marked at this time, and drew from the late Lord Lytton a tribute of praise, exceptional in the case of a living orator : "Still when Cairns rises, tho' at dawn of day, Sir Hugh Cairns was made Attorney-General in 1866, when Lord Derby again formed a Government; but shortly after, a Lord Justiceship of Appeal becoming vacant, he was promoted to the bench, and created a peer in 1867. In February, 1868, Lord Cairns became Lord High Chancellor in Mr. Disraeli's first Administration, and was reseated on the woolsack when the last-named statesman returned to power, in 1874. He was raised a step in the peerage, as Earl Cairns, in 1878. The Law of Primogeniture.-An example of the clear statement of a case which distinguished the speaking of Sir Hugh Cairns in the House of Commons may be taken from the debate on Mr. Locke King's proposal, in 1859, to alter the law of succession to real estate in cases of intestacy. Sir Hugh Cairns, then Solicitor-General, opposed the honourable member's bill, and in the course of his speech observed: "Honourable members opposite said that the present law as to descent was a wretched remnant of feudal policy; that it had its origin in feudal times, and that before the feudal times it was unknown in this country. His answer to that was, that he did not care what was its origin. Looking at it as a question of policy, what were the results which flowed from this law? In the first place, it harmonised with an hereditary monarchy and an hereditary peerage. In the next place, speaking of the principle of the law, not merely as it affected the disposition of the estates of intestates, but as manifested in the habits of the country with regard to entails and settlements, it tended to maintain a class in this country distinct from the aristocracy of mere wealth and the aristocracy produced -and rightly produced-by successful commercial enterprise. The law and the custom together, acting one upon the other, kept a class distinct, in consequence of their connection with the land, from those other classes who were of course in themselves as important elements as the aristocracy of the country. In the next place, this law and custom were favourable to the agriculture of the country. The tendency of this country, with regard both to agriculture and manufactures, had been to undertake production on a large scale; and honourable members opposite would not disagree with the doctrine of Mill, that wherever a people had once undertaken production on a large scale in agriculture, commerce, or manufactures, they would not willingly relinquish its advantages. Again, the law was most important in a social point of view. It kept families together by preserving the headship of families. The certain effect of a division of property such as that recommended was in the second generation to dwarf a family down to the rank of petty squires, and in the next genera tion to dwarf it into the condition of mere peasants. In the next place, while it preserved to them their social station and position, the law excited younger brothers to ambition and emulation in a manner that no other system in any country was ever known to do before. And, lastly, the benefit of it did not flow merely to the children of a family, but it stimulated the parent of the family also to make provision, by frugality, economy, and industry, for his younger branches, at the same time that it gave him the certainty of the importance of the family being preserved by the headship of his eldest son. These, then, were the conclusions at which he had arrived." The speaker went on to support these conclusions by reference to sundry authorities.-The bill was defeated, on a division, by 271 to 76. The "Tender Passion" in Reform.-In March, 1859, the Government of the Earl of Derby introduced into the House of Commons a Reform Bill, the second reading of which was opposed by Lord John Russell with an amendment, avowedly intended to lead to the rejection of the measure. At the close of his speech moving this amendment the noble lord said: “I shall take this course, careless of any imputation which may be cast upon me. With regard to this great question of Reform, I may conclude by saying that I defended it when I was young, and I will not desert it now that I am old." Sir Hugh Cairns, in reply, thus alluded to the noble lord, and the temporary agreement between himself and the more extreme section of the Liberal party. "I want to know what is the extent of the agreement between the noble lord and the honourable member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright). I think, as a House of Commons, we are also entitled to ask this question-What probability is there of support to the noble lord and the honourable member for Birmingham from the followers who sit around him? The noble lord may depend upon it that these questions will not be asked merely in this House, but they will also be asked in the country. The noble lord appeals as a proof of his sincerity in his amendment to his long-known and long-tried attachment to the cause of reform. We all know and admit the noble lord's attachment to this great national and political question. But we also know that there is a form of the tender passion which sometimes developes itself in jealousy of any attention to the object of its affection from any other quarter. I think the noble lord exposes himself to some misconstruction on this point. We have heard it said— 'Strong were his hopes his rival to remove; With blandishments to gain the public love; Whether this is so or not I know not, but of this I am sure, that the country will ask-the country have asked already-what are the real intentions of the noble lord, and what are the specific objects which he proposes to himself in meeting a bill of this kind, not openly, not broadly, but by an ambiguous and almost irregular amendment, which commits nobody and which means nothing that is precise. The people of this country have differed, and always will differ, about Reform Bills, about theories of representation, about social and domestic legislation of every kind. But there is one subject upon which the people of this country are entirely agreed. They do not like anything which bears the least appearance of approaching to artifice, or-I must use a homely phrase-a dodge. They do not like it in business, they do not like it in politics; but least of all will they admire it in a man who, at a time when the best interests of our country at home and our most peaceful hopes abroad demand all the patriotism, all the candour, and all the forbearance of a statesman, approaches the consideration of a great national question like this, not fairly to criticise, not boldly to reject, but to contrive a crafty and catching device, to confuse and, if it may be, to dislocate parties, and in that confusion and dislocation to secure his own political aggrandisement and private advantage." After a debate adjourned over several nights, the amendment was carried by 330 to 291. The Government appealed to the country; but on the assembling of the new Parliament, an amendment to the address, declaring want of confidence in the Ministry, was moved by the Marquis of Hartington, and carried by a majority of 13 in a house of 637. LORD SELBORNE. Lord Chancellorship Deferred.-Mr. Roundell Palmer (in later years Lord Selborne) was first returned to Parliament in 1847, for Plymouth, but afterwards represented Richmond (Yorkshire). He was Solicitor-General in the Administration of Lord Palmerston in 1861, and Attorney-General in 1863. When Mr. Gladstone took office in 1868, to carry out the disestablishment of the Irish Church, it was understood that Sir Roundell Palmer would have been offered the Lord Chancellorship, but for his known disapproval of the measures of disendowment which were also contemplated. In 1872 he was chosen to lay before the international tribunal at Geneva the case for Great Britain in the Alabama dispute; and a few months later, Lord Hatherley resigning the great seal, Sir Roundell Palmer was made Lord Chancellor. He returned to the woolsack on the reconstruction of Mr. Gladstone's Government in 1880. A Mild Rebuke.-On the abolition of the purchase system by Royal warrant in 1871 (see page 325), the views of Sir R. Palmer, privately expressed, were commented upon in the House of Commons, in opposition to the course taken by the Government. Sir Roundell thereupon wrote as follows to Mr. Cardwell, the Secretary for War: "I have always thought and said that the issuing of such a warrant was within the undoubted power of the Crown; though to do so without having a sufficient assurance that Parliament would provide the necessary compensation for the officers, who would otherwise suffer by such an exercise of Royal power, would not be just, and therefore would not be consistent with the spirit of the Constitution, which vests all such powers in the Crown, in the confidence, and for the purpose, that right, not wrong, shall be done. I should have been glad if it had been generally and clearly understood from the beginning that, subject to the sense of Parliament being ascertained with reference to the point of compensation, the form of procedure would be that which was eventually adopted; because it is certainly an evil that the adoption of one constitutional mode of procedure, rather than another, should appear to arise from an adverse vote of the House of Lords." "Her Majesty's Ministers."-At a Trinity House banquet in 1880, this toast was proposed by Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, and coupled, in very complimentary terms, with the name of the Lord Chancellor, Lord Selborne. Responding to this, his lordship said: "I interpret the favour with which the toast of her Majesty's Ministry has been now received, and is often received on such occasions as the present, with reference solely to the position which they fill as the servants and representatives of the power and authority of the Crown. It signifies the constant adherence, under all divergences of opinion that prevail, of the leaders of English society to the great principle of permanence in the government of the country under the authority of the Crown. Whatever differences may prevail in the stormy atmosphere of the House of Commons or in the serener atmosphere of the House of Lords-whatever varieties of opinion may exist among the leading minds of the country as to questions of policy, every Ministry, during the time while it is in office, has entrusted to its care the great, the constant, and the permanent interests of the nation, and all right-minded men must desire, so far as those interests are concerned, to strengthen the hands of the depositaries of so great a trust. I do not think the permanent character of those duties can be better symbolised than by the three departments of the Government which are especially represented here to-day. I speak of the law, represented by the Chief Justice of England, and of the two great forces, military and naval, on which the peace of the country and the maintenance of the national power depends. These are permanent, immutable interests, and amidst all our differences, and notwithstanding all the occasional heat of our discussions, I hope it will be believed of us all, as I shall always be ready to believe of others with whom I do not politically agree when they are charged with the same duties, that it will be our endeavour, loyally and patriotically, so to perform them that these great interests of the commonwealth may suffer no detriment at our hands." SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE. (1818.) "My Right Honourable Friend."-Sir Stafford Northcote is a descendant of the Sir John Northcote whose "Note-book" respecting the Long Parliament is occasionally referred to in these pages. His first experiences of public life were gained as private secretary to Mr. Gladstone, when that Minister was President of the Board of Trade in Sir Robert Peel's Government (1843-1845). To this early connection may be owing the terms of mutual courtesy in which Mr. Gladstone and Sir Stafford, although leading opposite parties in the House of Commons, and alternately Chancellors of the Exchequer, frequently refer to each other as "my right honourable friend." Sir Stafford entered the House as member for Dudley in 1855, but has represented North Devon since 1861. Under the Administrations of the Earl of Derby and Mr. Disraeli, he successively held the offices of Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Presi dent of the Board of Trade, Secretary for India, and Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1871 he was appointed by Mr. Gladstone's Government one of the special commissioners to the United States, to arrange the Alabama treaty. The Confidence of the House.-The following is a picture of Sir Stafford Northcote, by the author of "Men and Manners in Parlia ment" (1874): "There is a wonderfully wise and statesmanlike air about Sir Stafford Northcote as he sits, spectacled and bearded, on the Treasury bench, which of itself would go a long way towards acquiring the confidence and the submission of the House. But the right honourable baronet is not dependent on his personal aspect alone for his claim to supremacy. He is not a good speaker, but he is a ready one, sees a long way through a question, and can, if need be, cleverly fence with it. He has a good deal of tact, is fair-minded, honourable, frank, and at very long intervals displays little flashes of humorous perception which are as precious as solitary stars twinkling in an apparently hopelessly murky sky. He is always listened to with that respect the House of Commons intuitively feels and liberally awards to any man who has succeeded in convincing it that he is an honest and clear thinker, and thus he personally enjoys the confidence of both sides of the House." A corroboration of this remark occurred soon after the meeting of the new Parliament in 1880. A temporary difficulty having arisen, and the leaders of Mr. Gladstone's new Government being absent, a member suggested the guidance of "the right honourable member for North Devon, in whom we all have confidence," and the remark was received with general cheers. Parliamentary Obstruction.—In a speech at Exeter in September, 1879, Sir Stafford Northcote (then leader of the House of Commons) commented as follows on this subject: "I trust that Parliament, still more the country, will assist us in setting our face against any conduct calculated to bring party government into disrepute, or to interfere with the proper conduct of business. But do not be led away altogether by what you hear; do not suppose that obstruction comes from only a few Irish members; the difficulty is far deeper than that. There are men who sit for important English constituencies who secretly, and sometimes more than secretly, favour obstruction which bears the name of certain Irish members. These things have to be considered, because if there is that spirit in the House of Commons, if there is not a hearty desire to put down obstruction, our difficulties will be very great indeed. Depend upon it, if the whole body of the House was determined to put down the obstruction of the half-dozen or dozen members of whom you hear, they would do it in a quarter of an hour. . . Remember what are the difficulties if you were to deal with the obstruction by altering regulations and making new rules. You do one of two things which you do not wish to do; you either give a great triumph to Irish members, and that is exactly what you do not want to do, or in some future time you deprive yourselves of that valuable protection which minorities ought to have against the encroachments of majorities. Do not let us, in order to get rid of a temporary |