But Bimetallism was a craze with no chance of even distant success, while Railway Rates were at that very moment urgently calling for redress from hundreds of threatened industries.

It would be seen then what a dexterous weapon for striking the Government the selection of the day for Railway Rates was.
[Sidenote: No Tory Leader.] The Tories ought to have at once perceived the value of the weapon which a Liberal had thus placed in their hands.

Some of them did so, and, undoubtedly, if a man with the Parliamentary instinct of Lord Randolph Churchill had been at their head, they would at once have made deadly and, haply, destructive use of the opportunity.

But Mr.Balfour was away.

Lord Randolph sate, dark and solitary, at a remote seat, and Mr.
Goschen can always be confidently relied upon to do the wrong thing.