for
it, but the words actually used by Mr Gladstone were: "The continuance
of Parnell's leadership would render my retention of the leadership of
the Liberal Party almost a nullity." Be it observed, Gladstone did not
say he was going to retire from leadership; nor did he say he was
going to abandon Home Rule--to forsake a principle founded on justice
and for which he had divided the Liberal Party and risked his own
reputation as a statesman.

To think that Gladstone meant this is not alone inconceivable, but
preposterous. And, indeed, it has been recently made abundantly clear
in Lord Morley's book of personal reminiscences that the Parnell Split
need never have taken place at all had steps been taken by any
responsible body of intermediaries to obtain Gladstone's real views.
We now know it for absolute fact that Gladstone had had actually
struck out of his letter as prepared by him for publication the fatal
and fateful passage and that it was only reinserted at Mr John
Morley's dictation. Mr Morley's own narrative of the circumstances
deserves quotation:

"At 8 to dinner in Stratton Street. I sat next to Granville and next
to him was Mr G. We were all gay enough and as unlike as possible to a
marooned crew. Towards the end of the feast Mr G. handed to me, at the
back of Granville's chair, the draft of the famous letter in an
unsealed envelope. While he read the Queen's speech to the rest I
perused and reperused the letter. Granville also read it. I said to Mr
G. across Granville: 'But you have not put in the very thing that
would be most likely of all things to move him,' referring to the
statement in the original draft, that Parnell's retention would mean
the nullity of Gladstone's leadership. Harcourt again regretted that
it was addressed to me and not to P. and agreed with me that it ought
to be strengthened as I had indicated if it was meant really to affect
P.'s mind. Mr G. rose, went to the writing-table and with me standing
by wrote, on a sheet of Arnold M.'s grey paper, the important
insertion. I marked then and there under his eyes the point at which
the insertion was to be made and put the whole into my pocket. Nobody
else besides H. was consulted about it, or saw it."

Thus the fate of a great man and, to a very considerable extent also,
the destiny of an ancient nation was decided by one of those
unaccountable mischances which are the weapons of Fate in an
inscrutable world. I think that to-day Ireland