But here comes in a feature, a natural but none the less a regrettable feature, of the English party system.  As the object of the party in opposition is to turn out the party in power and seat itself in their place, every Opposition regards with the strongest prejudice the measures proposed by a ruling Ministry.  Cases sometimes occur where these measures are so obviously necessary, or so evidently approved by the nation, that the Opposition accepts them.  But in general it scans them with a hostile eye.  Human nature is human nature; and when the defeat of Government can be secured by defeating a Government Bill, the temptation to the Opposition to secure it is irresistible.  Now, the Tory party is far more cohesive than the Liberal party, far more obedient to its leaders, far less disposed to break into sections, each of which thinks and acts for itself.  Accordingly, that division of opinion in the Tory party which might have been expected, and which would have occurred if those who composed the Tory party had been merely so many reflecting men, and not members of a closely compacted political organization, did not occur.  Liberals were divided, as such a question would naturally divide them.  Tories were not divided; they threw their whole strength against the Bill.  I am far from suggesting that they did so against their consciences.  Whatever may be said as to two or three of the leaders, whose previous language and conduct seemed to indicate that they would themselves, had the election of 1885 gone differently, have been inclined to a Home Rule policy, many of the Tory chiefs, as well as the great mass of the party, honestly disapproved Mr. Gladstone’s measure.  But their party motives and party affiliations gave it no chance of an impartial verdict at their hands.  They went into the jury-box with an invincible prepossession against the scheme of their opponents.  When all these difficulties are duly considered, and especially when regard is had to those which I have last enumerated, the suddenness with which the new policy was launched, and the fact that as coming from one party it was sure beforehand of the hostility of the other, no surprise can be felt at its fate.  Those who, in England, now look back over the spring and summer of 1886 are rather surprised that it should come so near succeeding.  To have been rejected by a majority of only thirty in Parliament, and of little over ten per cent. of the total number of electors who voted at the general election, is a defeat far less severe than any one who knew England would have predicted.

That the decision of the country is regarded by nobody as a final decision goes without saying.  It was not regarded as final, even in the first weeks after it was given.  This was not because the majority was comparatively small, for a smaller majority the other way would have been conclusive.  It is because the country had not time enough for full consideration and deliberate judgment.  The Bill was brought