ccupant of
the office having been put forward for re-election, the Government were
beaten by a majority of ten. Now this was a very damaging event for
the ministers, and also an event somewhat unusual in the House of
Commons. There is generally a sort of understanding, more or less
distinctly expressed, that the candidate put forward by the Government
for the office of Speaker is to be a man on whom both sides of the
House can agree. It is obviously undesirable that there should be a
party struggle over the appointment of the official who is assumed to
hold an absolutely impartial position and is not supposed to be the
mere favorite of either side of the House. In later years there has
often been a distinct arrangement, or, at all events, a clear
understanding, between the Government and the Opposition on this
subject, and a candidate is not put forward unless there is good reason
to assume that he will be acceptable to the two great political
parties. In this instance no such understanding existed, or had been
sought for. The Opposition set up a candidate of their own, and the
nominee of the Government was defeated. There was, however, one
condition in this defeat which, although it did not take away from the
ominous character of the event, might, to a certain extent, have
relieved Peel from the necessity of regarding it as an absolute party
defeat. The majority had been obtained for the Opposition by the
support of the Irish members who followed the leadership of Daniel
O'Connell, and thus Sir Robert Peel saw himself outvoted by a
combination of two parties, one of them regarded with peculiar disfavor
by the majority of the English public on both sides of the political
field. It was something for the followers of the Government to be able
to say that their Liberal opponents had only been able to score a
success by the help of the unpopular Irish vote, and it became, in
fact, a new accusation against the {244} Liberals that they had traded
on the favor of O'Connell and his Irish followers. From about this
time the Irish vote has always played an important part in all the
struggles of parties in the House of Commons; and it will be observed
that the English Party, whether Liberal or Tory, against which that
vote is directed is always ready with epithets of scorn and anger for
the English Party for whom that vote has been given.

[Sidenote: 1835--Peel and the Opposition]

Several other humiliations awaited Pe