[84] This Act deprived the Peers of their Appellate Jurisdiction.
[85] Hansard, Vol. CCXXIII., p. 1458.
[86] See Hansard, Vol. CCXXVIII., p. 1488. Mr. Heywood got £3,000 compensation.
[87] He complained that the Government had gone to Messrs. Rothschild for the purchase-money instead of to their regular financial agents, and paid them a commission equal to 15 per cent. a year on the advance. He declared that the Khedive would probably fail to pay his 5 per cent. on the purchase-money, and that England, in any dispute as a shareholder, would have to sue and be sued in a French court. As trustee for the nation the Government ought, he said, to insist on low tariffs. As a shareholder it must, however, insist on high dividends. The purchase, he held, would give England no real influence at the Board of Direction.
[88] Mr. Gladstone once cited the Channel as “the silver streak,” which was the best defence of England against the Continent, and a justification for a Foreign Policy of isolation.
[89] When a Bill was approaching one of the stages at half-past twelve, Mr. Biggar or Mr. Parnell would get up and speak so as to protract debate till the hour came when opposed business must be postponed.
[90] The Parnell Movement, by T. P. O’Connor, M.P. Popular Edition, p. 157.
[91] See Hodder’s Life of Lord Shaftesbury, Vol. III., pp. 367, 371.
[92] Hansard, Vol. CCXXX., p. 1182.
[93] See Macgahan’s Letters and Consul-General Schuyler’s Report to the United States Minister at Constantinople, cited in the Appendix, pp. 22 et seqq.