The remainder of Mr. Asquith's speech was devoted to good-natured banter on the composition of the Unionist party, with its two leaders and its two sets of opinions, and to a defence of his own policy as Home Secretary in refusing to shut out pauper aliens, and to adopt repressive measures against Anarchists and Revolutionists.

Mr. John Morley's speech on the same occasion was exclusively devoted to Irish affairs and to the pacific results of his administration of the law in that country. Agrarian crime, which had been the disastrous form of disorder in Ireland, sank to a lower level in 1894 than it ever had obtained since 1876; and taking all offences against the law in Ireland, agrarian and non-agrarian, the figure for 1894 had sunk lower than at any time since those offences began to be recorded in Ireland in 1837. "I think," continued Mr. Morley, "nobody is likely to deny that the extraordinary fact I have brought before your knowledge is partially explained, at all events, by the policy which has been pursued in Irish administration since 1892. Does it not show this, that if Irishmen are governed by an Administration whose spirit, policy, and intentions they have confidence in, they will behave like other citizens of other countries, and that all the talk that Irishmen are so restless as to be unfit for self-government sinks into absurdity and a position of fallacy?"

Mr. Morley then referred to the effect produced in this country, and among those who sympathised with Home Rule, by the internal quarrels of Irish politicians. As one who had lived in the midst of these feuds, Mr. Morley, whilst deploring them, attached but little importance to them, and felt confident that they would have no effect upon the Nationalist majority in the House of Commons. At the same time he addressed a word of warning to the Parnellite members who threatened to vote against the Government whenever the opportunity presented itself. He warned them that such a course would be directed immediately against the very proposals which the great bulk of their own countrymen most ardently desired, and Mr. Parnell himself had put forward in 1883. This warning was given with special reference to the supposed intentions of the Parnellite section of the Nationalist party on Mr. Morley's Irish Land Bill, of which he spoke in the following terms: "The bill which it will be our duty to submit to Parliament will contain one or two of the only proposals that are left of the bill of Mr. Parnell of 1883, which now remains unattended to, and has no place in the Statute Book. We have now a chance of achieving a great reform-I do not say a final reform-in the land laws of Ireland, without crime and outrage, if only for once the landlord party and the House of Lords would show a desire to deal with this problem in a practical and business-like spirit. We are adjured to bring in a bill upon which all parties will agree. I know what they mean by language of that kind.

They mean a bill dictated by the eighty Irish Tory landlords who sit in the House of Lords; and I say, speaking for myself and my colleagues, that to a bill of that kind, if that is the condition, we at all events will be no party. We are told in these documents, which I regret to see to-day, that our bill shall have no chance unless the report of the Irish Land Committee shall be definitely set aside. Well now, broadly and substantially speaking, so far from the recommendations in that report being definitely set aside, they will be definitely adopted. We are told, 'Oh, the bill will never be brought in.' All I can say is, the bill is framed, the bill is ready, the bill has been submitted to the Cabinet, and undergone consideration by the Cabinet, and it will be no fault of ours if that bill is not through its second reading before Easter; and if the irreconcilable section of the Irish landlords succeed in inducing the Tory leaders to divide against the second reading, I should be very much surprised if you don't see a very curious sight-namely, some ninety-two or ninety-three per cent. of the representatives of Ireland-north, south, east, and west, Catholic or Protestant -going into the lobby with the Government."

Neither of these speeches, as was admitted by the Ministerial organs, was calculated to inspirit the party at the opening of the session. It was remarked at once that no arrangement appeared to have been arrived at to settle the order in which the various bills, which followed one another in each minister's speech, were to be taken. The respective claims of Wales, Ireland, England, and temperance seemed to be recognised more in deference to the audiences before which they were discussed than in pursuance of a settled and definite line of action, and many who studied the under-currents of political life inferred that this incertitude arose from the want of unanimity within the Cabinet.

The Unionist leaders, with the exception of the Duke of Devonshire at Ulverston (Jan. 18) and Sir Henry James at Bow on the same day, took little part in public meetings. The Liberal Unionists had for the most part said all there was to be said, and were content to endorse by their silence the alliance or coalition with the Conservatives to which they stood pledged: whilst the Conservatives had accepted the policy of social legislation set forth by Mr. Chamberlain. This policy was shortly summed up by the Duke of Devonshire. We ask Parliament to address itself to the task of considering measures which need not necessarily injure a single man, rich or poor, but which we hope may and will produce some improvement in the condition of the poorest and most suffering of our fellows.”

The speeches of the Duke of Argyll at Glasgow (Jan. 15), interrupted by the sudden illness of the Speaker, and of Lord Lansdowne at Calne (Jan. 29), dealt rather with special subjects than with the political situation generally. The

former confined himself almost exclusively to a powerful but bitter attack on Lord Rosebery, and the latter to reforms of procedure in the House of Commons and of the Constitution of the House of Lords.

That there was some need for discreet as well as intelligent direction of the forces of labour and of the aims of working was manifest from the tone taken by some of the workmen's leaders. For example, Mr. Ben Tillett, who had come into prominence during the dockers' strike, and had subsequently been elected an alderman of the London County Council, insisted, in a letter addressed to the Times (Jan. 1), that Collectivism was the only cure for poverty. He proposed to tax property and all material wealth to such an extent that the Government might be possessed of funds to find work for, and pay full Union wages to, all men out of employment, but with complete disregard to any demand for the commodities such meu might produce. The best and most forcible answer to this programme came from Mr. John Burns, M.P., who could not be accused of want of sympathy with Socialist views. member of the London County Council he took the first opportunity after the re-assembling of that body (Jan. 15) to declare that London was pleased that its representatives, "instead of listening to cranks and Utopian schemes put forward by unemployed labour leaders for the establishment of municipal workshops for making boots for which there was no demand, cigars which no one would smoke, and shovels that labourers would not handle, deserves the greatest credit for attempting to adjust their work to the needs of the unemployed." Mr. Burns, however, favoured the idea of municipal bodies adjusting the work they had to do to the exigencies of the labour market by giving it out in slack times; but he would be no party to the proposal of pampering Trade Unionism at the expense of the rates. "If he thought that Trade Unionism meant the beginning even of Tammany, he would leave Trade Unionism and fight against the men who now paid him his salary, for far better would it be that they should have all the forces of the contract or competitive system against them than that they should introduce into municipal life unfair, unjust, or unbusiness-like work to degrade municipal life and public policy as a whole."

The Miners' Federation which met at Birmingham (Jan. 8) was not less strongly opposed to the "nationalisation" of everything, which the Norwich Congress of the previous autumn had voted by acclamation. Mr. Pickard, M.P., the President, further pointed out that at the same congress the attempt had been made to pledge Trade Unionists to support, in the event of a general election, only such candidates as accepted the programme of the Trade Union Parliamentary Committee, in other words, to vote only for Independent Labour candidates. Mr. Pickard strongly urged the miners' delegates not to bind themselves by any such promise, and to absent themselves from

any congress or conference called with such an object; and Mr. Asquith, on behalf of the Government in his speech at Hull (referred to above), clearly indicated the follies of such a line of conduct.

The Home Secretary had however previously dealt with the more practical resolutions of the Norwich Trade Union Congress in a conference held at the Foreign Office (Jan. 16) with an important deputation representing nearly every trade and industry in the country. On this occasion the various resolutions were individually supported by persons empowered to speak with knowledge and authority on the subjects to which they referred. The most important was that referring to the system of Government contracts, and urging that the minimum rate of pay for workmen in Government employ should be 6d. per hour-or 24s. a week. Another urged the necessity of the amendment of the Factory Acts, extending them to all textile trades and to as many others as possible, that laundries should be included, as well as docks, wharves, Government and municipal workshops, and that employers should be made legally responsible for the sanitary condition of the places where their work was done. Another resolution dealt with employers' liability, and pronounced strongly against allowing any form of "contracting-out." A thorough amendment and extension of the "Truck Acts" was demanded, whilst another resolution, supported by Mr. John Burns, was in favour of a new registration bill, the defraying of its costs as well as that of elections being placed on the public funds, the abolition of plural voting and the establishment of simultaneous elections. Mr. J. H. Wilson, M.P., spoke in favour of an amendment of the jury laws requiring every one including workmen to serve and to be adequately paid in all civil and criminal cases. The amendment of the law of conspiracy and the more careful and more frequent inspection of boilers (with which were connected the abolition of the veto of the House of Lords and the reform of Parliamentary procedure); the increase of the existing army of factory inspectors, and the prohibition of the landing of pauper aliens made up the programme of practical reforms presented by the deputation.

Mr. Asquith, in reply, promised that the matters laid before him should receive the careful attention of the Government. He thought the deputation had made a judicious selection of subjects, and felt bound in candour to say that if some of the resolutions passed at the Norwich Congress had been brought to his notice he should have felt bound to express the strongest and most emphatic dissent. Declining to deal with purely political questions, such as the registration laws and the relations between the two Houses of Parliament, he individually thought the condition of the jury law unsatisfactory, and was ready to consider any reasonable proposal for its amendment. He entirely agreed with the resolution of the congress as to the

law of conspiracy, and hoped, in the Factory Bill to be introduced in the coming session, to meet their reasonable demands for reform in that direction. He also hoped, in the course of the session, to attempt to remedy the defects of the Truck Acts. As to the Government employment of labour he promised investigation and redress for any cases in which a violation of the House of Commons' resolution with regard to contracts could be established, and said the Government were desirous to set an example to the other employers of labour. Mr. Asquith dealt with other points raised by the deputation, and in conclusion warned the trade unionists of this country against reverting, in reference to the exclusion of foreign labour, to the fallacies of protection. The Home Secretary gave a fuller reply and a clearer indication of his views on the points raised by the deputation when addressing a Liberal meeting at Bishop Auckland (Jan. 31), when he contrasted with great satisfaction the administration of his own Government with that of his predecessors. He insisted that the industrial laws affecting mines, factories and workshops, were worked with less friction, and that although much remained to be done in the matter of enforcing the liability of employers, and of bringing female labour under the inspection of female inspectors, the Government had not lost sight of these questions and would urge on legislation in that sense.

On another subject also the Government had shown itself influenced by public opinion to the extent of silencing, if not of removing, the objections raised, as was asserted, within the Cabinet itself. The duty of strengthening the Navy had been recognised by both political parties, but the manner in which each party when in office had attempted to carry it into effect had been severely criticised by that in opposition. It was, moreover, feared that the activity displayed by Earl Spencer during his first year at the Admiralty might be impeded by the anxiety of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to have a large surplus at his disposal for the year's Budget. Those members of the Cabinet, however, who were in favour of a steady expansion of our naval forces, and of strengthening our arsenals, found support in the attitude of the principal Liberal organs in the press, which recognised even more fully than the members of the Government the capital to be made by the Opposition out of the election cry of "starving the Navy." Doubtless also representations to a similar effect were made from other quarters, and it was therefore with a sense of general relief that the Liberals learnt from the First Lord, and heard repeated in greater detail by the Civil Lord, Mr. E. Robertson, at Dundee, that the Naval Estimates of the year would be framed upon the basis of what could be advantageously and efficiently expended within that period; and that no difficulties would be raised to providing the money necessary to carry on the programme which Lord Spencer had promised when first taking office at the Admiralty.