young ladies, of pretty children, of tulips, or anything else of that kind. But it really is a word of most disagreeable significance when analyzed, because it means disfranchising a borough and in a very uncomfortable manner re-enfranchising it. It means disfranchising the integer and re-enfranchising and replacing it by exceedingly vulgar fractions. Well, now, I ask myself, why do we disfranchise and why do we enfranchise? I do not speak now of the eight members got by taking the second member from boroughs, but of the forty-one got by grouping--by disfranchisement and enfranchisement. And I ask, in the first place, why disfranchise these small boroughs? I have heard no answer to this from the Government. All that was attempted was said by the Chancellor of the Exchequer--that he had in 1859 advocated the maintenance of small boroughs on the ground that they admitted young men of talent to that House, but that he found on examination that they did not admit young men of talent; and, therefore, he ceased to advocate the retention of small boroughs. My Right Honorable friend is possibly satisfied with his own reasoning. He answered his own argument to his own satisfaction; but what I wanted to hear is not only that the argument he used seven years ago had ceased to have any influence on his own mind, but what the argument is which has induced the Government to disfranchise the boroughs. Of this, he said not a single syllable. I know my own position too well to offer anything in favor of small boroughs. That would not come with a good grace from me, but I have a duty to perform to some of my constituents. They are not all ambitious of the honors of martyrdom. So I will give a very good argument in favor of small boroughs. What is the character of the House of Commons? “It is a character of extreme diversity of representation. Elections by great bodies, agricultural, commercial, or manufacturing, in our counties and great cities are balanced by the right of election in boroughs of small or moderate population, which are thus admitted to fill up the defects and complete the fulness of our representation.” I need not say that I am reading from the work of a Prime Minister.[26] Not only that, but he republished it in the spring of last year, and in that edition this passage is not there. But he published a second and more popular edition in the autumn, and in the autumn of last year he inserted the passage I am now reading. The Prime Minister differs from the Chancellor of the Duchy, for he seems fonder of illustration than argument: “For instance, Mr. Thomas Baring” (he goes on to say) “from his commercial eminence, from his high character, from his world-wide position, ought to be a member of the House of Commons. His political opinions, and nothing but his political opinions, prevent his being the fittest person to be a member for the City of London.”