This was designed not so much to insure the passage of his own Bill as 'to prevent Martin from carrying a mere bit of a Bill with some of the things in it which we wanted.' But, 'to the amazement of everyone,' Sir Charles's measure, under its new sponsorship, actually passed, and 'became law in 1878, and ultimately added an enormous number of voters to the franchise rolls.'

By June 7th the Registration Bill was read a third time, and

'My Hours of Polling Bill had now become "Dilke's Act," and I felt as though I was making such progress towards the political reforms I had long advocated that there might be some faint chance that one day redistribution itself might be accomplished.'

Six years later he himself carried out redistribution and extension of the suffrage on a scale hardly dreamed of by politicians in 1878. Already, in the debate of February 22nd, when Sir Charles, as usual, seconded Mr. Trevelyan's annual motion on the equalization of voting power, the division was better than ever before, and the Annual Register, which a few years earlier had known nothing but contempt and aversion for this Radical group, devoted considerable space to the arguments by which reform was supported, with full reference to Sir Charles's speech. Mr. Goschen and Mr. Lowe were the only Liberals of note who opposed the motion—if, indeed, Mr. Lowe could still be called a Liberal—and Lord Hartington spoke for it.

One of Sir Charles's preoccupations at this moment was the choice of a Liberal candidate to stand for Chelsea with him, and the matter presented difficulties.

'Horace Davey … was wishful to stand with us, and I had asked him to a dinner at which he met some of the leading men, and later he called on me to see whether he would "do." In the meantime I had sounded our best people, and found that he would not…. I told him at once that he must vote against fresh dowries to the Royal Family until a Civil List inquiry had been held, which … sent him away.'

Another lawyer followed, and was shown off at several dinners, but 'the borough did not seem inclined to welcome Queen's Counsel,' and ultimately settled, very much to its own satisfaction and Sir Charles's, on a great friend, Mr. Firth.

The campaign in defence of open spaces was actively carried on this year, and in March Sir Charles was fighting on behalf of the Commons Preservation Society to resist the erection of a new cottage with an enclosure for the Deputy Ranger in Hyde Park. The cottage was erected, but Sir Charles and his allies 'were ultimately able to get back a large part of the land which had been enclosed near it.' Another encroachment was resisted more successfully, and by other means. In Fulham 'the Ecclesiastical Commissioners had made an enclosure shutting out the public from Eelbrook Common, the use of which it had enjoyed for many years.'

'I went to a meeting at Beaufort House, and made, as I thought, a moderate speech recommending abstention from acts of violence, but one at the close of which the meeting went off to the place, pulled down the fence, and burnt it in a large bonfire. The enclosure was never reasserted, and the ground was ultimately handed over to the Metropolitan Board of Works to be managed as an open space, and is open now for ever…. In Lord Eversley's Commons, revised edition of 1910, he names my services to the "cause," but not this one.'

At the close of the Session