Perhaps he might be justified if he said that they had
been very much troubled of late in that House by gentlemen who could
not keep their fingers from poker and tongs. But there had now fallen
upon them a trouble of a nature much more serious in its effects than
any that had come or could come from would-be reformers. A spirit of
personal ambition, a wretched thirst for office, a hankering after
the power and privileges of ruling, had not only actuated men,--as,
alas, had been the case since first the need for men to govern others
had arisen in the world,--but had been openly avowed and put forward
as an adequate and sufficient reason for opposing a measure in
disapprobation of which no single argument had been used! The right
honourable gentleman's proposition to the House had been simply
this;--'I shall oppose this measure, be it good or bad, because I
desire, myself, to be Prime Minister, and I call upon those whom I
lead in politics to assist me in doing so, in order that they may
share the good things on which we may thus be enabled to lay our
hands!'"
Then there arose a great row in the House, and there seemed to be a
doubt whether the still existing Minister of the day would be allowed
to continue his statement.
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