l life we may be sure it was not so.--GARDINER.

I

Ministers meanwhile hesitated, balanced, doubted, and wavered. Their party
was in a minority, and so they had a fair plea for resigning and not
meeting the new parliament. On the other hand, they had a fair plea for
continuing in office, for though they were in a minority, no other party
had a majority. Nobody knew what the Hartington whigs would do, or what
the Irish would do. There seemed to be many chances for expert angling.
Then with what policy were they to meet the House of Commons? They might
adhere to the conciliatory policy of the summer and autumn, keep clear of
repressive legislation, and make a bold attempt in the direction of
self-government. Taking the same courageous plunge as was taken by
Wellington and Peel in 1829, by Peel in the winter of 1845, by Disraeli in
1867, they might carry the declarations made by Lord Carnarvon on behalf
of the government in July to their only practical conclusion. But then
they would have broken up their party, as Wellington and Peel broke it up;
and Lord Salisbury may have asked himself whether the national emergency
warranted the party risk.

Resistance then to the Irish demand being assumed, various tactics came
under review. They might begin by asking for a vote of confidence, saying
plainly that if they were turned out and Mr. Gladstone were put in, he
would propose home rule. In that case a majority was not wholly
impossible, for the whig wing might come over, nor was it quite certain
that the Irish would help to put the government out. At any rate the
debate would force Mr. Gladstone into the open, and even if they did not
have a majority, they would be in a position to advise immediate
dissolution on the issue of home rule.

The only other course open to the cabinet was to turn their backs upon the
professions of the summer; to throw overboard the Carnarvon policy as a
cargo for which there was no longer a market; to abandon a great
experiment after a ludicrously short trial; and to pick up again the old
instrument of coercion, which not six months before they had with such
elaborate ostentation condemned and discarded. This grand manoeuvre was
kept carefully in the background, until there had been time for the whole
chapter of accidents to exhaust itself, and it had become certain that no
trump cards were falling to the ministerial hand. Not until this was quite
clear, did ministers reveal their poignant