[Sidenote: Why no signal?]
Meantime, confusion still reigned on the Liberal benches. Men were
confused, and bewildered, and irresolute, and frightened, conscience of
calamitous danger, and yet unable to understand it all. And here let me
say that this state of confusion was due partly to bad leadership. There
is a want of cohesion--on this day in particular--on the Treasury bench.
Mr. Gladstone, like all ardent natures, takes too much on himself. He
is, of course, a tower of strength--twenty men are not such as he. But
the burden cannot all be borne by one shoulder--especially at a portion
of the sitting when, by a strict interpretation of the rules of the
House, Mr. Gladstone is allowed to speak but once. Why were these
scattered and young and inexperienced troops not told, by their leaders,
of the vast issues involved in this coming vote? Why were not all the
sophistries brushed away, by which the conspirators against the
Government were hiding the real effect and purpose of the votes? Sir
William Harcourt is an old Parliamentary hand; Mr. John Morley is
excellent when a few words are required to meet a crisis; Mr.
Asquith--keen, alert, alive to all that is going on--sits at Mr.
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