On Monday night, there was a " breach of privilege
" dis- cussion, raised by Mr. Chamberlain, on the admittedly fictitious report of Thursday week's proceedings in Monday's Daily News, intended as it was to give the impression that Mr. Chamberlain had organised the interruptions of Mr. Glad- stone's speech of Thursday week, and had treated the Prime Minister with marked disrespect. The only speaker who ventured to assert that the Daily News' report was really faith- ful,—a pretension which the Daily News itself repudiated,--was Mr. T. P. O'Connor, but his view was declared simply baseless by Mr. Gladstone himself, by Mr. Hunter, by the Chairman of Committees (Mr. Mellor), and by Mr. Balfour. As we have given our own view of this matter in another column, we need only say that Mr. Gladstone treated the matter with his usual courtesy, dignity, and absolute freedom from anything approaching to pique. Age, he said, had many disadvantages, but it had at lead one great advantage, in teaching by experience lessons which could not otherwise be learned; and no one who had even a fraction of his experience in that House could fail to be persuaded that very great allowance must be made "for sentiments and emotions which cannot be suppressed."
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