Lord Salisbury made an important speech at a banquet given
by' the Grocers' Company in their restored hall in Princess Street on Tuesday. Referring to the agitation against the House of Lords, he congratulated the Gladstonians on having discovered a promise which it was not necessary, because it was not possible, to fulfil, but which could be renewed from year to year without there being any prospect. at all of losing the advantage of it by its passing from a promise into a performance. In discovering such a promise as that, politicians have practically found the philosopher's stone. He did not pretend that the House of Lords could oppose a bulwark to a current of popular passion. That. could only be done by such a deliberate reference to the will of the people as the Swiss and the American Union have introduced into their Constitution when there is any doubt as to what the will of the people is. And such a reform Lord Salisbury deliberately advocated as a constitutional court of appeal for this country. But the House of Lords could be very useful in defeating the manceuvres and intrigues of different groups of politicians when the Government of the day plays the merchant in legislative measures, and buys support by selling parcels of such measures to the various sections of its followers. Lord Salisbury also, we regret to say, declared against the unification of London in somewhat the same sense as Mr. Chamberlain. But we hardly under- stand his ground. Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, whose example he quoted, would not like to be broken up into a group of Wards and Vestries. Why, then, should London not aspire to represent a great historical unity and 'name, like its provincial sisters ?
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