Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/393

 1850.] Resignation of Sir Robert Peel to his Death. 379 public libraries and museums. The bill, as passed, was hampered by provisions which retarded its adoption and limited its operations. Many of these have since been removed, and the amount of good which the Act has accomplished cannot easily be estimated. Including those libraries established by private legislation, 113 towns in the United Kingdom have adopted Library Acts. Every pro- vincial town in England of more than 100,000 inhabitants, except Hull, has adopted them. Apart from London, there are in England and Wales sixty-three towns of over 40,000 in- habitants apiece, with a population amounting altogether to 6,483,874. Forty-six of these towns have already adopted the Acts, and, since they were the most populous of the great towns, over five millions of the urban population of England and Wales enjoy the benefits of public libraries, supported by themselves and managed by themselves.* Ewart also moved, on the 7th of May, a resolution to abolish the ad- vertisement duty ; but he was defeated by 169 to 39,the minority being Radicals, and Milner Gibson acting with Ewart as teller. In the contest which arose over the policy of the Govern- ment or rather of Lord Palmerston respecting the differ- ence with Greece over the Don Pacifico and Finlay claims, the Radicals were divided. Roebuck and some others of the party supported Palmerston, because they believed that he intended to use the influence of England on behalf of consti- tutional governments. in other countries ; whilst Cobden, Bright, and Gibson represented a large section who maintained that strict non-intervention and non-interference were the true lines on which the nation ought to act. The peculiarly arbi- trary conduct of the foreign minister towards Greece and France was scarcely defensible on any grounds, but this part of the subject was dwelt upon lightly by the Government advocates. The attack made in the House of Lords by Stanley was successful, the vote of censure being carried by Mr. H. R. Tedder reported in "Monthly Notes of the Library Association of the United Kingdom," vol. iv. No. 12.
 * Notes of a paper read to the Metropolitan Free Libraries Association, by