Most of the discussion upon the second reading of the
County Government Bill, which began on Thursday night, referred to details ; but Mr. Stansfeld's speech was im- portant. He sat in the last Cabinet of Mr. Gladstone, and if he speaks the opinion of his colleagues, the direction which attack will take is becoming tolerably clear. The Member for Halifax maintained that the unit should not be the county but the parish, that the Government should build up from that, and that the superior Councils should be, as it were, growths from the Parish Council, which should have within its own limits complete though defined authority. In other words, the Radicals wish to establish Communes, and would govern the counties on the federal principle, as opposed to the Parliamentary one. Mr. Stansfeld thought this change could be made by alterations in Com- mittee ; but it is clearly an attack upon the whole method of the Bill, and, indeed, upon its vital principle, which is, that the Royal authority now exercised by the central Executive and the country gentlemen shall be transferred, not to minute local bodies, but to County Parliaments large enough and powerful enough to be controlled by public opinion. The alternative scheme is quite statesmanlike, and is capable of defence, especially as an educating measure ; but it is opposed to the whole Unionist argument, and might produce most dangerous results. Its production will, however, have the good effect of showing the country gentlemen that, democratic as Mr. Ritchie's Bill is, it is possible to go a great deal farther.
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