The Lords on Monday night made one small but trouble-
some change in the Reform Bill. Lord Cairns proposed, in a short speech absolutely devoid of reasons, to raise the lodger franchise from 10/. to 15/., thus disfranchising all the London workmen admitted by the Bill. Thereupon up jumped Lord Malmesbury, apparently quite delighted, and on the part of the Cabinet accepted the amendment, which of course was carried, and of course must be rejected by the Commons, —firstly, because the figure 10/. was the result of a compact in the Lower House ; secondly, because the Liberals are not going to break faith with London, which has never swerved from its fidelity to them ; and thirdly, because the increased figure establishes a bad social distinc- tion. It admits almost all young men of the professional, trading, and shopkeeping class, and strikes out all young men of the working class. That will never do ; and we not surprised to hear that Mr. Disraeli intends to resist the change, or that London is half inclined for a demonstration. Lord Malmesbuty is always getting his party into some scrape or other, and this is a serious one. The total rejection of the lodger franchise as including the principle of universal suffrage would have been intelligible, but this change is a mere explosion of caste feeling, as unwise as it is small.
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