On Thursday night the House of Commons were asked to
debate the question whether or not the Proclamation fairly carries out the engagements given by the Government in relation to the limitation and localisation of the new title of " Empress " in India ; and it was on this question, and exclusively on this ques- tion, that Sir Henry James and the other Members of the Oppo- sition spoke, but it cannot be said that any question at all like it was debated by the supporters of the Government. The temper of the House was. indeed very unfavourable to impartial argument. Dr. Kenealy made his first success, by a violent attack on the leaders of the Opposition, which was cheered by the Government benches as though some heroic figure from the skies had suddenly descended to their aid, in the form of the champion of the Claimant ; Lord Elcho delighted the Tories by terming Sir _Henry James, the ablest "light-weight" who could be found to ride a hopeless race on behalf of. the Opposition ; and Sir Robert Peel was applauded to the echo for characterising Sir Henry James's speech as "a very bad one,"—a brilliant stroke of wit, which told so well that he actually repeated it without variation later in his speech, but naturally found its charm somewhat diminished on the second trial. On the whole, the debate was one in which argument and sober criticism were pitted against an impatient sense of power, keenly conscious of the profound in- difference of the English masses to the subject in debate, and imperiously demanding, as of right, that the iaxest possible interpretation should be put upon the Government's spontaneous, distinct, and carefully reiterated pledges.
