256 THE CECILS
and safeguards on the strength of which they had agreed to the Bill, informed Lord Derby that they found them insufficient, and threatened to resign. The Cabinet was hurriedly summoned half an hour before Derby was to address a meeting of the party, and in ten minutes the second measure was adopted instead of the first. The details of this proposal were explained by Lord Derby at the meeting in the afternoon, and by Disraeli in the House of Commons in the evening, but met with so cold a reception from their friends and such indignation from their opponents, that the Bill was withdrawn on the following day. Thereupon the three ministers resigned, and Disraeli brought in his original Bill.
Lord Cranborne explained his action in a speech in the House, and it is interesting to note the impression created at the time upon one who afterwards became a devoted friend and colleague of Lord Salisbury : " Lord Cranborne 's speech," writes Robert Lytton, 1 " though uttered with much dignity and apparent sincerity of conviction, was certainly not generous, and certainly was suicidal to his reputation as a statesman, for his views are impossible." And he adds a doubt whether the speaker, though obviously very clever, would ever be a great man : "he wants heart, and seems never to rise above the level of a Saturday Reviewer."
The progress of the Bill through the House of
1 Personal and Literary Letters of Robert, Earl of Lytton, I. 218,
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