wn authority. His party was--as
the Tory party usually is--compact and loyal; and his majority ample,
so he had no reason to fear defeat. In the conflicts that arose over
Eastern affairs in 1877-79, affairs at some moments highly critical,
he was cautious and adroit, more cautious than Lord Beaconsfield,
sometimes repairing by moderate language the harm which the latter's
theatrical utterances had done. When a group of Irish Nationalist
members, among whom Mr. Parnell soon came to the front, began to evade
the rules and paralyse the action of the House by obstructive tactics,
he was less successful. Their ingenuity baffled the Ministry, and
brought the House into sore straits. But it may be doubted whether
any leader could have overcome the difficulties of the position. It
was a new position. The old rules framed under quite different
conditions were not fit to check members who, far from regarding the
sentiments of the House, avowed their purpose to reduce it to
impotence, and thereby obtain that Parliament of their own, which
could alone, as they held, cure the ills of Ireland.

After ten years of struggle and experiment, drastic remedies for
obstruction were at last devised; but in the then state of opinion
within the House, those remedies could not have been carried. Members
accustomed to the old state of things could not for a good while make
up their minds to sacrifice part of their own privileges in order to
deal with a difficulty the source of which they would not attempt to
cure. On the whole, therefore, though he was blamed at the time,
Northcote may be deemed to have passed creditably through his first
period of leadership.

It was when he had to lead his party in Opposition, after April 1880,
that his severest trial came. To lead the minority is usually easier
than to lead the majority. A leader of the Opposition also must, no
doubt, take swift decisions in the midst of a debate, must consider
how far he is pledging his party to a policy which they may be
required to maintain when next they come into power, must endeavour
to judge, often on scanty data, how many of his usual or nominal
supporters will follow him into the lobby when a division is called,
and how best he can draw off some votes from among his opponents.
Still, delicate as this work is, it is not so hard as that of the
leader of the Government, for it is rather critical than constructive,
and a mistake can seldom do irreparable mischief. Nort