Yesterday week, on the resumption of the Franchise Debate, a
great deal of Conservative pressure was put—in vain—on Colonel Stanley to induce him to postpone the amendment which would defer the operation of the Franchise Bill till after the pass- ing of a Bill for the Redistribution of Seats, till that of Mr. Albert Grey, which defers the operation of the Franchise Bill up to a fixed date—January 1st, 1887,—had been disposed of,—Mr. Gladstone, having previously consented to omit the words "alter the passing of this Act," in order to leave the whole question of date over for separate discussion. Colonel Stanley, however, though vehemently pressed by Lord Randolph Churchill, Mr. Staveley Hill, Sir W. Barttelot, and even Mr. Goschen, to withdraw his amendment till after the discussion of Mr. Albert Grey's, persisted in pressing it, on the ground that if a dissolution took place between the two changes,—the fran- chise change and the redistribution of seats,—the county con- stituencies would be unnaturally swollen and perfectly anomalous. Mid-Cheshire would spring up suddenly from a constituency of 10,000 to a constituency of 23,000; West Cheshire, from a con- stituency of 13,000 to a constituency of 27,000; North Lanca- shire, from 18,000 to 43,000; North-East Lancashire from 13,000 to 42,000; South-East Lancashire, from 28,000 to 90,000; South- West Lancashire, from 28,000 to 73,000.
Previous page
