Mr. Gladstone in reply made the best defence he could
of this ill-starred measure. The Government would never have brought in the Bill if they had thought that the effects of it would be to bring about a permanent and material increase in the cost of coal. "He had not said that the Bill as it stood was the Bill which the Government meant and intended to pass into law in its exact present form. It was open to amendment." At the same time, he did not accept the view that the effect of the Bill would be anything like what had been stated. In thanking Mr. Gladstone, Sir Hugh Bell remarked that "after what the Home Secretary had said their fears were rather increased than lessened." The Bill is another example of the Government's policy of bringing in measures in which they do not really believe in order to satisfy the extremists on their own side. To do that is neither wise nor honest, and matters are not improved by hints that they do not really like their own measures, and by the expression of wild hopes that somehow or other they will be able to amend them and make them less unjust and impracticable. Nothing but disaster can come of such tactics.
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