The removal of such a puissant personality from their head could not but have a serious effect on the Ministerial array, composed as it was of such Old Liberals as had embraced Home Rule out of confidence in Mr. Gladstone, New Liberals of an extremely Democratic type under the nominal lead of Mr. Labouchere, the Labour representatives, Parnellites and Anti-Parnellites (the last-named being further split into sections at war among themselves). On no single subject were these various groups united save in a desire to get Home Rule out of the way. Home Rule, indeed, had been disposed of, but not in the only way to satisfy its advocates. The difficulty of the situation was intensified by the successor to Mr. Gladstone chosen by Her Majesty. In sending for her Foreign Minister, the Earl of Rosebery, she was acting, doubtless, on the advice of Mr. Gladstone himself, but in the choice of a peer there was abundant cause of dissatisfaction to most of the Ministerialists in the House of Commons, who had placed the "mending or ending"--preferably the ending--of the House of Lords in the forefront of their programme. Besides, it was considered by very many that Sir William Harcourt had done more to earn the leadership of the party than Lord Rosebery, and it soon became apparent, not only that this appointment was a cause of further disunion in the Home Rule ranks, but that Lord Rosebery and Sir William Harcourt were far from cordial in their official relations. On June 21, 1895, a listless debate was in progress on the Army Estimates, the House was far less than half full, when Mr. Brodrick moved a reduction of £100 in the salary of the Secretary for War, Mr. Campbell-Bannerman, in order to call attention to the alleged deficiency in the stores of small-arms ammunition. Mr. Campbell-Bannerman offered his personal assurance that the amount in store was adequate, but the Opposition declined to accept it in view of the official figures laid before the House. A division was called; there was nothing to indicate the critical nature of it till Mr. Ellis, the chief Ministerial Whip, to whom the Clerk at the Table had handed the paper automatically, passed it on to Mr. Douglas, the chief Opposition Whip, when it was found that the Government were in a minority of eight--132 votes to 125. [Illustration: _From a Photograph_} {_by Hughes & Mullins, Ryde._ HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN, January, 1893.] [Sidenote: Lord Salisbury's Third Administration.]