Mr. Holms, on Tuesday, raised a discussion, which was
much more languid than it ought to have been, on the Septennial Act, and proposed a resolution that the duration of Parliaments ought not to extend beyond five years. He was seconded by Mr. Cowen, who has lately lost so much repute as a Liberal as to need some rehabilitation in that aspect of his political character. He showed for how long a time it was the custom to elect the Parliament annually, and how a publicist in 1693 wrote :—" Our ancestors would no more have dreamed of an old Parliament being cut into new Sessions, than of an old moon being cut into new stars." Mr. Cowen showed how apologetic even the adherents of the Septennial Act were, and how they gave out that it was only a temporary remedy for disturbed times. He made a very sagacious remark that the best remedy against the high organisation of party caucuses, would be found in a con- siderably shortened duration of Parliaments, so as to ensure constant and complete communication between the people and their representatives. But in spite of Mr. Cowen's speech, there was no reality in the discussion. The front Liberal Bench, as usual, averted their faces, and the discussion ended in Mr. Holms's proposal being negatived by a majority of fifty (110 votes against 60). Yet no subject is more germane than this to the political travail of our own troubled time.
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