no good reason for encouraging avowed idiots to go to the Poll.

'It was during this Session that I defeated the motion for the Derby Adjournment by a majority of 14. Lord Elcho,1 who had supported the Adjournment on the last occasion, speaking against it this time. The result was rather funny, for when the House met next day, as nobody expected any business, there was not a quorum, and the House rose at 4 P.M., having done nothing. But we killed this senseless and vulgar system of adjournment all the same.

'At the end of June 1892 came the Dissolution. I was returned again for the Cockermouth Division by a reduced majority, beating Major Napier, a rollicking sort of good fellow, not knowing much about politics apparently, but the sort of Candidate whom the Tories like."

'M.P. for Ipswich.

CHAPTER IX

THE LIBERAL RALLY

THE General Election of 1886 had been fought on a single and simple issue. Was Ireland to have Home Rule? The answer was a sufficiently emphatic No; but, for two or three years, the Liberal party continued to bestow all its energies on the prosecution of this very unpopular cause. By degrees the more prudent Liberals arrived at the conclusion that the English electors could scarcely be expected to vote for a party which offered them nothing; and that even the disinterested support of the Scotch and Welsh might be withdrawn if the national aspirations of Scotland and Wales were persistently disregarded. The Liberal Leaders therefore formulated a vast and variegated scheme of political and social reforms, which, as having been promulged at a meeting of the National Liberal Federation at Newcastle, was nicknamed "The Newcastle Programme.' It contained such explosive items as Scotch and Welsh Disestablishment, Local Control of the Liquor-Traffic, Reform of the House of Lords, Reform of the Registration Laws, and Payment of Members.

It was believed that to some of these projects Gladstone had yielded only a reluctant assent; and certainly all his zeal and energy and perseverance-miraculous at eightytwo-were directed to the one end of securing a national verdict in favour of Home Rule. The first Session of 1892 was short and uneventful. Everyone knew that a dissolution

P

was at hand, and Gladstone, in an article in the Nineteenth Century,'' had proved, very much to his own satisfaction, that the Liberal majority could not be less than 100. Lord Salisbury, having no constituents to harangue, addressed an allocution to 'The Electors of the United Kingdom,' praying that they might be guided to shrink from this great outrage on liberty, on gratitude, and on good faith ’— in other words, that they might again refuse the demand for Home Rule.

Parliament was dissolved on June 28, 1892, and the result of the General Election was a majority of forty for Home Rule. It was composed of Irish, Scotch, Welsh, and English members; and the bond which united them was obviously fragile. On the first day of the new Session the Conservative Leader-Mr. Balfour-remarked to his Liberal opponents, with perfect truth, 'Your troubles are just beginning.'

Here Lawson resumes his narrative:

'On August 8, we commenced a full dress debate on a vote of No Confidence in the Government, very ably moved by Asquith, and our majority was exactly 40. It so happened that the Tories had not got their men down so early as they should have done on the last night of debate, so to fill up time Chaplin talked from the Treasury Bench against time" for nearly three-quarters of an hour. This I thought rather a chivalrous feat. I never talked against time in my life and it must be a hateful business, but it is one of the weapons of Parliamentary warfare and requires. cleverness so as to keep in order and circumvent the Speaker, and also pluck to stand the jeering, interruption, and opposition of the suffering listeners.

'I now come to the memorable Session of 1893.

There was an incident at the commencement of it which rather interested me. Michael Davitt, standing against the

For September 1891.

PRIESTS IN POLITICS

211

Parnellite candidate, won the seat at South Meath, but was unseated on the ground of priestly intimidation. It seems strange that, while Priests of all persuasions, Protestant as well as Catholic, are employed as their principal business to declare to those whom they can influence that punishment will fall upon them if they do certain things, they are not to be allowed to announce punishment as the result of giving certain votes which they deem wrong. In my view, political action is one of the most important of a man's duties, and why is his spiritual adviser not to assist him in deciding what action he ought to take? This may be called "superstition," "priestcraft," and all the rest of it. All right, but that does not make it clear to me that you should interfere with freedom of opinion, and freedom of expression of opinion, at an election more than at any other time. I am not doubting that the Priests have what I should consider a most mischievous and ridiculous influence over the people. But because the people are grossly ignorant and superstitious that is not a sufficient reason-to my mind-for proscribing the teaching of their spiritual pastors at Election times.

1 Early in this Session (1893) Col. Saunderson 1 one night called one of these priests "a murderous ruffian," but after a great row altered it to "an excited politician." Such are parliamentary niceties. On one occasion Disraeli had to defend the Irish Church and, as the manner of his speech clearly showed, he had indulged in an excess of stimulant. When Mr. Gladstone came to reply, he merely alluded to the right honourable gentleman's "heated imagination.'

'Mr. Gladstone introduced his Home Rule Bill on February 13, but he did not get the Second Reading carried-by a majority of 43—until April 21. Into the incidents and arguments of that great Debate I will not enter, as I should not know where to begin or where to end. I will only say that

1 M.P. for North Armagh.

Gladstone, as usual, appeared to me to be almost superhuman in these fights.

'On February 23 a number of very kind friends presented Lady Lawson with a portrait of myself, and the presentation took place at the Mansion-House. When Sydney Smith had his portrait painted, he complained that the artist had not thrown into his features sufficient hostility to the Irish Church Establishment. I do not know whether sufficient hostility to the Drink-Trade has been infused into mine, but everyone seemed to think that the artist in this casea son of my old friend Dr. Dawson Burns-had produced a very good likeness. I suppose it will remain for years to show my successors what a "gloomy fanatic gloomy fanatic "-as the LiquorPapers call me—was like.

'Continually, when I look at pictures of those who are gone, the lines of Byron on the picture-gallery recur to me—

'There were the painted forms of other times,
'Twas all they left of virtues or of crimes,
Save vague tradition; and the gloomy vaults
That hid their dust, their foibles, and their faults;
And half a column of the pompous page

That speeds the specious tale from age to age;
Where History's pen its praise or blame supplies,
And lies like truth, and still most truly lies.

Of course, in Committee the Home Rule Bill was fought line by line and word by word. Why this was done one hardly knows, as there was always looming in the background the House of Lords, which everybody knew would never pass a Home Rule Bill, unless through fear of a revolution. The fact of the Lords being in the background makes most of our proceedings in the Commons-bar financial ones— more or less of a sham. But an Englishman dearly loves shams. He boasts of his love for Civil and Religious Equality, and steadily keeps up a State Church which Bishop Magee