Mr. Heneage, Member for Grimsby, who is in some ways
a representative man, on Wednesday made a most out-spoken speech to his constituents. He declared that in his borough, at all events, the extension of household suffrage to the counties was, in 1880, the first plank in the platform, and the introduc- tion of the Bill was only delayed because it was necessary to utilise the majority to pass some needed Bills. The Bill was now before the country, and he valued it ; but if he could get it by acceding to a Dissolution, he would vote against it. The Lords would then possess the disused pre- rogative of the Crown, and dissolve at pleasure, and where would be the use of a general election ? If a Liberal majority were returned, the Lords might next day call for a dissolution of Parliament, which, Mr. Heneage might have added, would only affect themselves by giving them a pleasant holiday. The Tory newspapers are repeating so constantly that the Peers are only asking for an appeal to the people, that it is pleasant to. see how thoroughly this side of the question begins to be under- stood. Even the Crown could not endure if the Sovereign pressed her legal right to dissolve in the teeth of Ministers, and the Crown possesses that right in theory, which the Peers do not. Their claim to appeal to the people for their own reasons, and at a time fixed by themselves, is an unconstitutional usurpation, and nothing better, and was, we suspect, suggested to Lord Salisbury by his study of the French Constitution. Under that document, the Senate, when requested by the President, has the right to dissolve.
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