On Tuesday, in discussing the Third Reading, there was another
sharp little party skirmish. Mr. Goschen began the discussion by lamenting over the outbreak of contentiousness on the previous day, and recommending to both parties, in a tone of hortatory but despondent piety, the duty of coming to terms. Mr. Goschen, however, had his own ideas as to the terms to which he desired the Conservatives to agree. They are not the terms desired by Lord Randolph Churchill, but the terms desired by Sir Richard Cross,—the terms to which, on the whole, the Government had shown a disposition to agree. Thereupon Lord John Manners delivered a most belligerent speech, declar- ing that the invitation to the Opposition to explain their views on Redistribution was like the invitation of the spider to the fly to walk into its parlour ; and he quoted from the "Croker Papers," just published, Sir Robert Peel's declaration, in 1831, of his "fixed determination "to keep himself "wholly unfettered in regard to any measure brought forward by the Government, and to decline all communication, direct or indirect, with the Government of the day."
