Lord Salisbury's little Bills for the reform of the House
of Lords are both dead, stillborn. The Bill for the expurgation of the House by enabling the Crown to cancel the writs of summons in the ease of black sheep was withdrawn on Tuesday without apology, but the Premier pressed the Bill for allowing the Crown to create fifty Life-Peers. Its main proviso was not opposed; but Lord Granville, Lord Derby, and Lord Rosebery all spoke strongly against the restrictions on choice, which, said the last-named Peer, in a speech brim- ming over with fun, would turn the House into a sort of "legis- lative Bath or Cheltenham." That happy phrase really embodies the great objection to the Bill. It would probably have passed, shorn of the restrictive clauses, but for an odd incident. Mr. Gladstone does not like the Bill, and while supporting Mr. Smith, on Tuesday, in his arrangement for the transaction of business, said he must insist that it should not be discussed in the Commons this Session. The Leader of the House thereupon pledged himself that it should not be, and Lord Salisbury, five minutes after he had succeeded in passing the second reading, was obliged to tell the Lords that his colleague, in a panic caused by a threat of obstruction, had given up the Bill ; on which we might write the old epitaph :—" If I was to be so very soon done, I can't think why ever I was begun."
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