those grouped around us who
had been expelled. The first did not know what course they would
have to take; that depended on the secret counsels of another
mind. To keep to the _drapeau_ was the guiding motive, as has been
since the creed and practice of Peel were subverted by the
opposite principles of Disraeli, who on a franchise question had
his peer colleagues at his feet. Besides these, other divisions
had to be recognised. The Salisbury secession from the government,
supported by Sir W. Heathcote and Beresford Hope, was high in
character, but absolutely insignificant in numbers. There was
Lowe, so great among the Adullamites of 1866, but almost alone
among them in the singleness and strength of his opposition to
reform. There was the bulk of the Adullamite body, unable to place
themselves in declared opposition to the liberal mass, but many of
them disposed to tamper with the question, and to look kindly on
the tory government as the power which would most surely keep down
any enlargement of the franchise to its minimum. It would be idle
to discuss the successive plans submitted by the government to the
House of Commons with an unexampled rapidity. The governing idea
of the man who directed the party seemed to be not so much to
consider what ought to be proposed and carried, as to make sure
that, whatever it was, it should be proposed and carried by those
now in power. The bill on which the House of Commons eventually
proceeded was a measure, I should suppose, without precedent or
parallel, as, on the other hand it was, for the purpose of the
hour, and as the work of a government in a decided minority, an
extraordinary stroke of parliamentary success. Our position, on
the other hand, was this: (1) We felt that if household suffrage
were to be introduced into the boroughs, it ought to be a real
household suffrage. (2) The existing state of our legislation,
under which a large majority of the householders made no
disbursement of rates, but paid them without distinction in their
rent, showed that a bill professedly for household suffrage, but
taking no notice of compounding, would be in the first place a
lottery, and in the second an imposture. Some towns would have
large enfranchisement, some none at all, and no principle but the
accidental state of local law would determine o