Mr. Bright's position on the Home-rule Question is not yet
defined; but his letter to the Lancashire Committee in relation to Lord Hartington's attitude, sufficiently shows that he, at all events, thinks that attitude perfectly consistent with the most sturdy Liberalism, and probably that he in some degree shares it. "It would be a calamity for this country," he writes, "if measures of such transcendent magnitude were to be accepted on the authority of a leader of a party, or of a Minister, however eminent, and that no other member of the party was to be per- mitted to hold or to express strong doubts, or even adverse opinions, of the measures proposed. For constituencies to accept this system would be to betray their value in the working of
representative institutions." He adds that those great measures have been introduced without any sufficient preparation of the public mind, and that this is the real cause of the split in the Liberal Party.
