All the week the Commons have been discussing amendments to the address in reply to the speech from the throne; and it will become days yet before the members get to serious business. The most interesting subjects of debate have been the limitation of the power of the House of Lords, in-{troduced by Mr. Labouchere, the proposal to prohibit her Majesty's Ministers from acting as Directors of Public Companies, for which Mr. Swift McNeill is responsible, and Home Rule brought forward by Mr. John Redmond. Mr. Labouchere's proposal in regard to the House of Lords was that they should have the right to throw out a Bill once, and once only. He does not propose to alter the regulation which present prevents a Bill being brought Sup twice in the sume session; but under [his scheme the Home Rule Bill of 1893 might have been reintroduced in 1894 and passed into Inw in the teeth of the Lords' opposition. Sir Henry Campbell-Banuerman, as leader of the Liberal Party, refused to lend his official sanction to th ticular method of destroying the power of the Lords, though of course, he express-Fed general sympathy with its object; and the amendment was rejected by rather more than the Government majority in the House. On the "guinea-pig" question very nearly a strictly party vote was 4i though just a few Conservatives joined with the Radicals in the view that a Company directorship undermines the independence of a Minister and degrades his position. It is known, of course, that Mr. Gladstone latterly insisted on the men who took ofice under him resigning their directorships, and when one recalls the scandals hich involved the late Mr. Mundella, Sir James Ferguson, Sir Juhu Gorst (now Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education), and others, one feels that there is something to be said for Mr. Swift MeNeill's proposal; but Mr. Balfour was able to point out some serious objections to its rigid enforcements, and the amond-ment was rejected by a very substantial majority. As for Mr. Redmond's Home Role amendment, it was, of course, purposely framed in such a way that the English Liberals could not vote for it. It was a proposal to give Ireland an absolutely independent Parliament. 'The wavering faith of the Liberals in Home Rule is hardly to be re-established by such tactics as these; but, nevertheless, Henry vindicated his' election as Leader of the Opposition by another very clever speech, in which he affirmed the continued adhe sion of his party to the principle of Home Rale for Ireland, while declining to snevifice all other Radical reforms and place Home Rule in the forefront of the pro-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.