The Recess was spent in violent agitation. Party leaders on both sides strove to rouse public opinion against or on behalf of the action of the House of Lords. The country, on the whole, seemed day by day to gravitate towards the Liberals, and the general opinion soon came to be that the time had come for settling the question of Parliamentary Reform, and that, the Peers having accepted the principle of Mr. Gladstone’s Bill, a compromise as to details ought to be effected. The monster procession which passed through London on the 21st of July, together with Mr. Gladstone’s political campaign in Midlothian, did much to strengthen the hands of the Reformers. As might be expected, the Radicals took advantage of the occasion to direct a fierce and violent attack against the House of Lords as an institution. When the Session opened on the 23rd of October party spirit ran high, and both sides took “No Surrender!” as their watchword. Lord Randolph Churchill attempted to fix on Mr. Chamberlain a charge of inciting a Radical mob to break up a great Conservative demonstration which had been held in Aston Park, Birmingham, on the 13th of October. Mr. Chamberlain proved his innocence by quoting affidavits made by certain men, who swore that “Tory roughs” had provoked the riot. The genuineness of those affidavits was questioned, but to no purpose. When, however, they were made the basis of legal proceedings, it was noted as a curious coincidence that, with one exception, all the witnesses who had supplied Mr. Chamberlain with his exculpating affidavits, somehow vanished from the scene. The Franchise Bill was rapidly passed through the House of Commons, and the enormous majority of 140 in favour of the Second Reading brought the Tory Peers to a more reasonable state of mind. Moderate Conservatives began to build a golden bridge of retreat for their lordships. Nor was the task hard. It was soon discovered, as the result of private communications, that there was now no substantial difference of opinion between Conservatives like Sir Richard Cross and Liberals like Mr. Gladstone on the general principles of Redistribution. Nobody, in fact, had the courage to defend the continued enfranchisement of petty boroughs while large towns were not represented in Parliament save by the county vote. It was finally arranged by plenipotentiaries representing both parties that Mr. Gladstone’s draft Redistribution Bill should be submitted confidentially to Sir Stafford Northcote and his friends--that they should suggest, and in turn submit to Mr. Gladstone their amendments to it--that when both Parties agreed, Mr. Gladstone should receive from the Tories “an adequate assurance” that they meant to carry the Franchise Bill through the House of Lords, that upon the strength of this assurance Mr. Gladstone should introduce the Redistribution Bill in the House of Commons, and carry it to a Second Reading while the Peers were passing the Third Reading of the Franchise Bill. The