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A great deputation waited on Mr. Gladstone on Wednesday, to urge upon him to propose' to' Parliament in the approaching Session the extension of household suffrage to the Counties. The deputation represented half a million of workmen, and consisted chiefly of miners, agricultural labourers and their friends. The miners, said Mr. Burt, who represented them, had never been so roused as by their wish to assert for those who live outside boroughs the same rights as those possess who live inside them. It was urged especially that the Labourers suffer great injustice in the ' Petty _Sessions and Quarter Sessions, from not having' the consideration which the franchise would give them. Mr. Gladstone, having elicited that the wish for household suffrage in the Counties is as much felt by the Conservative as by the Liberal working-men, reiterated his own opinion that the present anomalous state of the franchise cannot last, but declared that for the final solution of the ques- tion is required, time, a certain maturity of the public mind, a young Parliament, and a strong Government. He hinted pretty Clearly that none of these conditions are at present favourable to the change. He also expressed a very strong desire to keep the discussion of thiis "change " aloof from political contro- versies " and from :" class jealousies." ' If it 'could be Separated from either. the' . one or the other; Mr. Gladstone would not now have to take so much pains-to justify delay. It cannot be digentangled from either tlie._one or the other. Con- servatives will oppose change, and employers will grudge power to their workmen, to the end of the chapter. These arc knots which must be -cut, not untied.
