During the whole of Thursday night and Friday morning the
Committee on the Agricultural Rates Bill went on amidst scenes of extreme violence and confusion. The Opposition were determined to block the Bill, and Mr. Balfour was deter- mined to carry it through. A number of Members refused to leave their seats to go into the division-lobby, and at 3.20 o'clock on Friday morning the Speaker had to be called in to take the chair. Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. H. Lewis, Mr. John Dillon, Mr. Donal Sullivan, and Dr. Tanner were all named to the House, and were then, on Mr Balfour's motion, suspended from the service of the House. The Deputy Sergeant-at- Arms, Mr. Gosset, was called in to remove two Members who refused to quit the House, and Sir William Harcourt pro- posed that the House should adjourn after the Speaker had retired, while some of the suspended Members sat smiling in the Strangers' Gallery. Mr. Balfour refused to accept this pro- posal, and later in the morning Sir W. Harcourt declared with great vehemence that the word of the Government could not be relied on on the strength of some pledge which had been kept, though he did not know it. At 1.25 on Friday after- noon the Bill was reported, with amendments, to the House amidst loud cheers, after a sitting of twenty-two hours and a half. The Opposition evidently supposed that they should get credit for all this obstruction with the constituencies,—a notion which we strongly suspect they will find to be one of the craziest which an Opposition has ever entertained.
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