Lord Russell in his speech at Blairgowrie, in the recess of 1863, had told Reformers that they should “rest and be thankful.” In 1864, however, they not only refused to follow the advice, but were rewarded for their enterprise by taking captive no less prominent a personage than the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There had been the usual debate on the ballot, in which the old arguments for and against it were set forth in the old way. Mr. Locke King had revived his scheme for extending the £20 franchise to counties. But both projects had been rejected, and everybody felt that the cause of reform was once more shelved, till suddenly the whole question was quickened into life by Mr. Gladstone’s unexpected declaration of policy. Mr. Baines, one of the members for Leeds, had brought in a Bill substituting a £6 for a £10 rental in boroughs, and it was met by Mr. Cave moving the previous question, on the ground that the working classes did not need or want any better representation of their interests than they enjoyed already. Mr. Gladstone, however, to the consternation of the Whigs and Tories, intervened in the debate, and declared that he thought there ought to be “a sensible and considerable addition” to the infinitesimal portion of the working classes then in possession of the franchise. This he defined to be such as would have been made by the Government proposal of 1860. The Whigs grew pale with fear when they heard him, amidst Radical cheers, declare “that every man who is not presumably incapacitated by some consideration of personal unfitness or political danger is morally entitled to come within the pale of the constitution.” The upper stratum of the working class which was deprived of votes was not inferior to the lower stratum of the middle class, which had votes--indeed, the one section of society was as worthy as the other. As Mr. Forster observed, this speech from the leading member of the Government in the House--Lord Palmerston was absent on the occasion--rendered it impossible for the Ministry to set aside the question of Reform much longer. All men saw that Parties would soon have to join issue and decide whether the country was to be governed by a Tory Ministry on Tory principles, or by a Liberal Ministry acting on Conservative ideas and in secret league with the Conservative Leaders. Mr. Baines’s Bill was got rid of by carrying the “previous question”--but from that day it was settled that the reversion of the leadership of the Liberal Party in the Commons must fall to Mr. Gladstone.