The Government propose to adjourn from next Friday (December 22nd)
to Wednesday week (December 27th), and then to renew the debate in Committee on the Parish Councils Bill, which they will send up to the Lords and ask the Lords to consider in January as soon as they can get it through the House of Commons. Mr. Balfour proposed that the Govern- ment should drop the Poor-law clauses, which open up a very large and difficult question, and embody them in a different Bill to be introduced next Session, just as he himself had dropped some of the most important clauses of his own Irish Land Bill in 1890, in order to facilitate the passing of the rest of the Bill. But there was no kind of response to the suggestion. On the contrary, it is quite clear to us that the Government are far from disliking the idea of the reluctance with which the Poor-law clauses are received by the Opposition, and would not be sorry to dissolve with a cry that these clauses had been obstructed. They would give anything for a Disso- lution which would place the Irish Home-rule Bill in the rear, and not in the front, of the battle.
