The debate on the second reading of the Local Government
Bill this week was chiefly noticeable for a very able speech made on Monday night by Mr. Chamberlain, who professed a very strong general approval of the Bill, though objecting to the Government proposals in regard to the police, and expressing his intention of voting against them on that par- ticular. The compromise on this point he does not, however, consider as one "which seriously detracts from the merits of the Bill." Mr. Chamberlain's hint that he should be prepared some day or other to trust Irish local bodies with the control of their own police, we have dealt with at length elsewhere. To us, such a proposal seems only one degree less objectionable than Home-rule. Mr. Chamberlain urged the Government to call the selected members of the County Councils Alder- men, and defended their creation. The rest of his speech was taken up by an appeal to the Temperance party to accept the licensing clauses, and by a suggestion that the money arising from the 20 per cent. increase on liquor-licences should be ear-marked as a fund out of which compensation should be paid in cases where licences were abolished. On the whole, the speech was one likely to materially assist the passage of the Bill. It showed clearly how ridiculous is the notion pro- fessed by a certain section of the Radicals, that the Bill is really Tory in principle, and only overlaid with a thin demo- cratic veneer.
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