Gladstone humbly conceives that, according
to the well-known principles of our parliamentary government, an
opposition which has in this manner and degree contributed to
bring about what we term a crisis, is bound to use and to show
that it has used its utmost efforts of counsel and inquiry to
exhaust all practicable means of bringing its resources to the aid
of the country in its exigency. He is aware that his opinion on
such a subject can only be of slight value, but the same
observation will not hold good with regard to the force of a
well-established party usage. To show what that usage has been,
Mr. Gladstone is obliged to trouble your Majesty with the
following recital of facts from the history of the last half
century.... [_This apt and cogent recital the reader will find at
the end of the volume, see _Appendix_._]... There is, therefore, a
very wide difference between the manner in which the call of your
Majesty has been met on this occasion by the leader of the
opposition, and the manner which has been observed at every former
juncture, including even those when the share taken by the
opposition in bringing about the exigency was comparatively slight
or none at all. It is, in Mr. Gladstone's view, of the utmost
importance to the public welfare that the nation should be
constantly aware that the parliamentary action certain or likely
to take effect in the overthrow of a government; the reception and
treatment of a summons from your Majesty to meet the necessity
which such action has powerfully aided in creating; and again the
resumption of office by those who have deliberately laid it
down,--are uniformly viewed as matters of the utmost gravity,
requiring time, counsel, and deliberation among those who are
parties to them, and attended with serious responsibilities. Mr.
Gladstone will not and does not suppose that the efforts of the
opposition to defeat the government on Wednesday morning were made
with a previously formed intention on their part to refuse any aid
to your Majesty, if the need should arise, in providing for the
government of the country; and the summary refusal, which is the
only fact before him, he takes to be not in full correspondence
either with the exigencies of the case, or as he has shown, with
the parliamentary usage. In humbly submitting this rep