extent by the Act of Uniformity. There might be things in that act with which they did not agree; still it was the charter under which the Church held her position, not as a spiritual Church, but as a Church established by law and enjoying certain emoluments. Subject to that principle he agreed that the Church should be comprehensive. The Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Temple) claimed that there had been no remissness on the part of any bishop in insisting that the true doctrines of the Church. of England should be observed. He shared with a great many other people the belief that the fewer prosecutions they had the better, and his conviction was that the amount of anything like Romanism in the Church was exceedingly small. "I do not say," he continued, "that there are not men who have really gone beyond the limits of the doctrine which the Church of England prescribes. I do not mean that there are not some here and there, but I am sure they are very few, and I am quite certain in the vast majority of the cases in which the ritual has been complained of the clergy who are indulging in these ritual irregularities have no desire whatever to join the Church of Rome themselves, or to get others to join that Church. . . . When you find that a man who is, perhaps, very foolishly going into all sorts of ritual excesses is at the same time devoted to the work which is assigned him to do, you cannot help feeling that you must exercise great delicacy and care before you interfere with such work as his." The Prayer-book distinctly puts it on the bishops and archbishops to settle such matters as were now in controversy if they could, and they aimed at willing obedience. "If, after all, we succeed in bringing about the obedience of the clergy generally, but there are still a few who stand out and refuse altogether to obey, we must consider carefully what step is next to be taken. I have never said, and I certainly do not mean to say, that we shall not have recourse to the courts of law; but we really ought, for the sake of the Church, for the sake of the work the Church is doing, to try every means before we take those harsh means with which the law courts supply us. I appeal to the great body of the laity of this country to support the bishops in quietly endeavouring to set these matters right, as I assure you we really mean to do." After the archbishop had spoken, the subject was allowed to drop.

In the House of Commons the subject was treated in a more militant tone, and Mr. Samuel Smith (Flintshire), as champion of the Evangelical party, moved a direct resolution to the effect that "having regard to the lawlessness prevailing in the Church of England, some legislative steps should be taken to secure obedience to the law." He believed that no change worth speaking about had been made in the practices of the clergy as the result of the charges which the bishops had been delivering during the past twelve months. Besides, the lawlessness was not confined to the clergy; the bishops, who were largely

selected from the Ritualist party, themselves broke the law. The root of the evil lay in the training given to candidates for holy orders in the theological colleges. The manuals in use in many of these colleges taught almost all the doctrines of the Church of Rome. The voluntary schools were also becoming mere seed plots for the spread of Romanism. Viscount Cranborne (Rochester), a representative of the High Church party in the House, disclaimed any sympathy with the extreme practices of certain Churchmen, least of all did he sympathise with the attitude some of them had taken towards their ecclesiastical superiors. But quite as distinctly must he dissociate himself from any approval of the methods which had been adopted in what was virtually an attack on the Church-an attack made with weapons some of which were altogether unworthy.

Mr. Birrell (Fifeshire. W.) followed with a racy speech, in which he declared that, though a Nonconformist of the Nonconformists, he found himself quite unable to support the amendment. He declined altogether to have anything to do with any legislative measures designed to harry any particular class or school of thought within the Church. The only cure for the present state of things was to be found in Disestablishment.

Sir John Kennaway (Honiton, Devonshire) said that the question for the House to decide was whether they would give the bishops time to do what he believed they were bent on doing, or rush into legislation, and thereby run the risk of bringing about a disruption of the Church of England, which those who remembered what happened in Scotland in 1843 might well regard as a warning and beware. Ultimately, Mr. A. J. Balfour (Manchester, E.) closed the debate with a judicious speech, which satisfied all but the extremists on both sides. On one point, he said, they were all agreed, and that was that the law of the Church must be obeyed by the clergy of the Church. How obedience could be best enforced was another question. should earnestly deprecate any course which might have the effect of alienating in the smallest degree the sympathies of any single section of the English Church, or of diminishing the broad toleration which was a characteristic mark and most glorious heritage of that Church. He could not see that any good would be done by depriving bishops of the veto. On the contrary, should need be shown, it would be the duty of the Government to strengthen the bishops' hands. The amendment was then rejected by 221 votes to 89, the Nonconformists and Roman Catholics taking no part in the division.

He

The next amendment, moved (Feb. 10) by Mr. E. J. C. Morton (Devonport), expressed regret that no measure dealing with the ownership, tenure and taxation of land in towns was promised. The debate turned chiefly upon the escape of ground landlords from local taxation, and the proposal that unoccupied land in towns should be taxed at its full value. Mr. Asquith, Q.C.

(Fifeshire, E.), who was the principal supporter of the amendment from the front Opposition Bench, wished (1) larger compulsory powers of acquisition to be given to local authorities, which would make it possible to use the purchased land advantageously; (2) to reform local rating so as to make it impossible for an owner to withhold land from public use; (3) to introduce the principle of betterment. These remedies, which, he declared, no one could say were "inconsistent with sound principles of political economy or the elementary rules of justice," inferentially condemned all those who desired to preserve "lungs and open spaces in our great towns as unworthy of the name of public benefactors. The defence of the inaction of the Government was undertaken by Mr. A. J. Balfour (Manchester, E.) and Mr. Goschen; the former explaining that the defects of the existing system of rating were being inquired into by a royal commission. Overcrowding, he admitted, and the difficulty of getting land, were the chief obstacles in the way of practical legislation, but a former Conservative Government had in 1890 passed the Housing of the Working Classes Act, and he asked why, in such cases as had been cited, this act had not been applied. If, however, it should be proved necessary to grant larger compulsory powers for the acquisition of land for building purposes, the matter would have to be considered-and, as he hoped, dispassionately. Mr. Goschen ascribed the overcrowding in towns to the fact that more people wished to live in certain spots than there was room to accommodate, and not to the results of the law or of any rating system. He feared that it was almost beyond human power to solve this tremendous problem, and he warned the House lest by increasing the burdens upon land they should put difficulties in the way of the erection of workmen's dwellings on the outskirts of great towns. If any further measures could be taken to prevent overcrowding, the Government would be glad to adopt them. The taxation of unoccupied land, which had been recommended, was not an easy matter to accomplish, but he should not object to its taxation on just terms. To compel proprietors to sell such land in all circumstances would be undesirable, for unoccupied land often supplied much-needed breathing spaces in the metropolis and elsewhere. One of the difficulties in the way of those who desired to tax ground-rents was the impossibility in many cases of distinguishing between and separating the interests of the landlord and the tenant, and, in any case, special contracts would always baffle every attempt to fix the actual incidence of taxation. He trusted that the royal commission might make recommendations which would render possible some reform.

The division which followed showed the difficulties to which the Government would have been exposed had they attempted legislation on this extremely thorny question. The Liberal Unionists could scarcely be expected to think with the Con

servatives on such a question, and consequently held aloof from the division, in which the amendment was defeated by only 34 votes-157 to 123.

The grievances of Wales were more summarily disposed of (Feb. 13), and although they were championed by Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman on the ground that no proposed legislation had followed on the reports of the royal commissions on Welsh agriculture and Sunday closing, yet the House by 194 to 144 votes endorsed Sir M. White Ridley's view that except under very special circumstances separate legislation for Wales was not desirable.

His

Much greater interest was aroused by Mr. Labouchere's effort to restrict the powers of the House of Lords. proposal was that the Upper House should be allowed to reject a bill once; but, if the same bill were passed unaltered by the Commons in the following session, it should become law. It was interesting to find that no definite views on this subject were held by the Radical party. Mr. Mendl (Plymouth) and Mr. Cawley (Prestwich, Lancashire) supported Mr. Labouchere; but Mr. Lawson Walton (Leeds, S.) desired to substitute a more general way of mending the House of Lords by declaring that the power it possessed to overrule the decisions of the Commons demanded the attention of Parliament. Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman (Stirling Burghs) at once avowed his distinct preference for Mr. Lawson Walton's amendment over Mr. Labouchere's proposal, inasmuch as the latter had among other defects that of inviting the Queen's action which would be absolutely illegal. He wished to see the Lords' veto abolished, not so much on the grounds of party expediency, but because he regarded it as likely in some time of political excitement to bring about a constitutional crisis which could not but be dangerous to the State. He desired to maintain, as against the Lords, the rights of the representative Chamber, but at the same time he would leave the Lords a sufficient share of their

ancient constitutional powers. Mr. Balfour, in reply, pointed out that the proposal would place everything in the State at the mercy of the House of Commons, including the nation, to which no appeal would be allowed. He insisted that the House of Lords had done the country great service by rejecting measures which had never been brought forward again; and, by delaying measures, for which the country was not ripe, it had prevented violent reactions. The House of Lords was very amenable to pub public opinion, and would not resist any reform which should be called for by the people a second time; but the existence of some constitutional machinery by which the constituencies could again be asked to reconsider their position was not only expedient, but an absolute essential of any healthy community. The divisions which then took place showed a somewhat curious result, for whilst Mr. Lawson Walton's amendment was negatived by 257 to 107 votes, Mr. Labouchere's less

sweeping but more practically applicable reform was rejected by only 223 to 105 votes-the minority in both cases being almost identical.

The grievances of the Scottish crofters and cottars were dismissed (Feb. 14) with scarcely less ceremony than those of the Welsh tithe objectors. Mr. Weir (Ross and Cromarty) was of opinion that 1,782,785 acres of land devoted to deer forests, grouse moors, etc., might be advantageously devoted to agriculture and to the bettering of the condition of the labouring classes of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. The Lord Advocate, Mr. Graham Murray (Buteshire), finding that Mr. Weir was generally supported by the Scotch members, pleaded for time in order that the Congested District Board might deal with the problems, which it had already attacked in a tentative way. A beginning had been made in the creation of new holdings, and the crofters had been provided with plant and seed. Under these circumstances the House consented by 197 to 142 votes to give the Government further time to carry out its experiments.

There was the keener relish of something personal in Mr. MacNeill's (Donegal, S.) amendment, declaring that twenty-five out of the forty-four actual ministers of the Crown held among them forty-one directorships in public companies, and that the union of such offices was calculated to lower the dignity of public life. The question was warmly debated for the best part of two days (Feb. 14 and 15), although in the end the amendment to the address, which if carried would have amounted to a vote of want of confidence, was negatived by 247 to 103 votes. Notwithstanding this result, there was little doubt that Mr. MacNeill expressed a very widely spread feeling that on acceptance of office a minister should completely sever his connection with commercial life, in order that under no circumstances could corrupt motives be imputed to him. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir M. Hicks-Beach (Bristol W.), put forward the conventional plea that ministers, like other people, were free to devote their leisure time to such occupations as they chose; and he protested with unnecessary warmth against the idea that all joint-stock enterprise was dishonest, and all directors corrupt. Mr. Balfour followed upon much the same lines, holding that the security and integrity of public life was to be sought in parliamentary tradition and public opinion rather than in definite and inapplicable rules. Mr. Asquith (Fifeshire, E.), however, bluntly pointed out that the existing system, defended by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, contained two elements inconsistent with the principles which should govern the State, viz., first, that a man should devote his whole time to its service; and secondly, that no man should place himself in a position where his public and private interests might come into collision. In Mr. Gladstone's last Ministry the rule had been strictly enforced and acted on, and its relaxa