action in Ireland he showed to have been identical with that for which the noble Earl and his colleagues now denounce the Government, and whose inaccuracy and inconsistency he thoroughly exposed. And yet, in the face of an indictment so grave and so important, the leaders of the Opposition sat resolutely dumb. Lords Granville, Kimberley, Spencer, Herschell, Ripon, and Rosebery were all present, but by mutual assent all remained silent under the charges which were brought against them. They allowed judgment to go by default, and the resolution of the Duke of Argyll to be adopted nemine contradicente by the august assembly for whose adoption it had been proposed. The House was full of peers who had assembled for the expected debate; the gallery was crammed with peeresses; the space reserved for members of the House of Commons was thronged; and around the throne peers' eldest sons and Privy Councillors were crowded together in unusual numbers. Among the latter stood Sir George Trevelyan, who had the pleasure of hearing himself oratorically flayed by the Duke of Argyll for his participation in the abuse of Mr Balfour for his alleged treatment of the Irish members with a contempt which Sir George himself had, at least on one occasion, displayed in a degree far exceeding that of his successor. Within a few days came an opportunity for the valiant Sir George to declare that he "would have given a hundred pounds to have been able to reply to the Duke then and there;" and doubtless the ardent Gladstonian sympathisers around him believed and applauded to the echo. But during the speech of the Duke of Argyll the front Opposition bench was filled with the late colleagues of Sir George Trevelyan, who, without the pecuniary sacrifice which that doughty champion professed himself so willing to have made, could have risen in their places and defended him and themselves if there had been any defence to make. Sir George Trevelyan may settle with those colleagues the implied censure which he casts upon them in his empty profession of anxiety to have given that answer to the Duke of Argyll which they declined to give. The public will judge after its own fashion of the unworthy and unprecedented course adopted by the Gladstonian leaders in the House of Lords. It is more than probable that they imagined that they were in some inscrutable manner casting a slight upon the mover of the resolution, by treating it with silent disregard. If so, never was a more fatal mistake committed by a political party. The character and position of the Duke of Argyll are too high and too secure to be affected by such puerile tactics; and the Opposition leaders have simply placed themselves in the position of men who are unable to reply to charges deliberately brought against them, and supported by arguments which, if answerable at all, they were bound in honour, and in justice to their followers as well as to themselves, to have answered fully and at once. Such, however, was not the policy of those who are guided by the advice, and who imitate the tactics, of the "old parliamentary hand." Upon the principle that "least said is soonest mended," they maintained a silence which, but for their subsequent denial, would have been universally considered
