill, which proposed to fix the maximum fare by workmen's trains within twelve miles of the metropolis at a halfpenny a mile for the double journey; Mr. Cuninghame Graham's Eight Hours Bill; the Labourers' Cottage Gardens Bill, and various Crofters' Holdings bills were instances of the general drift of public opinion, although in no case did any of these private bills become law. The Bill to amend the Factory and Workshops Act, 1878, brought in by Sir Henry James (Bury), was more practical in its aims and more specific in its application. It had for its object the better sanitation of factories, and provided for better ventilation, better means of escape from fire, greater protection from injury by machinery, and the means of testing the rate of payment by piece-work. After some discussion the bill was read a second time (Feb. 18), and was subsequently referred to a Select Committee, the Home Secretary having in the meanwhile (Feb. 10) brought in a Government Bill dealing with the same subject. In moving the second reading of this bill (Feb. 26) Mr. Matthews (Birmingham, E.) explained that the object of the bill was to bring all workshops and factories up to the same sanitary level, and to require the same conditions as to ventilation, overcrowding, limewashing, and cleanliness in all workshops, whether men alone, or women and children, were employed; but with regard to domestic workshops it was thought they might be left to the general law relating to public health. Factories would continue to be under the authority of the factory inspectors, but in other cases the enforcement of the sanitary provisions of the bill would be left to the local authorities. The bill also made better provision for carrying out the law relating to the employment of women and children, and alterations respecting their employment were made which, he believed, would prove of immense advantage to poor women who had household as well as business duties to attend to.

Mr. Buxton (Poplar) submitted that while the bill went a long way in the direction of improvement, it contained many sins of commission as well as of omission, and, in particular, he took objection to the provisions dealing with home work, domestic workshops, sanitary arrangements, and the publicity of notices in shops.

A long discussion followed, in the course of which a general approval was expressed of the bill, with the exception of the clause abolishing factory surgeons, to whose utility nearly every speaker testified.

Mr. Mundella (Sheffield, Brightside), who congratulated the Government on the tone and temper of the discussion, supported the bill; but, while gratified at the action of the Government in joining in the Berlin Conference, he regretted that they had not carried out its recommendation with regard to the age question