Yesterday week Mr. Gladstone' obtained leave, by a majority of
113, for afternoon sittings on Tuesdays and Fridays till the end of June, to be devoted to Government business ; but not without rather bitter opposition. Mr. A. Balfour moved as an amendment a Standing Order,—" That, previous to June 1st in each year, no morning sittings on Tuesday or Friday shall be taken, except by resolution of the House,"—insisting that in the case of Mr. Disraeli's Reform Bill in 1867, this proposal was both made later in the year and made on better grounds, since the Bill included a Redistribution Bill, which Mr. Glad- stone's comparatively " simple " Bill does not. The distinctive feature, of the party division was that Mr. Balfour, who moved the amendment, and who up to last week was supposed to belong to the Fourth Party, was deserted by his colleagues,— Lord Randolph Churchill, Sir Henry-Wolff, and Mr. Gorst voting in the majority of 216 for giving to the Government the new facilities they demanded. The Tory Democrats do not .think it good policy to show their indifference to the decay of the competency of Parliament to deal with popular measures as it thinks best. It may be right, they hold, openly to throw out measures which it is not right to burke.
