Lord Salisbury made a speech at Dumfries on Tuesday which
was regarded by many not, indeed, as giving any hope of con- cession, but as shutting the door less absolutely against it than he had done in previous speeches. He was very caustic with Lord Hartington for saying that the leverage of a passed Franchise Act was needful to get any Redistribution Bill past the obstructions which Parliament would know how to throw in its way ; and compared it to the nurse's method of holding a refractory baby's nose, in order to make it open its mouth, and so provide the opportunity of getting the medicine down its throat. The House of Lords does not contend, he said, for the Constitutional right of forcing a Dissolution. It only contends for the Constitutional right of refusing a measure which, apart from a special scheme of Redistribution, it does not approve,
until the country ratifies the piece-work plan of the Government. "A Dissolution will come soon enough." The House of Lords is quite willing to wait for it.
