Mr. Fowler, the Indian Secretary, made a speech at Wol-
verhampton on Wednesday, in answer to a congratulatory address from the five hundred who represent the Glad- stonian party in Wolverhampton, in which he gave an account of the laborious progress of the Local Government Bill through Parliament, and explained how many of the amendments were due to the Government, how many to the whole Gladstonian party, and how many to the Opposition. Of the amendments actually moved in the House and put from the Chair, the Gladstonians moved two hundred and seventeen and the Opposition four hundred and two,—not quite double the number. He himself had, he believed, been obliged to speak no fewer than eight hundred and three times. All that is curious, but hardly instruc- tive. It would have been more interesting if Mr. Fowler had told us what led to the strange conduct of the Govern- ment in throwing him over in order to support Mr. Cobb's amendment in relation to parish trusts ; but on that subject' Mr. Fowler said nothing at all. He was very warm in his panegyric on Sir William Harcourt's Budget; but, unless we misunderstand him, he ignored entirely Mr. Goschen's Estate- duty which set Sir William Harcourt the example by which the present Leader of the House of Commons has profited so greatly. He declared Sir William Harcourt's exposition of the Budget to have been "one of the most luminous and most marvellous speeches which I have ever heard since I have been a Member of the House of Commons,"—whence we argue that, for the present at all events, Mr. Fowler is an adherent of the Harcourt element in the Cabinet.
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