Lord Midleton, speaking at Harewood on Saturday, dwelt on the
downhill course of the Ministry and the startling decline in their majorities, and alluded in caustic terms to the scuttle of Ministerialists into the House of Lords. Lord Midleton's indictment can not be altogether set down to excess of party zeal. On the day on which he spoke there appeared in the Nation an article on " Some Tendencies of Political Management," from which we extract the following passages :—
"We suppose that never in the history of party have 'honours' been distributed with so lavish a hand as during the last three or four years. . . . We should be afraid to say how many peerages, baronetcies, and knighthoods have been allotted to Liberals under the last three Administrations. . . . Social equality is still a highly remote ideal in British life, but we ought to feel that every fresh invasion of Liberalism brings it nearer. Yet a Liberal Government which achieves this tremendous output of titles, and at the same time is moved by its own manifest destiny to work against the House of Lords and cripple its control, makes men feel either that politics are not sincere, or that `honours' divorced from social functions and responsibilities are of real account, or that there is no great future for democracy which lets slip from one hand all the strength it gathers in the other."
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