CHAPTER XV
MR. LABOUCHERE NOT INCLUDED IN THE CABINET
There is no doubt about the fact that Mr. Labouchere was always at his best when he was in Opposition. This characteristic was not peculiar to him, but was shared by Sir William Harcourt, and, in a marked degree, by Lord Randolph Churchill. During the six years of Lord Salisbury's second administration (August, 1886-August, 1892), he stood out prominently as a man of ability and independent courage in what was an extremely weak and inefficient Opposition. Always true to his Radical principles, he protested ably whenever the questions of Civil Service estimates were to the fore--the expenses incurred in the removal or restoration of diplomatic and consular buildings, or in the organisation of missions and embassies to foreign countries, all the involved expenditure that is comprehended under the term, so mysterious to the lay mind, of "miscellaneous legal buildings," in the upkeep of the royal parks and palaces. The annual expenditure for the warming and lighting of Kew Palace especially aroused his ire. He had, he said, hunted for the building and at last perceived over an iron gate a tumble down, depressed-looking house in which he could not imagine that anyone less insane than George III. in his later years could be expected to wish to reside, and if there were any such, they might, at least, warm and light themselves without any application to the British taxpayer. As for Kensington Palace, to vote an annual sum for its {410} maintenance was merely dropping water into a bottomless well. It was dilapidated and useless. Why not pull it down or turn it into a large restaurant--an investment which would certainly pay--and put money into the taxpayer's pockets for a change? Of course he should advocate that only temperance drinks should be sold upon the premises, but even with that restriction a profit would be certain. Then he would attack the extravagance of the House of Commons. Oil lamps in the committee rooms! Were Ministers a species of patron saints before whom perpetual lamps had to be kept burning in order to secure their favours? Electric light had been installed in the House, and yet the annual sum spent on oil lamps was undiminished. Perhaps, replied the long-suffering Mr. Plunkett, after the expenditure on oil had been ruthlessly gone into and shown to be superfluous, the hon. member for Northampton will soon be a Minister himself and will then know the awkwardness of attending in the House from three in the afternoon to one in the morning and having to turn up or down an oil lamp every time he went from one room to another. In short, Mr. Labouchere's obstructionary tactics were magnificent.
His speeches on the Triple Alliance were marked by an intimate knowledge of European politics acquired by a long and sympathetic frequentation of the best politicians in Europe and as different as possible from the accumulation of facts out of text-books which formed the mental equipment on the subject of many of his colleagues. The point of departure of his first speech on the Triple Alliance was a statement made in the Italian Parliament on May 14, 1891, by a deputy named Chiala to the effect that the Italian position was now secure by land and sea, English interests being identical with Italian. On June 2, 1891, he asked Sir James Fergusson whether special undertakings were entered into in 1887 between England and Italy of such importance as to justify Signor Chiala's remark, which had met with no challenge in the Italian Chamber, and he spoke {411} with characteristic eloquence both then and on July 9, against the renewal of the Triple Alliance, which obliged England, he said, to side with Italy against France, under the pretext of maintaining the status quo in the Mediterranean. Mr. Gladstone wrote him the following letter on the subject:
HAWARDEN CASTLE, CHESTER, July 11, 1891.
DEAR MR. LABOUCHERE,--So far as I can understand I think you have left the question of the Triple Alliance and our relation to it standing well in itself and well for us. If ever there was a complication from which England ought to stand absolutely aloof it is this. I would take for a proof apart from all others the astounding letter of Mr. Stead in yesterday's _Pall Mall Gazette_, who founds an European policy on the isolation of France still perhaps at the head of continental civilisation. I fear with you that Salisbury has given virtual pledges for himself which in all likelihood he will never even be called upon to redeem, and which Parliament and members of Parliament may with perfect propriety object to his redeeming. What a little surprises me is that the Italians should not better understand the frailty of the foundation on which I fear they have built their hopes.
In the _Daily News_ yesterday Mr. White says the alliance was first concluded in 1882. If so it was certainly without our approbation, I think without our knowledge.--Yours faithfully,
W. E. GLADSTONE.
In Mr. Labouchere's attacks on Lord Salisbury's Foreign Office administration, he found many of the opportunities which he loved of pouring ridicule upon the whole institution of diplomacy. He told the Committee, during the discussion on the Foreign Office vote, how the service is recruited. A friend of his, he said, who reached the top of his profession, presented himself for examination. Of the questions put before him he could answer none, being completely ignorant of the subjects upon which they were supposed to test him. Great was his surprise when the results of the examination {412} were made known. He found himself not only passed but at the top of the list of candidates. "How can these things be?" he asked the examiner when he next met him. "Well," replied the great man, "we saw you knew nothing, but your manner was so free from constraint under what to some people would have been embarrassing circumstances, that we decided: 'That's the very man to make a diplomatist,' and so we passed you." That this little anecdote was introduced to the notice of Sir James Fergusson as a prelude to Mr. Labouchere's bland explanation that, according to his personal experience, Under-Secretaries for Foreign Affairs and members of the diplomatic body generally were of all men the most ignorant, did not rob it of any of its sting. Across the Channel, Mr. Labouchere's abilities, where foreign politics were concerned, were rated at their true value. In February, 1892, the _Voltaire_ published a long article dealing with the personality of this "remarkable man" and his knowledge of European affairs, which concluded with these words: "Mr. Labouchere is one of those grand Englishmen who do credit both to the party which they defend and to the party which they condescend to attack. Moreover, shortly he will be a member of the Cabinet, and Mr. Gladstone depends on his co-operation to finish the last struggle with the dying Tory party."
That Mr. Labouchere's name was not included in Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet of 1892 was an omission that struck not only European politicians but the public of England, both Conservative and Radical, as curious. Mr. Gladstone, who had intended him to have one of the most important offices in the Cabinet (not the Post Office, as has been so often asserted), was himself taken aback, and so much so that when he was made aware that the Queen would object to Mr. Labouchere's name being submitted to her, he went the length of privately asking Mr. Labouchere to write him a letter stating that he should not accept office were it offered to him. Had Mr. Labouchere been under the necessity of {413} wishing to improve his political position in the country, there is no doubt that this would have been his opportunity for doing so. Such a course of action would have appeared to the superficial observer to fit in with his Radical principles, and he could have pretended to his followers that he considered his power greater below the gangway than on the pedestal of office, and (a matter, however, which was of supreme indifference to him) his enemies could not have pointed the finger of scorn at him. Incidentally, too, Mr. Gladstone would have been saved from an imputation of ingratitude to a follower who had stood by him, through thick and thin, to win the cause that the Grand Old Man had nearest his heart, to wit, Home Rule for Ireland, and a follower, who, throughout a long and original political career, had never once failed towards his leader in any detail of the minutiæ that went to make up the etiquette of political intercourse in the last century. But, as Mr. Labouchere explained to a near relative at the time, he couldn't stand the humbug of the suggestion, and he would, moreover, have been pledged to support the Ministry. Besides, that the Queen should have objected to him was not a surprise. Nobody was able to appreciate better than himself, with his tolerant view of human nature, the fact that tastes differ, and to realise more fully that, in so far as personal feelings went, he might very easily be a _persona ingrata_ where Court favour was concerned. "So that the good ship _Democracy_ sails prosperously into Joppa," he wrote at the time, "I care not whether my berth is in the officers' quarters or in the forecastle. Jones or Jonah it is all the same to me, and if I thought that my being thrown overboard would render the success of the voyage more certain, overboard I would go with pleasure--all the more as I can swim." But, in his surmise as to why the Queen had objected to him he was mistaken, and he did not know the real reason until several years afterwards. He imagined it was because he had so persistently protested against the Royal grants, whenever {414} they had appeared to him excessive.[1] It is difficult to see why Mr. Gladstone, _having told him as much as he did_, did not tell him more--to wit, the actual facts. It would have been perfectly straightforward and perfectly consistent, and the explanation was one that Mr. Labouchere could have accepted with dignity, and all appearance of a slight put upon an eminent politician, by treating him as a nobody to be passed over without any kind of justification, would have been avoided. The fact of Mr. Labouchere's being the proprietor of and "chief writer" in _Truth_ was the ground of the Queen's objection, and if my readers have followed the course of this biography with care, they will very easily be able to imagine how early, and also how very reasonably, the Queen's dislike to the publication had taken root.
Mr. Labouchere's jest about Mr. Gladstone laying upon Providence the responsibility of always placing the ace of trumps up his sleeve was a good one. In one of his private letters I find the quip worded a little more pungently. "Who cannot refrain," he says, referring to the then Prime Minister, "from perpetually bringing an ace down his sleeve, even when he has only to play fair to win the trick." Clearly in the case of the exclusion of Mr. Labouchere from his Cabinet, Mr. Gladstone had only to play a simple and straightforward game for the trick to be his. In fact, it was his with the Queen. There was no necessity for any further ruse, and the matter would have ended.
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Mr. Labouchere, still in the dark about the reason of the slight put upon him, replied thus to one of his supporters at Northampton, who questioned him as to the fact that he was not included in the Cabinet. He seems to have made an effort to put the matter as well as he could for his leader:
5 OLD PALACE YARD, Aug. 19, 1892.
DEAR MR. TONSLEY,--The Queen expressed so strong a feeling against me as one of her Ministers that, as I understand it, Mr. Gladstone did not think it desirable to submit my name to her.--Yours truly,
HENRY LABOUCHERE.
The following correspondence ensued. In reading it, it must always be borne in mind that Mr. Labouchere did not at that time know the precise grounds upon which he had been excluded from the Cabinet:
_Mr. Gladstone to Mr. Labouchere_
HAWARDEN CASTLE, Aug. 22, 1892.
DEAR MR. LABOUCHERE,--My attention has been called to a letter addressed by you to Mr. Tonsley, and printed in the _Times_ of to-day, and I have to assure you that the understanding which has been conveyed to you is not correct. I am alone responsible for recommendations submitted to Her Majesty respecting the tenure of political office, or of the absence of such recommendation in any given instance. I was aware of the high position you had created for yourself in the House of Commons and of the presumption which would naturally arise that your name could not fail to be considered on any occasion when a Government had to be formed. I gave accordingly my best consideration to the subject, and I arrived at the conclusion that there were incidents in your case which, while they testified to your energy and influence, were in no degree disparaging to your honour, but which appeared to me to render it unfit that I should ask your leave to submit your name to Her Majesty for a political {416} office which would involve your becoming a servant of the Crown.--Believe me very faithfully yours,
W. E. GLADSTONE.
_Mr. Labouchere to Mr. Gladstone_
5 OLD PALACE YARD, Aug. 23, 1892.
DEAR MR. GLADSTONE,--I beg to acknowledge your letter of yesterday's date, and to thank you for its kindly tone towards myself. I had been away from home, and only got it when it was too late to alter anything that I had written for this week's _Truth_ upon the matter, as the paper goes to press on Tuesday at 12 o'clock. I feel sure that you will recognise that I have never asked you--directly or indirectly--for any post in your administration. I should indeed not have alluded publicly to the the matter, owing to its personal character, had it not been that the newspapers were discussing why I was not asked to become a member of your administration, the implication being that I had urged "claims," and that I resented their being ignored. I fully perceive the difficulty of your position, and, whilst I cannot admit that the Sovereign has a right to impose any veto on the Prime Minister that she has selected in the choice of his colleagues, I admire your chivalry in covering the Royal action by assuming the constitutional responsibility of a proceeding, in regard to which I must ask you to allow me to retain the conviction that you were not a free agent.
With respect to myself, it is a matter of absolute unimportance that I am not a servant of the Crown, or--as we Radicals should put it--an Executive servant of the Nation. The precedent, however, is a dangerous one, as circumstances might occur in which the Royal ostracism of some particular person from the public service might impair the efficiency of a Liberal Ministry representing views not in accordance with Court opinion. Of this there is no danger in the present case. My personality is too insignificant to have any influence on public affairs, and I am--if I may be allowed to say so--far too stalwart a Radical not to support an administration which I trust will secure to us Home Rule in Ireland; true non-intervention abroad; and many democratic reforms in the United Kingdom. My only regret {417} is that the Liberal party has not seen its way to include many other and more drastic reforms in its programme, notably the abolition of the House of Lords and the Disendowment and Disestablishment of the Church of England.
It will always be a source of pride to me that you thought me worthy of being one of your colleagues, and that, in regard to the incidents which rendered it impossible for you to act in accordance with this flattering opinion, you consider that they testify to my energy and influence, and are in no way disparaging to my honour.
With the sincerest hope that you may long be preserved as the People's Minister, I have the honour to be yours most faithfully,
H. LABOUCHERE.
_Mr. Gladstone to Mr. Labouchere_
HAWARDEN CASTLE, Aug. 25, 1892.
DEAR MR. LABOUCHERE,--I cannot hesitate to answer your appeal. At no time and in no form have I had from you any signification of a desire for office. You do me personally more than justice. My note to you is nothing more nor less than a true and succinct statement of the facts as well as the constitutional doctrine which applies to them. I quite agree with you that men in office are the political servants of the country, as well as of the Crown. There are incidents attaching to them in each aspect, and I mentioned the capacity which alone touched the case before me.--Believe me very faithfully yours,
W. E. GLADSTONE.
It would be idle to deny that the fact of not being in the Cabinet was, temporarily, a very great disappointment to Mr. Labouchere. Faithful Northampton forwarded to him, through the Executive of their Liberal Association, the following resolution, the sentiment and kindly feeling of which was appreciated to the full by Northampton's member: "That this Executive records its warmest praise for the brilliant defences of democracy put forth by the senior member {418} for Northampton, and rejoices at his fealty to the ties of party, notwithstanding the personal affront of unrequited services; and, further, it is more than satisfied that, by this tactical error, he continues free to serve the cause of the people, in which in the past he has so signally distinguished himself." It was to Northampton that Mr. Labouchere frankly expressed where the real sting of his treatment by his party lay: "Mr. Gladstone handsomely testified," he said, "that I had never asked for office. It is, however, one thing not to desire office, and another thing to be stigmatised as a political leper unfitted for it owing to incidents which, while testifying to my energy and influence are in no way disparaging to my honour."[2]
Mr. Labouchere spent his summer holiday as usual at Cadenabbia, and his mind soon resumed its equable habit of thought. The return of Sir Charles Dilke to the House of Commons had been a genuine pleasure to him, and he was in constant correspondence with him during his holiday, which he extended some weeks beyond its usual limits. His letters dealt largely with the, to him, all-absorbing subject of the renewal of the Triple Alliance.
"Notwithstanding," he wrote on September 17, "the excitement about the Italian workmen in France (which has now cooled down) I very much doubt whether the King will be able for long to keep going the Triple Alliance. The customs Union with Austria has not been a success, and the taxes are so enormous that there must come a crash. The Socialists and the Anarchists are joined by many who simply want to live, and who put down the heavy taxation and the want of a market to the policy of the Government. As for the Army, it is not worth much, as they have depleted the line regiments of good men in order to form a few crack regiments. If the French were to play their cards well, they might soon force the King into a friendly understanding. I {419} wonder when Parliament will meet next year, if it sits until Xmas. I suspect that our revered leader is angling to be able to get south in January and possibly February. If he can he will dodge every question except H.R."
Another sentence from a letter to the same correspondent I cannot resist quoting. It is so easy to picture how very much he must have enjoyed reading the German and Italian papers to which he refers, for the details of the great Italian statesman's policy were almost like spelling-book knowledge to him. "I have been amused," he wrote on September 10, "at the comments of the German and Italian papers upon Mr. Gladstone's declaration that Cavour would have been for Irish Home Rule." Here is another charming letter written from Cadenabbia: "A man who is owned by a dog has a troublous time. I am owned by a child, who is owned by a dog. I have a daughter. This daughter insisted on my buying her a puppy which she saw in the arms of some dog stealer when we were at Homburg. My advice to parents is, Never allow your parental feelings to lead you to buy your daughter a dog, and then to travel about with daughter and dog. This puppy is the bane of my existence. Railroad companies do not issue through tickets for dogs. The unfortunate traveller has to jump out every hour or so to buy a fresh ticket. I tried to hide the beast away without a ticket, but it always betrayed me by barking when the guard looked in. I tried to leave it at a station, but the creature (who adds blind fidelity to its other objectionable qualities) always turned up before the train started, affectionately barking and wagging its tail. The puppy, being an infant, is often sick, generally at the most undesirable moments for this sort of thing to happen. When it is not sick it is either hungry or thirsty, and it is very particular about its food. I find bones surreptitiously secreted in my pockets. I am told that they are for the puppy, and if I throw them away I am regarded as a heartless monster. Yesterday he ate a portion of my sponge. I did not interfere with him, for I had heard {420} that sponges were fatal to dogs. It disagreed with him, but alas, he recovered. I take him out with me in boats, in the hope that he will leap into the lake, but he sticks to the boat. I am reduced to such a condition on account of this cur that I sympathise with Bill Sikes in his objection to being followed everywhere by his faithful dog. Am I doomed, I ask, to be for ever pestered with this animal? Will he never be lost, will he never be run over, will he recover from the distemper if fortune favours me by his having this malady? Never, I repeat, buy your daughter a dog, and travel with daughter and dog."[3]
Mr. Labouchere did not return to London before the middle of October. The question of foreign affairs interested him unceasingly throughout Mr. Gladstone's fourth administration. When the composition of Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet had been published in the continental papers, many comments had been made upon the appointment of Lord Rosebery to be Foreign Secretary, and the _Temps_ published a pointed leading article on the subject. It declared that Lord Rosebery was regarded by many persons as the incarnation of Imperialism and Chauvinism, but it went on to reassure its readers by saying that after all, as Mr. Gladstone would be so occupied with his Home Rule scheme and minor social questions, the hankerings of the Foreign Office after national glory would be suppressed. In any case, it added, Mr. Labouchere will, if necessary, criticise and protest against dangerous ardour. The subject of Uganda occupied the English Parliament early in 1903, and Mr. Labouchere moved an amendment to the Address to the effect that he hoped that the Commissioner sent by Her Majesty to Uganda would effect the evacuation of that country by the British South African Company without any further Imperial responsibility being incurred. He gave an account of how the treaty with the King of Uganda had been obtained, culled from Captain Lugard's own report. Captain Lugard {421} arrived in the country, he said, with a considerable force of Zanzibaris with breech-loaders and two Maxim guns. A warm discussion arose on many points. Some of the chiefs were for signing, but the King held back and giggled and fooled. He demanded time. "I replied," reported Lugard, "by rapping the table and speaking loudly, and said he must sign now. I threatened to leave the next day if he did not, and possibly to go to his enemies. I pointed out to him that he had lost the southern half of his kingdom to the Germans by his delay, and that he would lose more if he delayed now. He was, I think, scared at my manner, and trembled very violently." ... And so on. The speech was one of remarkable power. Although it covers over ten pages of _Hansard_, the reader's interest does not flag for an instant. It was replied to by the Prime Minister with appreciation and vigour.
On February 13 Mr. Gladstone introduced his Home Rule Bill,[4] and the speech Mr. Labouchere made during the debate is his last utterance on the subject that I shall quote. He was true to his great leader to the very end, although that end had been extended to a date far beyond the period that might reasonably have been expected. It was a remarkable fact, said Mr. Labouchere, that in 1886 they were told that Home Rule would ruin Ireland and the proof was that securities had gone down. They were now told that Home Rule would ruin Ireland because securities had gone up! As a matter of fact, balances at savings banks had gone up because of certain Land Acts and Rent Acts, by which a good deal of money which used to go into the landlord's pockets now went into the savings bank.... A matter like the Home Rule scheme was necessarily very complicated. They had two islands, one a large one and one a small one. The {422} object of the Bill was to enable them to produce such a state of things as would enable them to have a local Parliament in Ireland dealing alone with Irish matters, and a Parliament in England dealing with British local matters, and also with Imperial matters. It was very much like trying to put a square peg into a round hole. He quite agreed that the angles of the peg would remain. They could not get the fit geometrically perfect, but the great object was to get the best fit they could under the circumstances. It must always be remembered in this matter of Home Rule that they had to choose between two alternatives. After the Bill of 1886 the Unionists went before the country saying that there was a third course, that of some species of local government. When they got into power where was the third course? It entirely disappeared.... The Duke of Devonshire had tried to terrify them the other night about the House of Lords, that the House was going to defend the liberties of the United Kingdom by running counter to the will of the people. For his part, he had never been strongly in favour of an assembly like the House of Lords. He could not understand why some six hundred gentlemen should interfere with the decisions of the representatives of the people. If they did they would find that additional force would be given to the intention of the democracy to put an end to their existence.[5] It is interesting to note that in this, his last Parliament, the Prime Minister himself was converted to Mr. Labouchere's views on the Upper Chamber. When his Home Rule Bill was thrown out by the Lords, and his Parish Councils Bill maimed and emasculated, he came to the conclusion that there was a decisive case against the House of Lords. "Upon the whole, he argued," says Lord Morley, "it was not too much to say for practical purposes the Lords had destroyed the work of the House of Commons, unexampled as that work was in the time and pains bestowed upon it. 'I suggested dissolution to my colleagues in London, where half {423} or more than half the Cabinet were found at the moment. I received by telegraph a hopelessly adverse reply.' Reluctantly he let the idea drop, always maintaining, however, that a signal opportunity had been lost."[6]
In spite of Mr. Labouchere's activity during the winter of 1892-3 his health was not good. He suffered from constant colds and coughs, and his throat, too, was troublesome. The desire for change was upon him, and his mind went back to the happy days of his youth in America. He would have liked to be made Minister at Washington. The idea had occurred to him at Cadenabbia when some American friends had suggested to him how popular such an appointment would be on the other side of the Atlantic. The climate would have suited him, and, above all, the friction which was so inevitable between him and the Cabinet would have been avoided. Washington was quite removed from any of those quarters of the globe where Mr. Labouchere's and Lord Rosebery's foreign policy might possibly come into collision. But his desire was not to be fulfilled. Perhaps naturally, Lord Rosebery thought that his appointment to such an important post would look rather as if he were trying to get rid of a formidable opponent, or at least as if he were trying to bribe him into silence. His refusal to grant Mr. Labouchere's request was unqualified, and Mr. Labouchere acknowledged the repulse, with his usual philosophic calm. "However," he wrote to Lord Rosebery, on December 8, 1892, "as the matter rests with you, and as you are averse to the suggestion, I can only say that all is for the best in the best of worlds."
Mr. Gladstone resigned the Premiership on March 3, 1894, and Lord Rosebery became Prime Minister. The life of the Liberal Government was short, and Mr. Labouchere soon found himself again in his native air of Opposition, when his old interest in Parliamentary matters revived. It was a matter of common knowledge that Mr. Labouchere was strongly opposed to the Premiership of Lord Rosebery, as {424} anyone possessed of his strong Radical nature was bound to be, but that he had anything to do with the snap division which ended Lord Rosebery's Ministry[7] is clearly contradicted by an interview which was published in the _Globe_ on the very day after the fall of the Ministry. The _Globe_ correspondent found Mr. Labouchere in the highest spirits smoking his "eternal cigarette" in his study at Old Palace Yard. "What do you think of the present condition of things?" he asked.
"Well," replied Mr. Labouchere, "I have only just become aware of what happened. I was sitting on the terrace yesterday evening just about seven with Sir William Harcourt, who was joking about the quietness of things, and saying it was a dull day without a crisis, when the division bell rang. I said, 'Great Heavens! What's that for? I want to get home to dinner.' With that I rushed into the division with Sir William, and really didn't know what it was about--you know you can get into the Lobby now direct by a special door. Well, having recorded my vote I hurried off to the theatre, and didn't wait to enter the House. Of course, if I had known what was going to happen I should have waited to see the row. I heard nothing of the affair until this morning, when I read it here," added Mr. Labouchere, pointing to the newspaper beside him.
"I see," said the interviewer, "that you voted with the Government?"
"Oh yes. I want less cartridges--not more, and anything in that direction gets my support. As far as I could see it was only a rag-tag division."
"Do you mean one of those dinner-time snatches, like your House of Lords amendment?"[8]
"Oh no, not even as good as that; just the swing of the pendulum."[9]
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The question on South Africa was soon to agitate England, and all matters of lesser interest must be left now to show the impassioned part which Mr. Labouchere played in an affair which cannot be said even to-day to have found its final solution.
[1] The following paragraph from one of Mr. Labouchere's Draft Reports, composed when he was member of a committee to investigate the whole question of Royal grants in 1891, shows how reasonable this surmise was:
"In conclusion, your Committee desires to record its emphatic opinion, that the cost of the maintenance of the Members of the Royal Family is already so great, that under no circumstances should it be increased. In its opinion, a majority of Her Majesty's subjects regard the present cost of Royalty as excessive, and it deems it, therefore, most undesirable to prejudice any decisions that may be taken in regard to this cost, when the entire subject will come under the cognisance of Parliament, by granting, either directly or indirectly, allowances or annuities to any of the grandchildren of the Sovereign."
[2] Letter to Mr. Fredk. Covington, Chairman of the Northampton Liberal and Radical Association, Sept. 13, 1892.
[3] _Truth_, September, 1892.
[4] The first reading took place on Feb. 20. It was passed through Committee on July 27. After a scene of uproar it passed the House of Commons on Sept. 2, by a majority of 34. It was thrown out by the Lords on Sept. 9, by a majority of 378.
[5] _Hansard_, Feb. 16, 1893, vol. viii., Series 4.
[6] Morley, _Life of Gladstone_, vol. iii.
[7] The Government was defeated on the night of June 21, 1895, upon a vote taken in Committee on the Army Estimates.
[8] _The Globe_, June 22, 1895.
[9] On March 13, 1894, Mr. Labouchere had moved an amendment to the Address, praying the Queen to withdraw the power of the Lords to veto Bills. The division was called during the dinner hour, when the House was comparatively empty, and the Government were found to be in a minority of 2. Sir William Harcourt, who reproved Mr. Labouchere for the levity with which he approached a great constitutional question, got out of the dilemma by moving a new Address.
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