really a terrible piece of news.
Ireland must be in an awful state, or else the radical members of the
cabinet would never have assented to such unanswerable evidence that the
liberal party could not govern Ireland without resort to that arbitrary
force which their greatest orators had so often declared to be no remedy.
It did not much matter whether the demand was for large powers or for
small. Why not put some kind thoughts towards England in Irish minds, by
using the last days of this unlucky parliament to abrogate all that harsh
legislation which is so odious to England, and which undoubtedly abridges
the freedom and insults the dignity of a sensitive and imaginative race?
The tory party should be careful beyond measure not to be committed to any
act or policy which should unnecessarily wound or injure the feelings of
our brothers on the other side of the channel of St. George.(121)

The key to an operation that should at once, with the aid of the
disaffected liberals and the Irish, turn out Mr. Gladstone and secure the
English elections, was an understanding with Mr. Parnell. The price of
such an understanding was to drop coercion, and that price the tory
leaders resolved to pay. The manoeuvre was delicate. If too plainly
disclosed, it might outrage some of the tory rank and file who would
loathe an Irish alliance, and it was likely, moreover, to deter some of
the disaffected liberals from joining in any motion for Mr. Gladstone's
overthrow. Lord Salisbury and his friends considered the subject with
"immense deliberation some weeks before the fall of the government." They
came to the conclusion that in the absence of official information, they
could see nothing to warrant a government in applying for a renewal of
exceptional powers. That conclusion they profess to have kept sacredly in
their own bosoms. Why they should give immense deliberation to a decision
that in their view must be worthless without official information, and
that was to remain for an indefinite time in mysterious darkness, was
never explained when this secret decision some months later was revealed
to the public.(122) If there was no intention of making the decision known
to the Irishmen, the purpose of so unusual a proceeding would be
inscrutable. Was it made known to them? Mr. McCarthy, at the time acting
for his leader, has described circumstantially how the Irish were
endeavouring to obtain a pledge against coercion; how two members of the
to