e welfare of Egypt and the bitter annoyance of
France at our position in that country, the English government ever
succeeded in inducing all the parties concerned to agree to so reasonable
an arrangement.(73)

Meanwhile, as we shall see all too soon, the question of Egypt proper, as
it was then called, had brought up the question of the Soudan, and with it
an incident that made what Mr. Gladstone called "the blackest day since
the Phoenix Park." In 1884 the government still seemed prosperous. The
ordinary human tendency to croak never dies, especially in the politics of
party. Men talked of humiliation abroad, ruin at home, agricultural
interests doomed, trade at a standstill--calamities all obviously due to a
government without spirit, and a majority with no independence. But then
humiliation, to be sure, only meant jealousy in other countries because we
declined to put ourselves in the wrong, and to be hoodwinked into unwise
alliances. Ruin only meant reform without revolution. Doom meant an
inappreciable falling off in the vast volume of our trade.

Chapter VIII. Reform. (1884)

Decision by majorities is as much an expedient as lighting by gas.
In adopting it as a rule, we are not realising perfection, but
bowing to an imperfection. It has the great merit of avoiding, and
that by a test perfectly definite, the last resort to violence;
and of making force itself the servant instead of the master of
authority. But our country rejoices in the belief that she does
not decide all things by majorities.--GLADSTONE (1858).

I

"The word procedure," said Mr. Gladstone to a club of young political
missionaries in 1884, "has in it something homely, and it is difficult for
any one, except those who pass their lives within the walls of parliament,
to understand how vital and urgent a truth it is, that there is no more
urgent demand, there is no aim or purpose more absolutely essential to the
future victories and the future efficiency of the House of Commons, than
that it should effect, with the support of the nation--for it can be
effected in no other way--some great reform in the matter of its
procedure." He spoke further of the "absolute and daily-growing necessity
of what I will describe as a great internal reform of the House of
Commons, quite distinct from that reform beyond its doors on which our
hearts are at present especially set." Reform from within and reform from
without