The sun., 1895-02-05
The Reassembling Of the British Par
lament.

When the Parliament which meets to-day
first convened, Mr.. GLADSTONE had a
majority Of forty in the House of Com
mons. By the loss of seats at by-elections,
and through the absence Of Liberal mem
bers in foreign parts, this majority would
be now reduced to less than thirty, even If
it should include the nine Parnellites.
But if Mr.. JOHN E. REDMOND and his Par
nellite colleagues carry out their threat Of
opposing the RosEBERY Government, the
Ministerial majority will be reduced to
about twelve, and will therefore be at the
mercy of any headstrong Radical who may
have half dozen supporters to follow him.
That party possessing only a nominal
preponderance in the House Of Commons,
and with its mandate from the people rem
dered disputable by repeated defeats at
by-elections. can exercise any moral pres
sure upon the House of Lords seems out of
the question. 1t follows that none of the
measures which have figured for some time
on the Government programme has much
chance of becoming law. The Welsh Dis
establishment BILL which interests Welsh
men only, or mainly, and the bill providing
for the payment of members of the House of
Commons, in which all British Radicals
and friends of labor are keenly interested,
are alike destined to be thrown out by the
defiant and overwhelming Conservative ma
jority in the upper House. The same fate is
even more likely to befall the Irish bills that
may be submitted by Mr.. MORLEY.
II, then, the RosEBERY Ministry is already
powerless for affirmative legislation, why
should it cling to office, instead of courting
overthrow, or, as the phrase is, riding for a
fall The answer is that, apart from the
political gamester's hope that something
propitious will turn up, and apart from the
natural wish of members of the House of
Commons to avoid as long as possible the
cost of appealing to their constituents, there
Is an important fact to be considered This
fact is that if the general election can be de-
ferred until the autumn it will take place
on new registration list, and a much
smaller proportion of workingmen will be
disfranchised through change of residence
than would be the case should the election
be held this spring.
or such obvious moment Is this matter of
the registration list that to outsiders it ap-
pears decisive; yet some English Radicals
like Mr.. LABoUCHERE deem 1t less vital
than the formulation OF definite and popu-
lar plan of attack upon the House of Lords.
No agreement upon such plan, however,
seems practicable so long as Lord ROSE
Berry remains the ostensibe head of the |
Liberal party. For Lord RosEBERY wants |
to mend the House OF Lords; not only to re- |
tain second chamber, but to make it |
morally and politically stronger than it is |
now. The mass of the British Radicals and |
the Irish Nationalist, on the other hand,
desire not to mend the upper House but to
end it, That would be the practical effect
of depriving the Lords of powers in any
sense coordinate, and leaving them only a
suspensory veto, the period of suspension,
moreover, being made very short.
The Radicals believe that large major
ity OF the people OF the United Kingdom
would support IA bold demand for the vir-
tual annihilation OF hereditary legislators.
If, as seems probable, there Is no hope of
seeing such a demand made by a Cabinet
headed by Lord RosEBERY, the friends of
Sir WILLIAM HARcoURT would prefer to go
at once to the country, and, at the cost of
defeat, rid themselves of a man
whom they regard rs utterly unfit for the
leadership of a progressive party.