ENGLAND ROUSED. 59 General Gordon should be abandoned. (‘ Shame,’ and cheers.) Everyone must feel that as a matter of business nothing could be more contemptible than the course which the Government has pursued, except, perhaps, the excuses by which they have defended themselves. Having had all the winter to undertake the rescue of those beleaguered garrisons they have dawdled away the time until it is too late, and then they put forward as an overwhelming justification that it has now become too hot to move. (Laughter.) What man of business in this city would endure such an excuse for those whom he employed? (A voice—‘Ho one.’) Then those who look rather deeper and think of the effect of those things upon England’s empire and England’s repu¬ tation, see how our power is gradually ebbing under the influence of this display of indecision ; how foreign countries less and less regard our wishes, how more and more we are sinking from our high estate, and how we are even beginning to lose all the acknowledged superiority which is the sole pledge to those vast multitudes of Eastern races that have hitherto submitted to us. (Cheers.)”

Lastly the Opposition determined to introduce a motion for a vote of censure against the Government. The excitement rose high. Defections from the Liberal ranks were numerous and important. Staunch supporters of the Cabinet wavered or altogether fell away. The majority upon which the Conservatives had all along depended was known to have dwindled appreci¬ ably. How the voting would go not one could calculate, and what would be the outcome of either defeat or victory could even less easily be conjectured. A change of ministry at a time so critical was a change surrounded with grave responsibilities, and a retention of office could hardly be accompanied by the same inaction of which, by the verdict of the masses, that ministry now stood convicted.

Monday, May the 12th, was the day appointed for the trial. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, pursuant to notice, rose and formally moved a vote of censure on the Government “ for their failure to take the necessary steps to secure the success of General Gordon’s mission, and especially to provide for his personal safety.”

Though couched in calm and dispassionate phraseology, as befitted Parliamentary procedure, the motion contained in it the essence of the popular feeling. It was not so much the general policy of the cabinet, not so much the view they had taken of the limit to which they should go in their interference in Egyptian affairs, not even so much the measures they had taken for the solution of the Soudan difficulties, as it was the uncertainty of the fate of the much-loved man who might even at this moment be in the hands of a crafty and merciless foe, that troubled the minds of the British public. Had no fears arisen as to the safety of their hero, had it been