testations swore eternal loyalty to their chief. The next thing they did was to desert him almost to a man. What their motive was, we cannot altogether guess. Probably they felt that Mr Parnell's power was broken, and were minded to make a return for years of slavery and insult. Nor can we attempt to apportion among them the many various qualities which they collectively displayed. Yet, perhaps, the palm may be justly awarded to Mr Dillon for lachrymose incapacity; to Mr William O'Brien for neurotic fatuity; and to Mr T. P. O'Connor for the prompt and unswerving determination to be on the winning side at all hazards. We cannot repress a feeling of admiration, and almost of respect, when we think of this Parnell-Acteon set upon by his pack of hounds, of this indomitable man wounded in the house of his friends. - We do not profess to have laid any very startling or novel information before our readers. We are very sensible that in one point of view our words have been but "cauld kail het again," an old story retold. We have stated nothing-Mr Parnell's biographer has stated nothing - which was not already matter either of certain knowledge or of legitimate inference for every intelligent and patriotic citizen. But our story will bear more than one telling, and there are two particular reasons which have induced us thus to trespass upon the indulgence of the public. In the first place, it is a striking, though by no means a surpris ing, circumstance that what we may call the "stalwart" Conservative or Unionist view of Mr Parnell has turned out to be the true one. We alleged that he was the inexorable enemy of England, and the proposition was hotly contradicted. No attempt can now be made to deny it. We maintained that he pulled the strings of crime to suit his policy, and the contention was vehemently disputed. Its soundness cannot now be seriously questioned. We asserted that he aimed not at some glorified form of local self-government, but at the practical independence of Ireland. No one would now think it worth his while to challenge so well-worn a commonplace. The moral is, that Tories ought to have the courage of their opinions. In the second place, it is very desirable to prevent the Gladstonian Liberals from quietly forgetting certain disagreeable and inconvenient facts. At the present time, they are displaying an affected willingness to let the question of Home Rule sink into the background. But there is no knowing when it may come to the front again; and nothing will be more apt to confirm them in their resolutions of amendment than an occasional reminder of the bitter humiliations which an alliance with rebels and law-breakers has entailed upon them. one can doubt that many Gladstonians are genuinely patriotic at heart, and that they have little relish for the company of politicians who wish nothing but ill to this country. un No But THE LOOKER-ON. THE RADICAL SPLIT: HOW PLEASING TO OUR FRIENDS ABROAD-THE SECRET OF SIR EDMUND MONSON'S SPEECH-THE BETTER WAY WITH MR GLADSTONE'S BIOGRAPHY: TWO HARMONIOUS CONTRIBUTIONS THERETO-BROWNING'S OWN STORY ABOUT MR DISRAELI. PREPARATION for Christmas festivities includes the sending of magazines to press before the usual time-a disadvantage to writers therein, when great surprises may not have exhausted their developments. Yet there is nothing mysterious in the withdrawal of Sir William Harcourt from the Liberal leadership in the House of Commons,. nor should there be any more doubt of what is intended by it than of what occasioned it. But these are points that will be commonly agreed upon, I think, before 'Maga' makes her curtsey to the new year. Personal considerations cannot be kept out of party politics, and never are kept out. Though the courteous assumption is that they have little to do with the politics of today, retrospect invariably discovers that they had much to do with the politics of yesterday. On the occasion of Sir William Harcourt's retirement they were for once avowed, as the determining motive of a decision which must have large consequences. The avowal is made in Sir William's letter to Mr Morley, and in Mr Morley's hot reply; and this is what it comes to. Sir William Harcourt and Lord Rosebery cannot work together in the same Goverment; and as often as not the blame for so unfortunate an incompatibility is thrown upon Sir William Harcourt, being explained by the "personal proscription demanded by his views, ambitions, antagonisms. But he repudiates the blame altogether, casting it upon Lord Rosebery; and when the divided, discontented, enfeebled rank and file of Liberalism begin to think of ending so unpromising a state of things by definitely settling its leadership, Sir William declares that he "will not consent to be a candidate for any contested position"; nor, further, "to lead a party rent by sectional disputes and personal interests." He resigns a "disputed leadership,' and will henceforth do his duty to the Liberal party from an independent position in the House of Commons. Mr Morley agrees with and companions him. "Personal proscription " being the charge aimed from either side at the other, Lord Rosebery would have nothing to fear were evidence taken from the beginning of a long game of crosspurposes. It would then appear that years before Mr Gladstone resigned the Liberal leadership, his more powerful colleagues in the House of Commons had al ready decided against Lord Rosebery as his successor. All just means were to be taken to exclude him from the command of the party whenever the occasion might arise; and that was a matter agreed upon. I daresay it might be argued that personal proscription was not intended that the proscribers had none but political motives for their determination. Perhaps they thought him too moderate in his Radicalism-some of them did, indeed; while to all it was already known that he gave as much importance to the watchful conduct of foreign affairs as to legislation, and was deeply imbued with the continuity-of-foreign-policy principle. How soon he was to be justified they could not foresee, and meanwhile these were Tory ideas, Tory principles, to them. Therefore, of course they were objectionable; but that he was a member of the House of Lords was a stronger reason still. Concentration of ministerial authority in the House of Commons, and particularly the presence there of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, were greatly desired by the Gladstonian captains in that House. A peer might be Prime Minister, but on one condition only-the figurehead or dummy condition. There was no likelihood, how ever, that Lord Rosebery would consent to it, and that completed the case against him. He was to be excluded. His opponents may call that personal proscription; but if so, what proscription more personal, or less truly the dictate of lawful political differences, has been attempted against any of themselves? It will be surprising, indeed, if anything of the kind can be alleged, or if the one party can deny the influence of personal ambition, the hope of personal advancement, more veraciously than the other. Probably because he was aware of the feeling against him, Lord Rosebery declined to take office on a certain occasion, and did so over and over again; at length submitted to persuasion; did afterwards accept the post of Prime Minister; believes, rightly or wrongly, that the feeling against him as a man in the wrong place amongst his colleagues was excessive; and presently resigned the leadership altogether. From that hour there were two factions in the Liberal party on this same question of leadershipa Rosebery faction and a Harcourt faction; and it happens that the whole drift of affairs since then has carried the Liberal party over toward the leader in exile, and away from the leader in office. The spirit which the one would call national and the other would call jingo is not a thing of spontaneous generation. borne in upon the country from abroad - we all know how. Liberals no more than other sorts of Englishmen can resist its appeal. Unwillingly (for what provokes it was quite out of their calculations) some of their leaders have given way to it. But Sir William Harcourt and Mr Morley will not give way. It has been To find sufficient reason for what they have done, therefore, it is enough to consider what their position in the House of Commons would have been, next it, triumphing with it over the session, seated in the forefront "faction" before which he now of the Liberal party. They retires. Since he holds his must have sat there dumb. Manchester creed sincerely, this Domestic legislation? With is for him the most conscienhis usual providence in such tious course, no doubt; since, as matters, Mr Chamberlain has he stands, he is a beaten man, looked to that, persuading his he chooses the most lively and colleagues to force the Opposi- promising tactics open to him tion into acquiescent silence or as a fighter; and inasmuch as else into grateful praise. Be- he succeeds his conscience and hold the programme. State his pride will rejoice together. aid to working men to buy How many eggs may go to the their dwelling-houses; measure omelette is, of course, a question for local government in Scot- apart. Yet by how much, while land; a bill for London gov- he does his duty to his party in ernment that will please all this way, he will exasperate the parishes and trouble no- the "sectional disputes and body out of them; secondary sharpen the "personal interests education; provision for the which he complains of as dissafety and health of persons tracting and degrading it, should engaged in dangerous trades, be considered; and also what -how much there is here for likelihood there is that some of generous acceptance, and how the stronger and worthier spirits little promise of anything to amongst Liberal leading men bite upon! While as to the may be driven by these dismore pressing question of for- putes into a retirement more eign affairs, Sir William Har- complete than his own. court knows not what might happen to embarrass him yet more as Liberal leader, but does know of votes and things under which he would have to remain speechless, or else speak and give violent offence to the greater number of Liberals in the country. In Resignation, therefore. dependence. Freedom to resist the spirit of imperialism, freedom to urge his own old views of foreign policy, which are the Manchester views, and of course orthodox where he sits in the House of Commons. He probably believes, as others do, that reaction against the detested imperial spirit is not far off, and, so believing, looks for the gratification of heading it, speeding That alone would be a large price to pay for reconverting the country to Manchester principles in foreign policy, proved failures as they must be wherever they are tried. At present, however, the hopes of the reactionists seem to depend almost entirely on the Law of the Pendulum; but they are not favoured by that alone. Most of the greater Continental Governments will be only too delighted to assist the efforts of any English party desirous of winning the country from all suspicion of the foreigner, and from these extravagant preparations of defence against enmity and rivalry. He, too, finds the suspicion objectionable, believes these excessive |