right to Privy Councillors, and any such may, if he pleases, take his seat there, even though he never served in the Ministry.
Thus when the late Mr. Beresford Hope was evicted by the Fourth Party from his corner seat below the gangway, he crossed over and found a resting-place on the Front Opposition Bench, retaining it till his death. The gentleman who is now Lord Cubitt, being a Privy Councillor, always asserted his right to address the House from the table.
The Irish members, remaining in their old quarters, got along through the Parliament of 1880 much better than was at the outset expected. The Fourth Party set up in business for themselves at the corner of the Front Bench below the gangway. On the two benches behind them the Irish members were massed, and Lord Randolph Churchill frequently found the contiguity convenient when he had occasion to consult Mr. Tim Healy or other of the allies of the Constitutional party, then making common cause against Mr. Gladstone's Government.
Mr. John Redmond.
That arrangement was all very well in its way; was indeed not without logical justification. The Irish members were at the time in deadly opposition to the Government, and that they should sit on the Opposition side was convenient and desirable. It established and maintained the conditions that combatants should face each other. It is a different thing now, the localizing of parties being in a hopelessly intermixed state. The Irish members still keep their old places below the gangway on the Opposition side, but being there they find themselves split up into two sections. There are two kings in the Irish Brentford, and while Mr. Justin M'Carthy, leader of the larger section, sits with his friends on the third bench, Mr. John Redmond occupies the corner seat on the fourth bench. Nor does this division represent the full measure of variety. Mr. William Redmond has planted himself out in the very arcanum of Toryism, on a back bench behind ex-Ministers. There he sits, solitary among the gentlemen of England, none holding converse with him, and he, apparently, thoroughly enjoying isolation. From time to time the House is startled by hearing from this quarter explosive sentences, expressing sentiments foreign to those usually associated with Our Old Nobility, from whose citadel they fall upon the shocked ear.
Mr. William Redmond.
The Labour Party is another new section developed in the modern House of Commons. They are exceedingly few in number, their political object is capable of narrow definition, and they, of all people, might be expected to sit together. But they, also, are divided. Mr. Keir Hardie and Mr. John Burns rise from time to time to address the Speaker from a back bench below the gangway on the Opposition side, whilst Mr. Havelock Wilson and other accredited representatives of the working classes sit immediately opposite, on the Ministerial side. When any Minister or private member desires to address himself personally and directly to Labour questions, he is thus compelled to divide his attention between diverse sides of the House.
The position of the Dissentient Liberals is, perhaps, on the whole, most embarrassing, as being contrary to the traditions and convenient forms of the House. It is a little better in the present Parliament, since the Treasury Bench is free from the invasion to which Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues were subjected when they were tenants on the Front Opposition Bench. Mr. Chamberlain, Sir Henry James, and Mr. Heneage now sit with the rank-and-file of their party, not, as heretofore, mixed up with the Liberal leaders. But their quarters are selected on the Ministerial side. They sit surrounded by gentlemen from whom, on whom, on political grounds, they are separated by feelings of bitter animosity.
The effect of this state of things is, to a considerable extent, paralytic on debate. It affects both orator and audience. It is a habit strongly marked with Mr. Gladstone, and common in degree with other speakers, to turn and face
