that it was
practically impossible for any Ministry to carry a Coercion Bill against
the determined opposition of the Irish members, without the most
resolute effort on the part of Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues. Were
they prepared to make these exertions? One of the conditions, on which
the Reform question had been settled, was the definite postponement of a
dissolution until after the 1st November. Each day men became more and
more engrossed with the great question of the winter--the new
election--more indifferent to the business of the Session; the
Parnellite party more exultant and defiant. Rumours of dissensions in
the Cabinet, had been already rife, and grew more frequent every day.
The country awoke one morning to find that the second Gladstone
Ministry, with its clear majority of over eighty, was at an end. Rather
than confess their disunion, the ministry had allowed themselves to be
defeated on another question, and Mr. Parnell came before his countrymen
as the avenger who had chastised the suggestion of renewed coercion by
destroying the Government which made it.

In this collapse of administration the only course open to the Tory
party was to prepare as rapidly as possible for an appeal to the
country, doing what they could meanwhile in foreign and in home affairs
to mitigate the mischief which they were powerless to remedy. When the
dissolution came, Mr. Gladstone opened his canvass in Midlothian by many
sneers at the election policy of the Irish Nationalists. He reminded his
hearers, that the subject of extending local government in Ireland must
come forward in the new Parliament, and urged that, 'in dealing with
this question the unity of the empire was not to be compromised or be
put in jeopardy.' 'Nothing was to be done which should tend to
impair,--visibly or sensibly to impair,--the unity of the Empire.'
Auditors who had made no special study of Mr. Gladstone's phraseology
interpreted these words as a declaration against a separate Parliament
in Dublin. He apparently was prepared for large schemes of
decentralization, either specially for Ireland or in connection with the
projected reform of local government in England; but there was to be
nothing which should 'visibly impair' the Imperial unity. He went on to
dwell on the danger of 'condescending either to clamour or to fear,' and
added:--

'But quite apart from the names of Whig and Tory, one thing
I will say, and will endeavour to imp