Members of the League are to be congratulated on the fact that the chief Bill of the Session is not a measure of State interference. On the principles and general objects of this Bill we offer no remarks; not because they are not of the greatest importance, but because, whether it does or does not pass, the principles and action of the League will continue the same, and because these principles are not assailed by the Bill.

The object of this Bill is to repeal that part of Section 4 of the Municipal Corporations Act of 1872, which provides that "no expense in promoting or opposing any Bill in Parliament shall be charged (to the rates) unless such promotion or opposition shall have had the consent of the owners and ratepayers of that district."Now, although it may be objected that this is a question which does not come within the scope of the League's action, and furthermore, that the said Section savours of the principle of the plebiscitum and would not be tolerated in imperial matters; still it behoves members to remember that any measure which enhances the independence of municipal representatives from the direct control of their constituents, pro tanto increases the risk of overlegislation and confiscation. These remarks similarly apply to the Government Bill for London Municipal Reform. Though strictly a question of structure, it is impossible to overlook the patent fact that such a local government as that sketched out in the Bill may be easily made an engine of socialism such as the page 4 world has not seen; unless, indeed, pressure can be brought to bear on those in charge of it, with the effect of strictly limiting and defining and considerably narrowing its functions. If the new organisation is to be empowered at its option to buy up the water companies, the gas companies, the metropolitan railways, the telephones, &c., to impose octroi duties, to lay out parks, and to raise the education rate to half-a-crown in the pound, we shall find ourselves in the clutches of a monster of our own creation from which we shall be released only when the inevitable financial crash comes. Unfortunately, in addition to these Bills having but an indirect bearing on the principles upon which the action of this Association is based, there are a number of proposed measures of the most paternal and meddling character, some of which are brought in by the Government, some by independent members of the ministerial side, and some by members of the Opposition, and what is of evil import is the fact that of late years an increasing tendency is observable to introduce in Private Bills what would have no chance of becoming law if brought into Parliament in a Public Bill, and, so to speak, in the light of day. Owing to the prevalence of this surreptitious legislation, we have deemed it expedient to devote the second part of this review to unearthing some of the more objectionable of these proposals.

In the main the Merchant Shipping Bill may be regarded as a scheme of State-regulation of marine insurance. No doubt it deals with a variety of other matters of greater or less importance, but all are made subordinate to the main object of prohibiting over-insurance for the sake of gain. Although the wager-policy is illegal, still the owner can, it is alleged, insure his vessel for more than it is worth. Now, surely no one can be foolish enough to suppose that over-insurance can, in itself, be profitable. Insurance means, in the long run, a small payment out of the pocket of the owner for the purpose of supporting a system which shall spread losses over an extended surface. To charge ship-owners with over-insurance, to mean anything, must convey page 5 a serious implication, viz., that they have the wish and the means to cause the loss of their ships. To evade the charge of bringing such a reckless and groundless accusation against a high-minded body of traders, by pretending that no such implication was intended is idle. To say that an owner first over-insures, and then humanly neglects to take quite the same care and precaution is quite inconsequential, for no owner is stupid enough, blind enough to his own interest, intentionally to over-insure unless he possesses knowledge and means whereby he hopes to profit by the transaction. If it is said that he over-insures unintentionally, owing to a sanguine overvaluation of his own property (which is quite possible), then before any loss or even risk can be traced to such over-insurance it must be shown, firstly, that the owner discovers his mistake, and secondly that he decides to profit by it at the cost of the life and property of others. There is no use in trying to evade this dilemma. Either the Bill is superfluous and mischievous, or the charge brought against shipowners of sacrificing life and property for gain must be substantiated. The very raison d'etre of the Bill requires the proof that this allegation is true as a rule or, at least, as a very considerable exception. If it is contended that the exceptions are rare, and extremely rare, but that it is necessary to provide against those exceptions, then the further question arises whether it is expedient to harass and cripple an important national branch of trade in which Englishmen have embarked at least two hundred millions of money—a branch of trade upon which hundreds of thousands of working men are entirely dependent, upon which the whole nation depends for necessaries of life to the extent, among other things, of seven million tons of bread-stuffs in a single year—a branch of trade so delicately co-ordinated that the slightest hitch in any part of its complicated and widely-ramified machinery might at any moment bring about an irreparable dissolution or even collapse;—is it wise to run the risk of driving the carrying trade of the world into the hands of foreigners for the sake of out page 6 manoeuvring some two or three undiscovered but possible villains, ogres probably of a morbid imagination, for whom the sufferings of the doomed crew and the grief of the widows and the fatherless awake no remorse, and for whom the criminal law has no terrors? Even should such creatures exist with the will and the power to thus enrich themselves by wholesale murder and robbery, they would find some way to steer their craft through any sunken dangers that the Board of Trade could devise. They alone would take the trouble to master the intricacies of the law, in which the honest and well-meaning would be continually entangled. When we come to examine the modus operandi of this Act for the prevention of ship-sinking for the sake of gain, we find that the end is to be gained chiefly by substituting a system of open policies for the more convenient system of valued policies. Such a retrograde step (for the tendency is in an opposite direction) is calculated to promote litigation, which valued policies are designed to avoid. What is still more remarkable is that this Bill which proposes to supplant the valued policy (denounced as to some extent a wager-policy) by what is described as a contract of indemnity, defeats its own proposed aim. It renders it impossible for a shipowner to indemnify himself for loss. Partial indemnity is all that can under the most favourable circumstances be obtained under the Bill. But a measure so subversive of all English notions of sound statesmanship, so senilely paternal in its method, could not be thoroughly exposed as to all its teeming fallacies and blunders in anything short of a treatise on the economy of insurance. Suffice it to add that indefinite policies are of little use as collateral securities. Bankers who advance money on the security of policies have no time to go into probable values; they must be fixed. The Bill abolishes compulsory pilotage; and doubtless this should be done by a separate Bill, but not without compensation to an excellent body of men whose vested interests should be as sacred as those of commissioned officers in the army. If it is urged in general support of the Bill, as a whole, that nothing is so sacred as page 7 human life, that is readily admitted; but we may, and do, daily risk it. No great building, no railway, is made, but at the certain expense of human life. Yet we go on building and laying railways. And, if we wish to remain supreme in shipping, we must risk the loss of some life at sea.

The Marine Insurance Bill, backed by Mr. Norwood and Mr. Edward Clarke, though probably superfluous, has this merit that it fairly and effectually meets and provides against all the evils of the present customs of the business against which it is possible even to state a case. It would, for example, appear to be an anomaly against which underwriters would have raised their voices without the stimulus of the Board of Trade spur, that where freight has been insured and the vessel lost, the whole gross value of such freight should have to be paid to the insured without any deduction for expenses never incurred, but which would have been incurred had the voyage been completed. Clause 5 of this Bill provides that in future" the insured shall not be entitled to recover in respect to any freight lost without allowing for the proportion of expenses remaining, at the time of the loss, to be incurred in earning such freight."To an outsider this change would seem desirable, but, to quote Bacon, "what is settled by custom, though it be not good, yet at least it is fit;" and it might be as well to introduce as little as possible of compulsion into the law, by inserting the words, "in the absence of any agreement to the contrary." The Bill also empowers the Court in an action on a contract of insurance by valued policy, if the valuation appears unreasonably high, to refer the matter to referees to ascertain what would have been the value of the interest of the insured had the policy been an open one. Here the danger lies in the word "unreasonably." How can that be unreasonable which both parties have agreed to? What might appear an excessive valuation of the thing itself may fall far short of what is required to replace such thing in time to take up the threads of commercial relations and to cover loss by inconvenience, &c. A valued policy to a page 8 certain extent takes account of these matters, and it may be doubted whether the Court would not feel bound by the literal meaning of the law. However, if this Bill sins at all, it is not on the side of over-indulgence to ship-owners.

It is not necessary to vindicate the granting of district monopolies by Act of Parliament in order to find fault with the Water Bill. Nor is it necessary to quarrel with the system of supply by meter which is made obligatory upon the companies and optional to the consumer. A voluntary tendency in this direction is on the other hand visible. Nor, again, is it true that the Bill (which has already met a just doom) would result in a smaller consumption of water by the poorer classes, with increased dirt and disease. The minimum limit of 6,000 gallons to be paid for (according to Schedule III), whether used or not, would sufficiently provide against that danger. Our charge against the Bill is that it advocates a breach of faith. It tampers arbitrarily with property, and secondly, it empowers the Board of Trade to interfere in a variety of minor matters which are no part of the province of a department of the central Government. When the inevitable day of reckoning comes it will be remembered against the City of London, that it has no particular veneration for vested interests. It is needless to go into detail in connection with this confiscatory measure, as it is not likely to reappear.

The Fire Brigade Bill is a confiscatory measure of the worst order, the object of which is to compel the prudent to pay for the protection of the imprudent from loss by fire. The whole history of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade is one of the best illustrations of the rapid advance and mischievous effects of state-socialism. Fifty years ago, the old parochial fire-engine was practically of no use at all. In 1833, by the voluntary association of Fire Insurance Companies, a fire-engine establishment was founded for the purpose of protecting the page 9 property of the prudent, that is the insured. The establishment was efficient and premiums were kept down in consequence. This very well suited the parish authorities, and the voluntary assistance of their private brigade was invariably invoked and accorded without charge in the case of fires in which the companies were in no way interested. The folly of magnanimity is hereby illustrated. The voluntary contribution of the companies to the extinction of fires was set up as a precedent, and the public was not ashamed to demand as a right what had been willingly rendered as a favor. In 1865, by the Fire Brigade Act, when the Metropolitan Board of Works took over the duties and likewise the stock and plant of the voluntary establishment, the offices were constrained, most unjustly, to contribute largely towards the expenses of the fire brigade. It should hardly require pointing out that this is tantamount to taxing those who insure against fire, for the companies must necessarily raise the premiums in order to keep up the dividends to their normal level. By the Bill now before Parliament the bargain made is set aside, and it is proposed still further to increase the forced contribution of the offices, so that it shall amount to one-fourth of the whole nett expenses of the improved fire brigade, and this notwithstanding the fact that a large proportion of those expenses are incurred in the saving of life, a matter in which the offices are no more interested than the general public. It is to be hoped that some member will point out to Parliament that any measure which tends to raise the cost of fire insurance is a tax on prudence, and therefore that the Bill sins not only against honesty, which is venial now-a-days, but also against national economy.^*

The future of landowners is a gloomy one, so far as their proprietory rights are concerned. Mr. Bryce's Bill seeks to draw some line between wide fields and wider fields, between hills that are high and hills that are high enough to justify separate legislation.

These two Bills, though coming from different points of the political compass, have the same object in view, viz., that of enabling persons having a limited interest in house property to appropriate the residue at the expense of the owner. The proposal is nugatory or unjust. If the freeholder is honestly treated he gets full value; then how does the leaseholder gain? If the leaseholder gains, it is because the freeholder is cheated of the full value. To compel a man to give against his will is called robbery; to compel a man to sell against his will may pass by another name. In any case the precedent has now been established, and it is not necessary to canvass the right of the State to disposses one man for the benefit of (not the common weal but) another man; the question of interest is, why the leaseholder? What has he done that he is to have the option of taking or rejecting whatever of advantage the fee simple of his holding may seem to possess over and above the market value-or rather arbitration value? That is the point. The owner of a London square, say in Mayfair, finds it profitable to keep all the houses in the same style of architecture. He is suddenly deprived of his proprietory right over one of the houses, and a blue and chocolate front with bow windows and a new story surmounted by large letters drives the rest of his tenants to despair and reduced rents. It is not denied that long leases have their disadvantages, though it may be disputed whether even these are not compensated for; but in any case, surely dishonesty is not the cure! When Mr. Broadhurst's Bill was before the House of Commons Lord Randolph Churchill, the promoter of its double, while condemning the details, extolled the principle, whereupon Col. Dawnay remarked that if these Bills are to be taken as the outcome of Tory-democracy, it is nothing more or less than socialism pure and simple. That precisely expresses the views of the League. It is quite unnecessary to enter into details as to the modus operandi of the rival measures, as neither one nor the other is likely to see the light this Session; though it would be dangerous to prophecy as to the next. Such is the rapid spread of the new evangel of right by might.

This Bill clearly shows the nature of the machinery by which, over a wide field, the rights and liberties of the individual can be quietly evaded. It is proposed largely to increase the power of local authorities over the individual, and, at the same time, to place the former more under the control of the Local Government Board. The Bill suspends the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts of justice, and proposes instead to give judicial authority to the Local Government Board. The chief object of the Bill is to repeal Section 150 of the Public Health Act of 1875, which empowers local authorities to call upon owners or occupiers in any private street to keep it in repair or to execute works therein, and, in default thereof, to carry out such works themselves. By Section 3, owners are deprived of the option they at present possess of themselves effecting such works upon their own property. It is now required that the local authorities should in all cases execute the works themselves. As under the existing law local authorities can require the work to be done in accordance with their plans and sections, and under the direction of their surveyor, no sufficient justification can be shown for this change. The law as it stands at present, so operates as to protect owners from wasteful extravagance, from jobbery, and in many instances, from private malice. Local authorities are already burdened beyond their capacity with sewage difficulties, and perplexing sanitary questions of various kinds, without these new duties being thrown upon them. Section 5 provides, that if owners make objection, local authorities on their own initiative, may apply to a court of summary jurisdiction or to the Local Government Board. The Local Government Board, "after such local or other enquiry, as they see fit, may make an order determining upon all matters referred to them." The statement of the case being by the Bill thus left in the hands of the local authorities, the latter score a point to the disadvantage of the owners. Any order issued by the Local Government Board is to be binding and conclusive, and the Board is to have exclusive jurisdiction in the case of all objections arising under page 12 the Bill. Section 6 empowers the construction of separate sewers for sewage and surface water in new streets. From this it is evident that the promoters of the Bill are ignorant of the operation of the Public Health Act of 1875, whereby local authorities are practically debarred from making the arrangements required for the separate system. It can easily be shown that the enormous waste and other evils proceeding from the present deadlock in the matter of sewage disposal, is mainly attributable to an obstruction actually arising out of the Sanitary Act of 1875. Surely, the consideration of this fact should tend to moderate the appetite for incessant legislation presumedly based upon scientific information, as yet, but imperfectly organised. Such laws, though at the outset abreast of the best experience, quickly become antiquated with the opening up of new fields of knowledge. If they are allowed to remain unmodified in accordance with fresh lights, officialism, mechanical in all its ways, forms its habits upon the numerous sections and subsections. To all expostulations, officialism invariably replies "if nature will not conform to the law, so much the worse for nature; it is our duty to see that the law is complied with."

Lord Randolph Churchill's attack on the proprietory rights of the "dead hand" does not go to the roots of this difficult question; and, at the same time, it bids fair to serve, if successful, as a dangerous precedent for future State tampering with the proprietory rights of the living. The limits to be placed on the unchangeable will of the departed cannot be settled by converting realty into personalty; any more than Lord Cairns' Act made any appreciable inroad on the alleged evils of entail and tight settlement. The pious Druid who might have left Surrey and Middlesex to the priests of his faith for ever would have bequeathed to the present generation an incubus which would not be lightened by an Act to compel the sale of the whole, and the investment of the proceeds in consols. The problem is as ancient as the old Roman fiction of the "person." By Clause I4 page 13 the easy loan nuisance is to be transplanted from Ireland to England, and the State is to find money which is not forthcoming in the open market. On the whole the Bill sins by shirking the main issue, and endeavouring to get over a real difficulty by a socialistic short cut.

When we come to Ireland the position is serious. It is difficult to find fault with the chief measure of the Irish party this Session. It is an honest and consistent development of the crude Act of 1881. It carries to their logical extreme the principles of the Farmers' Alliance and of the Agricultural Holdings Act of last Session. The central idea of this Bill is a simple one. The landlord has no right to receive an increasing rent unless he has contributed towards improvement. If under misapprehension the tenant and his predecessors have gone on paying more than the landlord had any just claim to, it is reasonable that the excess should be deemed to be a debt due by the landlord to the tenant; and if, as it seems, there is no limitation defined by the Bill, so that the calculation may be carried back to the time of Brian Boroimhe, or even of Noah-this is merely a trivial question of expediency. It is to be regretted that instead of denouncing this Bill as confiscatory, Mr. Trevelyan could not see his way to explaining in what respect it differs from the Act of 1881 in principle.

It is hardly needful to point out how nearly every Bill affecting Ireland is based on some socialistic foundation. Nothing else could be expected of a nation so completely pauperised and demoralised by legislation, than a cry for more alms. While we continue to govern that country with a stick in one hand and a cake in the other, we must not look for any manifestation of self-help and independence.

All the Bills emanating from the Irish quarter evince radical discontent with Government in all its branches down to the most trivial matters. 1 he cry is for change for its own sake. The page 14 officials under the Land Act of 1881, are not subject to disabilities to which they ought to be subject. The Lord-Lieutenant is subject to disabilities to which he ought not to be subject, and both these anomalies are to be removed by Acts of Parliament.

The sum of money collected by public subscription, about sixty-two years ago to help the Irish fishermen, somehow got into the wrong hands; and for "the more efficient and economic administration of the said fund, it should be transferied to the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland." Anyhow, whoever has benefited out of the charity up to now it is not the West Coast fishermen.

The experiment is to be tried of sending the people of Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick, and Waterford to bed without their glass of beer on Sundays, like their country neighbours, who have for six years been subjected to this despotic regulation, with the result that drunkenness has, according to the Judges, considerably increased-a natural, though indirect effect, and with the further mischief of breaches and evasions of the law.

We believe the propriety has been questioned in this country of providing grand pianos and conservatories at the public expense for the instruction of the working-classes in music and botany; but this is as nothing to the magnificence of the School, &c., Buildings (Ireland) Bill, by which the Commissioners of Public Works are actually empowered to make loans to any person for "the acquisition or improvement of a farm not exceeding twenty-five acres in extent, to be used for the purpose of agricultural instruction;" the loan to be repaid in thirty-five years, interest at five per cent!

Is it true that there are waste lands in Ireland which it would pay to plant with forest trees? Is it true that it would pay landlords to plant trees, which are not planted for want of capital? Is page 15 it true that the fisheries (in spite of the fund) do not flourish for want of works requiring capital? Is it true that tramways which would pay cannot get a start for want of investors? If all these statements, made on the authority of Irishmen, are true, then clearly the land and the whole country is not labour-starved, but capital-starved. Then what a strange remedy it must be to drive all capital out of the country!

The Dwelling-houses Inspection Bill is very objectionable. Houses Clause 10, providing for the annual inspection "at least once in every year" of all buildings existing in every district under a local authority, is monstrous. Besides the most obvious objections, it could be easily shown that-(i) The cost of inspection of all buildings once at least in every year would be enormous. (2) Any such annual inspection would only be very superficial, and would afford no real security; still, the fact of such inspection being annually made, would create an ignorant feeling of safety. Persons appointed as local sanitary inspectors are frequently without any qualification for their duties, and the very wide powers conferred upon them by this Bill would lead to great waste, and perhaps also to extortion and malicious and tyrannical proceedings of various kinds. The Bill is most clumsily drawn, and it is difficult to make out what is intended. Thus, Clause 12 charges owners of property with the "expenses of inspection "-railway fares and refreshments, probably, perhaps more than these-The Bill is hardly likely to become law, but the mania for anything supposed to promote sanitation makes watchfulness necessary. Again, as to cost, 6,000,000 houses will have to be inspected yearly; let ten be inspected daily by each inspector; that is 3,000 each year by each inspector; and even then, what would such limited inspection be worth? And we shall require 2,000 inspectors at say £200 each. This hardly bodes well for a policy of retrenchment!

It has been urged that by its Articles of Association this Contagious Diseases (Animals). League is pledged to oppose the Lords' amendment to the Cattle page 16 Diseases Bill on the lines of the resolution carried against the Government on the motion of Mr. Chaplin. This is a mistake. It is not a fact that either side or any section of the community has urged the total abandonment of all State restrictions on the importation of foreign cattle. The question at issue is one of degree, and as such must be left to the decision of experts, and cannot be answered on broad philosophical grounds. This much, on the other hand, may fairly be urged that if the public is generally of opinion that State regulation actually does good in this particular, and that it does no greater harm at the same time, then it behoves the Government to see that the restrictions required shall be as complete and as stringent as possible, so that the credit of the system may not suffer from insufficient carrying out. The breakdown of quarantine in connection with human diseases is not encouraging to those who would pin their faith to it in the matter of animal diseases; and since it is absurd to adopt restrictions at the ports without taking concurrent measures of a drastic character for stamping out the disease inland—measures which work with great friction, irritation and even loss and hardship—it is quite an open question whether the system will long be tolerated by the farmers or the public; but while the experiment is pending, by all means let it be as thorough, as demonstrative as possible. For it must not be forgotten that there is this point of difference between human quarantine and similar modes of protection against the diseases affecting the lower animals, that whereas wholesale murder may be resorted to in the one case, it would hardly meet with public approval in the other. A limp half-hearted measure will prove nothing. By the results of a strong measure the system will stand or fall. In any case let us have no shilly-shally. Weak-kneed legislation invariably produces none of the looked for good, and all the evil; and is slower in bringing about the needful reaction.

Hackney Carriage Laws (Metropolis). By the Cab Bill, a Board is to be formed consisting of two commissioners, some cab-owners and cab-drivers, with judicial page 17 and executive powers over the whole cab organisation in London. It is empowered to limit the number of licensed cabs plying for hire according to its discretion, thus creating a formidable monopoly; to fix cab-fares, "make bye-laws, rules, and regulations necessary to the working of cabs, "and deal with a variety of other matters "for the improvement of cabs and better conduct of the owners and drivers. "It is hardly necessary to say that, after a dozen amending Acts and several reconstructions of this remarkable Board, the total repeal of the Act and abolition of the Board would be imperatively required within a few years. The true tendency is precisely in the opposite direction.

It is surely a monstrous thing that the time of Imperial Parliament Freshwater Fisheries Act Amendment. should be taken up with determining the size of the mesh of nets used for catching different kinds of fish. If this kind of legislation is deemed to be necessary at all, surely it should be relegated to the boards of conservators in the local fishery districts to settle at their own discretion and without the guidance of the central legislature. If the boards are not to be trusted with this function the sooner they are reconstructed the better. Certain Amendments before Parliament carry this attention to minute detail almost into the region of the ludicrous. That the Imperial Legislature should lay down the law as to the precise length of a full-grown carp or perch; that it should solemnly pronounce 10 inches to be the regulation length of chub, 13 inches of barbel, 8 of tench, and 18 of jack-this is a proceeding which almost recalls the dispute between the Big-endians and Little-endians in Lilliput. At any rate, it is absurd to assume that one member of Parliament out of a hundred knows whether or not conservators should be empowered to enforce the use of a mesh larger than two or three inches from knot to knot measured wet, or to allow one less than one inch. These are the trifling details which the Bill, like many others of its kind, brings within the sphere of Parliamentary action. We are asked to believe that the Government page 18 favours the two-inch limit, but that the country, through its representatives, prefers the three-inch.

The Irish Salmon Fishing Bill draws attention in its preamble to the fact that under the existing law fishermen are not allowed to fish for salmon and trout in any other way than by single rod and line from six o'clock on Saturday morning till six o'clock on the following Monday morning. Now this, again, is a matter of detail with which the local authorities are, or should be, quite competent to deal, without relying on the special providence of the imperial legislature. If, like a close season and other restrictions believed to be beneficial to the fisheries, this particular restriction is good, then it is clearly unwise to put it in the power of a majority of persons who cannot possibly know much of the question to pander to the impatience and prejudice of the ignorant and shortsighted, who are at all times ready to kill the goose that lays the golden egg; on the other hand, if the restriction is mischievous, it is unjust to allow that same majority to place obstacles in the way of the poorest class of British subjects in their efforts to earn daily bread.

Bills for the registration of land, of firms, of bills of exchange, &c., seem to be coming into vogue; so much the better, so long as the compulsory clause is omitted. This is, unfortunately, not the case with Mr. Norwood's Bill for the compulsory registration of firms-a precaution which will bring about false security and can easily be evaded. Facilities for voluntary registration are desirable enough.

It is exactly 300 years since tobacco-smoking was proclaimed in this country, and although in the opinion of many the evils resulting from excessive indulgence in the "noxious weed" are not so obvious or so serious as those resulting from excessive drinking, still the outcome of repressive measures in the one case may serve as a warning to those who are clamouring for page 19 similar repressive measures in the other. Exactly a century after smoking was interdicted it was found necessary to pass a Bill to prohibit the growth of tobacco in the British Islands. A hundred years later the revenue from the enormous duties on the importation of foreign and colonial tobacco was so great, that a heavy excise had to be levied on home-grown leaf, and in 1829 there was not a county in Ireland that did not grow largely for the English market. In 1831, for fiscal reasons, the growth of tobacco was again forbidden in Ireland, and the revenue from this source is now so large, that he would be a daring Chancellor of the Exchequer who would hint at dispensing with it.

It would also be well to consider another remarkable phenomenon . After centuries of futile spasmodic anti-drink legislation, a semi-fanatical voluntary movement is set on foot with the same object, but with this very different result, that within a few months the consumption of spirits in the country is reduced by millions of pounds' worth. Surely this is significant. And yet again this year we find ourselves face to face with the same enemies of individualism and liberty in the matter of drink that were left for dead last Session. There are no less than sixteen Bills before Parliament proposing to interfere more or less with the liquor traffic in one direction or another. Sabbatarian teetotalism alone is represented by no less than ten of these, headed by Mr. Stevenson's Bill for the whole of England.^*

The Sale of Spirits Bill is one of that incessant series of capricious tamperings with the liquor trade which does more to unsettle investments, and to drive the trade into the hands of shifty hand-to-mouth speculators than anything else. In these days it is positively dangerous to lay out money on refreshment premises or stores where alcohol in any form can be purchased, with the expectation of realising reasonable dividends. Everything must be calculated so as to recoup the outlay in a page 20 short period, and exorbitant prices, or, what is worse, adulterated articles are the inevitable result. The Bill in question should, in order to be understood, be styled the Women's Drunkenness Prevention Bill. One day a measure is brought in, with the best intentions, to enable women to purchase the occasional bottle of cooking brandy without the annoyance and temptation of going or sending to the public-house; and the next day grocers' licences are denounced as leading to secret drinking by housewives. The one thing which never seems to enter the head of the political hydromaniac is, that if men or women want to drink alcohol, drink it they will while they have the money. With respect to these drink Bills, we have nothing to add to what we said last Session, and it is useless to reiterate arguments to those who will not listen to them. It is probable that those most immediately affected will be driven into the foremost ranks in the coming struggle and will throw in their lot with liberty and individualism as opposed to State-socialism.

The resurrection of the innocents is a phenomenon to which we are getting accustomed, nor is it necessary to go through again all that we urged last Session against the following Bills; it will suffice if we call to mind their leading features.

First comes the Bill to prevent prudent working men from accepting a higher wage as a set-off against dangerous employment, in lieu of the law-suit provided by the Act of 1880. It will be remembered that the League presented petitions to the House of Commons against this Bill, signed by 1,219 Burt's own constituents in the borough of Morpeth, together with similar ones from different parts of the country. In fact, the action of the League so far damaged the prospects of the Bill that the Government considered it prudent to throw it over, and to pledge itself not to take further action in the matter before the expiration of the seven years originally allowed. Consequently, it has not been deemed necessary to take any further steps in view of the re-introduction of this mischievous measure.

The Bill backed by Mr. Burt, Mr. S. Morley, and others to Act amend the celebrated Act for supplying air to the dwellers on he river, and known as the Canal Boats Act, 1877, is worthy of its predecessor. No child under 13 is allowed to be employed on a canal boat until it has passed the third standard. The powers given by the principal Act of entering boats for purposes of inspection "by day," are to be extended so as to allow of such entry "by night." Of course the Bill bristles with the customary fines, of which one half goes to the sneak who informs, "provided that where the sanitary authority are the informers they shall be entitled to the whole of the fines recorded." Gipsies and persons living in travelling road-side vans will be surprised to learn that by Section 11 of the Bill, temporary dwellings come under the head of "canal boats." When Lord Beaconsfield described the hansom cabs as the gondolas of London, he little dreamt that travelling menageries would become canal boats by Act of Parliament.

The Bill to provide literature for the studious at other peoples' expense again raises its benevolently socialistic head. As also does the Bill to prohibit scientific research for the benefit of humanity at the cost of some pain to the lower orders of sentient beings. The theatres and music halls are still beseeching the Home Secretary to reign over them in place of the magistrates and the Lord Chamberlain-a reasonable request, but one for which they seem willing to pay a heavy price, viz., subordination to the tyranny and extortions of a gang of inspectors with wide powers. While Sir Alexander Gordon still bravely struggles to impose his definition of a rabbit-hole on a stiff-necked generation.

If we are called upon to explain the position of the League with respect to State interference with weights and measures (a question which in our early parliamentary history seems to have baffled the ingenuity of legislators year after year) we should say that the State should confine itself to ascertaining the interpreta- page break tion placed by custom (whether uniformly or with local variations) on the several standards of weight and measure, and to declaring its intention, in the event of disputes involving the true meaning of such terms, to adopt such or such an interpretation in the absence of evidence showing the clear intention of both parties to accept a different one. By this method little by little the adopted standard would in time spread over the whole country in which such presumption existed, without unduly shocking and harassing provincial sections of the present generation for the speedier benefit of posterity. To make every contract null and void in which corn is sold in any other than the Board of Trade cental is surely a rough and drastic mode of hurrying on a reform which is spontaneously taking place with marked rapidity owing to the extension of markets. The Bill is an example of how people, with one object, lose sight of all other considerations.

The Boiler Bill, for the purpose of inspiring the public with false security by granting certificates to persons in charge of engines, and for shifting responsibility from the shoulders on which it now properly rests on to the shoulders of the State, i.e., no one in particular, is another Bill of the most mischievous type. The fallacy of State-interference with steam boilers has been so thoroughly exposed by Sir Frederic Bramwell, that we can only suppose the promoters of this Bill must be unacquainted with his evidence and arguments, or incapable of appreciating either.