THE PRIME MINISTER AND POLITICAL UNREALITIES.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR] SIR,—With reference to Lord Monkswell's severe strictures on your article of November 16th, and his equally indignant condemnation of the attitude of the Lords towards the Plural Voting Bill, will you allow me to point out that the action of which he complains was closely paralleled in 1884 P In that year Mr. Gladstone proposed to enfranchise the agricultural labourers of the counties. This project was resisted by the House of Lords until they had compelled the Liberal Govern- ment to incorporate with it a scheme of redistribution. It is certainly true that the latter was by no means a complete measure, and left the scandal of Irish over-representation untouched. But surely with this precedent in view the Lords
bad every right to act as they did without attaching to them- selves the stigma of "peculiar impudence" in that they had presumed to interfere in a matter dealing solely with the election of the Lower House.—I am, Sir, &c., DONALD C. E. CRAIGIE.
45 Marda/4 Crescent, Edinburgh, N.B.
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