liatory policy."

A few days later (February 5) Lord Hartington wrote: "I have been told
that I have been represented as having been in general agreement with you
on your Irish policy, and having been prevented joining your government
solely by the declarations which I made to my constituents; and as not
intending to oppose the government even on home rule. On looking over my
letter I think that the general intention is sufficiently clear, but there
is part of one sentence which, taken by itself, might be understood as
committing me beyond what I intended or wished. The words I refer to are
those in which I say that it may be possible for me as a private member to
prevent obstacles being placed in the way of a fair trial being given to
the policy of the new government. But I think that the commencement of the
sentence in which these words occur sufficiently reserves my liberty, and
that the whole letter shows that what I desire is that the somewhat
undefined declarations which have hitherto been made should now assume a
practical shape."(182)

The decision was persistently regarded by Mr. Gladstone as an important
event in English political history. With a small number of distinguished
individual exceptions, it marked the withdrawal from the liberal party of
the aristocratic element. Up to a very recent date this had been its
governing element. Until 1868, the whig nobles and their connections held
the reins and shaped the policy. After the accession of a leader from
outside of the caste in 1868, when Mr. Gladstone for the first time became
prime minister, they continued to hold more than their share of the
offices, but in cabinet they sank to the position of what is called a
moderating force. After 1880 it became every day more clear that even this
modest function was slipping away. Lord Hartington found that the
moderating force could no longer moderate. If he went on, he must make up
his mind to go under the Caudine forks once a week. The significant
reference, among his reasons for not joining the new ministry, to the
concessions that he had made in the last government for the sake of party
unity, and to his feeling that any further moves of the same kind for the
same purpose would destroy all public confidence in him, shows just as the
circumstances of the election had shown, and as the recent debate on the
Collings amendment had shown, how small were the chances, quite apart from
Irish policy, of uniting whig and