Lord Rosebery had very little to say in reply. He
regretted keenly the death of Lord Swansea, who had been so fall of enthusiasm for the Disestabliahment of the Welsh Church, and hoped Lord Battersea would take up the role of Lord Swansea. He excused the Government for recommending no relief for agriculture, on the ground that the Commission on Agricultural Depression had not yet reported. He denied that he could with any propriety have stated to Parliament what he proposed to do by resolution in the House of Commons. That would have been most disrespectful to that House. And be denied that he had said things on this subject incon- sistent with each other. He hoped that the Irish Land Bill might be really carried in the Lords, and was not hopeless as to the Local Option Bill. And he qu;zzed Lord Salisbury for his own very feeble and abandoned measure for the reform of the House of Lords. His speech was little more than an array of words,—fencing with words for the most part. The Duke of Devonshire, who held out hopes to Mr. John Morley, that if be would be moderate in regard to the Irish Land Bill, the Liberal Unionists might help him to carry it, delivered the only practical speech of the evening in the Lords.
