Politics and the Land 



who will distinctly pledge themselves to " vote 

 for these Bills, the whole Bills, and nothing 

 but the Bills," may expect to obtain the 

 votes of the landlords and tenants. Now, 

 I ask is it possible to find any number of men 

 who will pledge themselves to all the points 

 and details which one single well-considered 

 Bill must contain ? And if not to one Bill, 

 how much more impossible to find men who 

 will pledge themselves to more than one. If 

 we are to content ourselves with only one 

 Bill at each general election, we shall be very 

 old men before we get much in the way of 

 reform. But supposing, say, fifty such men 

 were found and returned to Parliament, and by 

 great good luck this Bill obtained a place in 

 the ballot, what happens then ? It probably 

 passes its second reading and is referred to a 

 Standing Committee. But however well con- 

 sidered a Bill may be, it is extremely impro- 

 bable that it will emerge from that Committee 

 as it entered it, and if it does not, what becomes 

 of those members' pledges ? as this is no longer 

 the Bill to which they pledged themselves. 



But we will assume still more, that the Bill 

 comes from Committee without more amend- 

 ment than these members can reconcile with 

 their pledges ; it then depends upon the entirely 

 irresponsible decision of the Government of the 

 day whether the Bill shall " be given facilities " 



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