Mr. Chamberlain presided on Monday at the annual meeting of
the Committee of the Birmingham Liberal Unionist Asso- ciation, and made an admirable speech, in which he showed how absurd it was to treat a Government which had gone far beyond the "authorised programme" of 1885 as a reactionary Government. He exposed the policy of the Opposition in overloading with amendments, intended to kill rather than to improve, Bills which they had no wish to see passed by a Unionist Government; and he showed how something like half the Parnellites who profess to be so indignant against the licensing clauses of the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill, had vehemently opposed even the Sunday closing of Irish public-houses. In the obstruction which is now going on, Mr. Chamberlain held that Parliamentary government is on its trial in a sense in which it has never been on its trial before. Mr. Chamberlain is perfectly right. If Parliamentary pro- cedure had been successfully blocked in former years, it might plausibly enough have been said that it was for want of a popular franchise that it was so blocked. Now it can only be said that it is that popular franchise itself which has failed; that the democracy has thronged its own path, and rendered its own way impassable.
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