SECOND READING. (Hansard, 31 January 1887)

LORD DENMAN,

in moving the second reading of the Bill, said: My Lords, if my wife were to become a widow it would be very unfair if she, as a ratepayer, were unable to choose her Representative. On September 2 I moved the second reading of this Bill, in case the Houses of Parliament should have been adjourned instead of prorogued, in which case it might have been in a more forward state at this time. I hoped that only the report given by The Morning Post and the answer of the Lord Chancellor would have appeared in Hansard's Parliamentary Debates; but, to my surprise, I found an almost verbatim report of my speech. I venture to refer your Lordships to it. The excellent Rulers in the East and in the West to whom I alluded were a Princess of the Holkar Family, named in Sir J. Malcolm's India, and in the review of that work in The Edinburgh Review. Her only daughter was burnt at the funeral of her husband. The Potentate in the West was the Empress - Queen Maria Theresa, of 257 whom the Hungarians exclaimed," Mo-riamur pro Maria Theresa Rege Nostra." Her Majesty's beloved daughter—Marie Antoinette—was beheaded in France. For ladies of courage, I named (in the presence of one, now of two, of her descendants) the Countess of Derby, who defended Lathom House. Her lord was beheaded. On the occasion of ladies being admitted to this House, the Leader of the Opposition, in answer to Lord Redesdale, said it reminded him of a gentleman who said the sight of ladies at a dinner table took away his appetite. The Earl of Redesdale, in 1869, said, on the Municipal Corporation Amendment Bill, that women were not capable of the higher duties which some wished to trust them with; but I will lay upon the Table of your Lordships' House a preface by a lady to her translation (dated 1848) of a speech by M. Begnon, in the Chamber of Deputies, in Paris, in 1821, on the Persecution and Proscription of the Jews—it proves the capacity of at least one woman. With regard to the choice of Members of Parliament, I will only say that if Mr. Bradlaugh were a candidate for Exeter in opposition to her son, I should consider it extremely unjust if the honoured Countess of Iddesleigh were (if a householder) prevented from voting.

§ THE PRIME MINISTER AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of SALISBURY)

I do not desire to express any opinion upon the subject which the noble Lord has brought forward, not for the first time. It is, I admit, a subject of very great interest, and one on which I should think there is very considerable feeling among great numbers of the public out-of-doors; but the point to which I wish to draw his attention is that, as far as I know, it is not usual for either House of Parliament to undertake legislation for the purpose of altering the constitution of the other House. To initiate such legislation, though not beyond our powers, would be, to a certain extent, a breach of Parliamentary etiquette. The Government, therefore, propose to reserve their opinion upon the subject-matter of the Bill, until the question shall have been dealt with in the other House. On that ground alone, 258 and without entering into the general question, I move, as an Amendment, that the Bill be read a second time this day six months.