The Marquis of Hartington attempted, later in the evening, to
reply to Lord Stanley, but urged poor reasonswith laborious poverty. He said that all the four previous Reform 'Bills had failed, and attributed their failure to their all being complete. He might as well have attributed their failure to their having all been first in- troduced into the Lower House, and have justified on that ground an attempt to move a Reform Bill first in the House of Lords. For the Government lose none of the unpopularity that the dis- franchisement causes, since they produce their menaces before the Bill goes into Committee, and it is as easy to smother it in Com- mittee as to murder it on the second reading. If this attempt to try the piecemeal method of legislation be a mere scientific experiment on the part of the Government, to exclude by actual trial the intel- lectual suspicion that completeness is unfavourable to Reform Bills, —well and good. It ika very noble sacrifice for a scientific object. But for ourselves, we should as soon have thought of investigating the value of the scientific suspicion that a piece of goods remains unsold because it is really worth its price.
