Sir Michael Hicks-Beach made an excellent point in his speech
to the Augustine Branch of the Bristol Conservative Working Men's Association on Tuesday, in dealing with the attack on the Lords which the Gladstonians are now com- mencing. In their Irish Home-rule Bill, he said, this very Government had proposed to create a Second Chamber, which was to be allowed not merely to amend the provisions of any Bill passed by the popular Chamber, but to reject those Bills entirely for either a couple of years or till after a Dissolution of Parliament. Yet all this cry raised against the House of Lords is raised because the historical Second Chamber in England is asserting rights of a milder character with respect to a constitutional revolution of the greatest possible moment. Surely, never was any political action more com- pletely sustained by the very testimony of its own stoutest assailants.
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