shall get through it--but only with self-command and without any
quackery or cant whether it be the quackery of blind violence
disguised as love of order, or the cant of unsound and misapplied
sentiment, divorced from knowledge and untouched by any cool
consideration of the facts.




V


ON PROPOSED REFORMS

(HOUSE OF LORDS. DECEMBER 17, 1908)

I feel that I owe a very sincere apology to the House for the
disturbance in the business arrangements of the House, of which I have
been the cause, though the innocent cause. It has been said that in
the delays in bringing forward this subject, I have been anxious to
burke discussion. That is not in the least true. The reasons that made
it seem desirable to me that the discussion on this most important and
far-reaching range of topics should be postponed, were--I believe the
House will agree with me--reasons of common sense. In the first place,
discussion without anybody having seen the Papers to be discussed,
would evidently have been ineffective. In the second place it would
have been impossible to discuss those Papers with good effect--the
Papers that I am going this afternoon to present to Parliament--until
we know, at all events in some degree, what their reception has been
in the country most immediately concerned. And then thirdly, my