"it had been
recognised that the Under Secretary would have greater freedom of
action, greater opportunities of initiative, than if he had been a
candidate in the ordinary way."

One of the first results of the new departure was the withdrawal of the
application of the Coercion Act, which had been in force since April,
1902, an action which roused angry protests from the Orangemen, as did
also the words used, in what was almost his first speech, by Lord
Dudley, the new Viceroy, who had succeeded Lord Cadogan, and who
announced that, "the opinion of the Government was, and it was his own
opinion, that the only way to govern Ireland properly was to govern it
according to Irish ideas instead of according to British ideas."

During 1903 interest was largely engrossed in the fate of the Land Act,
and it was not till the autumn of 1904 that it became known that before
drafting in its final form the programme of the Irish Reform Association
Lord Dunraven had secured the assistance of the Under Secretary with the
knowledge of the Chief Secretary and the Viceroy, the latter of whom,
according to Lord Lansdowne's declaration in the House of Lords, "did
not think that Sir Antony was exceeding his functions"--a fact to which
colour was given by the circumstance that on several occasions the Under
Secretary discussed the reforms with the Lord Lieutenant.

Mr. Wyndham, on behalf of the Government, had taken the unusual course
of repudiating the Dunraven scheme in a letter to the _Times_, but in
spite of this, Irish Unionists wrote to the _Times_ to express their
suspicions "whether in short the devolution scheme is not the price
secretly arranged to be paid for the Nationalist acquiescence in a
settlement of the land question on generous terms."

Then it was that the _Times_ expressed its opinion that when a Unionist
Lord Lieutenant and a Unionist Under Secretary are discussing reforms
which the Cabinet condemn as Home Rule in a thin disguise, it is
obviously time that they quitted their posts. Three weeks later Mr.
Wyndham resigned, but Sir Antony, who had had the refusal of the
Governorship of Bombay--the third greatest Governorship in the British
Empire--retained his position, though his presence at Dublin Castle had
been described by some fervent Orangemen as a menace to the loyal and
law-abiding inhabitants of Ireland, and by the Irish Attorney-General as
a gross betrayal of the Unionist position and an injury to the Unionis