e last moment
of the eleventh hour had arrived, it looked as if he would break up the
government by insisting. Then the government was turned out, and the party
of "law and order" came in. He saw his firm and continuous system at the
first opportunity flouted and discarded. He was aware, as officials and as
the public were aware, that his successor at Dublin Castle made little
secret that he had come over to reverse the policy. Lord Spencer, too,
well knew in the last months of his reign at Dublin that his own system,
in spite of outward success, had made no mark upon Irish disaffection. It
is no wonder that after his visit to Hawarden, he laboured hard at
consideration of the problem that the strange action of government on the
one hand, and the speculations of a trusted leader on the other, had
forced upon him. On Mr. Gladstone he pressed the question whether a
general support should be given to Irish autonomy as a principle, before
particulars were matured. In any case he perceived that the difficulty of
governing Ireland might well be increased by knowledge of the mere fact
that Mr. Gladstone and himself, whether in office or in opposition, were
looking in the direction of autonomy. Somebody said to Mr. Gladstone,
people talked about his turning Spencer round his thumb. "It would be more
true," he replied, "that he had turned me round his." That is, I suppose,
by the lessons of Lord Spencer's experience.

In the middle of the month Lord Hartington asked Mr. Gladstone for
information as to his views and intentions on the Irish question as
developed by the general election. The rumours in the newspapers, he said,
as well as in private letters, were so persistent that it was hard to
believe them without foundation. Mr. Gladstone replied to Lord Hartington
in a letter of capital importance in its relation to the prospects of
party union (Dec. 17):--

_To Lord Hartington._

The whole stream of public excitement is now turned upon me, and I
am pestered with incessant telegrams which I have no defence
against, but either suicide or Parnell's method of
self-concealment. The truth is, I have more or less of opinions
and ideas, but no intentions or negotiations. In these ideas and
opinions there is, I think, little that I have not more or less
conveyed in public declarations; in principle nothing. I will try
to lay them before you. I consider that Ireland has now spoken;
and that a