The Pall Mall Gazette of Monday gave a remarkable account,
which we have the best reason to believe accurate, of the circumstances which led to Lord Rosebery's resignation of the leadership of the party. It declared that Lord Rose- bcry steadily opposed in the Cabinet Sir William Harcourt's Death-duties, but was overruled by the majority of his colleagues, just as Sir William Harcourt had been steadily opposed to the Uganda railway, but was likewise overruled by the majority of his colleagues. The overruling of the Prime Minister's view by his lieutenant on a matter of such first-rate importance had led, however, to very severe asperities, and after the defeat of the late Govern- ment and the crushing of the party at the polls, the necessity for a modus vivendi was removed, and the truce itself seems to have expired with the first council of ex-Ministers held to consider the Queen's Speech last February. On that occasion Lord Itosebery wrote to Lord Spencer (at whose house the ex-Cabinet meeting was held) that the leader of the party generally would hold no more relations with the leader of the party in the House of Commons, and a copy of this letter was also sent to Sir William Harcourt to prevent mistakes. Nevertheless, the complete break between the two leaders was not made known to the world at large for another eight months, when Lord Rosebery availed himself of his dissatisfaction with Mr. Gladstone's Armenian speech in Liverpool to rid him- self of the impossible position of leading a lieutenant who would not be led, and whom, as a Member of the House of Commons, he could never confront. Never was there a more excellent illustration of Lord Dundreary's thesis that if the tail were stronger than the dog, the tail world wag the dog. Sir William Harcourt did wag his leader, and has at last wagged him off into apace.
