The second reading of the Pensions Bill was moved in the House of Commons by Lord Wolverbampton—the will be more generally recognized under his own name, Sir Henry Fowler—in the House of Lords on Monday and the reception it met with reade passage into law absolutely cer Its rejection was moved by that starchest of all individualists, the octogenian Lord Wemyss, but only fifteen followed hima into the lobby, Many of those who dislike the measure lave, ander the advice of Lord Lansdowne, refrained from voting against it, on the ground that it is a financial measure which has been supported by eolocsal majorities in the other House, and others like Lord St. Aldwyn—the former Sir Michael Hicks Beach—because they are convinced that the Commons have the support of the country in this matter and that if a plebiscite could be taken on the Bi there would be " large majority favour. The latest by-election, too, has ety strongly in favour of the ment. Mr. Philipps. who has just been raised to the peerage, has been succeeded in the representation of Pembrokeshire by another Liberal, who rity of 2,172. Tes true that exception it is far the largest liberal majority ever recorded in the constitnency. This result goes far to confirm the impression that while the Unionists and Tariff Reformers have succeeded in raising a wave of Conservative reaction, they have up to the present made little or no impression on the " Celtic fringe."
For many weeks past a Royal Commission on the subject of potable and other spirits has been taking a mass of evidence on the respective monte of pot-still" and " patent-still" whieies. They are ow sitting upon gin and other delectable liquids; but in the meantime—not to keep the whisky drinker too long in pained anxiety—they have presented an interim report dealing with the. main front of their in quit The pot- i some tire past been trying to get a decision that their product is alone entitied to be called whisky, Certainly its process of manufacture approaches much more nearly than the other to the method by which the old " potheen" was produoed, and has much more nearly the same At first they tried to get of the law courts in their favour, and failing in this, they have produced a quantity of evidence, medical and other, before the Royal Commission to show that pot-still whisky is both more palatable and more wholesome than patent-still whisky. On the first point the balance
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.