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public, there, gentlemen, we, the liberal party, have no friendship and no tolerance to expect. Above all these, and behind all these, there is something greater than these--there is the nation itself. This great trial is now proceeding before the nation. The nation is a power hard to rouse, but when roused, harder still and more hopeless to resist.... I figure to myself those who have constituted the majority of the late House of Commons as the persons arraigned, and the constituencies of the country as those who are called together in the solemn order of the constitution to hear the evidence, and to pronounce the verdict. That evidence has been pretty largely given. That verdict we await. We have none of the forms of a judicial trial. There are no peers in Westminster Hall, there are no judges on the woolsack; but if we concentrate our minds upon the truth of the case as apart from its mere exterior, it is a grander and a more august spectacle than was ever exhibited either in Westminster Hall or in the House of Lords. For a nation, called to undertake a great and responsible duty,--a duty which is to tell, as we are informed from high authority, on the peace of Europe and on the destinies of England,--has found its interests mismanaged, its honour tarnished, and its strength burdened and weakened by needless, mischievous, unauthorised, and unprofitable engagements, and it has resolved that this state of things shall cease, and that right and justice shall be done.(362) (M197) Mr. Gladstone was already member for Leeds. So far back as the March of 1878 Sir James Kitson had written to ask him to become a candidate for the great city of the West Siding, but Mr. Gladstone declined the proposal. Then a deputation came to him in Harley Street, and he made them a speech on the Eastern question, but avoided any reference to the subject which they had come to handle. The stout Yorkshiremen were not to be baffled, and Mr. Gladstone, nominated without action of his own, was now returned by the unprecedented vote of 24,622.(363) He was right in calling the Leeds election "one of the most conspicuous and imposing victories ever won for the liberal cause."(364) Still public interest was concentrated upon Midlothian, and the might with which he prevailed over men's minds there, was admitted by his foes to be the most impressive tribute ev
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