xation followed vexation. "The
worst incident in the history of our reform struggle," Mr. Gladstone wrote
to the prime minister from the House, on May 28, "has occurred to-night. A
most barefaced proposal further to load the bill by an instruction to
insert clauses respecting bribery has been carried against us by a
majority of 10; the numbers were 248 to 238. This is extremely
discouraging, and it much reduces the usual strength and authority of the
government. This defeat alters our position with reference to fresh
defeats." The air was thick with ideas and schemes for getting rid of the
bill and yet keeping the ministers. "I cannot," Mr. Gladstone says to Lord
Russell (June 4), "divest such ideas and proposals of the aspect of
dishonour." They were told, he said, to introduce an amended plan next
year. How would the case be altered? They would have to introduce a plan
substantially identical, to meet the same invidious opposition, made all
the more confident by the success of its present manoeuvres.

At length an end came. On June 18, on a question raised by Lord Dunkellin,
of rateable value as against gross estimated rental for the basis of the
new seven-pound franchise, ministers were beaten. The numbers were 315
against 304, and in this majority of 11 against government were found no
fewer than 44 of their professed supporters. The sensation was almost
beyond precedent. "With the cheering of the adversary there was shouting,
violent flourishing of hats, and other manifestations which I think novel
and inappropriate," Mr. Gladstone says. The next morning, in a note to a
friend, he observed: "The government has now just overlived its seven
years: a larger term than the life of any government of this country since
that of Lord Liverpool. Many circumstances show that it was time things
should come to a crisis--none so much as the insidious proceedings, and the
inconstant and variable voting on this bill."

(M59) It had been decided in the cabinet a couple of days before this
defeat, that an adverse vote on the narrow issue technically raised by
Lord Dunkellin was not in itself to be treated in debate as a vital
question, for the rating value could easily have been adjusted to the
figure of rental proposed by the government. The debate, however, instead
of being confined to a narrow question raised technically, covered the
whole range of the bill. Taken together with the previous attempts to get
rid of the thing, and t