Lord Cowper, who, in a letter to Monday's Times, calls
him- self a good Liberal, declares it to be the duty of the Government to bring forward the Redistribution Bill in the Autumn Session, as well as the Franchise Bill. His argument is, that a fair Redistribution Bill would remove all difficulties, and enable the Peers to pass both Bills without delay. That is a very amiable view of Lord Cowper's. Perhaps, as he wrote from Homburg, he was not aware that Lord Salisbury has already committed himself to the view that no Bill which does not give something like sixty-three Members to Lancashire, and something Wm fifty-two Members to Middlesex,—no Bill which does not give their full share of representation to the most populous dis- tricts,—will be " fair " at all. Lord Cowper is innocent enough to think that what is intended to be scrupulously fair by a Liberal Government, will be accepted as fair by a Tory Opposi- tion. But we already know that Mr. Gladstone's principles of Redistribution have been authoritatively declared most unfair by the Tory leader, and that nothing could be more fatal to the Franchise Bill than to have such a Redistribution Bill as Mr. Gladstone sketched, laid on the table of the House of Commons. If Lord Salisbury is to lead, the House of Lords would give the coup de grecce to the Franchise Bill at once. Again, the assumption made in some quarters that Lord Cowper speaks authoritatively for the Tories is a very odd one. What Lord Cowper proposes Lord Salisbury would be tolerably certain to reject.
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