Orators might thunder, processions might stream along the Embankment to testify against ...

Orators might thunder, processions might stream along the Embankment to testify against the insolence of the Lords in holding up the Franchise Bill in 1884, knowing all the while that the minds of the people were set not on the Lords or the Franchise, but on a lonely and heroic figure far away in Khartoum.

Between Ireland and the Empire there was not room enough to plant an agitation or time enough for it to grow. The great Free Trade leaders were neither in office nor candidates for office, and could devote themselves for years wholly to one cause.

The new Radicals had half a dozen causes on their hands, and the responsibilities, actual or future,

of office as well.

The Unauthorized Programme of 188S was, to some serious minds, a portent of revolution.