session was of minor importance only. A bill entitling clergymen of the Church of England to refuse the use of their churches for the performance of the marriage service in the case of any person whose former marriage had been dissolved on the ground of his or her adultery, was introduced by Lord Halifax (May 3), and was afterwards read a second time but not further proceeded with. The Evidence in Criminal Cases Bill, a measure of some value supported by both sides of the House, was passed and sent to the Commons (May 7), where nothing was done with it. Warm tributes were paid to the memory of the late Lord Selborne by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Salisbury, and Lord Rosebery (May 7). The Church Patronage Bill, introduced by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and described by him as an attempt to check the worst abuses of the existing system, and to render almost impossible those sales of the right of patronage which were incompatible with the sacred trust implied in the right, was read a second time (May 14), and afterwards passed through committee, but made no further progress.

Several members of the Cabinet were present at a conversazione held at the National Liberal Club (May 8) and delivered addresses. Lord Rosebery said that he had always observed one great failing in the Liberal party. They were too apt to look at their own difficulties and to shut their eyes to those of their opponents. He thought the Opposition had had very much the worst of it during the session in the House of Commons. Mr. Asquith had pulverised Mr. Chamberlain in the debate on the Address; Mr. Fowler had greatly distinguished himself in the discussion on the Indian cotton duties; Sir Edward Grey had won, if he did not actually wear, "the epaulettes of a Cabinet Minister"; while "among all, and above all, and with all, there was the indefatigable and brilliant leader of the House of Commons, Sir William Harcourt.” The Prime Minister went on to say that ministers would remain at their posts if the Liberal party would support them. Individual Liberals might be disappointed with the amount of legislation, but their disappointment was not half so great as that of the Liberal Government. "You may say," Lord Rosebery continued, "that we are wrong to proceed with bills which, from reasons that you know as well as I do, are perfectly certain not to be passed into law; but if that hindrance still continues, if that permanent obstacle is still allowed to remain, it will be the fault, not of the Government, but of the Liberal party. Whatever, gentlemen, we may say, and whatever we may be talking about in Parliament, remember this, that we have our eyes, at any rate, fixed on that permanent obstacle. We have our endeavours concentrated on the ultimate settlement of that question, and if you in the parts of the country to which you belong-if you are in reality fixed and determined that there shall be a Liberal party in this country, and that there shall be a Liberal Government to guide that party, you in your districts will have to bestir yourselves that

that object may become the subject of your serious consideration." Lord Rosebery, who was in delicate health, broke down in the middle of his speech, but with an effort he recovered the thread of it and went on.

Sir William Harcourt, speaking of the reduction of the Ministerial majority, said that half of it was due to the action of the Parnellites, and that, at any rate, did not indicate a Tory reaction. As to further reductions, he ventured to say that no Government had ever experienced so few losses through byeelections in the same period. As to the charge that the majority in the House of Commons was a "composite" party, he thought it was one that came with ill-grace from a party which depended for its existence on a compact-a compact which did not seem to work particularly well. The taunt that ministers were clinging to office could only come from secondrate minds, certainly not from the minds of men who had any notion of the anxieties and responsibilities of office.

All this was not very cheering, and the Unionist gain of a seat a few days later at Walworth, where Mr. Bailey, the Conservative candidate, was returned (May 14) with a majority over his Ministerial opponent of 571, and with one of 224 over the united Ministerial and Socialist vote, increased the depression prevailing among the supporters of the Government. largely increased Conservative majority obtained on the following day (May 15) in the bye-election at West Dorset was another depressing element in the situation.

The

The House of Commons spent a Wednesday sitting (May 15) in debating a Land Tenure Bill, the second reading of which was moved by Mr. Lambert (South Moulton, Devonshire). The bill embodied the independent Ministerial private member's idea of what could be done to relieve agricultural depression, its leading feature being to enable the tenant to do practically what he liked with the farm he rented, and to insist on arbitration whenever he did anything which his landlord would not approve of. The supporters of the Government were of course greatly pleased with so simple a solution of a difficult problem, but the Opposition could not be persuaded to view it from the same standpoint, and objected strongly to the measure as involving great injustice to the landlord. In the end, however, the bill was read a second time by 218 votes against 189. It was not afterwards proceeded with.

It has been said that Dr. Macgregor (Inverness-shire) carried out in his own person the Scottish revolt threatened in reference to the Crofters Bill. Dr. Macgregor expected the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make a statement as to the bill, and when none was forthcoming he asked if the Government were prepared with any announcement (May 20). Sir William Harcourt (Derby) replied that he would make a statement on Thursday (the 23rd), whereupon Dr. Macgregor exclaimed with indignation, "That is not good enough for me!" and, taking up his

hat, marched with majestic dignity out of the House. This dramatic exit was followed by an application for the Stewardship of the Manor of Northstead-the Scottish equivalent of the Chiltern Hundreds-from Dr. Macgregor, who thus proved, what, indeed, was never doubted, the entire sincerity with which he had defended the claims of the crofters.

The most interesting of the amendments moved in committee on the Welsh Church Bill was that of Mr. Lloyd George (Carnarvon District) to substitute in the third clause of the bill the words "Welsh Council" for "Welsh Commissioners (May 20). The amendment had been deliberately resolved upon by the Welsh party, who wished that the act should be administered by a council elected by the County Councils of Wales and Monmouthshire. Dark rumours had gone forth that the bill might be wrecked by this amendment, for it was said that, while the Welsh party would insist on it, Mr. Asquith (Fife, E.) would rather sacrifice the bill than accept it. The Opposition naturally mustered in strong force to give their support to the amendment. But Mr. Lloyd George and his colleagues retreated when they found Mr. Asquith unwilling to yield. In the result the Welsh party voted against their own amendment-which they were not allowed to withdraw-but the Government majority was only 10. On Mr. Macdona's amendment, limiting the operation of the third clause to "the property which is ascertained to have been given to the Church by Parliamentary grant," it fell to 9. The Government continued to let the bill take its chance among the miscellaneous business which surged round it. Even the Mondays and Tuesdays nominally set apart for it were encroached upon by any casual motion or discussion that turned up. Sir William Harcourt made no difficulty about giving up a week for the Whitsuntide recess, and on the Tuesday before the Whitsuntide adjournment (May 28) he stopped the proceedings on the Welsh Bill in order to make way for the Naval Works Bill. Only four clauses of the Welsh Bill had passed the committee before Whitsuntide.

The discussion on the second reading of the Finance Bill (May 16) was not a serious matter. Mr. James Lowther (Thanet, Kent) moved an amendment for the readjustment of the beer duty, with a view to the relief of home-grown barley from taxation; but the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Derby) said that if the entire beer tax were taken off the price of barley would not improve, and the whole 10,000,000l. would go into the pockets of the brewers. The amendment was withdrawn, as was also another which provided for the application of the land tax in relief of local taxation, and the second reading was agreed to. No changes were made in the bill in committee, or on the third reading (May 27).

By 107 to 52 the House of Lords refused to pass the second reading of the Lord Chancellor's bill to assimilate the law of

succession in the case of real estate to that which prevailed in the case of personalty (May 24), and then discussed at some length the policy of the Government in regard to Uganda. A week later (May 31), in the House of Commons, Sir Charles Dilke (Forest of Dean, Gloucester) protested against the military operations which had been conducted in the past in defence of the region of which Uganda is the centre, and an effective reply was made by Sir Edward Grey (Berwick, Northumberland).

Members of the Government and their supporters showed little disposition to defend on party platforms the cause for which they were making a hopeless struggle in the House of Commons. Their reluctance to go to the country for a renewal of their mandate included a reluctance to submit their policy to public criticism. The Opposition, on the other hand, gladly had recourse to the constituencies, and a vigorous attack was kept up outside Parliament upon the feeble lines within which the Government were entrenched. Speaking at a Primrose League meeting at Bradford (May 22), Lord Salisbury said that the condition of the House of Commons seemed to be that of recruits who were made to go through a long series of evolutions, and to undergo a great deal of muscular exertion without moving a single inch. Such a state of things was largely due to the fact that, instead of busying themselves with measures of practical utility, ministers were constantly proposing organic changes in the Constitution, till the Constitution came to be known mainly as a thing to be reconstructed. But a Government with an insignificant majority at its back had no moral right to attempt to push organic changes of the Constitution through Parliament. Lord Melbourne and Lord Palmerston had both governed the country for years with slight majorities; but they were content with useful legislation virtually approved by both parties. Revolutions might be necessary at times, but it was the duty of Parliament to ascertain that the country decisively demanded revolutionary changes before consenting to them. He had not himself approved of the Disestablishment of the Irish Church, but he recognised that, in that case, the people had spoken, and that the decision of the people, whether right or wrong, had to be submitted to. That there was any such consensus of opinion in favour of Welsh Disestablishment he could not admit; the slender majorities by which the Government bill was being carried through the House of Commons were enough to prove the contrary. The worst of these revolutionary proposals was that, even if carried, they promised no peace. Welsh Disestablishment was notoriously to be followed by Disestablishment in Scotland and in England. Irish Home Rule was to be followed by Welsh and Scotch, possibly by East Anglian, Northumbrian, and Cornish Home Rule, so that an indefinite vista of agitation lay before them. Meanwhile those social problems, such as that of the unemployed, which so urgently demanded solution, would be neglected. Among other questions calling for immediate atten

tion Lord Salisbury instanced that of the expensiveness of the law. "Everybody condemns the difficulties that attend the transfer of land. Four times, I think, the House of Lords has sent a bill down to the House of Commons, but never yet have we been able to get it on the Statute-book." It was a scandal, too, that men were hauled up to the judgment seat and condemned unheard because of the custom of the law that prisoner should not be allowed to give evidence. "Again, five times have we sent down a bill to the House of Commons to remedy that evil, but though it is short and simple we have never been able to induce them to turn aside from their organic and class-destroying efforts in order to pay even a transitory attention to it." Lord Salisbury added that the revolutionary policy of ministers was causing a serious want of commercial confidence. They were teaching people to keep their money in an old stocking, lest the Government should suddenly pounce on their invest

ments.

On the following day (May 23) at a luncheon at the Bradford Conservative Club, Lord Salisbury alluded to the tales of horror that had come from Armenia, tales which, he feared, were in their main features correct, though he doubted whether the Turkish Government was responsible for the atrocities which had been committed. He believed the Sultan to be a humane man, but, paradoxical as it might seem to say so, despotic Governments were far feebler in controlling the action of their subordinates than Governments depending upon popular support; and, given an open frontier, given wild and barbarous tribes, given an excess of fanaticism (on one side certainly and perhaps on the other), he could well imagine that, with a weak Government to boot, things might happen to fill men with horror. He was very far from wishing to make political capital out of the situation, but he did wish to impress on his hearers the inutility of interference by mere words and protestations. The only result of threats if not followed up by action, and he could hardly imagine that the three Powers were resolved on material interference, would be to exasperate the fanatical feelings out of which all these struggles had arisen, and to aggravate the sufferings of those they wished to befriend.

The Duke of Devonshire and Mr. Chamberlain spoke at a great meeting in St. James's Hall, held under the auspices of the Metropolitan Liberal Unionist Federation and the Women's Liberal Unionist Association (May 22). The Duke of Devonshire, who presided, said that the powers of mischief possessed by the present House of Commons had been crippled and destroyed, and they might be almost certain that in the next House of Commons those elements would have no existence. He admitted that the Government had passed one considerable measure, the Budget of 1894, the controversy upon which he did not propose to revive, but he was not more convinced than he had been in the previous year that the principles of Sir

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