It was frankly a great
disappointment. I sat then on the Opposition side, but we Unionists had
all assembled to cheer the old man who was to make his farewell speech
to the Assembly in which he had sat for sixty years, and of which he
had been so dominating and so unique a personality, although we were
bitterly opposed to him politically. The tone of his speech made this
difficult for us. Instead of being a dignified farewell to the House,
as we had anticipated, it was querulous and personal, with a peevish
and minatory note in it that made anything but perfunctory applause
from the Opposition side very hard to produce. Two days afterwards, on
March 3, 1894, Mr. Gladstone resigned. In the light of recent
revelations, we know now that his failing eyesight was but a pretext.
Lord Spencer, then First Lord of the Admiralty, had framed his Naval
Estimates, and declared that the shipbuilding programme outlined in
those Estimates was absolutely necessary for the national safety. Mr.
Gladstone, supported by some of his colleagues, refused to sanction
these Estimates. Some long-headed Members of the Cabinet saw clearly
that if Lord Spencer insisted on his Estimates, in the then temper of
the country, the Liberal party would go to certain defeat. Accordingly,
Mr. Gladstone was induced to resign, as the easiest way out of the
difficulty. I do not gather, though, that those of his colleagues who,
with him, disapproved of the Naval Estimates, thought it their duty to
follow their chief into retirement.

I am amused on seeing on contents bills of news-papers, as a rare item
of news, "All-night sitting of Commons."

In the 1886 Parliament practically every night was an all-night
sitting. Under the old rules of Procedure, as the Session advanced, we
were kept up night after night till 5 a.m. Some Members, notably the
late Henry Labouchere, took a sort of impish delight in keeping the
House sitting late. Many Front-Bench men had their lives shortened by
the strain these late hours imposed on them, notably Edward Stanhope
and Mr. W. H. Smith. Mr. W. H. Smith occupied a very extraordinary
position. This plain-faced man, who could hardly string two words
together, was regarded by all his friends with deep respect, almost
with affection. My brother George has told me that, were there any
disputes in the Cabinet of which he was a member, the invariable advice
of the older men was to "go and take Smith's advice about it." Men
carried their