24 JULY 1909, Page 2

But though we are sure that the wise thing from

the Government point of view will be to do this at once, we realise that it is far more likely that the Government will take two bites to their cherry. During the coming fortnight they will probably reconsider the land clauses, and make in them a good many alterations, with a view to facilitating their progress. If .they do this, we venture to say that the result will be very much what happened in the case of the Education BilL The extremists, when they come to realise the nature of the modifications, will become so much enraged that they will tell the Cabinet that they would rather have the clauses postponed than get them through in an emasculated form. After, say, a fortnight's more waste of time, this view will be adopted as inevitable, and about the end of August the clauses will be, we will not say abandoned, but postponed. That is our forecast. It may of course prove quite erroneous, for there is always a chance of unforeseen things happening in. Parliament ; but at any rate that is how the course of events appears to us to be shaping itself.