[Sidenote: Home Rule once more.]
When the House separated, the subject under debate was an audacious
proposal to postpone Clause 3. There was nothing whatever to be urged in
favour of such a proposal; it was pure, unadulterated, shameless
obstruction. But Sir Richard Temple is not gifted with a sense of
humour, and on this amendment he wandered and maundered away for the
better part of an hour. The House has yet no power to prevent a bore
from consuming its time; but it is free to save itself from the yoke of
attention. By a sort of general spontaneity, everybody left his seat;
and though hapless Mr. Balfour was forced by the hard necessities of his
official position to remain in his place, nobody else was compelled to
do so; and Sir Richard addressed the general, void, encasing air. There
was some more speech-making of the like kind--still to empty air--when
suddenly and almost unexpectedly the debate was allowed to collapse. At
first, this was unintelligible--for, senseless as was the amendment, it
was no worse than scores of others which the Tories have made the
pretext for endless debates.
[Sidenote: A tight division.]
However, the division revealed the secret.
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