deep discontent must regard the working classes as either saints or idiots.

Mr. Disraeli vindicated the resolution as reasonable and natural, especially when proceeding from the representative of a constituency which suffered much from the pressure of local taxation and saw no relief provided in the Budget. It was unfortunate, therefore, that it should have been met immediately by an intimation that it would be regarded as a vote of censure-a process too common with the present Government, and quite unconstitutional in matters of finance. In like manner he justified its opportuneness, and in describing the motives which had dictated its composition, he traced the history of the movement against local taxation from the period immediately following the repeal of the corn laws down to Mr. Gladstone's acknowledgment of its importance the year after his accession to office, Mr. Goschen's Bills, and the victory of Sir Massey Lopes last year. Consequently, Mr. Lowe was trifling with the House when he met the motion by the plea that the Government knew nothing about the matter, and could do nothing without further preparation. On Mr. Lowe's tone and manner Mr. Disraeli made some humorous comments. He looked upon them as a specimen of the juvenile ardour of some primitive assembly. It was not every one who had travelled in the Antipodes, and it was an advantage to have brought under their notice an authoritative example of how the claims of the people for relief from unjust and oppressive taxation would be met by the leaders in such an assembly. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had asked them-" not rudely," Mr. Disraeli was careful to add-" What do you mean? What will happen supposing this measure is carried?" "What will happen?" continued the right hon. gentleman, speaking very slowly, and leaning carelessly against the despatch-box on the table; "what will happen is -exactly what happened before. This is not the first Budget from the same hand that we have humbly criticized. What will happen is, that the right hon. gentleman will take back his Budget; he will reconsider it, and he will bring in another, or perhaps two more, one of which we may unanimously agree to." This led to a reference to the recent Ministerial crisis. If any waste of time had happened, the Opposition were responsible only for one little hour, and he regarded Mr. Lowe's mention of the matter as another attack on his colleague. The local taxation of the country, Mr. Disraeli said, amounted to twenty-five millions, of which half was paid by men who were not rich, and more than five millions by the working classes. Consequently, they were more deeply interested in the reduction of local burdens than in this remission of the sugar duties, which he calculated would give every working man about ninepence a year. Commenting on Mr. Lowe's new-born zeal for the working classes, and on his assertion that direct taxes were borne by the rich and indirect taxes by the poor, he maintained that working men are twice as heavily taxed in such countries as France, Russia, and Belgium as in England. This they were well aware of, and it was

not from them, but from "addle-headed professors" and Ministers of State that revolutionary but silly projects of finance had proceeded. Dilating again on the severity and pressure of local taxation, he urged Mr. Gladstone to avoid a division by convincing the House that Mr. Lowe's manner of meeting the motion was not authorized by the Cabinet, and by assuring it that he was prepared to deal with the question. There was ample time this session; but if this assurance were refused, the Opposition, knowing the interest felt by the country, would not evade a division or an appeal to the judgment of the country. (Loud cheers.)

Mr. Gladstone began by admitting Mr. Disraeli's right to defend the resolution, in which he might be supposed to have an interest almost parental. At this there was a laugh, which was renewed when Mr. Gladstone went on to remark that it was next to impossible to get at its meaning, and that Mr. Disraeli's speech was totally irreconcilable with its language. But he drew especial attention to the fact that it was aimed at all indirect taxes-at the malt tax as much as the sugar duties. Replying to the various objections urged in the debate, he showed how the remission of the sugar duties would reach the consumer without involving of necessity the ultimate abandonment of the tax, and maintained that the revenue was in no danger. Neither was there any foundation for the assertion that the Government by their Budget had put it out of their power to fulfil their pledges as to local taxation next year. On the contrary, Mr. Lowe in his calculations had taken no credit for the annual increment of the revenue, in which he felt more than usual confidence, seeing that increased wages always yielded a larger percentage to the revenue than increased profits. Passing to the question of local taxation, he contended that, except in one particular, the Government had complied with Sir Massy Lopes's motion carried last year. The relief of local burdens must include a comprehensive reform of local taxation as it exists, and but for this motion, said Mr. Gladstone, the plans of the Government would be before the House at this moment.

The motion of Mr. Smith was negatived without a division, but the feeling of the House about the Budget was clearly manifest.

In his only attempt at legislation during the session Mr. Lowe was not more fortunate. Mr. Anderson had, under a familiar delusion, moved for a Commission to inquire whether the Bank Act of 1844 might not be so remodelled as to fix the Bank rate of interest without regard to the inevitable and incessant variations in the value of money. Sir John Lubbock, though he refuted the fallacies propounded by Mr. Anderson, proposed to substitute a Select Committee for a Commission, and Mr. W. Fowler induced the Chancellor of the Exchequer to promise that he would endeavour to regulate by law the periodical suspension of the Bank Act. The Bill which was afterwards introduced for the purpose provided that the heads of the Treasury might authorize an additional issue of Bank notes when the conditions were satisfied. The rate of discount was to be not

less than 12 per cent., and the foreign exchanges were to be favourable. The profits of the operation were, after a deduction for expenses, to accrue to the Treasury. The scheme, which was inconsistent with social economic principle, proved to be universally unacceptable. In 1866, when the last suspension occurred, the exchanges were adverse, and the rate of discount was only 10 per cent. The advocates of occasional relaxation objected to limitations which might render suspension impossible, and the adherents of the orthodox theory had from the first disapproved the proposed innovation. If debtors are to be arbitrarily released from their engagements, it is better that the Government of the day should be responsible for the irregularity than that a breach of contract should be anticipated and sanctioned by law. The only other Government measure of even secondary importance was the Railway and Canal Bill, introduced in accordance with the recommendation of the Joint Committee of the previous session on Railway Amalgamation. A Board or Commission of three members will, at the request of either party, act by themselves or their sub-commissioners as arbitrators wherever a reference to arbitration has been provided by a special Act. The Commission will also have power to establish through rates, on the application of any company, by any route which may be deemed reasonable and convenient.

CHAPTER III.

Private Bills-Speech of Mr. Gladstone on Disestablishment-The Permissive Bill and other measuress-The Army Estimates-Mr. Cardwell's Speech-The Navy Estimates -Intended Marriage of the Duke of Edinburgh-Minority against the Grant voted to him-The House of Lords-Mr. Gladstone-The Zanzibar Contract-Irregularities at the Treasury-Speech of the Lord Chancellor at the Mansion House-Visit of the Shah of Persia-Ministerial Changes-Mr. Bright returns to office-His Speech at Birmingham-Losses of the Government-Elections-Mr. Disraeli's Bath LetterThe Taunton Election-Mr. Lowe at Sheffield.

ALTHOUGH the inaction of the Government might have been expected to leave an opening for the activity of private members, the session was not propitious to amateur experiments in legislation. The Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, as usual, passed the House of Commons, to be rejected, according to a still more constant practice, by the House of Lords. Mr. Osborne Morgan's Burials Bill, and Mr. Hinde Palmer's Bill for the Protection of the Property of Married Women, obtained considerable majorities in favour of the second reading, but both measures ultimately disappeared. In the majority of cases the House of Commons disposed summarily of sentimental and speculative projects. Mr. Jacob Bright's Female Suffrage Bill, Mr. W. Fowler's Bill for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act, Lord Claud Hamilton's proposal for the purchase of

Irish Railways, and a motion by Mr. Auberon Herbert, which was intended to facilitate the future confiscation of College Endowments, were all rejected by decisive majorities. Mr. Gladstone himself delivered a powerful speech against Mr. Miall's plan for the disestablishment of the Church of England; and the motion, which had in former years met with but faint opposition from the Government, was rejected by 356 to 61.

Mr. Gladstone said that he opposed the motion, not only on its merits, but as ill-timed and incapable of discussion at the present moment, though at some future time it might be destined to occupy months-nay, years. He was sensible of the difficulties with which the Church was hampered by its connexion with the State, but those difficulties were not to be got rid of by the simple process of disestablishment, even if it were as much desired by the people as he believed it to be opposed to their wishes, and as easy as he believed it to be impossible. On this point he read a passage from an essay of Dr. Döllinger, and spoke in terms of warm and enthusiastic eulogy of the part played in English history by the English Church. With regard to freedom, though not recanting a single opinion as to the Irish Church, he must admit, if challenged, that thought was not so free there as before disestablishment; and if Mr. Miall sought to allure him into disestablishment by the promise of its greater freedom, he preferred to remain where he was. The strong feeling of the Nonconformists against the principle of Establishment and the distractions within the Church (though they were not confined to the Church of England) no doubt stimulated discussions of this kind; but Mr. Miall was bound to show that these distractions would be composed by dissociation from the State. The Nonconformists would find allies in the spirit of indifferentism and ecclesiastical pretensions, but after all these admissions he contended that the enterprise was one which Mr. Miall's courage would shrink from, even if he could get the sanction of Parliament. Suppose the House were to pass this resolution, what would the country say to it to-morrow morning? Recent manifestations of popular feeling were not favourable to the proposal, and if a general election were to occur, he believed a House would be returned much less disposed to entertain this question than the present. Mr. Miall had been misled by what had happened to the Irish Church, and had been taken in by those who declared that the cases of the English and the Irish Church were identical. The Irish Church Act probably had given a temporary stimulus to the demand for disestablishment, but that was ebbing away; and though it might be a question of the future, it was of the indefinite and remote future. Though there were no accurate statistics, which he greatly regretted, Mr. Gladstone expressed his belief that it was far below the truth to say that the Church embraced less than half the population. On the contrary, a very considerable majority of the people were bound to her by some tie or other. Among other difficulties of disestablishment, Mr. Gladstone dilated on the financial problem, and on the

objection to starting a voluntary community on the world with ninety millions at its disposal-the sum which he reckoned the Church would be entitled to on the precedent of the Irish Church Act. On the whole, it was a puzzling problem, which no prudent-and, for himself, he added-elderly man would venture on. "I invite the House," said the Premier, by way of peroration, "distinctly and decisively to refuse their assent to this motion, because it is a motion the conclusions of which are at variance alike with the practical wishes and desires, with the intelligent opinion, and with the religious convictions of the large majority of the people of this country."

Mr. Cowper-Temple's whimsical scheme for the delivery of ser mons in churches by laymen and Dissenters was also honoured, before it was defeated, by an adverse speech from Mr. Gladstone. No such intervention from above was needed to extinguish for the session the annual Permissive Bill of the Temperance agitators. Sir Wilfrid Lawson had, unfortunately for himself, fixed the second reading of his Bill within a few days after contested elections at Bath and Gloucester. In both cities the Ministerial candidates had coquetted with the advocates of the Permissive Bill, while their opponents had more prudently thrown in their fortunes with the publicans. The result proved that the power of the Temperance party bore but a small proportion to the loudness of its clamour, and the debate in the House of Commons illustrated the effect of the lesson which had been taught. Lord Claud Hamilton, Sir D. Wedderburn, and Mr. Mundella supported the motion; but member after member sprang up on both sides of the House with emulous eagerness to repudiate the suspicion of complicity with the Permissive faction. Mr. Osborne delivered a powerful and humorous argument against vexatious interference; and Mr. Bruce formally announced the Ministerial determination to oppose the measure. A majority of four to one in a full House represented not only the opinion of members, but the fixed determination of the constituencies. The habitual failure of theoretical schemes of reform was subject to an exception of primary importance. Mr. Gladstone had caused the rejection by a large majority of a motion by Sir C. Dilke in favour of electoral redistribution; and he had, not without asperity, refused to give facilities to Mr. Fawcett for moving an Address for a Commission on the state of the Representation. Although it was known that Mr. Gladstone himself was not personally opposed to a further extension of the suffrage, friends and opponents assumed that he thought it inexpedient to introduce for the present any new constitutional change. Almost at the close of the session Mr. Trevelyan obtained an opportunity of moving a resolution in favour of the extension of Household Suffrage to Counties. The motion would in itself, at such a period of the session, have possessed no importance; but when Mr. Forster rose to speak in favour of the change, it was seen that the Government had made the equalization of the suffrage an open question, and a deeper impression was pro