ree days later (Oct. 11) the Queen writing to the prime minister was
able to mark a further stage:--

Although the strong expressions used by ministers in their recent
speeches have made the task of conciliation undertaken by the
Queen a most difficult one, she is so much impressed with the
importance of the issue at stake, that she has persevered in her
endeavours, and has obtained from the leaders of the opposition an
expression of their readiness to negotiate on the basis of Lord
Hartington's speech at Hanley. In the hope that this _may_ lead to
a compromise, the Queen has suggested that Lord Hartington may
enter into communication with Lord Salisbury, and she trusts, from
Mr. Gladstone's telegram received this morning, that he will
empower Lord Hartington to discuss the possibility of an agreement
with Lord Salisbury.

In acknowledgment, Mr. Gladstone offered his thanks for all her Majesty's
"well-timed efforts to bring about an accommodation." He could not,
however, he proceeded, feel sanguine as to obtaining any concession from
the leaders, but he is very glad that Lord Hartington should try.

Happily, and as might have been expected by anybody who remembered the
action of the sensible peers who saved the Reform bill in 1832, the rash
and headstrong men in high places in the tory party were not allowed to
have their own way. Before the autumn was over, prudent members of the
opposition became uneasy. They knew that in substance the conclusion was
foregone, but they knew also that just as in their own body there was a
division between hothead and moderate, so in the cabinet they could count
upon a whig section, and probably upon the prime minister as well. They
noted his words spoken in July, "It is not our desire to see the bill
carried by storm and tempest. It is our desire to see it win its way by
persuasion and calm discussion to the rational minds of men."(77)

Meanwhile Sir Michael Hicks Beach had already, with the knowledge and
without the disapproval of other leading men on the tory side, suggested
an exchange of views to Lord Hartington, who was warmly encouraged by the
cabinet to carry on communications, as being a person peculiarly fitted
for the task, "enjoying full confidence on one side," as Mr. Gladstone
said to the Queen, "and probably more on the other side than any other
minister could enjoy." These two cool and able men took the extension of