ine. He intimates, however, that the form
would be simple, the application of the principle mild; that he
does not expect wide results from it, and that Hartington, he
conceives, is not disposed wholly to object to everything of the
kind.

2. As regards readjustment of taxation, he is contented with the
terms of my address, and indisposed to make any new terms.

3. As regards free education, he does not ask that its principle
be adopted as part of the creed of a new cabinet. He said it would
be necessary to reserve his right individually to vote for it. I
urged that he and the new school of advanced liberals were not
sufficiently alive to the necessity of refraining when in
government from declaring by _vote_ all their individual opinions;
that a vote founded upon time, and the engagements of the House at
the moment with other indispensable business, would imply no
disparagement to the principle, which might even be expressly
saved ("without prejudice") by an amending resolution; that he
could hardly carry this point to the rank of a _sine qua non_. He
said,--That the sense of the country might bind the liberal
majority (presuming it to exist) to declare its opinion, even
though unable to give effect to it at the moment; that he looked
to a single declaration, not to the sustained support of a
measure; and he seemed to allow that if the liberal sense were so
far divided as not to show a unanimous front, in that case it
might be a question whether some plan other than, and short of, a
direct vote might be pursued.(139)

The question of the House of Lords and disestablishment he regards
as still lying in the remoter distance.

All these subjects I separated entirely from the question of
Ireland, on which I may add that he and I are pretty well agreed;
unless upon a secondary point, namely, whether Parnell would be
satisfied to acquiesce in a County Government bill, good so far as
it went, maintaining on other matters his present general
attitude.(140) We agreed, I think, that a prolongation of the
present relations of the Irish party would be a national disgrace,
and the civilised world would scoff at the political genius of
countries which could not contrive so far to understand one
another as to bring their differences to an accommodation.

All through Chamberlain