Mr. Courtney, at Liskeard on Monday, distinguished his speech by
vehemently opposing any attempt to touch reform in the next Session. He wished to see the County Government Bill passed first, and he spoke of the resolutions of the Leeds Conference with profound contempt, partly because they asked to have the County Franchise Bill dealt with at once, partly because they hacl condemned the present minority seats accorded to a few great county and town constituencies. Mr. Courtney is quite right in saying that the principle of duly representing minorities in the country at large is a perfectly sound and abso- lutely democratic principle. But does he propose to extend the present experiment to the length and breadth of the country P If he does, he takes his stand on solid ground, but hardly, we think, on ground on which he has much chance of support. If he does not, he must be aware that to represent the minority in a few large constituencies, without representing the minority at all in nineteen out of every twenty constituencies in England, results in an even falser picture of the balance of opinion in the whole community, than there would be if there were no minority representation at all.
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