se in view. 4. The
plan for Ireland ought to be produced by the government of the
day. Principles may be laid down by others, but not the detailed
interpretation of them in a measure. I have publicly declared I
produce no plan until the government has arrived at some issue
with the Irish, as I hope they will. 5. If the moment ever came
when a plan had to be considered with a view to production on
behalf of the liberal party, I do not at present see how such a
question could be dissociated from another vital question, namely,
who are to be the government. For a government alone can carry a
measure, though some outline of essentials might be put out in a
motion or resolution.

Happening in these days to meet in the neighbouring (M98) palace of a whig
magnate, Mr. Balfour, a young but even then an important member of the
government, with whom as a veteran with a junior of high promise he had
long been on terms of friendly intimacy, Mr. Gladstone began an informal
conversation with him upon the condition of Ireland, on the stir that it
was making in men's minds, and on the urgency of the problem. The
conversation he followed up by a letter (Dec. 20). Every post, he said,
bore him testimony to the growing ferment. In urging how great a calamity
it would be if so vast a question should fall into the lines of party
conflict, he expressed his desire to see it taken up by the government,
and to be able, with reserve of necessary freedom, to co-operate in their
design. Mr. Balfour replied with courteous scepticism, but promised to
inform Lord Salisbury. The tactical computation was presumably this, that
Lord Salisbury would lose the Orange group from Ireland and the extreme
tories in England, but would keep the bulk of his party. On the other
hand, Mr. Gladstone in supporting a moderate home rule would drop some of
the old whigs and some of the extreme radicals, but he too would keep the
bulk of the liberal party. Therefore, even if Mr. Parnell and his
followers should find the scheme too moderate to be endurable, still Lord
Salisbury with Mr. Gladstone's help would settle the Irish question as
Peel with the help of the whigs settled the question of corn.

Both at the time and afterwards Mr. Gladstone was wont to lay great stress
upon the fact that he had opened this suggestion and conveyed this proffer
of support. For instance, he writes to Lord Hartington (Dec. 20): "On
Tuesday I h