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Session of 1885.–The allied powers of Toryism and Nationalism gained in this year the victory they had so long striven for. In February they reduced the Ministerial majority to fourteen; in June they overthrew the Ministry. No one supposed that on either occasion the merits of the issue had anything to do with the Nationalist vote: that vote was given simply and solely against the Government, as the Government which had passed the Coercion Acts of 1881 and 1882–Acts demanded by the Tory party, and which had not conceded an Irish Parliament. At last the Irish party had attained its position as the arbiter of power and office. Some of us said, as we walked away from the House, under the dawning light of that memorable 9th of June, “This means Home Rule.” Our forecast was soon to be confirmed. Lord Salisbury’s Cabinet, formed upon the resignation of Mr. Gladstone’s, announced that it would not propose to renew any part of the Coercion Act of 1882, which was to expire in August. Here was a surrender indeed! But the Tory leaders went further. They did not excuse themselves on the ground of want of time. They took credit for their benevolence towards Ireland; they discovered excellent reasons why the Act should be dropped. They even turned upon Lord Spencer, whose administration they had hitherto blamed for its leniency, and attacked him in Parliament, among the cheers of his Irish enemies. From that time till the close of the General Election in December everything was done, short of giving public pledges, to keep the Irish leaders and the Irish voters in good humour. The Tory party in fact posed as the true friends of Ireland, averse from coercion, and with minds perfectly open on the subject of self-government.

This change of front, so sudden, so unblushing, completed the process which had been going on in our minds. By 1882 we had come to feel that Home Rule was inevitable, though probably undesirable. Before long we had asked ourselves whether it was really undesirable, whether it might not be a good thing both for England, whose Parliament and Cabinet system it would relieve from impending dangers, while leaving free scope for domestic legislation, and for Ireland, which could hardly manage her affairs worse than we were managing them for her, and might manage them better. And thus, by the spring of 1885, many of us were prepared for a large scheme of local self-government in Ireland, including a central legislative body in Dublin.[4]

Now when it was plain that the English party which had hitherto called for repression, and had professed itself anxious for a patriotic union of all parties to maintain order and a continuity of policy in Ireland, was ready to bid for Irish help at the polls by throwing over repression and reversing the policy it had advocated, we felt that the sooner Ireland was taken out of English party politics the better. What prospect was there of improving Ireland by the superior wisdom and fairness of the British Parliament, if British leaders were to make their Irish policy turn on interested bargains with Nationalist leaders? Repression, which we clearly saw to be the only alternative to self-government, seemed to be by common consent abandoned. I remember how, at a party of members in the beginning of July, some one said, “Well, there’s an end for ever of coercion at any rate,” and every one assented as to an obvious truth. Accordingly the result of the new departure of the Salisbury Cabinet in 1885 was to convince even doubters that Home Rule must come, and to make those already convinced anxious to see it come quickly, and to find the best form that could be given it. Many of us expected the Tory Government to propose it. Rumour declared the new Lord Lieutenant to be in favour of it. His government was extremely conciliatory in Ireland, even to the recalcitrant corporation of Limerick. Not to mention less serious and less respected Tory Ministers, Lord Salisbury talked at Newport about the dualism of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy with the air of a man who desired to have a workable scheme, analogous, if not similar, suggested for Ireland and Great Britain. The Irish Nationalists appeared to place their hopes in this quarter, for they attacked the Liberal party with unexampled bitterness, and threw all their voting strength into the Tory scale.