presumption of law should give improvements to the tenant, is now,
I suppose, very widely admitted, but no longer suffices to settle
the question.... Now as to your "compensation for disturbance."
This is indeed a question full of difficulty. It is very desirable
to prevent the using of augmentation of rent as a method of
eviction. I shall be most curious to see the means and provisions
you may devise, without at present being too sanguine.

(M87) Meanwhile he notes to Lord Granville (Sept. 22) how critical and
arduous the question is, within as well as without the cabinet, and
wonders whether they ought not to be thinking of a judicious cabinet
committee:--

The question fills the public mind in an extraordinary degree, and
we can hardly avoid some early step towards making progress in it.
A committee keeps a cabinet quiet. It is highly necessary that we
should be quite ready when parliament meets, and yet there is so
much mental movement upon the question from day to day, as we see
from a variety of curious utterances (that of the _Times_
included), that it is desirable to keep final decisions open. Much
information will be open, and this a committee can prepare in
concert with the Irish government. It also, I think, affords a
means of bringing men's minds together.

He tells the Irish secretary that so far as he can enter into the
secretary's views, he "enters thoroughly into the spirit of them." But
many members of the cabinet, laden sufficiently with their own labours,
had probably not so closely followed up the matter:--

The proposition, that _more_ than compensation to tenants for
their improvements will be necessary in order to settle the Irish
land laws, will be unpalatable, or new, to several, and naturally
enough. You will have observed the total difference in the
internal situation between this case and that of the Irish church,
where upon all the greater points our measure was in a manner
outlined for us by the course of previous transactions.

At the end of October the question was brought formally before the
cabinet:--

_Oct. 30._--Cabinet, 2-5-1/2.... We broke ground very satisfactorily
on the question of Irish land. _Nov. 3._--Cabinet. Chiefly on Irish
land, and stiff. 9.--To Guildhall, where I spoke for the
government. The combination of physical effort with measured words