TheAttorney-General, Sir Henry James, made a very striking speech at
Bury, in Lancashire, on Thursday,—he is to be the -candidate for Bury at the next general election,—chiefly on the -expected contest between the Commons and the Peers. On -this we have said a good deal in another column, but must add here that he produced a considerable effect by asking what the Lords wanted beyond a majority of 130 in the Commons for the admission of 2,000,000 more citizens to the rights of voters, in -order to assure them that they had better yield :—" What fuller evidence do they require ? Da they desire convulsion and out- break? Must some castle, such as Nottingham, again be de- stroyed? Must Bristol again be in flames Let us be thankful such things cannot be now. I have read somewhere that in certain towns of South America, when houses get into bad .repair and require to be rebuilt, the owners refuse to take them down, and say, Let us wait for the earthquake.' Those words represent a bad political policy. There ought to be no earthquakes in politics. At least, no legislation ought to be founded on the ruins they produce. It is true that no rum- bling sounds have been heard as yet; but let no one be misled by the quiet which prevails. The calmness which exists comes from the confidence that a great political claim cannot in our time be disregarded ; and in proportion to the strength of that
confident hope will there be bitterness or disappointment if it be not fulfilled. And if a day of wrath and indignation should come, the first duty of the men who are now by moderate counsel endeavouring to avert it, will be to defend the wisdom of the institutions which will have been endangered, and en- dangered only by the action of undiscerning men." The Lords,
-too, should remember that earthquakes of the kind to which Sir Henry James referred are not entirely independent of human
will, and that some of . those in England who now say "Let us wait for the earthquake" may have some power of hastening or aggravating the earthquake which they expect.
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