'Later in the month the Whigs, or men above the gangway, showed great anger at the completeness of Hartington's surrender to us, which, indeed, meant more than the immediate conquest, for it involved the ultimate supersession of Hartington by Gladstone. Harcourt, James, and Adam [Footnote: The Right Hon. W. P. Adam, afterwards Governor of Madras.] (the Chief Whip), in giving Chamberlain the victory by insisting that Hartington should yield, were considering the constituencies, not the House. As regarded the House, the popularity of stamping upon us would have been great. There was strong Whig dislike of our activity, and strong Radical personal hatred among ourselves. If Chamberlain were to have fought Hartington on any question on which he had not the Liberal constituencies with him, he would have got the worst of it; but then he was too wise to stir on any question on which he could not at least carry all the active elements of the party in large towns. The anti-Chamberlain set went to work to get up a banquet to Hartington, and were very cross with me when I told them that I was certain that the Whips would not let Hartington accept the banquet unless they obtained Chamberlain's signature to the requisition. It, of course, turned out as I expected. Some twenty men said that they would not sign unless Chamberlain did so, and he was then begged to sign, and, when he did, at once deprived the manifestation of all significance. It was all rather small and mean, but when one went to the root of the matter, one saw that the whole difficulty sprang from the fact that the Whigs had now no principles. Once upon a time they had had principles, but their principles had been adopted by the other side, and long before 1879 their distinctive opinions had been taken from them. A party cannot be dignified and consistent if its chiefs and the mass of its rank and file have no principles. My own opinion, which I preached on all occasions, was that the right course in these democratic days was for leaders to say, "Here are my opinions, but I know that on certain points they are not those of a majority;" and not to continue to pretend that all agreed when, as a fact, they differed. 'In a note in my diary upon the question of the leadership I say: "Harcourt's good points and bad points are both on a large scale. Childers is too much in city business and in companies to be one of the leading men in the party in the future. Hartington is too careless and too much bored to interest others. Gladstone and Bright are old; Bright 'past'; Gladstone still a great power, and, but for his Scotch deference to the aristocracy, which is a sad drawback, I could admire him with little check."