The great speech of Monday was Lord Cranborne's. Lord Stanley's
speech, he said, had kept the policy of the Government veiled in a thicker mist of ambiguity than any Delphic oracle's utterance. He satirized the ambiguous admission of Lord Stanley's amendment that "considerable modifications in the temporalities" of the Irish Church were necessary, asking what anybody would think if a man on the other side of the hedge expressed his opinion that "considerable modifications " in the money in the traveller's purse were needful. He declared that Mr. Disraeli was at his cross-fishing again, trying to catch the clergy by his no-surrender letter, and the reformers by Lord Stanley's hint that the education of the party was going on, and not yet complete. He warned both Tories and Radicals not to trust the Ministry, as no one of them could tell "under which thimble,"—that of no surrender or reform,—" the pea" would be ultimately found. Such conduct was dishonouring alike to the House of Commons and the Cabinet, and threatened the whole principle of parliamentary government. Lord Cranborne's tone alternated from that of his most contemptuous and biting sarcasm to that of his most earnest and impressive conviction, and he sat down overwhelmed with cheers, not a few of which came from the Ministerial benches below the gangway.
