Mr. Gladstone, however, though he ended by expressing his concurrence in the resolution proposed by his chief, used very different language respecting the vote of the House of Lords, characterizing it as “a gigantic innovation, the most gigantic and the most dangerous that had been attempted in our time,” since “the origination of a bill for the imposition of a tax, or the amendment of a money-bill, was a slight thing compared with the claim to prevent the repeal of a tax;” and, dealing with assertions which he had heard, that in this instance “the House of Commons had been very foolish and the House of Lords very wise,” he asked whether that really described the constitution under which we live.  The House of Commons could not be infallible in matters of finance more than in other matters.  It might make errors, but he demanded to know whether those errors in finance were or were not liable to correction by the House of Lords.  If they were, “what became of the privileges of the Commons?” On the other hand, Mr. Disraeli, as leader of the Opposition or Conservative party, supported the resolutions, and applauded the speech of the Prime-minister, as “a wise, calm, and ample declaration of a cabinet that had carefully and deliberately considered this important subject.  It had acknowledged that the conduct of the Lords was justified by law and precedent, and sanctioned by policy,” and he maintained that it showed that “the charge made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer was utterly untenable, and had no foundation.”  And Mr. Horsman, taking a large general view of the legitimate working of the parliamentary constitution, argued that, while it was an undoubted rule that “all taxes should originate with the Commons, as that elective and more immediately responsible assembly that is constantly referred back to the constituencies, the reviewing power of a permanent and independent chamber was no less essential;” and that, considering that “the Reform Bill of 1832 had given a preponderance of powers to the Commons, and that the tendency of any farther Reform Act must be in the same direction, so far from narrowing the field of action for the peers, the wiser alternative might be to adopt a generous construction of their powers, with a view to preserving the equilibrium that is held to be essential to the safety and well-working of the constitution.  The House of Commons,” he concluded, “is perpetually assuming fresh powers and establishing new precedents.  Virtually all bills now originate with the Commons; but this is not the consequence of any aggressive spirit in them, but is the necessary and inevitable result of the historic working of the constitution; and so this act of the Lords was but the natural working of the constitution to meet a definite emergency.”  The resolutions were passed, the first and third without a division; the second, to which an amendment had been proposed, designed to limit the force of the precedents alleged as justifying the act of the Lords,