The most satisfactory speech yet made on our side of
the question is that of Sir E. Balwer Lytton, who, though a Tory, expressed his cordial desire to welcome operatives like those of Rochdale "by acclamation," and put life into the argument by a few happy illustrations. He met the argument that 25 per cent. of workmen have been admitted without danger by the Irishman's bull, " If one quince can so flavour an apple pie, how good would an apple pieā¢ be all of quinces?" and answered Mr. Gladstone's " flesh-and-blood " argument by asking if 6/. house- holders were flesh and blood " in an imperfect state of develop- ment." The workmen, it is argued, do not agree on politics, but, says Sir Edward, neither do clergymen, " yet if they returned a majority of members we should feel their influence in a division
on Church-rates." And he illustrated the number of members who, detesting this Bill, are yet going, to vote for it, by the old story of the preacher who said he saw in his congregation a women dis- obedient to her husband, and would fling his book at her head. Every woman ducked, just as half the members on the Ministerial side would bob under a similar test. Altogether the literary baronet made a nearer approach than usual to his favourite ideals, the Beautiful and the True.
