of it.  Was Gladstone going to end his days in baffled purpose, in melancholy retirement, with the great last solemn issue of his life ended in puerile fiasco and farcical anarchy, instead of in the picture of two nations reconciled, an empire strengthened and ennobled, all humanity lifted to higher possibilities of brotherhood and concord, by the peaceful close of the bloody and hideous struggle of centuries?  Think of it all, I say, and then go also in imagination to the door of the House of Commons, and see a Scotch Liberal fighting for dear life to bring into the Tory lobby the necessary number of misguided and ignorant neophytes to bring down this disastrous catastrophe.

[Sidenote:  Why no signal?]

Meantime, confusion still reigned on the Liberal benches.  Men were confused, and bewildered, and irresolute, and frightened, conscience of calamitous danger, and yet unable to understand it all.  And here let me say that this state of confusion was due partly to bad leadership.  There is a want of cohesion—­on this day in particular—­on the Treasury bench.  Mr. Gladstone, like all ardent natures, takes too much on himself.  He is, of course, a tower of strength—­twenty men are not such as he.  But the burden cannot all be borne by one shoulder—­especially at a portion of the sitting when, by a strict interpretation of the rules of the House, Mr. Gladstone is allowed to speak but once.  Why were these scattered and young and inexperienced troops not told, by their leaders, of the vast issues involved in this coming vote?  Why were not all the sophistries brushed away, by which the conspirators against the Government were hiding the real effect and purpose of the votes?  Sir William Harcourt is an old Parliamentary hand; Mr. John Morley is excellent when a few words are required to meet a crisis; Mr. Asquith—­keen, alert, alive to all that is going on—­sits at Mr. Gladstone’s side.  Why were all these lips dumb?  It made one almost rage or weep, to see the uncertain battle thus left unguided and uncontrolled.

[Sidenote:  Mr. Goschen to the rescue.]

At last a saviour, but he came from the ranks of the enemy.  Mr. Goschen swept away the network of cobwebs under which Liberals had hidden the issues, and boldly declared the real issue.  And that issue was, that Mr. Gladstone wanted time to push forward his Home Rule Bill, and that the Tory party was determined to prevent him getting that time if they could manage it.  Where be now the hysterics about private members and simple issues and small questions?  The issue lies naked and clear before the House.  But still victory isn’t assured.  Mr. Goschen with his thick utterance, his muffled voice, his loss of grip and point, has ceased to be listened to very attentively in the House of Commons; and this speech—­the most significant yet delivered—­passes almost unnoticed, except by those who know the House of Commons and watch its moods and every word.  The last and decisive word has yet to come.