What promised to be the dullest Parliamentary session of recent years has suddenly in its last month or two of existence become exceedingly lively. The Rating of Tithes Bill has provoked the warmest Party debates which the House of Commons has seen since the present Government came into office; and in the Lords it is long since such a house has been mustered or such a vigorous discussion indulged in as when, on Monday, Lord Dunraven moved the reject tion of the provision in the London Government Bill which enables women to become councillors and aldermen of the new municipalities into which London is to be divided. The question was in no sense made a party one. Indeed in both Houses the Government left their followers free to vote exactly as they pleased. It is a curious fact that the leaders of both parties in both Houses.—Lord Salisury, Lord Kimberley, Mr. Balfour, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman—-are in favour of the admission of women to these ottoes 3 yet nevertheless Lord Dun-raven carried his amendment by 182 to 68, or nearly three to one. In spite of the largeness of the majority it is believed, however, that the Lords will give way if the Commons repeat their vote in favour of women aldermen. Many members who are not in favour of the admission of women to the franchise support the proposal, as women are already eligible for election to the vestries, and the new municipalities, with the mayors and aldermen, are, after all, only the old vestries in a new and grander form.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.