Yet, when Mr. Gladstone did resign the leadership, no one named any of these intriguers as his possible successor; and it may be noted here that none of the intriguers has even yet secured the reward he coveted. The two names mentioned as those of possible leaders in 1875 were those of Mr. Forster and Lord Hartington. I name them in this order because Mr. Forster was first suggested, and the suggestion came not from any wire-pullers or clique, but from the body of Liberals as a whole. But Mr. Forster's enemies on the Opposition benches, though not very numerous, were very bitter, and they at once put forward as the strongest card they could play against Mr. Forster the name of Lord Hartington. Lord Hartington was, like Forster himself, a man of high character, to whom no taint of intrigue attached. He had not offended any section of the party in the way in which Forster had offended the Nonconformists, and, above all, he was the son and heir of the Duke of Devonshire. Social influence counts for a great deal in political life in this country, but there was another factor that also counted in favour of Lord Hartington. This was the fact that he could not sit in the House of Commons after his father's death, and that, consequently, if he were chosen, he would be more or less of a stopgap. A stopgap is, of course, always popular with the intriguer who knows that he himself has not yet arrived. A tremendous effort was made on behalf of Lord Hartington. I am doubtful whether it would have succeeded if the struggle had been carried to the end. Mr. Forster's friends were in earnest, and they comprised the majority of what might be called the Moderate party on the Opposition benches. But Forster himself settled the question by withdrawing from the candidature, and thus prevented an unseemly contest. It is now known that Lord Hartington himself would have taken this course if Forster had not done so. They were two straightforward, honourable rivals, and they acted throughout this business like English gentlemen. That which made the election of Lord Hartington to the leadership bitter to those who, like myself, had strongly advocated the claims of Mr. Forster, was our knowledge of the fact that he had really been defeated by the opposition of the Birmingham League, and of those Radicals who were prepared to sacrifice the larger interests of Liberalism to their own personal antipathies and sectional views.