The provision would be a dead letter unless improper
legislation were enacted, but if there were improper legislation, then
it would be salutary. The clause, I said, was needed to assure timid
people that no secession could arise.
Urging this view upon Mr. Morley afterwards, he told me this had been
proposed to Parnell, but rejected. Mr. Gladstone might then have said:
"Very well, this provision is not needed for myself and others who
think with me, but it is needed to enable us to carry Britain with us.
I am now unable to take up the question. The responsibility is yours."
One morning at Hawarden Mrs. Gladstone said:
"William tells me he has such extraordinary conversations with you."
These he had, no doubt. He had not often, if ever, heard the breezy
talk of a genuine republican and did not understand my inability to
conceive of different hereditary ranks. It seemed strange to me that
men should deliberately abandon the name given them by their parents,
and that name the parents' name. Especially amusing were the new
titles which required the old hereditary nobles much effort to refrain
from smiling at as they greeted the newly made peer who had perhaps
bought his title for ten thousand pounds, more or less, given to the
party fund.
Mr.
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