dragging about as "a lifeless corpse," which they might endeavour to dress up in the most attractive form, and which would be a drag upon their energies and upon their success until they had found some decent opportunity to give it burial.

After some observations on the immediate result of Home Rule, should the Opposition obtain a majority at the General Election, Lord Hartington insisted upon the slight guarantee for peace and contentment in Ireland which its past and present condition offered. From the beginning Mr. Parnell had shown himself to be utterly indifferent to the methods by which he sought to attain his ends. They had no guarantee that if, as the constitutional ruler of Ireland, his policy had been thwarted or his position menaced, he would have scrupled to have had recourse, in order to attain his ends and overthrow his opponents, to the forces of disorder, violence, and anarchy to which he appealed in order to maintain his hold on the leadership of his party. It was said that if Ireland had possessed constitutional self-government as was claimed for her, and if Mr. Parnell had subsequently proved himself to be unfit for that position, he would have been deposed by the good sense of the Irish people. But what proof, Lord Hartington asked, was there of any such thing? The movement to depose Mr. Parnell from the leadership did not originate in Ireland, and even now it was not proved conclusively that he had been deposed from the leadership of the Irish party. If he was finally deposed, that deposition would be due not to Irish influence, but to the pressure of English public opinion beneficially exerted upon the judgment of the Irish nation and of their leaders. But though English public opinion had a powerful effect on Irish leaders now, because there was something to be gained by listening to the dictates of English public men, what effect would the English Nonconformists or English political parties have upon political parties in Ireland, after they had become masters in their own house, after they had obtained full control over their own affairs? It was now known that whatever declarations were made in 1886 by the Irish leaders, whatever might have been the form in which they expressed them, they were not made in good faith. After Mr. Parnell's revelations, which had not been contradicted by any of those who were now opposed to him, were they again going to believe that a measure, falling short of all that Irishmen had ever worked for, was going to be accepted as a final settlement by the Irish people? But the course of the Unionists was clear. The privileges of administration of local affairs might be conferred on the people of Ireland in the same degree as they had recently been conferred upon the people of England and Scotland. They might pass a measure which offered some solution of the land question, which had produced all the difficulties hitherto existing in Ireland.

The difference in the tone of these two speeches bore witness to the unwillingness of Lord Hartington to dissociate himself wholly

from his former leader, and with rare tact and taste he forbore from criticising his action. Perhaps the most interesting part of Lord Hartington's speech was that on which he referred to his own attitude in 1886. "I shall never forget the appeal which he (Mr. Gladstone) addressed to us, and especially to me, as to the increased responsibility which we were taking in rejecting, or seeking to reject, the measure. He told us, and told us truly, that in Ireland it was not merely a question of disturbance or breaking up of social order, but that social order was sapped and undermined; that they had a remedy which they believed would go to the root of the disease and prove effective; and because we had no such remedy to propose, and no specific panacea which we could say was absolutely certain to remedy the disease, we were told we were taking an enormous responsibility on ourselves in rejecting the remedy which they believed to be an effective remedy." Lord Hartington, while admitting the responsibility, maintained that recent events fully justified the judgment on which he had acted, and on this issue he was prepared to appeal to the country to support him and his colleagues.

In the interval between these two speeches the election at the Hartlepools had taken place, and had resulted in a large majority for the Gladstonian candidate, and the gain of a seat for his party. The constituency numbered upwards of 10,000 electors, of whom 8,900 went to the poll, 4,603 voting for Mr. Furness, and 4,305 for his opponent, Sir William Gray. The candidates were fairly matched, both being large employers of labour in the district, and both being deservedly popular. On labour questions, which were made prominent during the canvassing, there was little divergence of view, except that Mr. Furness made more concessions to the Trades Unions, and practically pledged himself to the employment in his yards of only Union workmen. There was no speech on the one side to put forward, or on the other to throw back, the Home Rule question, though it may be fairly assumed that it had its weight in determining numerous voters. If this were so, it showed that, so far as a typical working-class constituency was concerned, Mr. Parnell's personalty had no effect upon their decision. Attempts were, of course, made by the organs of both parties to account for the change of opinion among the electors; but in a constituency so notoriously shifting and migratory all comparisons between the poll of 1886 and the present one were obviously fallacious. In the shipping ports of the North-East of England the "new Trade Unionism, with its tendency towards Socialism, had by general consent made rapid progress, and it was certain to throw the whole of its strength on the side from which it hoped to obtain the greatest concessions. The election, however, came at a lucky moment to revive the spirits of the Gladstonian Liberals, who had been paralysed by the sudden break-up of their Irish allies. Mr. Gladstone himself saw in the result cause for supreme satisfaction, declaring by

a telegram to the successful candidate that "the simple figures of the poll reduce to dust and ashes the declarations of Lord Salisbury, Sir Henry James, Mr. Goschen and the Duke of Westminster on what they call recent events.'

The only other event of the recess which gave rise to much controversy was the first strike on the part of the clerks in the Civil Service, and it was chiefly interesting as showing one of the unforeseen results of the so-called "Playfair" scheme, by which the whole service was to be divided into three distinct classes, and the old distinctions of separate offices, each with its own particular system of grading, done away. The "writers," who constituted the third division under the Playfair scheme, were the first to recognise the benefits of Trade Unionism, and by common action had been able to improve their position most materially. The "second" division soon adopted similar tactics. Its members were all qualified by general examination, and were assigned to offices with little or no regard to the special wishes or aptitudes of the several men. As a rule the work required of them was more or less identical, and as they might be at any moment shifted from one office of the State to another, their feelings of loyalty to their heads of departments were lukewarm. On the other hand, a strong feeling of solidarity arose among them, and their numbers increasing every year, made them important political factors, especially in metropolitan constituencies. On several occasions they had been able to bring such pressure to bear upon the Government of the day that by degrees all their reasonable grievances had been redressed. It remained, however, to be seen how far their organisation would allow them to take the extreme step of "striking" against their chiefs in spite of the practically inexhaustible supply of clerical labour. In the Savings Bank Department of the Post Office a large amount of extra work of annual recurrence at this period required the attendance of the clerks beyond the stipulated seven hours. No volunteers being forthcoming, an order was issued that a certain number of the men should remain after time. This order was distinctly contrary to the words of Mr. Raikes' denial in the House of Commons that extra hours were ever compulsory; but when the clerks urged this as their excuse, Mr. Raikes declared that he meant by "compulsory," "exacted without extra pay.' The strike lasted for about a week, when the men, finding that they received no support from the other branches or from the service at large, made their submission, and were allowed to resume work. The matter in itself was not important, except as being the first overt defiance of the heads of a public department by their subordinates.

When Parliament reassembled (Jan. 22) the prospects of public business were never brighter. Solid progress had been made with the principal Government measures; and by the exercise of ordinary firmness they might have been carried

through their final stages with little delay. So assured were the Government that no obstacles would materially retard the work in the House of Commons that on the opening night Lord Salisbury promised the Lords that they would promptly have the Tithes Bill, and that amending the Scotch Private Bill procedure submitted to them, the latter having on the same evening passed its second reading in the House of Commons by 150 to 86, and referred to a Select Committee. The event showed the danger of such forecasts. Fully three weeks elapsed before the Tithes Bill, or, to give its full title, the Tithe Rent Charge Recovery Bill, reached the Lords, and it was not until the eve of the Easter vacation that it was finally disposed of, whilst a worse fate befell the Private Bill Procedure (Scotland).

This bill, which was founded upon the report of a Committee proposed to refer private bills exclusively Scotch to a Commission, which would hold its inquiry in the locality affected, and sit daily out of, as well as during, the Parliamentary Session. The objections urged against the Government proposal were twofold, Mr. Campbell-Bannerman (Stirling Burghs) holding that the subjects dealt with by the bill ought not to be committed for inquiry to a Commission until it was shown it was impracticable to remedy the evils complained of by extending the power of local authorities, whilst Mr. H. Fowler (Wolverhampton) objected to the House abandoning its control over private bill legislation. Various other points were raised by the Scotch members, but Mr. Campbell-Bannerman's amendment, the only one pressed to a division, was defeated by 150 to 86 (Jan. 22), and the bill was read a second time.

Two months were allowed to elapse before the Government attempted to constitute the Select Committee, and then, after much wrangling as to the constitution of the Committee, the bill was referred back from the Committee, only to be finally withdrawn. Thereon the Government was soundly rated on all sides. because they were unable to make the Scotch members agree among themselves.

The Tithes Bill, as already stated, was in reality a very small measure. It aimed at nothing more than altering the machinery for the recovery of tithes and settling the price to be paid. The first and most important section, providing the immediate and compulsory transfer of the liability for tithe rent-charges from occupiers to owners of land, had been accepted in principle by both sides of the House. The price to be paid was determined in a manner least favourable to titheowners of any of the numerous bills proposed by the Conservative Government. On the other hand, the immediate transfer of the liability from the owners of land, was a distinct advantage to titheowners. Consequently the only points of the bill open to much discussion in Committee were the changes proposed in the machinery for the recovery of tithe, and on this part of the bill the Opposition

displayed the most remarkable and inventive ingenuity. The motive of the bill had been the desire to put an end to the disgraceful scenes so constantly recurring in Wales in connection with the collection of tithes; and it was, therefore, not wholly surprising that the opposition to the transfer of liability from the tenants, who in a large majority were Nonconformists, to the landlords, who were more frequently Churchmen, should be strenuously opposed by those Welsh members who desired to urge forward as rapidly as possible the cause of disestablishment in Wales. The repeated evictions and sales of farmers' stock and implements to satisfy the demands of the titheowners were useful for keeping in evidence the tyranny of the English Church. Mr. S. Evans (Glamorgan, M.) took the lead in opposing the first three clauses, his object being to make the bill a mere transfer of obligation, and, while transferring the process of recovery of tithes to the County Court, to withhold from that Court the power of imprisonment in the case of non-payment. To this latter modification Sir M. Hicks-Beach consented, and subsequently introduced a clause to that effect. There was also a prolonged struggle (Jan. 26) over the scale of expenses of litigation to be charged, the Opposition insisting that the County Court scale only should be allowed; but, in the end, Mr. Evans's amendment to limit the costs was rejected by 170 to 102 votes, the Government undertaking to frame a schedule of costs which should be appended to the bill. Mr. C. W. Gray (Essex, Maldon Division) was the spokesman of the East Anglian farmers, many of whom had suffered severely from the depreciation of wheat, and now found farming unprofitable. On their behalf he urged the Government to fix the limit of tithe at one half the annual value of the land, instead of two-thirds, as proposed by the bill; but, although the amendment was supported by several Conservatives, it was ultimately (Feb. 2) rejected by 178 to 124 votes. The Committee stage was got through at the next sitting of the House (Feb. 3), but on the report of the bill the discussion broke out again and was continued through three more sittings, during which numerous amendments and new clauses were proposed, but in nearly every case rejected by majorities varying from 50 to 70. At length on the third reading (Feb. 12), Sir William Harcourt, who throughout the debates in Committee had, in common with the other Opposition leaders, remained silent, opposed the bill, believing it would cause more evils than it was likely to cure. An almost strictly party division followed, and the bill was agreed to by 250 to 161 votes, and was at once sent up to the House of Lords, where the Marquess of Salisbury moved the second reading (Feb. 19), and the five-and-twenty minutes he occupied were mainly taken up by a brief and clear exposition of the provisions of the bill. The abandonment of all attempt at tithe-redemption he explained away by showing that that branch of the subject had been sent to a Commission for inquiry, whose report was necessary before Parliament

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