The most damaging speech made against the Government was Mr.
Denman's, for he showed that, by some of the House of Com- mons at least, the notion of expressly qualifying the Attorney and 'Solicitor-General for a direct appointment to the Judicial Com- mittee of the Privy Council had been considered and rejected. He had himself been asked to move an amendment to the Bill in that sense, and had declined. Nothing could illustrate more powerfully 'the danger—likely, as Lord Salisbury said, to spring from such steps as this,—that the House of Commons would become suspicious of -the way in which Government might manipulate and strain the -the Acts to which Parliament had agreed; for here are a knot of men .who had carefully considered the point of qualifying Attorneys- 'General for the Judicial Committee and rejected it, and who then -find that the Act is, after all, worked so as to qualify them with- -out any provision having been introduced for that purpose. Mr. Gathorne Hardy was hot, Mr. Disraeli did not speak, and Mr. Gladstone's reply was as good as it could be under the circum- stances,—good-tempered, dignified, perfectly candid, and inade- quate. The Government only obtained a majority of 27 in a house of 513 (including tellers),-268 to 241.
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