ad a conversation with Balfour at Eaton, which in conformity
with my public statements, I think, conveyed informally a hope that they
would act, as the matter is so serious, and as its becoming a party
question would be a great national calamity. I have written to him to say
(without speaking for others) that if they can make a proposal for the
purpose of settling definitely the question of Irish government, I shall
wish with proper reserves to treat it in the spirit in which I have
treated Afghanistan and the Balkan Peninsula."

The language of Lord Carnarvon when he took office and of Lord Salisbury
at Newport, coupled with the more substantial fact of the alliance between
tories and nationalists before and during the election, no doubt warranted
Mr. Gladstone's assumption that the alliance might continue, and that the
talk of a new policy had been something more than an electioneering
manoeuvre. Yet the importance that he always attached to his offer of
support for a definite settlement, or in plainer English, some sort of
home rule, implies a certain simplicity. He forgot in his patriotic zeal
the party system. The tory leader, capable as his public utterances show
of piercing the exigencies of Irish government to the quick, might
possibly, in the course of responsible consultations with opponents for a
patriotic purpose, have been drawn by argument and circumstance on to the
ground of Irish autonomy, which he had hitherto considered, and considered
with apparent favour, only in the dim distance of abstract meditation or
through the eyes of Lord Carnarvon. The abstract and intellectual
temperament is sometimes apt to be dogged and stubborn; on the other hand,
it is often uncommonly elastic. Lord Salisbury's clear and rationalising
understanding might have been expected to carry him to a thoroughgoing
experiment to get rid of a deep and inveterate disorder. If he thought it
politic to assent to communication with Mr. Parnell, why should he not
listen to overtures from Mr. Gladstone? On the other hand, Lord
Salisbury's hesitation in facing the perils of an Irish settlement in
reliance upon the co-operation of political opponents is far from being
unintelligible. His inferior parliamentary strength would leave him at the
mercy of an extremely formidable ally. He may have anticipated that, apart
from the ordinary temptations of every majority to overthrow a minority,
all the strong natural impulses of the liberal leader,