NEWS OF THE WEEK.
WHETHER there is to be an autumn session or not, as pro- posed by Mr. Whitbread on Monday, is not yet certain. It .3CCITIS tolerably likely that the Ballot Bill will be carried by Mr. 'Forster's energy, though not, we fear, without the loss of its only 'really good provisions,—the clauses charging the election expenses 'on the rates,—through Committee in the Commons at once ; but if the Bill is sent up to the Lords without an autumn session, there is hardly any possibility of its being now carried. They would justly :say it is too late to consider it at all properly, and that they would not pass a Bill they had not considered.. But if an autumn session swere summoned, they might perhaps assent to a Bill affecting, as this .does exclusively, the privileges of the Commons, rather than reject what they very well know they must accept before long, after they have lost much more by the delay than they would by concession. The result depends on the sounding of the Lords. If there seems :any chance of the Lords passing the Bill, supposing they are given time to consider it, the autumn session will probably be summoned. If it seems certain that they will make a holocaust of it, then they will be allowed to do so at once, with as much display of peremp- toriness and passion as it may please Lord Salisbury to show.
