Friday week's debate on the Home-rule Bill was given up
to the less-known men, and we need only say that Sir Joseph Pease so explained the conditions under which he would vote for the Bill,—which he actually did,—as to convince the House that there was no heart in his adhesion. Indeed, Mr. Goschen claimed his vote for Lord Hartington ex- pressly on the ground that Sir Joseph Pease's conditions had not been satisfied. On Monday, Mr. Goschen opened the debate in a speech of great power. Some of the personal hits were very happy, especially those at Sir William Harcourt. He remarked that "the alarmist Home Secretary of the Prime Minister's last Administration is now able to reappear as Chancellor of the Exchequer with great jocularity and light- heartedness, and to make merry at melodramatic valour." Mr. Goschen asked whether that change of attitude was not to be dated from the moment when "he bound on his arm, over his Ministerial uniform, the badge of Home-rule worn by the followers of the honourable Member for Cork." Again, in reference to the title of the "swaggering class," invented by the
Daily 1V-ew8 for the class who oppose Home-rule, Mr. Goschen asked whether Mr. Spurgeon is a characteristic type of the "swaggering class," while the Chancellor of the Exchequer has no claim to belong to it. And in reference to Mr. Gladstone's charge that he is opposed chiefly by "the power and spirit of class," Mr. Goschen said :—" I know this, that in this House the Prime Minister has kindled a fire, a most serious fire. He has lit that fire in order to get up sufficient steam to pass his Bill. He has said to himself,—' There are some old rafters which are holding the framework of British society together; but fling them into the fire. Steam we must have, or else we cannot pass our Bill.'"
