With regard to political prospects, Sir William Harcourt was very
sanguine. The first day of the new Parliament would, he said, be the last day of the present Administration; and he offered as evidence of the revolution in public opinion, first, the great Scotch demonstration to Mr. Gladstone ; next, the Liberal victories in Elginshire and Donegal; lastly, the Liberal victory at Sheffield, won by no concession to the Home-rulers, though at the cost of a party whose chiefs had made a Home-ruler the Lord-Lieutenant of the county of Roscommon. Sir William Harcourt insisted, with a good deal of emphasis, that the demonstration to Mr. Gladstone was rendered possible only by the ex-Prime Minister's " having proclaimed his retreat from the active career of official life," to which renunciation apparently Sir William Harcourt was anxious to pin the Liberal party, as well as Mr. Gladstone him- self. As for Mr. Gladstone, there is no need to pin him to that which, as is well known, he sincerely desires. As for the Liberal party, they are perfectly aware to whom they owe the return of the country to moral sanity, and they will not,—unless they are compelled to do so,—ignore the master-mind of the movement, in favour of any of the clever expositors who have, more or less reluctantly, echoed his counsels and reflected his convictions.
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