THE COURSE OF BUSINESS.
IT is understood that before next week ends, the Government will make an important statement as to the conduct of business, and we do hope it will be a firm one. We do not intend by this that Mr. Gladstone should threaten the House with a protracted Session, or should claim its whole time—though private Members must sacrifice something—or should reopen the endless question of Procedure ; but that he should convince the House that the Government holds certain Bills to be indispensable, and intends, whatever the obstacles, either to pass them, or to declare the House in bondage to Obstruction, and dissolve. What Bills should be thus pressed, it is for the Cabinet to settle ; but we trust the Agricultural Holdings Bill will not be the only one of political importance. That is a useful measure, which we are glad to see so much better received than we expected ; but it will not be seriously resisted by the Tories, and the Radical amendments should not occupy more than three or, at the most, four nights. The principal one will, no doubt, be the total abolition of the law of distress. The Bankruptcy Bill will, of course, be passed, and, we hope, the Patent Bill and the Scotch Universities Bill ; but something more is necessary, if the country is not to consider the Session wasted and the Cabinet guilty of unfulfilled promises, and we do not see why the London Bill, so strongly promised at the beginning of the Session, should be abandoned. If, as the rumour runs, there is a difficulty about the Police, let it be postponed till the new Municipality is in working order, when, if the country approves its action, the new body can be loaded with any amount of power. But let us have the Municipality, and not be driven to discuss a London Bill next Session, when everything must be postponed to county government and the new Reform Bill.
We are most anxious about this statement, and desire to warn the Government of a feeling which we can see slowly spreading, and which may prove most injurious. They have lost no popularity for anything they have as yet done—with the exception, in certain quarters, of the Affirmation Bill—and they are nokas yet held responsible for any broken promises.
The country quite perceives that they have been baffled by a plot to waste time, concocted by the Free-lances, and favoured by Sir Stafford Northcote ; and is angry, not with the Govern ment, but with its opponents. But an impression is growing that the Ministry, for some undiscovered reason, is a little halfhearted ; that everything is left to Mr. Gladstone ; and that the Cabinet does not, as a collective body, show a sufficiently determined front. Nobody sees " the Government " in the House, though they see Mr. Gladstone. The whole body does not declare itself earnestly enough against obstruction, does not press forward enough, does not denounce the wasters of time with sufficient energy. Lord Hartington, in particular, does not make himself felt sufficiently. There
is an appearance of lassitude, which may be totally unreal, but which is commented on in acrid terms by those more especially who resent the constantly repeated doubt whether the Premier will see this Parliament out, or not. They say the hesitation about this, however factitious or due to unauthorised and foolish rumour, checks progress as much as Mr. Gladstone's sickness would do, and is as serious a cause of delay as Obstruction itself. That is most unfair, but politicians are often unfair, and the only way to put an end to such talk is to press forward energetically, and compel the House to, consider proposals of adequate importance. If they are defeated, well and good ; Parliament is Sovereign ; and if they are obstructed, the country can be made to see clearly where the offence lies. No blame will be attributed to. the Government for over-much energy. It is only in avoiding labour for fear of obstruction that danger lies, and it is from this imputation that the Cabinet should. clear itself at once and unmistakeably. If it wants time, let it claim that of Private Members which they only waste on matter fitter for a debating club ; and if it distrusts the co-operation of the majority, let it call the party together, and lay the situation before them with frank plainness. After that, the Member who shirks or rats will be marked by the Constituencies, as Mr. Jerningham—the most guilty of all the deserters on the Affirmation Bill, though he is a Catholic—has been marked by the Liberals of Berwick. There is plenty of time still to do much work, and the plotters should be taught that they are powerless whenever the Government is ready and the majority determined. If not, the Cabinet will be accused of weakly yielding to the obstruction which it. promised to defy.
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