It is only Mr.
Gladstone, perhaps, among the members of the House of Commons--old or
new--who has power of being at once, easy, calm, perfect in tone, and
full of the inspiring glow of oratory.
[Sidenote: Pity the poor farmer.]
The agriculturists are not very happy in their representatives. A debate
on agriculture produces on the House the same effect as a debate on the
Army. It is well known that the party of all the Colonels is enough to
make any House empty; and a debate on agriculture is not much better.
The farmer's friends are always a dreadfully dull lot; and they usually
lag some half-century behind the political knowledge of the rest of the
world. It would have been impossible for anybody but the county members
to attempt a serious discussion on Protection or Bimetallism as cures
for all the evils of the flesh; but that is what the agricultural
members succeeded in doing on a certain Monday and Tuesday night. Their
prosings were perhaps welcome to the House; but it was a curious thing
to see an assembly, as yet in its very infancy, so bored as to find
refuge in every part of the building, except the hall appropriated to
its deliberations.
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