before the House. Mr. Gladstone, in his speech on the Budget, had
pledged the Ministry to a considerable reduction of the taxes for the
coming year. In fulfilment of this pledge, it had been decided to remit
the duty on paper, thereby abandoning about £1,500,000 of revenue. A
bill to carry this plan into effect passed to its second reading by a
majority of fifty-three. To defeat the measure the Opposition devoted
all its energies, and with such success that the bill passed to its
third reading by the greatly reduced majority of nine. Emboldened by
this almost victory, the Conservatives determined to give the measure
its _coup de grâce_ in the House of Lords. The Opposition leaders, Lord
Derby, Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Ellenborough, and others, attacked the bill,
and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, its acknowledged author, with as
much bitterness and severity as are ever considered compatible with the
dignified decorum of that aristocratic body; all the Conservative forces
were rallied, and, what with the votes actually given and the proxies,
the Opposition majority was immense.

Now all this was very easily and very quickly done. The Conservatives
were exultant, and even seemed sanguine enough to believe that the
Ministry had received a fatal blow. But they forgot, in the first flush
of victory, that they were treading on dangerous ground,--that they were
meddling with what had been regarded for centuries as the exclusive
privilege of the House of Commons. English Parliamentary history teaches
no clearer lesson than that the right to pass "Money Bills," without
interference from the House of Lords, has been claimed and exercised by
the House of Commons for several generations. The public was not slow to
take the alarm. To be sure, several causes conspired to lessen somewhat
the popular indignation. Among these were the inevitable expenses of
the Chinese War, the certainty of an increased income tax, if the bill
became a law, and the very small majority which the measure finally