Sir William Harcourt was in high feather at the Greenwich
Skating-Rink on Monday night. Though, he said, he was becoming almost an old Parliamentary band, his Parlia- mentary speeches will not compare for a moment with his
platform speeches, for on the platform he can supply his own political scenery and properties, which he cannot do as yet in the House of Commons. It was always painful, he said, to a man of peace like himself, to have to hang a culprit, however much he deserved it ; but if the culprit chose to hang him- self, then you congratulate yourself that he has taken a just view of his deserts, and justice is satisfied. It was not true that the Liberals were clamouring for a dissolution : the Government was dissolving itself fast enough. No lump of sugar in a teacup was ever in a condition of more pleasing dissoldtion. He had never seen leadership,—he should say, he had never seen a twin-leadership and a double-faced party,— go to pieces with such exemplary agility. They had exhibited what Pope calls a most marvellous alacrity in sinking. The Tories were already crying for a massacre of the innocents. But it was unnecessary. The chief innocent, the Irish Local Government Bill, had its life attempted at the moment of its birth by the author of its being. And so on ad libitum. Sir William Harcourt's skill in producing what we may call the Parliamentary shilling-shocker was never more cleverly dis- played.
