If one were on the look-out for dramatic and instructive contrast in the House of Commons, one could not do better than study Mr. Morley and Mr. Chamberlain for a week. Mr. Chamberlain--glib, shallow, self-possessed, well-trained by years of public life--debates admirably. Nobody can deny that--not even those who, like myself, find his speaking exasperatingly empty and superficial and foolish. He is master of all his resources; scarcely ever pauses for a word, and when he is interrupted, can parry the stroke with a return blow of lightning-like rapidity. But when he sits down, is there any human being that feels a bit the wiser or the better for what he has said? And who can get over the idea that it has all been a bit of clever special pleading--such as one could hear in half-a-dozen courts of law any day of the week? And, finally, who is there that can help feeling throughout all the speech that this is a selfish nature--full of venom, ambition, and passion--seeing in political conflict not great principles to advance--holy causes to defend--happiness to extend--but so many enemies' faces to grind to dust? Mr. Morley is a fine platform speaker, but as yet he is not nearly as good a debater as Mr. Chamberlain. He stumbles, hesitates, finds it hard often to get the exact word he wants. And yet who cannot listen to him for ten minutes without a sense of a great mind--and what to me is better, a fine character behind it all? This man has thought out--possibly in travail of spirit--and his creed--though it may not be the exultant cheerfulness of natures richer in muscle than in thought--is one for which he will fight and sacrifice, and not yield. In short, the thinness of Mr. Chamberlain--the depths of Mr. Morley--these are the things which one will learn from hearing them speak even once. I have said that Mr. Morley is not as good a debater as Mr. Chamberlain; but if Mr. Chamberlain be wise, he will call his watch-dogs off Mr. Morley, for he is being badgered into an excellent debater. Every night he improves in his answers to questions. Tersely, frigidly--though there is the undercurrent of scorn and sacred passion in most of what he says--Mr. Morley meets the taunts and charges of the Russells, and the Macartneys, and the Carsons, and never yet has he been beaten in one of those hand-to-hand fights. [Sidenote: Flagrant obstruction.]