changeableness of naval policy, and the House had endorsed this view. Sir William Harcourt, however, was indignant over was he seemed to regard as a wholly new and terrible attempt at deprive Parliament of its control over naval expenditure. He charged the Chancellor of the Exchequer with throwing confusion the whole financial system of the country, and wh abandoning principles for which he had formerly been one cf 21greatest sticklers. He protested against the future resourete the country being mortgaged, and submitted that it would nas. been more straightforward if the Government nau proceed way of loan. Mr. Goschen replied that undoubtedly there wOL. an easier course to pursue, but it would not 66 gigan Mr. Goschen (St. George's, Hanover ans and having been taunted with the fact tn. in 1879 against a similar procedure wi... Northcote, he admitted the fact, but deca fied his views since, because he had necessity of having a continuous nava. not been unwilling to "weaken the co. the construction of the fleet. What' court, "to weaken the control of Fa the country? "Yes," replied Mr. have a stronger navy, and I am sur little complication that may be caus immediately proceeded to denoun Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequ of ship-money;'" adding that Charles I. would himself hav. Unionist Chancellor of the La Balfour, he denounced the C ford," who, as the author of "respect constitutional princi Mr. Balfour, in reply, point. seemed to have completely before, adding that if ourbeen carried out within spread the expense over time to build a ship now than formerly, and the present ar~ment had been made in consequence of that exigency. The discussion was continued for some time, but at 1. the vote was agreed to without a division, so that the veh. opposition of the Liberal leaders was wholly unintelligible to outside the House. No further difficulties were raised as remaining votes, which were granted without alteration, the discussion of the vote for naval ordnance, the whole of argument was on the side of those who protested again continued production of costly and unwieldy guns. Lord Hamilton, whilst abstaining from any definite promise, inc the willingness of the Admiralty to suspend the further a of ships with 110-ton guns, or even 87-ton guns, althoug might be still regarded as necessary for battery defence. The Civil Service Estimates in the House of Commons so much more detailed notice than either those for the A Navy, and their discussion each year is hailed with del critics and economists of every class, desirous of airin grievances or of displaying their aptitudes for public affa telligent or effectual criticism is never expected, the Mir the day having always in readiness a sufficient number porters to prevent the reduction of any contemplated or i expenditure; whilst constitutional rules prevent the incr private members of any grants which may seem inadequat total sum required for the service of the year 1891-92, spre seven classes of expenditure, was 16,516,0291., or more tha million (614,5161.) in excess of the requirements of the pr year, and this, without any reference to the future entailed by the "Free Education" policy subsequently a by the House of Commons. The chief causes of in expenditure were :-Class I., Public Works and Buildi increase of 445,500l. to be incurred for light railways in under the Act of 1889; Class II., Public Departments, an i of 193,5891. required to meet the cost of the decennial Class IV., Education, increased provisions for elementary tion, 188,650l. The requirements of the Revenue Depa of which the expenditure is voted separately, had also ris 11,307,358. in 1890-91 to 11,736,8971. for 1891-92, entirely due to the increased rates of pay and allowanc Post-office sorting clerks and the Telegraph staff. Some of the votes of Supply led to interesting dis and much light was thrown upon the proceedings of the ment in various places and countries. On the vote relief of distress in Ireland (55,831l.), for which a nomi of 5,000l. had been taken on account before Christm Balfour was able to place before the House (March 12) t he had set on foot for dealing with distress in Ireland. scribed what had been done in connection with the cons of light railways-a work not undertaken for the relief of [MARCH engaged with contractors and others were extravagant and unbusinesslike. The only other debates of importance which engaged the attention of the House of Commons before Easter were those raised on Mr. Stansfeld's (Halifax) miniature Reform Bill and Mr. Jesse Collings's Small Holdings Bill. Mr. Stansfeld's motion (March 3) took the form of a resolution which declared "That, in the opinion of this House, it is needful to amend and simplify the laws relating to the qualification and registration of Parliamentary electors; and especially to provide (a) that no person shall be permitted to vote in more than one electoral area during the continuance of one and the same register; (b) that the term of qualification shall be reduced to not more than three months; (c) that registration superintendents shall be appointed who shall be officially responsible for superintending the preparation of accurate lists of voters." He spent considerable time in explaining to an almost empty House that the laws relating to the qualification and registration of voters were complicated and costly in every way. Mr. Howorth (Salford, S.) moved an amendment, which, while admitting the desirableness of amending the present registration system, declared that no alteration of the present law should be considered which did not provide that the different parts of the United Kingdom should be represented proportionately to their population. Mr. Howorth was very severe upon Mr. Stansfeld for his "parochial arguments" and "commonplacerhetoric," and urged Mr. Gladstone to give that justification for the motion which had been wholly wanting in Mr. Stansfeld's speech. He made much of the fact that the last Reform Bill was the result of a "diplomatic arrangement" between the two great parties in the State, which was understood to aim at comparative finality in the process of tinkering with the Constitution. In reply to this challenge Mr. Gladstone spent half an hour or so in supporting the original motion with a skill and animation which had as yet been wanting from his own side, and once more showed his easy mastery of all the arts of debate. He ridiculed the notion that one admitted grievance was not to be got rid of because its removal would leave another one unredressed, and reminded the Conservatives that their proper course was at all events to pass so much of Mr. Stansfeld's motion as they agreed with, even if they rejected the rest. He denied that the last Reform Bill was passed as the result of a "diplomatic arrangement," and excused its not containing the provisions now sought to be introduced on the ground that it had to be confined "within the very narrowest limits," because, if its authors had attempted to cover every possible point, they would have been "lost in the wilderness of detail," the opportunities for opposition would have been multiplied a hundredfold, and that the then Government would have themselves become, through defective arrangement, the assassins of their own progeny. He attacked the plural vote, and said of it that it was a mere lottery, for it was not the best,. the wisest, or even the wealthiest of the upper classes who enjoyed it, but only those who happened to keep their names upon their University books, or who had property in more than one county. It had nothing whatever to do with wealth, rank, excellence of character, or distinguished public service, and its only virtue, if it were a virtue, was that the working man was absolutely excluded from it. He laughed at the amendment as practically saying "We admit you have a grievance in not being upon the register, but we will not remove that grievance by placing you upon the register, because you are already suffering, as Englishmen, from the under-representation of your country." He dwelt on the want of generosity of those who opposed the motion, for, though it might be found "by the aid of a microscope and an arithmetic table" that England was slightly under-represented in comparison with the other three countries. which made up the United Kingdom, no complaint was ever made by Englishmen when they had 500 seats in Parliament, while Scotland had only forty, and Ireland, which at that time had nearly a third of the population of the entire kingdom, had only 100 members. As it was, England possessed more than twothirds of the whole voting power of the House of Commons, and she had always used her "vast preponderance" to take care that. her own affairs were first attended to, while those of the other countries were "borne down, overruled, and cast out of the House." England also enjoyed another great advantage in the fact that she kept the Imperial Parliament "at her own fireside," and he thought she had no title to complain, seeing "the vast power she possessed, and the use she made of it." Mr. Chamberlain (Birmingham, W.) followed with a clever speech, which threw the other occupants of the front Opposition bench and the Opposition generally into a state of great resentment and indignant warmth. He frankly admitted the existence of registration grievances; but he pointed out that, though Mr. Gladstone pledged himself six years ago to take up the question, he failed to do it when he came into power. Mr. Gladstone might say that more urgent business intervened, but the present Government might say exactly the same thing. Mr. Chamberlain proceeded to argue against the adoption of abstract resolutions, and provoked much laughter when he quoted Mr. Gladstone's arguments against them on many previous occasions. There was more laughter when he quoted from a speech made by Sir George Trevelyan in 1885, declaring that when the then Reform Bill had passed "no living man would be troubled with the franchise again," that it would be "settled on a permanent and solid basis," and that it "admitted all who should be admitted and excluded all who should be excluded;" and Mr. Chamberlain next showed how incomplete Mr. Stansfeld's proposal was, as it did not touch a |