And, indeed, without any desire to make party or
personal capital, I may state that undoubtedly they would not have been
so bad if Mr. Chamberlain had not intervened at the last moment. Opinion
is unanimous that up to the time he spoke the feeling in the House was,
though boisterous, rather good humoured. There was a conflict of
opinion, there were some shouts, there was that general din in the air
which always marks the inspiration of a momentous event, but there was
no ill-temper. In a few moments Mr. Chamberlain had, to a certain
extent, changed this; but even as to the period when he was speaking, I
feel bound to correct the general impression and to say that my own
opinion was that the general spirit was one of frolicksome enjoyment
rather than of the seriousness of real passion. Mr. Chamberlain himself,
to do him justice--though he had elaborated a series of the most
taunting observations, though sentence after sentence was intended to be
an assault and a barbed taunt--Mr. Chamberlain, I say, seemed himself to
regard the whole affair rather from a comic than a tragic point of view.
Under the bitterness of his language, the tone was not that of
seriousness--and, indeed, it is very hard for any man to be perfectly
serious when he knows that he is speaking for a certain number of
allotted minutes, and instead of addressing himself to the particular
question before the House, he has to make something in the shape of a
last dying speech and declaration.
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