Lord Cranbrook on Tuesday made a furious speech at the
City Conservative Club, in which he ran over all the usual charges against the Government, mentioning especially that -they had passed the Irish Land Law in order to buy the Irish vote, and ought to be prosecuted under the Corrupt Practices Act. We thought that even under that stringent Act the can- didate must have received the vote complained of, whereas this Government, in buying Mr. Parnell, has secured his vote to the Opposition. There was, however, apart from this nonsense, a remark of some gravity in Lord Cranbrook's speech. After alluding to the unfair concession promised to Ireland, he affirmed that the Franchise Bill was only intended to swamp certain constituencies, that the Lords were bound to confront the danger "by appealing from a decaying House of Commons " to the people, and that when the time arrived, the House of Lords would do its duty. In other words, it will reject the Bill, probably, if we may judge from Lord Cranbrook's speech, upon the ground that it includes Ireland. As Lord Salisbury has said the same thing, we may, we suppose, believe that the Tory majority in the Peers has made up its mind, with- -out debate, without hearing the Government argument, and without seeing the Bill as it emerges from the Commons. That is the Peers' notion of their function as a Deliberative Chamber.
Previous page
