A very strong deputation in favour of the Local Veto
Bill was received on Thursday by Mr. Gladstone and Sir W. Har- court. The Chancellor of the Exchequer informed them that the Government adhered firmly to their Bill, and were con- vinced that it had the support of the majority of the electors. He believed that Sir IV. Lawson, if he lived, would yet enter the promised land. The Government had not proposed, and would not propose, pecuniary compensation in the Bill to any publican. He did not believe in any measure short of a local power of absolute prohibition. Mr. Gladstone entirely endorsed Sir W. Harcourt's declarations, and maintained that it was as just to allow the people of a parish to veto public- houses as to allow the owner of the soil of a parish to veto them. The Government, continued Mr. Gladstone, would "palter with none of its pledges." That is unusually frank and explicit, and shows that the Government intends, if it can, to carry through Irish Home-rule. As we believe the teeto- talers to be about equal in number to the publicans, we do not regard the question as one of party exigency at all. It is simply whether an Englishman shall or shall not settle his own diet. If every man in the country thought Mr. Gladstone wrong in taking a glass of port, his right to take it would remain nnimpeached and unimpeachable.
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