[Illustration: _Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL_ (_with eye on the Air Board_).
"ANY UNIFORM SUITS ME, THANK YOU."]

In the course of the debate on the Representation of the People Bill,
Sir FREDERICK BANBURY explained that he resigned his membership of
the SPEAKER'S Conference because he found that he and his party were
expected to give up everything and to get nothing in return. If so
the Liberals on the Conference were very short-sighted, for a little
concession then would have saved them a lot of trouble now. What Sir
FREDERICK does not know about the art of Parliamentary obstruction is
not worth knowing, and he evidently means to use his knowledge for
all it is worth. He even succeeded--a rare triumph--in drafting an
instruction to the Committee which passed the SPEAKER'S scrutiny
and took a good hour to debate. In vain Sir GEORGE CAVE and Mr. LONG
reminded the House that it had already approved the main principles of
the Bill. You can't ride a cock-horse when BANBURY'S cross.

Another old hand at the game is Lord HUGH CECIL. His particular
grievance against the Bill is, I fancy, that it alters the character
of his constituency, and, should it pass, will oblige him to appeal
for the votes of callow young Bachelors with horrid Radical notions
instead of being able to repose in confidence upon the support of
a solid phalanx of clerical M.A.'s. He possesses also an hereditary
antipathy to extensions of the franchise. Lord CLAUD HAMILTON must
have thought himself back in 1867, listening to Lord CRANBORNE
attacking the Reform Bill wherewith DIZZY dished the Whigs. Lord HUGH,
like his father, is a master of gibes and flouts and jeers, and used
most of the weapons from a well-stocked armoury in an endeavour to
drill a fatal hole in the Bill.