Lord Rosebery on Saturday last made a speech at a
breakfast given at Huddersfield to the Liberal agents and secretaries of the various Liberal organisations, on the subject of the peerages he had bestowed on two Members of the Gladstonian party, for which be had been severely attacked. The drift of his speech was that his attack on the political power of the House of Lords did not at all involve the notion that fit Members should never be added to that House, but that, nevertheless, be had not wished to make any new Peers, and should not have done so bad not Mr. Gladstone represented to him that he was honour- ably pledged to give the two peerages subsequently be- stowed by Lord Rosebery, but which Mr. Gladstone himself before his retirement could not give without losing two votes for his party in the House of Commons. However, it was not true that it was his own wish to create the new Peerages, and it was not true that they were given as an equivalent for large subscriptions to the funds of the Gladstonian party. Of course, every one will accept Lord Rosebery's statement as absolutely true, and it exonerates him from the responsibility for the creation of those peerages. But was it so very heavy a responsibility that he should have been eager to disclaim it? Is it not rather faint-hearted in him to sink exhausted under so very mild a responsibility as that ? Is it not rather like the Princess who could not sleep if there were but a crumpled rose-leaf to disturb the smoothness of her bed ?
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