We are now called upon to go into Committee on a Bill which has never been read a second time.[23] The two halves of it have been read, each of them a second time, but the whole measure we have never until this moment had before. The first half this House was induced--or shall I say coerced?--into reading a second time without knowledge of the other part. The second half was really hurried on so fast to a second reading--only an interval of a week being given to master all its complicated details--that I, for one, was quite unable to take part in the discussion on the second reading for want of time to make up my mind as to an opinion by which I should be willing to stand. I hope, therefore, the House will allow me, even at this stage, to question the principle of the measure. What is that principle? I must apologize to the House for the monotonous nature of my complaints, which are, I think, justified by the uniform nature of the provocation I receive. That provocation is that the Government keeps continually bringing in measures, attacking, as it seems to me, the very vital and fundamental institutions of the country, and purposely abstains from telling us the principle of those measures. I made the same complaint, I am sorry to say, against the Chancellor of the Exchequer on that Franchise Bill. I make it again now. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in introducing the Redistribution Bill said that the Government was not desirous of innovation--that is to say, they went upon no principle. Their principle, he said, was the same as the principle of every Redistribution Bill. Now, that appears to me to be impossible, because Redistribution Bills may be divided into two classes. There is one, the great Reform Bill,--the only successful Redistribution Bill that any one ever heard of,--and then there are the four which succeeded it, and which all failed from one cause or another.[24] The principle of the Reform Bill was one thing, and the principle of the four bills which followed it was another. The principle of the Reform Bill was, no doubt, disfranchisement. The feeling of the country at that time was that the deliberations of this House were overruled, and the public opinion of the country stifled by an enormous number of small boroughs under the patronage of noblemen and persons of property. That state of things was considered a public nuisance, and one which it was desirable to abate, and hence the principle of the Reform Bill was disfranchisement, and 141 members were taken away from the small boroughs. The Government proposition was to reduce the number of the House of Commons by fifty, because they were very anxious to get rid of these members, and they had no means which appeared suitable of filling up the vacancies they had created. It was only on an amendment carried against the Government that it was determined not to diminish the number of members in this House. But has that been the principle of any