f these victories, though he mourned
over the evils that such temporary successes might entail, and was
convinced that they would prove to be dearly bought.(269) A year later the
tide still flowed on; the net gain of the opposition rose to eleven. In
1886 seventy-seven constituencies were represented by forty-seven
unionists and thirty liberals. By the beginning of October in 1890 the
unionist members in the same constituencies had sunk to thirty-six, and
the liberals had risen to forty-one. Then came the most significant
election of all.

There had been for some months a lull in Ireland. Government claimed the
credit of it for coercion; their adversaries set it down partly to the
operation of the Land Act, partly to the natural tendency in such
agitations to fluctuate or to wear themselves out, and most of all to the
strengthened reliance on the sincerity of the English liberals. Suddenly
the country was amazed towards the middle of September by news that
proceedings under the Coercion Act had been instituted against two
nationalist leaders, and others. Even strong adherents of the government
and their policy were deeply dismayed, when they saw that after three
years of it, the dreary work was to begin over again. The proceedings
seemed to be stamped in every aspect as impolitic. In a few days the two
leaders would have been on their way to America, leaving a half-empty war
chest behind them and the flame of agitation burning low. As the offences
charged had been going on for six months, there was clearly no pressing
emergency.

A critical bye-election was close at hand at the moment in the Eccles
division of Lancashire. The polling took place four days after a vehement
defence of his policy by Mr. Balfour at Newcastle. The liberal candidate
at Eccles expressly declared from his election address onwards, that the
great issue on which he fought was the alternative between conciliation
and coercion. Each candidate increased the party vote, the tory by rather
more than one hundred, the liberal by nearly six hundred. For the first
time the seat was wrested from the tories, and the liberal triumphed by a
substantial majority.(270) This was the latest gauge of the failure of the
Irish policy to conquer public approval, the last indication of the
direction in which the currents of public opinion were steadily
moving.(271) Then all at once a blinding sandstorm swept the ground.

II

One of those events now occurred t