conspicuous ability carried on financial and agrarian reforms in
the East. Lord Lansdowne, during his tenure of the Viceroyalty, formed a
high estimate of his knowledge and ability, and it was on his
recommendation that Mr. Wyndham appointed this official to the post. The
correspondence between the two, which Mr. Redmond elicited from the
Government two and a half years later, shows that it was with some
reluctance that the Under Secretary yielded to the pressure brought to
bear on him to accept the office.

"I am an Irishman, a Roman Catholic, and a Liberal in politics," he
wrote. "I have strong Irish sympathies. I do not see eye to eye with you
in all matters of Irish administration, and I think that there is no
likelihood of good coming from such a _regime_ of coercion as the
_Times_ has recently outlined." For all that, being anxious to do some
service to Ireland, he declared his willingness to take office provided
there was some chance of his succeeding, which he thought there would
be, "on this condition, that I should have adequate opportunities of
influencing the policy and acts of the Irish administration, and
subject, of course, to your control, freedom of action in Executive
matters. For many years in India I directed administration on the
largest scale, and I know that if you send me to Ireland the opportunity
of mere secretarial criticism would fall short of the requirements of my
position. If I were installed in office in Ireland my aims, broadly
stated, would be:--(1) The maintenance of order; (2) the solution of the
land question on the basis of voluntary sale; (3) where sale does not
operate the fixation of rent on some self-acting principle whereby local
inquiries would be obviated; (4) the co-ordination, control, and
direction of boards and other administrative bodies; (5) the settlement
of the education question in the general spirit of Mr. Balfour's views,
and generally the promotion of general administrative improvement and
conciliation."

Mr. Wyndham's acceptance of these terms was explicit, and it was
understood, as the Chief Secretary put it in the House of Commons when
the whole subject came up for review, that Sir Antony was appointed
rather as a colleague than as a mere Under Secretary to register Mr.
Wyndham's will, and although in the House of Commons Mr. Balfour said
that Sir Antony was bound by the rules applying to all Civil Servants,
in the House of Lords Lord Lansdowne declared that,