But let us go on to the third case, that of the issue of the Royal Warrant abolishing purchase. Not a few of the Liberals who exulted at the success of the party measure had a misgiving at the way in which it was secured. It was felt to be a victory which could not be repeated, and one of a style which, if they who snatched it had been Conservatives, would have thrown the country into a convulsion. The most violent act in the name of the Crown which the oldest man living in England has witnessed, was counselled by Mr. Gladstone. Because the Lords, in the exercise of the power which the Constitution gives them, were not willing instantly to pass his Bill for giving an entirely new social aspect to the army, he caused the Queen to do nothing short of superseding them entirely, and practically reduced the Constitution at a stroke to the Commons and the Crown. It is just now part of the tactics of the Liberals to protest against some imagined wish to bring in "personal rule." If any such preposterous design existed, it would be Mr. Gladstone's own act which would be fallen back upon for the precedent. The feeling which has best enabled the most thoughtful among Englishmen to understand the kind of shock which foreigners experience on the occurrence of one of the political earthquakes which they call on the Continent by the name _coup d'état_, was that which ran through the country when Mr. Gladstone announced that there was nothing for the Lords to discuss, that he had advised the Queen to issue a Royal Warrant. We had lost all recollection of the particular sensation, but he brought back just a twinge of it. Mr. Gladstone, however, can do Radical acts and then explain them historically. Once more we found ourselves all inextricably entangled in his casuistry. He now argued that the Royal Warrant had not been issued by exercise of prerogative, but in strict pursuance of statutory power, there being some Act of the Georges to that effect, which ordinary people had forgotten. It is not necessary to follow the thing further. In the end, Mr. Gladstone became too clever for the country. Even the dullest began to perceive that Mr. Gladstone could conscientiously do whatever he liked. The more subtly he argued, the more plain John Bull got puzzled.