eat responsibility. He was set upon a method of
legislation adapted to the erroneous belief that the mischief lay
only with a very limited number of well-known individuals, that is
to say, the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act.... Two points of
difference arose: first, as to the nature of the coercion to be
used; secondly, as to its time. I insisted that we were bound to
try what we could do against Parnell under the existing law,
before asking for extraordinary powers. Both Bright and
Chamberlain, if I remember right, did very good service in
protesting against haste, and resisting Forster's desire to
anticipate the ordinary session for the purpose of obtaining
coercive powers. When, however, the argument of time was exhausted
by the Parnell trial(36) and otherwise, I obtained no support from
them in regard to the kind of coercion we were to ask. I
considered it should be done by giving stringency to the existing
law, but not by abolishing the right to be tried before being
imprisoned. I felt the pulse of various members of the cabinet,
among whom I seem to recollect Kimberley and Carlingford, but I
could obtain no sympathy, and to my dismay both Chamberlain and
Bright arrived at the conclusion that if there was to be coercion
at all, which they lamented, there was something simple and
effective in the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act which made
such a method preferable to others.(37) I finally acquiesced. It
may be asked why? My resistance would have broken up the
government or involved my own retirement. My reason for
acquiescence was that I bore in mind the special commission under
which the government had taken office. It related to the foreign
policy of the country, the whole spirit and effect of which we
were to reconstruct. This work had not yet been fully
accomplished, and it seemed to me that the effective prosecution
of it was our first and highest duty. I therefore submitted.

By the end of November Mr. Gladstone explained to the Queen that the state
of Ireland was menacing; its distinctive character was not so much that of
general insecurity of life, as that of a widespread conspiracy against
property. The worst of it was, he said, that the leaders, unlike
O'Connell, failed to denounce crime. The outbreak was not comparable to
that of 1832. In 1879 homicides were 64 against 242 for