In the course of a speech at Henley on Monday
night Mr, Herbert Samuel said that the present year would see Homo Rule in Dublin and religious equality in Wales, to be followed next year by the abolition of plural voting. "Within the next year also," he continued, "the Prime Minister will lay before Parliament proposals for the complete elimination from Parliament of the hereditary peerage principle and the thorough democratizing of the Second Chamber." We are quite aware that there is nothing inherently incompatible between this interesting prediction and a statement to the contrary from some other Minister, with, as its corollary, an explanation in the Radical Press proving the two to be con- sistent, if not identical. But as Mr. Samuel does not as a rule deal in rash statements, we may point out that his prediction, if we may assume that it represents the considered view of the Cabinet, commits them to a proposal which would stereo- type the most disputable features of Colonial Constitutions. To make the Second Chamber an imitation of the Commons must inevitably damage the prestige of the latter and substitute competition for compensation.
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