Mr. Trevelyan's Bill for the extension of Household Suffrage to
the counties was debated on Wednesday, when Mr. Salt (M.P. for Stafford) moved its rejection, in a rather remarkable speech, in which he did not spare either the present or the late Government, or, indeed, our existing Parliamentary system at all. He charged the Reform Bill of 1867 with having engendered a spasmodic con- dition of the public mind, rendering both parties in the State prone to legislative excesses. The legislation of the last Govern- ment was excessive, after a violent, or as he called it, an alcoholic type; the legislation of the present Government is equally excessive after a heavy, or as he termed it, a suet-pudding type; and English- men were as likely to have a surfeit of the one as of the other. What the English people wanted was an Assembly manifesting the very best qualities of the English people, "their quiet and deep courage, their strong common-sense, their love of order, and perhaps, above all, their obedience to the law." Mr. Salt intimated that Reform was leading us further and further from this ideal. But can that be said of the special reform proposed ? Are not these the precise qualities which the English agricultural labourers have displayed in their patient, earnest, and tenacious agitation for higher wages and electoral rights ?
