Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/96

 88] ENGLISH HISTOKY. [apru,

there was nothing to prevent small shopkeepers from taking advantage of the act. From statistics with which he had been furnished, he believed that between ten and twelve years' pur- chase of the gross rental was the selling value of the kind of house the bill had in view, and that under its provisions a purchaser would become owner in from sixteen to twenty years' time without paying annually more than he did at present. The amendment was negatived by 249 to 69, and the bill read a second time; Mr. Chamberlain's subsequent motion that it should be referred to the Standing Committee on Law being carried by 224 to 79 votes.

After a few nights had been delivered to general business and rather prolonged discussion of unpractical reforms, the Government announced their intention of occupying the time of the House with their Finance and London Government Bills to the exclusion of private members' efforts at legislation. In the Upper House also the desire to proceed with practical business was more apparent after Lord Russell of Killowen had introduced his bill for suppressing illicit commissions (April 20), and the Earl of Wemyss had ventilated his views (April 21) on the proper decoration of St. Paul's Cathedral. The latter might possibly have been regarded as a connecting link between clerical and educational questions, which engrossed so much attention. The Prime Minister said the answer to the question whether Government could do anything in the matter must be an absolute negative. Nor did he believe that any member of the chapter would greatly care to take action, seeing that ecclesiastical litigation was one of the most expensive amusements in which a man could indulge ; and when appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council were lightly suggested, he could not help thinking that that unfortunate body had burdens enough already on its shoulders without being required to determine whether the architecture which was prevalent in the days of the Exarchate of Ravenna was proper to apply to St. Paul's, and what the precise tone of the decorations should be. As to the Government attempting legis- lation, the state of public business in the other House scarcely encouraged them to enter upon so thorny a question ; but there was no reason why Lord Wemyss should not himself introduce a bill on the subject, so that their lordships might have a definite proposal to consider. Lord Ribblesdale thought that a good deal of harm was being done in St. Paul's, but it was clear that only the influence of public opinion could put a stop to it. Earl Egerton joined with those who objected to the dean of a cathe- dral having the power to alter the character of that cathedral by a system of decoration. We did not want St. Paul's turned into a St. Peter's at Rome, nor an imitation of St. Mark's at Venice, nor of St. Sophia at Constantinople. Earl Brownlow reminded their lordships that when the choir was reopened, and the present decoration of that part of the cathedral for the first