The House of Lords began the Committee stage: t.g. the
Irish Bill on Wednesday. Lord Midleton was defeated by 111 votes to 53 on an amendment designed to prevent North-East Ulster from having a separate Parliament. Lord Oranmore and Browne and Lord Midleton succeeded, however, by 120 votes to 36, in carrying an amendment to establish a Senate both in the North and in the South. A further amendment, carried by 48 votes to 34 on the motion of Lord Shandon, provided that the two Senates should sit together as an Irish Senate in place of the Council of Ireland. Lord Midleton contended that the Govern- ment were pledged to constitute Second Chambers ; the Lord Chancellor replied that they were pledged only to propose a scheme and that they had done so, without MICCe8B. We sym- pathize heartily with the Southern Unionists in their desperate situation, and we recognize their right to press for such con. atitutional guarantees as a Second Chamber may afford them against the tyranny of the Nationalist majority. There is much more to be said for a Second Chamber in each of the two Parliaments than for a Senate common to the two Parliaments, which would, we think, be premature.
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