Prince Bismarck is said to have proposed, at his Parlia
mentary soirée last Saturday, that the German Reichstag should " imitate the English example," and fall to debating only after dinner. The forenoon, he said, should be given to the labour of preparation,—the effort of speaking and listening being only one of the second order, and much inferior to that of weighing evidence and judging. However that may be, the English example is not very germane to the point. The House of Com- mons always debates for some couple of hours before dinner, and the House of Lords does almost all the work it does at all before dinner. Moreover, Prince Bismarck seems to think that it is the habit of debating after dinner which conduces to "the calm and good-nature " of English debates. Here, again, he is certainly wrong. The opening hours of asharp party debate in the Commons are almost always the calmest; kis the after-dinner speeches which contain most of the spice of intellectual acrimony. Judging by English experience, we do not think that the political duels between Prince Bismarck and Herr Windthorst would lose any of their acerbity by taking place when the wine was in them,. and perhaps some of the wisdom out.
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