Mr. Chamberlain, on Thursday, delivered a striking speech in the
Town Hall, Braintree, Essex. He maintained that the Government were arranging matters for a quarrel with the House of Lords upon whieh they could go to the country. They wish to represent that the Lords stopped all reform- ing legislation as well as the Home-rule Bill. They therefore will let the Employers' Liability Bill drop rather than accept the contracting-out clause inserted by the Lords ; they are overloading the Parish Councils Bill with contentious matter, so that the Lords, though favourable to its principle, cannot pass it as it stands, and they have contemptuously refused the offer of the Lords to compromise on the Betterment question, though the amount involved was only 28,000 a year. Mr. Chamberlain believed that all the mismanagement inside the House, which was wearing Members and officials out, was due to secret indifference to measures which were only produced in order to help on Home-rule. That was evident from the disciplined zeal with which the Irishmen, who were not interested in those measures, supported them. They agreed with Mr. Morley, that every hour devoted to the New- castle programme meant two h ours devoted to Home-rule.
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