Mr, Henry John Atkinson, M.P. for Boston, had a struggle
with the Speaker on Monday, after more than one attempt to divide the House when he had really no support to justify
going to a division,—Mr. Atkinson asserting that the Speaker's action towards him had been partial and unfair. Mr. Atkinson is, we believe, a Wesleyan Conservative, and appears to feel an irrepressible repugnance to regarding Mr. Goschen, a Liberal Unionist, as his leader ; indeed, he assails Mr. Goschen for his Conduct on Monday night as bitterly as he assails Mr. Peel. Mr. Atkinson, in spite of his intemperateness and hasty expressions, is evidently a favourite in Lincolnshire, and a great many Members pleaded for him as deserving great for- bearance, though in this case obviously in the wrong. In the end, he was suspended for a week for his unmannerly con- duct to the Speaker ; but he has assured an interviewer from the Pall Mall Gazette that he will address his constituents on the subject of his controversy with the Speaker, and prove his case up to the hilt ; and that next Session he will propose various reforms designed to protect the liberties of private Members, which no doubt he will actually propose, if the orders of the House permit it, without the smallest success. He is a great shipowner, and it was in an attempt to repre- sent the shipowners' objections to the Railway Rates and Charges (Provisional Order) Bills that his collision with the- Speaker arose.
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