to associate him in their
minds with a disaster which emphasized the fact that the government
acted "too late"; but Gladstone and Lord Granville were no less
responsible than he. In June 1885 he resigned along with his colleagues,
and in December was elected for the Rossendale Division of Lancashire,
created by the new reform bill. Immediately afterwards the great
political opportunity of Lord Hartington's life came to him in Mr
Gladstone's conversion to home rule for Ireland. Lord Hartington's
refusal to follow his leader in this course inevitably made him the
chief of the new Liberal Unionist party, composed of a large and
influential section of the old Liberals. In this capacity he moved the
first resolution at the famous public meeting at the opera house, and
also, in the House of Commons, moved the rejection of Mr Gladstone's
Bill on the second reading. During the memorable electoral contest which
followed, no election excited more interest than Lord Hartington's for
the Rossendale division, where he was returned by a majority of nearly
1500 votes. In the new parliament he held a position much resembling
that which Sir Robert Peel had occupied after his fall from power, the
leader of a small, compact party, the standing and ability of whose
members were out of all proportion to their numbers, generally esteemed
and trusted beyond any other man in the country, yet in his own opinion
forbidden to think of office. Lord Salisbury's offers to serve under him
as prime minister (both after the general election, and again when Lord
Randolph Churchill resigned) were declined, and Lord Hartington
continued to discharge the delicate duties of the leader of a middle
party with no less judgment than he had shown when leading the Liberals
during the interregnum of 1875-1880. It was not until 1895, when the
differences between Conservatives and Liberal Unionists had become
almost obliterated by changed circumstances, and the habit of acting
together, that the duke of Devonshire, as he had become by the death of
his father in 1891, consented to enter Lord Salisbury's third ministry
as president of the council. The duke thus was the nominal
representative of education in the cabinet at a time when educational
questions were rapidly becoming of great importance; and his own
technical knowledge of this difficult and intricate question being
admittedly superficial, a good deal of criticism from time to time
resulted. He had however by