A hundred years ago
From the 'Spectator. 25 April 1868—The Lords have passed the principle of Mr. Gladstone's Bill for the abolition of Compulsory Church-Rates, after a debate in which Lord Derby—speaking for the first time since his illness—expressed the prevalent temper, a sulky acquiescence. in the de- cision of the Commons as an inevitable evil. Lord Derby growled,—growling especially at Mr. Glad- stone,—and the Archbishop of Canterbury growled, and the Archbishop of York growled, and the Bishop of Oxford growled, and the Marquis of Bath (a good Conservative) growled, but he (the Marquis) growled at the Government rather than at the Bill. He was not, he said, in favour of the "foolish policy of no-surrender". "He had known a bill rejected one year, and the next year a bill far more important in its consequences had been passed". Evidently the old Conservatives do feel the galling character of the yoke under which they have been placed, and cannot hear Lord Derby reviling Mr. Gladstone for abandoning the Church, without retorting on the Minister who, in a much more serious sense, abandoned the Tory view of the Constitution.
Previous page
