Mr. Chamberlain frankly confessed that he thought it essential to
put off the second reading till after the holidays, in order that the constituencies might have the power of con- ferring with their representatives on the many new and com- plex proposals in Mr. Gladstone's measure, and this was treated by Sir W. Harcourt as a frank confession of an in- tention to obstruct. Mr. Gladstone had been sent for by the Queen in the middle of the debate, and thereby the leader- ship fell to Sir W. Harcourt, who bad the bad taste and ill- luck to treat as merely obstructive on Friday a course to which he had to bow on Monday as representing the evident purpose of the House of Commons. For on that day the second reading was finally postponed till after Easter, to the great dismay of the Irish Home-rulers and the disgust of the Radicals, who have set their hearts on driving about fourteen omnibuses abreast through Temple Bar. But Friday week's debate revealed the extreme weakness of the Government, who found no better reason for a Saturday sitting in March and for the most hurried procedure on the greatest of all constitutional revolutions, than the fact that the Government had gained a majority of 40 at the General Election for Home-rule and the Newcastle programme, though, without counting the Irish Members of the party, they would have been in a minority of 40. On the same principles, how soon might not the late Government have asked for Saturday sittings to put down the "Plan of Campaign "P
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