The debate was concluded on Thursday, Sir Wilfrid Lawson opening
it with a very violent speech, in which he spoke of the Bill as the product of a "criminal conspiracy against order, justice, and morality," and predicted that the day was not far distant when " th2 policy of the Government would be con- damned and reversed by an angry and outraged nation." The Home Secretary followed in a temperate speech, to which Mr. Gladstone made a rather artificial and ineffective reply, on some parts of which we have dwelt elsewhere, one inconsistent with his own previous positions, and which wound itself up at the close into an enthusiasm that somehow did not ring very naturally. The best speech of the debate WS Mr. W. H. Smith's short and very pithy answer to Sir William Harcourt, with which it concluded. On the division, Mr. Caine's amendment was rejected by 339 votes against 266, a majority of 73, in a House of 605, or, including the Speaker and the tellers, 610 Members. Mr. Finlay was the only dis- tinguished Liberal Unionist, except Mr. Caine, who voted against the Government.
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