om the tories. This being
so, my rule of action was changed at once, and I determined on
taking any and every legitimate opportunity to remove the existing
government from office. Immediately on making up my mind about the
rejection of the government, I went to call upon Sir William
Harcourt and informed him as to my intentions and the grounds of
them. He said, "What! Are you prepared to go forward without
either Hartington or Chamberlain?" I answered, "Yes." I believe it
was in my mind to say, if I did not actually say it, that I was
prepared to go forward without anybody. That is to say without any
known and positive assurance of support. This was one of the great
imperial occasions which call for such resolutions.

An amendment stood upon the notice-paper in the name of Mr. Collings,
regretting the omission from the speech of measures for benefiting the
rural labourer; and on this motion an immediate engagement was fought.
Time was important. An exasperating debate on coercion with obstruction,
disorder, suspensions, would have been a damning prologue to any policy of
accommodation. The true significance of the motion was not concealed. On
the agrarian aspect of it, the only important feature was the adhesion of
Mr. Gladstone, now first formally declared, to the policy of Mr.
Chamberlain. The author of the agrarian policy fought out once more on the
floor of the House against Lord Hartington and Mr. Goschen the battle of
the platform. It was left for Sir Michael Hicks Beach to remind the House
that, whatever the honest mover might mean, the rural labourer had very
little to do with the matter, and he implored the gentlemen in front of
him to think twice and thrice before they committed the future of this
country to the gravest dangers that ever awaited it.

The debate was not prolonged. The discussion opened shortly before dinner,
and by one o'clock the division was taken. The government found itself in
a minority of 79. The majority numbered 331, composed of 257 liberals and
74 Irish nationalists. The ministerialist minority was 252, made up of 234
tories and 18 liberals. Besides the fact that Lord Hartington, Mr.
Goschen, and Sir Henry James voted with ministers, there was a still more
ominous circumstance. No fewer than 76 liberals were absent, including
among them the imposing personality of Mr. Bright. In a memorandum written
for submission to the Queen a few days la