"Since William III became king, parliaments of Scotland and Ireland have been annihilated, and no subsidiary organs have replaced them.... Our population is four times as great as William III knew it; yet the people are more than ever divorced from the soil and cramped into town...." Now, "Parliament is too busy for domestic local reforms; it has to control the action of the whole Executive Government, Central and Local.... It has sole right to direct public taxation.... It has to control the action of the ministry towards foreign Powers.... It has a similar function towards colonies ... and the Army and the Navy.... It is responsible for all India" (population then two hundred and forty millions).... "It is the only court of appeal to Indian princes who believe themselves wronged" (by the king's representatives).... "No other authority can repeal bad laws, or enact new laws for the general public." But were we to _return_ to the "legislative courts of our shires," Newman protests, which existed before our present systems of Parliament, all the inevitable delays and congestions which now occur to prevent the dealing with and passing of imperatively necessary reforms would be done away with _in toto_. Long ago Lord Russell said that for any great measure a ministry needs "a popular gale to carry the ship of State over the bar." "Hence all our reforms, working against a stiff current, sail over the bar fifty or one hundred years too late." This, then, briefly stated, was Francis Newman's plan of dealing with the accumulation of business, etc., which beset the House of Commons as matters stand at present. The whole of Great Britain, he urged, should be divided in provincial chambers for local legislation. He proposed ten for England, four for Ireland, two for Scotland, and one for Wales.