excited state, to make one more
appeal to me for his fraction. It is not at all improbable that if the
bill had gone forward into committee, it would have been at the eleventh
hour rejected by the Irish on this department of it, and then all would
have been at an end. Mr. Parnell never concealed this danger ahead.

In the cabinet things went forward with such ups and downs as are usual
when a difficult bill is on the anvil. In a project of this magnitude, it
was inevitable that some minister should occasionally let fall the
consecrated formula that if this or that were done or not done, he must
reconsider his position. Financial arrangements, and the protection of the
minority, were two of the knottiest points,--the first from the contention
raised on the Irish side, the second from misgiving in some minds as to
the possibility of satisfying protestant sentiment in England and
Scotland. Some kept the colonial type more strongly in view than others,
and the bill no doubt ultimately bore that cast.

(M112) The draft project of surrendering complete taxing-power to the
Irish legislative body was eventually abandoned. It was soon felt that the
bare possibility of Ireland putting duties on British goods--and it was not
more than a bare possibility in view of Britain's position as practically
Ireland's only market--would have destroyed the bill in every manufacturing
and commercial centre in the land. Mr. Parnell agreed to give up the
control of customs, and also to give up direct and continuous
representation at Westminster. On this cardinal point of the cesser of
Irish representation, Mr. Gladstone to the last professed to keep an open
mind, though to most of the cabinet, including especially three of its
oldest hands and coolest heads, exclusion was at this time almost vital.
Exclusion was favoured not only on its merits. Mr. Bright was known to
regard it as large compensation for what otherwise he viewed as pure
mischief, and it was expected to win support in other quarters generally
hostile. So in truth it did, but at the cost of support in quarters that
were friendly. On April 30, Mr. Gladstone wrote to Lord Granville, "I
scarcely see how a cabinet could have been formed, if the inclusion of the
Irish members had been insisted on; and now I do not see how the scheme
and policy can be saved from shipwreck, if the exclusion is insisted on."

The plan was bound to be extensive, as its objects were extensive, and it
took f