On Thursday, the Conservative collapse began. First, the Lord Mayor,
in a good-natured and, after his fashion, rather bumptious speech, announced his intention not to move his amendment, in the hope that the House of Lords would ensure an appeal to the country before accepting the Bill from a "moribund Parliament." The Government in bringing in the Bill had acted on the principle " Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo," but the Lord Mayor appears to have left it dark 'what the infernal power was to whose malign agency he referred. He stated, by the way, if he is rightly reported, that the Parliament has already lasted for five years, whereas it is only just four since it assembled. Mr. Chaplin then followed the Lord Mayor's example in a very bitter speech against the new Kil- mainham treaty for the extension of the county franchise to Ireland, the logic of which really required that Ireland should be deprived of her existing constitutional rights. He concluded with -the anti-climax of declining to move the amendment of which he had given notice.
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