The Government which has just resigned the seals of Office
has been a singularly unsuccessful one in legislation. But it has contained some good administrators, especially Sir William Harcourt, Mr. John Morley, and Mr. Asquith. It has carried a democratic Budget, the principles of which might easily be developed into something like principles of plunder, but against which in its present form there is very little to be said so long as its tendencies are kept within limits as moderate as those which Sir William Harcourt assigned to it. And Sir William Harcourt himself has been the one great figure on his own side of the House of Commons. Mr. Fowler's Indian administration has justly raised him high in the opinion of the country, and indeed his great and states- manlike moderation, when in charge of the Local Govern- ment Bill, marked him out as the one Gladstonian politician who was fairly in sympathy with the general views and policy of his opponents. But for that very reason Mr. Fowler has not done much to impress his mind on the general policy of the Administration now fortunately at an end. Of that Administration, Mr. John Morley has been a distinguished as well as a very disinterested figure, and in Ireland he has ruled well. Mr. Asquith, however, was the most active, and so far as regards legislation, the most characteristic Member of the Cabinet. He engaged in a diligent and very unprofit- able ploughing of the sands of the sea-shore, though adminis- tratively he made a very good Home Secretary, so that we cannot help heartily regretting that he should have injured his usefulness in that department by declaring for " Home- rule all round," for Disestablishment, and for garotting, instead of reforming, the House of Lords. That is the policy which has brought down upon the Government to which he belonged the displeasure of the English people.
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