Lord Hartington followed Mr. Morley, to call attention to the
deliberate throwing over of Mr. Gladstone's counsel, ten- dered only two years ago, not to meddle with questions of such deep moment as this by the instrumentality of abstract resolutions, and to contrast Mr. Gladstone's wish to respect the hereditary principle with Mr. Morley's wish to assail it ; and Sir William Harcourt closed the debate with a flourishing Radical speech, in which he spoke of Lord Hartington's respect for Mr. Gladstone's declaration of 1886, as proving that he is a purely retrograde politician whose mode of progress is always of the " crustacean " order. Mr. Labouchere's resolution was rejected, in a moderately full House, by a majority of 61 (223 to 162). The Liberals, therefore, now stand pledged to attack the hereditary principle of the House of Lords before they have decided whether they want to modify it or to root it out altogether, substituting something in its place, or to suppress a Second Chamber altogether. This is a very grave new departure in political strategy.
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