A remarkable demonstration of agricultural labourers in favour of the
Franchise Bill was held in a field near Leamington on Easter Monday, 5,000 working men (of whom the great majority have no vote at present, but would acquire a vote under the Bill which passed its second reading last week), having assembled in the bleak east wind and not unfrequent rain, to express their enthusiasm for the Government measure. Mr. Jesse Collings took the chair, remarking in his speech that if, as he .quite agreed, "it was a tremendous thing to admit two millions of people to the franchise, it was a far more tremendous thing to keep them out." Mr. Joseph Arch, the great friend of the agricultural labourer, also made an excellent speech, in which he declared that he was circulating the division list on the second reading of the Franchise Bill in thousands among the labourers of War. wickshire, that they might know who were their friends and who were their foes. The Rev. R. W. Dale, of Birmingham, addressed the meeting in a most powerful and characteristic speech, in which he showed that the Bill really enfranchised the natural representatives of ten millions of people, a nation rather than a class, a population larger than that of all England and Wales at the beginning of the century. He proved his earnestness for the Bill by entreating even those Liberals who had useful and wise amendments in their names, not to add to the risk of delay and of discord by pressing those amendments. The meeting abund- antly shows that the agricultural labourers are passionately in earnest about the Bill, and that there will be only too much reason for anxiety if their hopes are dashed to the ground by the House of Lords on the very eve of fulfilment.
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