It was soon apparent that the question of Reform would exhaust the energies of the Legislature, and on the 12th of March Mr. Gladstone introduced what came to be known as the Russell-Gladstone Reform Bill. It proposed to reduce the County Franchise from £50 rental to £14, and the Borough Franchise from £10 to £7. It also gave votes to lodgers and £50 depositors in savings banks. The rate-paying clauses of the Reform Act were abolished. The Bill, it was estimated, would admit to the franchise 172,000 new voters in counties, 204,000 in towns, and 24,000 under the Lodger and Savings Banks qualifications, i.e., 400,000 in all. Of these, one-half belonged to the working classes properly so-called. The House of Commons was not in a pleasant humour for dealing with Reform. The timid classes were alarmed by a speech which Mr. Gladstone delivered during Easter at Liverpool, in which he declared that “the Government had crossed the Rubicon, broken the bridge, and burned their boats behind them.” This, it was vowed, meant that he for one was prepared to roll the Constitution down the inclined plane of Democracy. The country gentlemen were angry, because they thought the Government had compensated them shabbily for the losses they suffered from the Cattle Plague. The plutocracy were in low spirits, because in spring a great financial collapse had smitten the City. Some country banks had failed. The greater part of the stock of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway was offered in the market for “a mere song.” On the 10th of May the bank of Messrs. Overend and Gurney stopped payment, with liabilities amounting to £19,000,000. On the 11th the City was in a frenzy of despair, and Government had to authorise the Bank of England to issue notes beyond the legal limit. Other financial institutions perished, and the blight of bankruptcy fell on the land. English credit on the Continent was so low that the Foreign Office issued a circular explaining to foreigners the distinction drawn in England between insolvency and lack of money. Employers of labour, again, were irritated against the working classes now claiming the franchise, for Trades Unions were growing more aggressive and turbulent every day. The Fenian disturbances in Ireland also gave rise to much uneasiness. The uncertain condition of the Continent led people to urge that, instead of wasting time in debating Reform, Parliament ought to make the defensive system of the Empire effective. Above and beyond all things, it was felt that a Reform Bill involved a dissolution, and to Members of the House of Commons who had just spent large sums of money in getting elected, this was a sufficient temptation to oppose Reform. If we consider the natural effect of all these different motives and feelings on a House of Commons elected to support Lord Palmerston’s colourless domestic policy, we can easily understand why the Russell-Gladstone Bill fared badly. It was