Mundella several pertinent
questions--among others, the very relevant one, whether or not the
Shipping Federation had the right to employ sailors, whether they are
not violating the law against "crimping" in so doing. Incidentally, Mr.
Lockwood remarked, amid cheers from the Radical Benches--delighted at
this opportunity of departing from its painful and embarrassed
silence--that Liberal members had been returned to support the cause of
labour, and that they ought to be true to their pledges. Mr. Gladstone
at once grasped the situation with that unerring instinct which he has
displayed so splendidly in the present Session, and at once undertook
that the point raised by Mr. Lockwood should be considered; and so, with
a word of sympathy and hope to the strikers, Mr. Gladstone rescued the
House and himself from a painful situation.
CHAPTER XL.
THE BILL IN COMMITTEE.
[Sidenote: The first fence.]
Yes, there was something intoxicating to an Irish Nationalist--after all
his weary years of waiting--in seeing the House of Commons engaged in
Committee on the Bill which is to restore the freedom of Ireland. And as
I looked across the House on May 8th, with every seat occupied--with
galleries crowded--with that air of tense excitement which betokens the
solemn and portentous occasion--there rose to my brain something of the
exaltation of passion's first hour.
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