Mr. Childers also made some very weighty comments on the
growth of personal government under Lord Beaconsfield,—" the personal government of the Minister, using and misusing the Sovereign's name and the Sovereign's powers." The great feature of this Government bad been, he said, the degradation of Parlia- ment. " The favourite method is mystery and secrecy. In- formation is withheld, evasive answers, if not worse, come from Secretaries of State ; papers are promised in a few days, and kept for three or four months ; assurances are given, true perhaps in the letter, but anything but true in the spirit." And so Parlia- ment is degraded, one of Lord Beaconsfield's favourite aims for forty years back. " The House of Commons is to be reduced to something like the old French Parliament, registering the decrees of the Ministers, with the power, indeed, to protest, and perhaps to censure, but with the knowledge that it can only disapprove what has already been done in the Sovereign's name." When Mr. Childers thrusts home like this, we may feel pretty sure that the Liberal leaders are not likely to desert us again. The " time to keep silence " seems over, at last.
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