Mr. Balfour shows certainly even more tact in his lead
of the House of Commons than the late Mr. W. H. Smith himself. On Thursday he opened his case for the new rule limiting Supply to twenty full days of the Session, which must be closed by August 5th, with almost all the Opposition and a very considerable section of his own followers dead against him ; and yet when he sat down, we think we may safely say that he had made a most favourable impression, which he evidently hoped that three days of reflection before the discussion begins, would rather increase than diminish. He showed from the first that so far from wishing to curtail the privileges of private Members, he wished to enlarge them. The most important criticisms on the policy of the Government occur, he said, in Supply, and the most important votes in Supply are at present very apt to be taken at the end of the Session, when a great many Members are gone out of town, and the others are eager for their liberation. The proposal of the Government will necessitate the apportionment of twenty good days to Supply- before the end of the Session ; and though the discussions in Supply will eventually be closed by the guillotine, yet the guillotine is more merciful than the rack, and at present the discussions in Supply are really discussions under the rack when everybody is suffering from the slow torture of useless debates on small insignificant points, and waiting, too often in vain, for the bringing forward of the more important votes on which they desire to speak. The object of the Government is to compel a more even distribution of time to Supply, and, therefore, to those subjects on which the private Members can exert a far greater influence than that which they exert in moving languidly discussed resolutions in a thin House, when the debate is generally closed by a count-out. When Mr. Balfour sat down he had certainly quite turned the tide,—for the time at least,—in his favour.
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