GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



401 



of Lord Salisbury, who would settle it with 

 " twenty years 1 resolute government." 



Instead of the adherence of many " waver- 

 ers " among the followers of Chamberlain, fifty 

 Radicals were persuaded by Mr. Chamberlain 

 and Mr. Trevelyan, not merely to abstain from 

 voting, but to vote against the bill in the sec- 

 ond reading, as the Whigs, who followed Lord 

 Hartington, were certain to do. The conse- 

 quence was, that the vote went against the 

 Government by a majority of 341 to 311. All 

 the Conservatives voted, except two who were 

 ill, but ten Liberals were absent and one Par- 

 nellite. 



The ministry announced that all contentious 

 business would be dropped, and Parliament 

 dissolved as soon as possible, and that the new 

 Parliament would meet as soon as the returns 

 of the elections were completed. 



Much unfinished legislation was dropped in 

 order to wind up the session. No measure of 

 prime importance was considered besides the 

 Irish bills. The arms act was renewed for an- 

 other year. A crofters' bill was passed which 

 grants fixity of tenure and fair rents, to be set- 

 tled by land commissioners and valuers, after 

 the precedent of the Irish land act. Attempts 

 were made without success to enlarge the scope 

 of the act so as to include other classes of ten- 

 ants besides the crofters, and other localities 

 in Scotland besides the Highlands and islands. 

 Mr. Macfarlane, the principal advocate of the 

 crofters, declared the bill to be unsatisfactory, 

 and moved its rejection. An international and 

 colonial copyright bill was enacted. The medi- 

 cal acts were amended, the contagious diseases 

 acts repealed, a poor-relief and a laborers bill 

 passed for Ireland, and an allotments and small 

 holdings bill of insignificant scope was carried 

 after Mr. Collings left the House. Bills regu- 

 lating hours of work in shops and the sale of 

 intoxicating liquors to children were passed, 

 but with amendments added by the defenders 

 of personal liberty in the House of Lords. The 

 lords voted in favor of opening museums on 

 Sundays. A committee on parliamentary pro- 

 cedure decided on the limitation of hours of 

 debate and a system of automatic closure, but 

 requiring a two-third vote to close discussion. 

 Parliament was prorogued on June 25, and a 

 dissolution decreed the following day, and 

 August 5 was the day appointed for the meet- 

 ing of the new Parliament. 



The General Election. In a manifesto addressed 

 to the electors of Mid-Lothian, Mr. Gladstone 

 contrasted the two plans before the people for 

 the settlement of the Irish question : his plan, 

 that Ireland should, under well-considered con- 

 ditions, transact her own affairs; and that of 

 Lord Salisbury, to ask Parliament for new re- 

 pressive laws, and to enforce them vigorously 

 tor twenty years. The Union in its present 

 shape he described as " a paper union, obtained 

 by force and fraud, and never sanctioned or ac- 

 cepted by the Irish nation." Among the bene- 

 fits that he anticipated from the acceptance of 

 VOL. xxvr. 26 A 



home-rule were "the consolidation of the 

 unity of the empire and a great addition to its 

 strength ; the stoppage of a heavy, constant, 

 and demoralizing waste of public treasure ; the 

 abatement and gradual extinction of ignoble 

 feuds in Ireland, and that development of her 

 resources which experience shows to be the 

 natural consequence of free and orderly govern- 

 ment ; the redemption of the honor of Great 

 Britain from a stigma fastened upon her from 

 time immemorial in respect to Ireland by the 

 judgment of the whole civilized world ; and, 

 lastly, the restoration to Parliament of its dig- 

 nity and efficiency and the regular progress of 

 the business of the country." 



Mr. Parnell declared that, for himself and for 

 five sixths of the Irish people, he could say 

 that the Gladstonian plan would be accepted 

 as final. In the elections the Liberals under 

 the lead of the Marquis of Hartington, and to 

 a great extent those controlled by Mr. Cham- 

 berlain, coalesced with the Tories. In some 

 constituencies the Conservatives opposed the 

 dissentient Liberal candidates, and won through 

 the division in the Liberal ranks. In strongly 

 Liberal districts they set up no opposition can- 

 didate, but gave the whole Tory vote to the 

 Liberal seceder, balancing the ballots cast for 

 the regular Liberal candidates. In many others 

 the Conservatives won through the abstention 

 of the dissentient Liberals. In the division on 

 the home-rule bill 228 Liberals voted with the 

 Government, and 93 voted against the bill. 

 Five sixths of the Liberal peers and four fifths 

 of the Liberal capitalists supported the seceders, 

 but nineteen twentieths of the Liberal democ- 

 racy clung to Mr. Gladstone. The schism in 

 the Liberal party caused the loss of 64 seats to 

 the Tories. The new Parliament was composed 

 of 316 Conservatives, 74 Union Liberals, 196 

 Gladstone Liberals, and 84 Parnellites, giving 

 the Unionists a majority of 390 against 280 

 Gladstone Home-Rulers. The regular Liberals 

 polled 1,344,000 votes in Great Britain, the 

 seceders 379,000, and the Tories 1,041,000. 

 Lord Salisbury pronounced the result of the 

 election an irrevocable verdict against home- 

 rule. Mr. Gladstone, on the other hand, saw 

 advantages in a policy that is affirmative, defi- 

 nite, and complete, over a combination that 

 agrees only in negations. The Radicals, led 

 by Joseph Chamberlain, were not absolutely 

 opposed to home-rule for Ireland, but only to 

 the scheme propounded by Gladstone. For the 

 ultimate triumph of his ideas the defeated 

 statesman deemed it " a mighty advantage to 

 have a nation at our back, for a nation never 

 dies." The popular vote in Scotland in favor 

 of the Gladstonian policy was three to two, in 

 Wales five to one, and in Ireland four and a 

 half to one. On July 21, after the elections, 

 and before the meeting of Parliament, the home- 

 rule administration resigned. The Marquis of 

 Salisbury, in undertaking to form a new min- 

 istry, sought ineffectually the direct co-opera- 

 tion of Lord Hartington and the Unionist Lib- 



