We have dealt elsewhere with that portion of Lord Salis-
bury's speech—delivered at the Constitutional Club on Friday, December 16th—which was concerned with foreign affairs. The rest of the speech, which was often extremely amusing, dealt with the split in the Liberal party, the House of Lords, and Ritualism. He warned his hearers not to be too certain that the Liberal party had collapsed. "At any moment a Mahal or a Mad Mool.ah may arise, and they will bear down upon you to carry out the Jehad and to carry away the loot. I therefore entreat you, notwithstanding these flattering symptoms, to remain in your ranks and to keep your powder dry." That is as sound as it is witty. As to the House of Lords, the Premier put with great force the Referendum view of their functions,—a view which has now practically become that of the Constitution. The action of the House of Lords had uniformly been to delay for the judgment of the country matters on which it thought the House of Commons and the country were not agreed. "That is what has been established by the practice of many years, and when our opponents wish to abolish the House of Lorde the inevitable inference is that they desire to pass, before the country should have time to intervene, something upon which the House of Commons and the country are not one." That was what very nearly happened. The people of this country would not part with this check on the Legislature until another check that can do its work had been supplied. Most certainly they will not. England hates absolutism and monopoly, and is not going to give an absolute monopoly of power to the House of Commons.
