people have the franchise because the Tory Government, out-trumping the Whigs, gave it to them. Well, gentlemen, now comes the question of the county franchise. I am a practical man. You know that I fought as long as there was a possibility of success; but I am now in this dilemmaif I go on any further I must unite with the Tories, who have already deceived and betrayed me (laughter and cheers), or else I must confess myself, as I humbly do, utterly beaten in this matter. I must confess that public opinion is entirely against me, and give up all opposition whatever. Gentlemen, I prefer the latter course. (Cheers.) Politics are a practical science, and, as I have said from the first, what I desired was that the subject should be fairly brought before the country, and that we should have its decision upon the question. Well, it has been brought before the country in this election, and the decision of the Liberal party has been, so far as I know, absolutely unanimous. I, therefore, have nothing to do but to bow to that decision, and to hope that it may turn out better than I, for some time certainly, was in the habit of apprehending."

"Ex Luce Lucellum."-Presenting Public Petitions.-On the 24th of April, 1871, a large procession of match-makers resident in the East-end of London was dispersed by the police while on its way to Westminster Hall. The object of the assemblage was to present a petition to the House of Commons against the tax of one halfpenny upon each box of lucifer matches, proposed by Mr. Lowe, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in submitting his budget for the year. Several questions were, in consequence, put to the Home Secretary (Mr. Bruce) by various members on the 28th, relative to the grounds on which the purpose of the petitioners had been interfered with and prevented by the police authorities. The Home Secretary, in reply, stated "that such a procession was contrary to law-the law being that no large bodies of persons should go either to the Sovereign or to Parliament for the purpose of presenting a petition. The number permitted by law does not exceed ten persons. The Act of George III., known as the One Mile Act, applies to meetings, and provides that such meetings as that of Monday last shall not be held within one mile of Westminster." The tax referred to was to have been collected by means of a stamp affixed to each box of matches. Ex luce lucellum-" out of light a little profit "-was the motto devised by Mr. Lowe for the labels connected with this new impost. The Committee, however, refused its sanction to that mode of increasing the revenue. The Chancellor had imported the idea from the United States, where a similar tax produces a considerable amount annually.

Introduction of the Sovereign's Name in Debate.-An Apology.-An important discussion arose in the House of Commons on the 2nd of May, 1876. Mr. Lowe, at a Liberal banquet at East Retford, had spoken against the Royal Titles Bill, enabling the Queen to assume the title of Empress of India, and said: I strongly suspect that this is not now brought forward for the first time. I violate no confidence, because I have received none; but I am under a conviction that at least two previous Ministers have entirely refused to have anything to do with such a change. More pliant persons have now been found, and I have no

doubt the thing will be done." Mr. C. E. Lewis brought the subject before the House of Commons, moving for a copy of the oath taken by Privy Councillors, and said that, if Mr. Lowe's statement were true, two Prime Ministers must have broken their oath "to keep secret the Queen's counsel." Mr. Lowe in reply denied the right of any member to call him to account for anything said at a meeting in the country, unless the privileges of the House were infringed, or a personal attack were made on an individual member. Thereupon Mr. Disraeli, as the head of the Government, said Mr. Lowe had attempted to hold up to public infamy the chief Minister by asserting that, after the Sovereign had been balked and baffled in her appeals to previous Ministers, she had found a pliant and a servile instrument who was now ready to do her will. If the statement as to the proposals to previous Ministers were true, it ought not to have been made by a Privy Councillor, and one who had been a Cabinet Minister; but was it true? Mr. Gladstone had immediately denied it, so far as he was concerned, in a letter to the press; and Mr. Disraeli said he had lived on such terms of political confidence with Lord Derby, especially at the time when the Queen assumed the government of India, that he was able to say that no such proposal had ever been made to him. As to Lord Russell and Lord Palmerston, Mr. Disraeli went on to say he was authorised by her Majesty to make a statement to the House. Some objections were urged on the Opposition side to this statement being received; but the Speaker ruled that, as the name of the Sovereign was not to be introduced to influence the opinion of the House, the communication Mr. Disraeli proposed to make was not out of order. The Prime Minister then said there was not the slightest foundation for Mr. Lowe's story, and that the Queen had authorised him to state that at no time had any proposal to introduce such a measure been made to any Minister. The story, therefore, was a piece of calumnious gossip of the kind which would always be circulated, but which no one would expect from the mouth of a Privy Councillor and an ex-Cabinet Minister.-Mr. Lewis's motion was carried by 91 to 37, and two nights afterwards Mr. Lowe asked permission of the House to make a personal statement. He said he had employed the interval in considering the matter, and, although he had believed the statement made at Retford to be true at the time, he must acknowledge he ought not to have made it. "It was wrong," said he, "because no one has a right to drag the name of the Sovereign, even indirectly, into our disputes in this House. (Cheers.) I sincerely regret that I did not remember the fact that in the whole of the Queen's dominions her Majesty is, by reason of her sovereign dignity, the only person upon whom is imposed the disability of not being able to say any thing in personal defence. That alone, if there was no other reason, ought to have closed my mouth, and I hope the House will consider my acknowledgment both full and ample. (Cheers.) But, Sir, that is not all. After the communication which her Majesty has been pleased to make, I cannot doubt for a moment that I was entirely mistaken in what I asserted; and nothing remains for me except to express my most sincere and extreme regret, as one who is wholly and heartily a dutiful and loyal

subject of her Majesty, that I have caused her Majesty to have been put to what she will have felt the disagreeable necessity of making a communication on such a subject to the House-a necessity that ought never to have been imposed upon her. I retract everything that I said, and, if such a thing be proper from a subject to his Sovereign, I humbly offer my most sincere apologies to her Majesty for the error that I have committed." (Loud cheers.)

The Golden Age of a Government.-In the course of a speech returning thanks for his re-election by the University of London, in April, 1880, Mr. Lowe said: "What I want to point out to you is what I think it extremely important should be always remembered by Governments, I having now had the honour of serving in a good many. The first moments of a Government are golden. Napoleon said that people grow old quickly on fields of battle; but Governments grow old more quickly still in the battle-fields of Parliament. The first year of a Government is golden, the second silvern, and it soon arrives at the iron age. Wisdom lies in seizing as far as possible upon these golden moments. Things may be done and questions may be settled between this time and next August, which if delayed it might afterwards be impossible to do or settle for ten years. There is every stimulus to activity and boldness. Now is the time when we can really strike with effect, whereas nobody can tell what tomorrow may bring forth. The very strength of a Government is sure to engender combats and weakness within, and gradually to eat into its power and essence. Therefore I hope no time will be lost in bringing forward measures of secondary importance, but that the opportunity will be used to deal with matters of the first and greatest importance, simply for the reason that these things may be done now, and that next year it may be impossible to effect them."

JOHN ARTHUR ROEBUCK.
(1801-1879.)

"Tear 'em."-In a speech delivered at the Cutlers' Feast, Sheffield, September 2nd, 1858, Mr. Roebuck referred to the visit he had just paid to Cherbourg with other members of the House of Commons. After expressing, in strong language, his opinion of the character of the French ruler, he proceeded: "It may be said that those who stand in my position ought not to say anything that excites national animosity; and I respond to that sentiment. But, Sir, the farmer who goes to sleep, having placed the watch-dog 'Tear 'em' over his rick-yard, hears that watch-dog bark. He, in the anger of a half somnolence, says, 'I wish Tear 'em would be quiet;' and bawls out of the window, 'Down, Tear 'em.' Tear 'em' does go down; the farmer goes to sleep, and he is awoke by the flashing in at his windows of the light of his ricks on fire. I am Tear 'em.' I tell you to beware. What is the meaning of Cherbourg? It is a standing menace to England."

An Unaccustomed Character.-Mr. Roebuck, in one of the debates in 1855 on the condition of the Crimean army and the conduct of

Ministers, spoke of the Duke of Newcastle as "a scapegoat that had been sent into the wilderness with the sins of the Administration on his head." He was replied to by some of the duke's colleagues with great severity; whereupon he said, "Sir, I take shame to myself for once in my life. I have indulged in panegyric, but, like almost all other men who attempt a character to which they are not accustomed, I have failed in representing it, and have failed also most completely in making myself understood. I did object to making the Duke of Newcastle a scapegoat. I gave that noble duke credit for industry and good intentions, and I said that he had done his duty according to his ability. Then I am turned round upon because I am said to have eulogised the noble duke.”

Official Restraint v. Political Morality. In a speech at Sheffield in 1868, Mr. Roebuck alluded to one he had made there during the American civil war, and to a conversation afterwards on the subject with Lord Palmerston. "The moment I got into his room-he was standing writing at his desk, as he always did-he turned round and put out his hands, and said, 'Roebuck, Roebuck, what a devilish good speech you made in Sheffield!' I said, 'My lord, I am greatly obliged to you, and flattered for the kind phrase you have used about my speech '-though it was rather a hard one, you know; 'I am very much flattered.' 'Flattered?' he said. Why, I am entirely of your opinion, but I dare not officially say so.' Now that struck me, according to the old woman's phrase, all of a heap,-that a man in power should say to me openly and without disguise that he was entirely of my opinion, and lead the people of England directly the opposite way. That, said I, is modern political morality. I did my work with the gay and pleasant old lord, and bowed my way out of his room."

Reading from a Newspaper.-Mr. Roebuck was making a speech in 1855 on the resignation of Lord John Russell, after his return from the conference at Vienna on the war between Russia and the allies, when an incident occurred which is thus referred to in "Hansard:” "The honourable and learned gentleman was beginning to read a passage in Lord John Russell's speech from a newspaper, when he was interrupted by calls to 'order;' whereupon he tore a piece out of the newspaper and was proceeding with his quotation, when Mr. Speaker said the rules of the House did not allow the honourable and learned member to quote from a newspaper a speech which had been delivered during the session, and he did not think the honourable and learned member could cure the irregularity by tearing a piece out. Mr. Roebuck: Then I will give the effect of the noble lord's statement from my own memory; and if I am incorrect, the fault is not with me, but with the rule of the House which obliges me to rely upon that faulty instrument when I have a correct report at hand.'”*

An Independent Member.-Mr. Roebuck on several occasions received from his constituents at Sheffield acknowledgment of his parliamentary services, in the form of testimonials including purses of from one

See Miscellaneous section, "Reading from Newspapers."

to three thousand pounds. On one of these presentations he said: "I ask myself what it is that has given me the present occasion of returning you my thanks. It is not talent; it is not name; it is not rank; it is not wealth. What is it, then? It is steadfastness to the path which I marked out for myself in the beginning. I am proud to say that in the year 1832 I published a programme of the opinions I then held. I had prepared myself for a public life. I had then formed my opinions; I consigned them to paper; I printed them; and to them I now adhere. That which I said in 1832 I now say, and it is my thorough and steadfast adherence to the opinions which I then expressed that has won for me the approbation of my countrymen. Going into Parliament unknown, unsupported, only recommended by that tried friend of the people, the late Joseph Hume, I determined not to ally myself with either of the great parties which then divided the House of Commons and the kingdom. I was neither Whig nor Tory, and I went into the House of Commons determined to advocate that which I believed to be for the interests of the people without regard to party considerations. To that rule I have adhered through life."

RALPH BERNAL OSBORNE.
(1814.)

The "Stormy Petrel of Debate."-The nature of Mr. Bernal Osborne's appearances in parliamentary strife caused this name to be applied to him by Dr. Giffard, long editor of the Standard newspaper. One of the most effective passages in Mr. Osborne's peculiar vein occurred in the great debate on the conduct of the Government with respect to Denmark, in July, 1864. The speaker thus alluded to Lord Palmerston and his Cabinet: "The noble lord and the gentlemen on the Treasury Bench are men of great capacity, but a little past their time, and they bungle a little; but if they wish to put the country in a proper position with foreign powers, and restore the just influence of England, it might be easily done by their imitating that custom which is obligatory on unsuccessful officials in Japan. If, Sir, they would enact, in a modified form, that happy despatch' which we have learnt from the Asiatics, I am sure this country would at once regain its proper position. . . There sits the noble lord. Sedet, æternumque sedebit. I was about to add, but it would not be true-infelix. I wish to speak of him with every respect, because I believe that a more active or a more able man never existed in this country. (General cheers.) It is said of him that

'Panting time toils after him in vain.'

He is certainly facile princeps, the liveliest, if not the youngest, on the Treasury bench. The noble lord deserves great credit for his admirable management through so long a time of the affairs of this House. He has acted with all sorts of men, and agreed with all sorts of opinions. These are great feats, but what is his policy? Sir, his domestic policy, not to go beyond the line of debate, is paternal but stationary; his foreign policy up to this day has been pugnacious but progressive. I have