The Attorney-General addressed the. "Eighty Club" on Tuesday afternoon in
a very eloquent speech, the burden of which was that the missionaries of Liberalism, as the Eighty regard themselves, ought to be very careful not to raise the question of the Reform of the House of Lords, while agitating for the passing of the Franchise Bill, lest by aiming at two quite different objects, the expression of public opinion should become less concentrated and less clear. He added, by way of answer to Lord Salisbury, that the opportunities of jerrymandering, in the sense of keeping down Conservative interests by provisions devised in the interest of the Liberal party, had been far more promising and considerable in the case of the Franchise Bill than they would be in the case of the Redistribution Bill ; and that as by the admission of the Conservative party the Govern- ment had not availed themselves, but had scrupulously refused to avail themselves, of these opportunities in the one case, the Conservative leaders were bound to have given Mr. Gladstone's Governnient credit for equally fair conduct in relation to the other case, the case of the Redistribution Bill.
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