The Peers grumbled, and some of them were enraged. Lord Robert Cecil,
now Marquis of Salisbury, rudely declared that Mr. Gladstone's conduct
was only worthy of an attorney. He begged to apologize to the attorneys.
They were honorable men and would have scorned the course pursued by the
ministers. Another member of the House of Lords protested that the
budget gave a mortal stab to the Constitution. Mr. Gladstone retorted:
"I want to know, to what Constitution does it give a mortal stab? In my
opinion it gives no mortal stab, and no stab at all, to any Constitution
that we are bound to care for. But, on the contrary, so far as it alters
anything in the most recent course of practice, it alters in the
direction of restoring that good old Constitution which took its root in
Saxon times, which grew from the Plantagenets, which endured the iron
repression of the Tudors, which resisted the aggressions of the Stuarts,
and which has come to its full maturity under the House of Brunswick. I
think that is the Constitution, if I may presume to say so, which it is
our duty to guard, and which--if, indeed, the proceedings of this year
can be said to affect it at all--will be all the better for the
operation.
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