ned out on the
following day, and so, sure enough, we were, on an amendment to the
Budget moved by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach.[41] It was thought at the time
that the Liberal wirepullers welcomed this defeat, as a way out of
difficulties. Certainly no strenuous efforts were made to avert it. The
scene in the House when the fatal figures were announced has been often
described, and in my mind's eye I see clearly the image of Lord Randolph
Churchill, dancing a kind of triumphant hornpipe on the bench which for
five momentous years had been the seat of the Fourth Party. On the 24th
of June Lord Salisbury became Prime Minister for the first time.

The break-up of the Government revealed to all the world the fact that
the Liberal Party was cleft in twain. The Whig section was led by Lord
Hartington, and the Radical section by Mr. Chamberlain. Gladstone did
his best to mediate between the two, and so to present an unbroken front
to the common foe. But the parting of the ways soon became painfully
apparent. The fall of the Government involved, of course, the return of
Lord Spencer from Ireland, and some of his friends resolved, after the
manner of admiring Englishmen, to give him a public dinner. The current
phrase was that we were to "Dine Spencer for coercing the Irish." As he
had done that thoroughly for the space of three years, and, at the risk
of his own life, had destroyed a treasonable and murderous conspiracy,
he was well entitled to all the honours which we could give him. So it
was arranged that the dinner was to take place at the Westminster Palace
Hotel on the 24th of July. Shortly before the day arrived, Mr.
Chamberlain said to me: "I think you had better not attend that dinner
to Spencer. I am not going, nor is D----. Certainly Spencer has done his
duty, and shown capital pluck; but I hope we should all have done the
same, and there's no reason to mark it by a dinner. And, after all,
coercion is not a nice business for Liberals, though we may be forced
into it." However, as I had greatly admired Lord Spencer's
administration, and as his family and mine had been politically
associated for a century, I made a point of attending, and a capital
evening we had. There was an enthusiastic and representative company of
two hundred Liberals. Lord Hartington presided, and extolled Lord
Spencer to the skies; and Lord Spencer justified the Crimes Act by
saying that, when it was passed, there was an organization of thirty
thous