support of this contention. On that occasion Mr. Morley, referring to the amnesty granted to the French communards, had added: "Are the only people in the world for whom there is to be no amnesty, no act of oblivion, the Irishmen whose only fault has been that they have used their talents for the benefit of their countrymen and done the best they couldand much have they done-to raise up the miserable, the oppressed and down-trodden people of their own country?" The inference that these words contained any promise on his (Mr. Morley's) part was, he protested, most unfair, but he was unable to refute the challenge that on the same occasion his subsequent colleague Lord Ripon had spoken of the anxiety of his party for an amnesty. Mr. Asquith, speaking as Home Secretary, now held out little hope that the Government would yield to any such demand. "I decline," said he, "to hear these cases as standing on any exceptional footing. I have not treated them with any exceptional leniency, and it is equally untrue to say that I have treated them with exceptional severity."

The remaining amendment was that which aroused the greatest interest, as expressing the policy of the united Opposition. After much consideration the resolution entrusted to Mr. Chamberlain (Birmingham, West) was worded thus: "Humbly to represent to your Majesty that it is contrary to the public interest that under the guidance of your Majesty's advisers the time of Parliament should be occupied in the discussion of measures which, according to their own statements, there is no prospect of passing into law, while proposals involving grave constitutional changes have been announced on which the judgment of Parliament should be taken without delay."

Mr. Chamberlain began his speech (Feb. 15), which was one of the most masterly and incisive he had ever delivered, by declaring that the Unionist party by this amendment desired to challenge all the Parliamentary tactics of the Government, and to impugn especially the latest device of "filling up the cup." It was evident from the declarations of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Chief Secretary at the beginning of the session that the primary policy of the Government was to pass a measure of Home Rule for Ireland, not falling behind the bill of 1893; and everything else would have to be considered not simply on its own merits, but in relation to that primary policy. He maintained, however, that in adopting Home Rule as their primary policy at the present time they had put themselves out of harmony with the general opinion of the country. Indeed, if the Government had been certain of securing a great majority, they would have appealed to the constituencies when the Lords rejected the Home Rule Bill on the ground that it had not previously received the assent of the people. If that assent had

been given subsequently, the leaders of the House of Lords would not, according to their own statements, have resisted the clearly expressed and definite will of the nation. It was a noteworthy circumstance that the Home Secretary throughout his speech on a previous day treated the dissolution of Parliament as being equivalent to the ejection of the Government. They did not believe that they had a majority in the country, and yet they clung to office and endeavoured to force revolutionary measures through the House. On their own confession, the predominant partner was against them, and in his belief, there was no enthusiasm for Home Rule either in Ireland, Wales, or Scotland. It might be said of this, as it was of a previous Administration, that while they had forgotten how to govern they had not learned how to resign. Her Majesty's Government had to discover a new issue which might cover their failure and retrieve their popularity, and they found it in the good old cry of "Down with the House of Lords!" They had brought out this favourite piece, which had never before failed to draw, but on this occasion it had not taken at all. The explanation was that it had never before been mounted with such shabby accessories and so weak a company. In point of fact, he declared, amid loud cheers, the country sympathised with the House of Lords in this question and not with the Government. Their secondary, as well as their primary, policy having failed, they had brought out their tertiary policy of "filling up the cup" by bringing in various measures, not intended to be passed, in the hope that among the lot one might be found on which they could pick a plausible quarrel with the Peers. He pinned his faith on the Prime Minister, who, after all, was Prime Minister. Possibly a better man might have been found for the post, but for his own part he should be sorry to introduce a profane curiosity into the domestic arcana of ministerial combinations. Considering, therefore, the statements made by Lord Rosebery at Glasgow, Bradford, Cardiff, and Edinburgh, it could hardly be contended that this was not to be a sterile session. Adverting to his own letter on Welsh Disestablishment, Mr. Chamberlain said that, although it was not intended for publication, there was nothing in it which was new or which he was not prepared to say in public. Still, he had only expressed his individual opinions, and, as far as he knew, they were not shared by any other member of the Unionist party. The Government refused to disclose the terms of their resolution concerning the House of Lords, but after the speeches of Mr. Campbell-Bannerman and Mr. Bryce it was clear that the design was to allow the House of Peers to remain as an advisory body. The Government were tottering. They could no longer represent with proper weight the interests of this country in the councils of Europe, and they had not force enough behind them to enable them to pass their domestic

policy into law. In conclusion, Mr. Chamberlain invited the Government to shrink no longer from the inevitable plunge, which would only be the more disagreeable the longer it was delayed.

The task of replying to this bitter indictment devolved on the Home Secretary, Mr. Asquith (Fife, East), who had the reputation of being the most effective among the younger members of the Cabinet, and whose administration of the Home Office had fully justified Mr. Gladstone's selection. Although on the present occasion his speech contained some effective points, it was felt that its conclusion bore witness to the hopelessness of the ministerial position. He began by describing the amendment as the third vote of censure on the Government, in support of which the combined forces of the Opposition had been arrayed during the present debate. The attack began when Mr. Jeffreys, a member of the regular Opposition, submitted his amendment, which was followed by that of Mr. J. Redmond, and the same gentlemen who voted first for immediate legislation relating to agricultural and industrial depression, and next for an immediate dissolution on Home Rule, were now invited by the leader of the only remaining section of the Opposition to ask the Government to rearrange the whole of their sessional programme in order that the House might enter at once upon the discussion of a new constitutional controversy. He taunted Mr. Chamberlain with having told the world that if he could have had his own way Welsh Disestablishment would have occupied the first place in the unauthorised programme of 1885; and yet the same man now asked the House to postpone that question until a constitutional change had been fully discussed. Next he quoted a speech delivered in 1885, in which Mr. Chamberlain denounced the House of Lords in severe terms and spoke of the "cup being nearly full." The credit of introducing that picturesque epithet ought henceforth to be claimed by its original author. Assuming that through the action of another place the Welsh Disestablishment Bill and other measures mentioned in the Queen's Speech would not become law, he denied that this constituted any reason why those bills should not be introduced in the House of Commons, and he contended that it was the duty of a Government which had come into power on definite promises to redeem those promises as far as they could. In the case of Welsh Disestablishment it was important that a workable scheme should be submitted to the House, and that it should receive the sanction of the representatives of the people. The Government would not content themselves with a humdrum policy in order to avoid ruffling the susceptibilities of an irresponsible and hereditary Chamber, but as long as they retained the confidence of the House of Commons they would prosecute to the end the task entrusted to them by the constituencies.

C

Mr. Labouchere (Northampton), as the candid friend of the Government and their unofficial mentor on Radical principles, could not have been expected to refrain from offering his advice, and pointing out the defects of both the composition and the policy of the Cabinet. He complained that their utterances about the House of Lords had been contradictory, and stated that nothing short of the abolition of that House or the resolution of the Leeds Conference regarding it would satisfy him. He asked whether any one could wonder that a milkand-water agitation like that of the Government against the House of Lords had fallen flat. He desired a speedy dissolution, and believed that if it took place now the Government would come back with a larger majority than they had at present. If, however, instead of thus getting a working militant majority the Government chose to carry out their present programme he would urge them to press forward the scheme of " one man one vote," and if it were rejected by the Lords the Government ought to pass a drastic resolution against that House and to follow it up by a dissolution. Mr. Labouchere concluded by describing himself as one of the asses in the yoke of the Government for "ploughing the sands but, while ready to do what his master ordered, he could not be enthusiastic about work which was foolish in his asinine view.

The second night of the debate (Feb. 18) was opened in a very different tone by another mentor of the House, Mr. L. Courtney (Bodmin, Cornwall), who represented the most Liberal side of the Liberal Unionist policy. He began by insisting that in one sense all the amendments on the Address had pointed in the same direction-the exhaustion of the Government, that their moral influence had suffered grievous disasters, and that if they wished to attempt to regain their strength they ought to go to the country. The Opposition protested that the Government should not degrade Parliament and do little honour to themselves by submitting to the House a programme of legislation which they themselves did not regard as practicable, while they kept in the background a great constitutional movement upon which they would not take Parliament into their confidence. He attributed the present political situation to the Newcastle programme, whose framers seemed to have forgotten one truth of Parliamentary experience, viz., that if any great change in legislation was to be made, a Government ought to pursue a single object, and allow nothing to embarrass its progress or interfere with its success. The real reason why the Government did not appeal to the constituencies immediately after the rejection of the Home Rule Bill by the Lords was because there was wanting at that time, as there was wanting now, a fixed, steady, and determined support on the part of the nation of the cause of Home Rule. With regard to the agitation against the House

of Lords, he believed the whole movement of political thought in our time was away from the suggestion that a popular Chamber, however representative, could be trusted to take upon itself the power of declaring that its will was the will of the nation. In his judgment the House of Lords required to be strengthened and not weakened, and he contended that this House ought to be told at this stage of the session exactly what the Government proposed to do. However good the legislative measures of the Government might be, he protested against their being interposed between the House and the great constitutional question which the Prime Minister had raised. He hoped the Government, instead of going on fumbling and stumbling with minor legislation which must come to naught, would let them have an opportunity of debating the question of the House of Lords.

The occupants of the Treasury Bench, who had remained silent after the Home Secretary's speech, at this juncture put forward the War Secretary, Mr. Campbell-Bannerman (Stirling Burghs), who described the amendment as being the very embodiment of cant, which was defined in a dictionary as "an empty solemn speech implying what is not felt." The proposal, if accepted, would defeat the Government, upset the course of the session, and plunge the country into the turmoil of a general election in consequence of phrases used in the autumnal recess that did not, taken by themselves, constitute anything like the declared policy of the Government. The amendment was insincere in its whole purport, because they all knew perfectly well that there was no devouring passion for a dissolution on the other side of the House. Her Majesty's Government had done their best to perform the task imposed upon them by the electorate, and they intended to go steadily through their programme. As to the proposal foreshadowed with regard to the House of Lords, the Government claimed the right to fix the time when it should be brought forward.

Mr. Goschen emphasised the fact that the Government had received no support worth mentioning from their own side as to this vote of censure. He strongly condemned the action of the Government in announcing their policy during the recess and refusing to discuss it when the House met. The mandate of the Government was the Newcastle programme; but why, he asked, should not the country be governed by a Cabinet instead of by the programme of a provincial caucus? Surely the Government were not likely to increase the credit of Parliament by attempting to legislate when the shadow of the resolution about the House of Lords was hanging over them. In his opinion a dissolution would extricate the House from this false and demoralising situation.

Sir C. Dilke was unable to concur in the illogical and inconsistent opinions expressed by the Prime Minister on the subject of the House of Lords, as he firmly believed that a