speech upon the Royal grants, which has, perhaps more than any other speech, placed the true issues involved in that question clearly before the people. To run down and condemn Lord Randolph Churchill is as foolish as it is irrational and ungrateful. No other living man has done as much, or anything like as much, to popularise Toryism among the masses, and to show that the socalled Liberal party has no monopoly of the principles of progress.

It is right to call attention to these matters, because they directly affect, or may soon come to affect, that unity of the party which is so absolutely necessary to preserve the balance of the constitution and prevent the dismemberment of the empire. The party is at present united and determined, and if properly led and guided, will doubtless succeed in its patriotic objects. Nor was there ever a better opportunity than the present for the popularising. of the party which holds the reins of power. On the one hand, there are vast social problems which require solution, and which can only be solved by wise and vigorous measures introduced by ministers who have a united party behind them, as well as a majority in both Houses of Parliament. Moreover, the changes in the electorate of the country, and the consequent widening of the foundations of the constitution, have opened the door to reforms which could not have heretofore been accomplished without opposition which it might have been difficult to overcome. With perfect consistency, the party which has carried household suffrage and given local government to the people may pass on to further measures of amelioration and reform in full

reliance upon the support of public opinion. On the other hand, it is to be observed that this reliance may be all the more justified by the unpopularity which their opponents have brought upon themselves. Those opponents, still claiming to be the Liberal party, have absolutely defied and scouted Liberal ideas in their wild attempts to force the majority to submit to the will of the minority in Parliament and in the country. They have, moreover, supported and upheld those who have constantly abused the forms and procedure of the House of Commons, and have apparently had no other object but to cast a slur upon that House and upon parliamentary government. Through the action of these men, self-restraint in speech and manner seems to have been banished from the debates of the House of Commons, order has been perpetually infringed, and the course of public business wantonly and wickedly interrupted. The impudent and puerile attempts of some of the delinquents to cast upon the Government the reproach of having wasted public time are easily seen through by all persons of ordinary intelligence; and the fact is well known and understood that upon the Radical section of the House must be charged the grave offence of having done their utmost to lower the character of the House of Commons, and to bring into disrepute and contempt that system of representative government which has so long been the pride and glory of our country. Insatiable vanity and an irrepressible spirit of self-assertion are not sufficient excuses for conduct which it concerns the whole country to discountenance and prevent. Our best statesmen are being worn out, and our whole system of legislation thrown out of gear, by men whose

action would not be tolerated for a single day in any town council or parish vestry in the kingdom. So far as the Irish members are concerned, they may excuse themselves upon the ground that their most likely way to obtain a Parliament in College Green is to make themselves intolerable at Westminster. This, however, cannot be accepted as a valid excuse for the language which these gentlemen habitually employ, and which they constantly have to "withdraw." The "with drawal" appears to cause them no sense of shame; and it is evident that some sharper course must be adopted if this gross abuse is to be checked, and decency restored to the debates of the House of Commons.

It would, however, be unjust to Irish members to cast upon their shoulders alone the responsibility of the deterioration of those debates. Moreover, Messrs Sexton, Healy, and other Nationalists who inflict themselves continually upon the House, are occasionally amusing; and although they have an objectionable habit of repeating the same charges, and not unfrequently nearly the same speeches, at wearisome length, it must be frankly owned that there are English and Scotch members who perform the identical feat with less excuse and with less ability. Mr Labouchere has probably occupied as much of the public time, and that as little to the public advantage, as any of his confrères; but Mr Labouchere, like Sir Wilfrid Lawson, is sometimes funny, and something may perhaps be excused to any one who enlivens the dry dulness of legislative discussion. The same, however, cannot be said of the Conybeares, Huntors, Storeys, Robertsons, and others of the same kidney who could be mentioned; and the constituencies of Aber

deen, Dundee, Sunderland, and the Camborne division of Cornwall, are responsible for much of the evil which has so greatly increased during the existence of the present Parliament. Scotland, indeed, has not much to boast of in connection with this question ; for Caithness and the Kirkcaldy burghs have, in the persons of Dr Clark and Sir George Campbell, added in no small degree to the amount of pertinacious loquacity by which so much of the public time is wasted and useful legislation impeded. The net result of all this has undoubtedly been to deservedly affix upon the Opposition the unpopularity which such conduct alike entails upon those who practise and those who seek to profit by it. The people of Great Britain are, as a rule, both an observant and a practical people, and they have watched with a disapproval amounting to disgust the manner in which the wheels of legislation have been clogged by the misbehaviour and egotism of men whose position and abilities are not such as to entitle them to engross a tenth part of the time which they are wont to occupy, to the exclusion of better men and the undue protraction of debates.

This question of House of Commons obstruction has become one of such magnitude and importance, and so dangerously, threatens the very existence of our system of parliamentary government, that it is high time for the constituencies to bestir themselves in the matter; for the credit of those constituencies which send obstructionists to Parliament is seriously affected, and this will be still further the case if the same men should be again returned for the same constituencies. The question is really so far above party considerations, that men of all partics in a con

stituency which has been unlucky enough to return one of these mischievous egotists, might well com bine to return a representative who would relieve it from this reproach. If constituencies so situated are again cajoled by their members into affording them another opportunity of mischief, they must not complain if a future House of Commons, determined to prevent our parliamentary system from falling into utter disrepute, should deal summarily and severely with the offenders, even to the extent of suspending them from their parliamentary duties, and thus depriving the constituencies of the representation which they have so unwisely intrusted to unworthy hands. It is, however, to be hoped that those electors who are Liberal in thought and deed as well as in name, will take the matter into their own hands at the next general election, and purge themselves of the reproach which their representatives have brought upon them. Meanwhile it is for the Unionist leaders to profit by the position into which their opponents have been brought by their inability to control that unruly and insubordinate section of their followers who have justly brought down upon their heads the indignation of all the true friends of parliamentary government. The contrast between the party of order and that

of obstruction in the House of Commons is marked and definite, and the identification of the Unionist party with the former cannot fail to strengthen them in the country. Three years of Lord Salisbury's administration have already shown that it may be credited with a readiness to move with the times, and simultaneously with a resolution to move in a constitutional spirit. Theirs is the true Liberal party, because it is founded upon really Liberal principles. They may be exposed, indeed, to the taunts of statesmen out of place; assailed by the clamour of irresponsible and irrepressible demagogues in and out of Parliament; harried by obstructionists and denounced by the blatant mob-orators and selfsufficient crotchet-mongers who are the inevitable curses of a democracy;-but, sustained by their own consciousness of rectitude and by the support of a united party, they will continue, on the one hand, to oppose the wild and extravagant theories of revolutionary politicians, and on the 'other, to encounter with a bold front the political and social problems of the day, and to attempt their satisfactory solution in the spirit of constitutional progress, and with an earnest determination to deserve the confidence of their countrymen."

BRABOURNE.