chievous
character, was to take the matter into his own hands. Had he been able
to act entirely on his own judgment, it may, perhaps, be thought that,
with his sentiments on the inexpediency of the measure which had been
rejected, he would have preferred a silent acquiescence in the vote of
the Lords; but he would have been quite unable to induce the majority of
his own supporters, and even some of his own colleagues, to adopt so
moderate a course; and accordingly he moved the appointment of a
committee to examine and report on the practice of Parliament in regard
to bills for imposing or repealing taxes. And when it had made its
report, which was purely of an historical character, setting forth the
precedents bearing on the subject, he proposed three resolutions,
asserting "that the right of granting aids and supplies to the crown is
in the Commons alone, as an essential part of their constitution, etc.;
that, although the Lords had exercised the power of rejecting bills of
several descriptions relating to taxation by negativing the whole, yet
the exercise of that power by them had not been frequent, and was justly
regarded by the Commons with peculiar jealousy, as affecting their
rights, etc.; and that, to guard for the future against an undue
exercise of that power by the Lords, and to secure to the Commons their
rightful control over taxation and supply, the Commons had it in their
power so to impose and remit taxes, and to frame bills of supply, that
their right, etc., might be maintained inviolate."

In the debate which ensued his chief opponents came from his own party,
and even his own colleague, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, displayed a
fundamental difference of feeling from his on the subject, a difference
which was expressed by one of the most eloquent supporters of the
resolutions, Mr. Horsman, M.P. for Stroud, saying that "Lord Palmerston
wished to make the independence of the House of Lords a reality, while
Mr. Gladstone seemed to desire that it should be a fiction." Lord
Palmerston, indeed, showed the feeling thus attributed to him in a
statesman-like declaration that, if "this nation had enjoyed a greater
amount of civil, political, social, and religious liberty than, as he
believed, any other people in the world, that result had been
accomplished, not by vesting in either of the three estates, the Crown,
the Lords, or the Commons, exclusive or overruling power over the
others, but by maintaining for