In Tuesday's and Wednesday's debate on Mr. T. W. Russell's
motion to omit all reference to the Legislative Council, there was no real difference of opinion among the Unionists as to the utter worthlessness of the Council actually suggested in the Bill as a safeguard against the oppression of the minority. But as Mr. Gladstone declared that the question as to how the Council should be con- stituted was still quite open, and the reference to it in the First Clause would not at all involve that it should be a Council elected in the manner proposed by the Bill, several of the Unionists voted in favour of it, while most of them voted against it as a mere sham for which there is no sort of excuse. Mr. T. W. Russell's amendment was defeated by 295 votes to 244, the Radicals, who, like Mr. Labouchere, agreed with him in deprecating any such safeguard, voting against him on the ground that they would not imperil the Bill by changing sides. The peculiarity of the vote was that the friends of a second Chamber mostly voted against it, and the foes for it.
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