could be asked to deal with it. All that was left in the bill was practically the substitution of County Court process for the process of distress in recovering tithe, and the substitution of the owner for the occupier as the person who was to pay the tithe. He defended the provision remitting all excess of tithes over twothirds of the assessed value of the land, basing his defence upon the ground that nothing should be done which would tend to throw land out of cultivation. Where the tithe exceeded the assessed value of the land it was obvious that the land must go out of cultivation. Finally, he reminded Lord Brabourne that those who relied upon the distressed state of agriculture and the right of owners and occupiers to be relieved-who relied upon the strength of the interest of the land and the weakness of the interest of the Church-were "throwing their sword into the scale" and departing from the principle of justice, and Lord Salisbury added, in a passage which was considerably cheered: "The practice of throwing the sword into the scale, when once it begins, is very contagious, and certainly the owners of property would not be prudent by their example to encourage it." Lord Brabourne spent half-an-hour in earnest protest against the bill, and moved its rejection on the ground that no important measure had ever been introduced after so little inquiry and with so small a demand for it. He denounced the policy of disturbing and upsetting existing arrangements all over England because there was difficulty about tithe-collection in Wales. The agitation in the Principality, however, was directed not against the manner in which tithe was collected, but against its application, and therefore the objection would remain and the agitation continue under the bill, which was "really an attempt to humbug the tenant-farmer into the belief that some advantage was to be given to him." The Archbishop of Canterbury warmly supported the bill, whilst indicating two omissions, one being that of the right to take possession of land which the farmer had let, or was about to let, go out of cultivation because he could not produce from it a sum equivalent to the tithe; the other omission was that of some provision that the value, not actually paid in rent, but given to the land in the way of buildings, irrigation, or otherwise, should not be withdrawn from the titheowner. Lord Brabourne found no one to support him in his opposition, and the bill was read a second time with one contrary voice. In Committee (Feb. 26) the Lords made various changes which aimed at protecting the interests of the titheowners where lands were occupied at a nominal rent, and at preventing the running up vexatious costs; and the bill was read a third time and passed (March 17), Lord Brabourne still protesting. For upwards of a week it was bandied about between the two Houses, and amendments to amendments passed and repassed, the House of Commons steadily refusing to accept that relating to costs which had been introduced into the bill on the motion of the Earl of Sel

of

borne. The difficulties between Lords and Commons were, however, at length adjusted, and the bill having passed both Houses received Royal Assent (March 26) just before Parliament rose for the Easter recess. In other words, the best part of the session before Easter had been given up to passing a bill consisting of eight clauses, which commended itself strongly to no section of the House.

Before addressing itself, however, to legislative work, the House of Commons spent some time in less practical but not less useful debate. Mr. Channing's (Northamptonshire, E.) resolution declaring the excessive hours of work imposed upon railway servants constituted a grave social injustice and were a constant source of danger, placed the Government in an awkward predicament, the Board of Trade being as unwilling as it was unable to limit the hours of work or to compel railway companies to employ more men. The difficulty, however, was one which could not be altogether evaded, as Mr. Channing made considerable capital out of the recent railway strike in Scotland, contending that excessive hours of service on railways were not "an abnormal incident," but were part of a system; that the railways were mostly undermanned. He fortified his case by abundant statistical information, and especially denounced some of the Scotch railway employers for their failure to increase the number of their servants with the increase of their work. At the same time he expressed his willingness to accept from the Government, in lieu of the passing of his resolution, the promise of the establishment of a really impartial Board of Conciliation to settle disputes between railway companies and their servants. The motion was seconded by Mr. John Wilson (Mid-Durham), who expressed regret that railway servants were not as well represented in the House as railway directors, and the debate was carried on until a late hour largely by Scottish representatives, whose interest in the question had, no doubt, been rendered more acute by the strike going on in their own country. Mr. Howorth (Salford, E.), from the Conservative side of the House, suggested that the Government should appoint a commission or a committee to inquire into the subject, and in the course of the debate several railway directors defended the companies, the First Commissioner of Works, Mr. R. Plunket (Dublin Times), standing out prominent among these in defence of the London and North-Western Company. There was a general agreement that something should be done, though members were by no means unanimous as to what that something should be; and as the debate neared its close the President of the Board of Trade, Sir M. Hicks-Beach (Bristol, W.), offered on behalf of the Government to appoint a Select Committee to inquire whether fresh legislation was desirable, and, if so, what form it should take an offer, however, which Mr. Channing, acting on the advice of Sir William Harcourt, declined to accept. In the

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end Mr. Channing's motion was rejected by 141 votes to 124— the smallness of the Ministerial majority (17) being loudly cheered by the Opposition.

A few days later the House of Commons performed an act of justice with its usual dignity and grace, after just sufficient hesitation to show that its decisions could not be set aside thoughtlessly. Mr. W. A. Hunter (Aberdeen, N.) moved (Jan. 27) to expunge from the Journal of the House of Commons the resolution of June 22, 1880, refusing to Mr. Bradlaugh the right to offer himself to take the Parliamentary oath, adding that such a resolution was "subversive of the rights of the whole body of electors of this kingdom." The Solicitor-General, Sir Edward Clarke (Plymouth), briefly urged for consideration that the House nad a perfect right to do what it did in 1880; that that right was recognised and affirmed on appeal to the courts of law; that the resolution against Wilkes was expunged because it declared Wilkes "incapable of sitting in Parliament a course not adopted in the resolution against Mr. Bradlaugh; and that, as no object was now to be served by any fresh action, seeing that the law had been altered in favour of Mr. Bradlaugh and all like him in 1888, there was no need for any action to be taken, and Parliament had a right to protect its own dignity by refusing to erase the record of a very remarkable and important incident in its history. Mr. Gladstone, however, argued that Mr. Bradlaugh had been unjustly treated, and that the erasure of the record ought to be made, but suggested that it would be well to omit from the motion the declaration that the resolution of 1880 was "subversive of the rights of the electors." Sir Stafford Northcote (Exeter) and Sir Walter Barttelot (Sussex, N.W.) urged that the compromise suggested by Mr. Gladstone should be accepted, and this seemed to be the general feeling of the House, though Mr. Norris (Limehouse) and Mr. De Lisle (Leicester, N.) entered protests against the course proposed. Eventually the compromise was agreed to, and Mr. Hunter's motion, as amended by Mr. Gladstone's suggestion, was unanimously agreed to.

Mr. Bradlaugh was on his death-bed when this resolution was passed, and it is doubtful if he were ever conscious of this formal vindication of his conduct. He had, however, in other ways reaped the reward of his consistency and fearlessness. Few men in so short a Parliamentary career had built up so deserved a reputation for candour, self-command, sound judgment, and absolute honesty as the member for Northampton, and on both sides of the House his death was regarded as a distinct loss in view of the increased prominence given to labour questions and Socialist theories.

Mr. Chamberlain's vigorous attack at Birmingham (Jan. 27) upon Mr. Gladstone, and his probable action in the new phase of the Irish Home Rule question, was chiefly noteworthy for being delivered standing on the same platform with the Conservative

and Catholic Home Secretary, Mr. Matthews, and for the willing support and countenance he gave to the Unionist policy when addressing his colleague's constituents.

It was also outside Parliament, before the Leeds Chamber of Commerce, that the most important speech of the month was delivered (Jan. 28) by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The financial crisis so narrowly averted in the previous autumn had awakened attention to the smallness of the reserve of gold kept in the Bank of England-only 24 millions sterling as compared with 40 millions in the Bank of Germany, 90 millions in the Bank of France, and 142 millions in the State Bank of the United States. In the case of the two first, however, it should be remembered that those banks alone possess the right of issuing bank-notes, and the amount of these in circulation would, if presented for payment, more than reduce their bullion reserve to a level with our own. But, as Mr. Goschen pointed out, the Bank of England is placed at a very considerable disadvantage by the very precautions which other banks are bound to take. These latter hold upwards of 600,000,000l. of deposits on private accounts, yet they keep such a small reserve of bullion that, if pressed simultaneously, it would be impossible for the Bank of England to provide the gold necessary to meet their engagements-although the securities offered might be perfectly valid and undoubted. Mr. Goschen, to remedy this state of affairs, suggested that the pressure of private banks upon the Bank of England should be reduced by their keeping a larger proportion of their deposits in their own vaults, instead of "lending them up to the hilt," and in moments of difficulty trusting to the Bank of England for assistance. In 1889 Mr. Goschen said eleven large banks, with liabilities amounting to 170,000,000l., had cash balances amounting to a little over 17,500,000l. To put some restraint upon this reckless confidence, Mr. Goschen held that the monthly publication of accounts would warn depositors of the risks they ran, and, if that did not suffice, Parliament might be asked to fix the proportion of loans to liabilities. At the same time he was of opinion that Parliament might help the banks, and especially the Bank of England, to provide a "second reserve" by the issue of onepound or even ten-shilling notes, to be represented by actual gold bullion in the Bank of England, and to be retained in its own vaults or those of the private banks. By this means he hoped to withdraw some of the gold in circulation, and variously estimated at 60 to 110 millions, which remained "in people's waistcoat pockets," where it was unavailable at the centre of affairs when most needed. Mr. Goschen did not go on to explain how he proposed to retain in the country or in the banks the coin which the new notes would replace. The first result in the increase in the Bank reserve would be the lowering of the rate of discount, and the consequent increase

of speculation an of gold to foreign countries. Doubtless Mr. Goschen n his mind some machinery by which these results were to be avoided, but they were not revealed at Leeds; and, although the warning which he addressed to the commercial community as to the danger of the situation was not without fruit, it was evident that his scheme as a whole did not meet with public approval. The Leeds speech was, in truth, a ballon d'essai, and it showed that for the present, at least, the wind did not set in the direction of further paper issues. Consequently nothing more was heard of the matter in Parliament or elsewhere.

In the House of Commons Mr. E. Robertson (Dundee) attempted (Jan. 28) in vain to amend the conspiracy law by providing that no combination, except in certain special cases, should be treated as criminal unless it contemplated a criminal object, and that no intimidation should be treated as illegal except such intimidation as would justify a magistrate in binding over the intimidating person to keep the peace. Under the bill no agreement or combination of two or more persons to do or procure any act could be treated as a conspiracy if such act, when committed by one person, was not punishable as a crime. Mr. Robertson argued his case with moderation and ability, and he rested that part of it which dealt with intimidation upon the recent 'startling" judgments given by Mr. Bompas, Q.C., at Plymouth and by Mr. Digby Seymour, Q.C., at Newcastle, which decided that where officials of a trade union ordered their men to leave work unless their employer consented to dismiss non-union men, those officials were guilty of intimidation. He admitted that, if the bill passed, it would interfere considerably with the operation of the Crimes Act in Ireland; but he maintained that that was no valid ground for rejecting it. In the course of the debate Mr. Gainsford Bruce (Finsbury) moved the rejection of the measure, on the ground that it would "strike down the law with regard to combination without proposing any substitute," and was on wrong lines altogether. He dissented, moreover, from the principle that what one man might lawfully do could also be lawfully done by fifty, for while it was a small matter for one man to walk over one's lawn, it was a very different thing if 50 or 500 men did so. After some further debating, in the course of which Sir William Harcourt (Derby) foretold the reversal of Mr. Bompas' decision-the closure was applied, and the second reading of the bill rejected by 179 to 143.

Scarcely more interest in the proceedings of Parliament was shown, a few nights later, when Mr. Shaw-Lefevre (Bradford, C.) moved, to very sparsely filled benches, a resolution (Jan. 80) urgi.g the Government to bring about the settlement of Plan of Campaign disputes in Ireland by the appointment of a board of arbitration to decide what abatements of rent should be made. But this proposal was cruelly shattered by Mr. T. W.