Mr. Morley made a speech at Wolverhampton yesterday week to
the Staffordshire Liberal Association, whose members he reproved for having allowed a representation of fourteen Liberals to three Tories in 1885, to be transformed into a representation of eight Liberals and nine Tories (according to Mr. Morley, who " counts " the Liberal Unionists as Tories) in 1886. We congratulate the Staffordshire constituencies on having understood better than Mr. Morley what true Liberalism is, and having decided that Unionism protects liberty, while the disintegrating policy of the Home- rulers plays into the hands of tyrannical local majorities. We have noticed in another column some of the prin- cipal features of Mr. Morley's speech, and need not refer further to any of the points criticised there ; but we must add that Mr. Morley misrepresented very seriously, in our opinion, the drift of Mr. Goschen's remark that the Newcastle programme fairly bristles with dissolu- tions. He did not say that in reference to any controversy between the House of Commons and the House of Lords, but simply in relation to the constitutional practice of Parlia- ment itself from time immemorial. How would it be possible to pass a new Reform Bill, and yet defer indefinitely the sum- moning of a Parliament elected on what had been admitted by the Legislature to be a broader and juster principle ? How would it be possible to shorten Parliaments from seven to four or three years, and yet continue legislating beyond the period at which it had been decided that Parliament needed renewal ? How would it be possible to proclaim to the world that without the payment of Members, Parliament would not fairly repre- sent the masses, and yet go on legislating in a Parliament thus inadequately representing the largest portion of the electorate? All considerable Reform Bills, when once passed, involve an immediate dissolution.
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