'Before I started for my Easter holiday I went through the draft of the Local Government Bill. Drawing great Bills is heart-breaking work, for one always feels that they will never be introduced or seen, so considerable are the chances against any given Bill going forward. All the great labour that we had given to the London Bill was wasted, and this forms a reason why the Foreign Office is pleasanter than other offices, as no work is wasted there.'
The decision to postpone extension of the franchise, though it eased the situation, did not solve all difficulties. Mr. Chamberlain urged a Tenant Rights Bill for England, which, he said to Sir Charles, "would be a great stroke of business. Without it" they would "lose the farmers for a certainty." Sir Charles concurred, and an Agricultural Holdings Bill was amongst the measures carried in that Session. It did not go far in the direction of tenant right, and therefore created no controversy with the Whigs. But with regard to Ireland, Mr. Chamberlain 'was strongly in favour of an Irish Local Government Bill' (which had been promised in a previous Queen's Speech). The Prime Minister was of Mr. Chamberlain's view. On February 3rd to 5th, when Dilke was staying with the Duke of Albany at Claremont (and 'admiring Clive's Durbar carpet, for which the house was built'), the Duke 'talked over Mr. Gladstone's strong desire for an Irish Local Government Bill.' That desire was, indeed, no secret, for Mr. Gladstone, still in his expansive mood of Cannes, gave an interview to M. Clemenceau, in which he expressed his hope to "make the humblest Irishman feel that he is a self governing agency, and that the Government is to be carried on by him and for him."
At the Cabinet of February 9th
'we looked forward to what the schoolboys call "a jolly blow up," when Mr. Gladstone should return. The letter from Mr. Gladstone, which was read, was so steady in its terms that I passed a paper to Chamberlain, saying: "He is quite as obstinate as you are."
'On February 12th I … found Harcourt perfectly furious at Mr.
Gladstone's conversations as reported in the Daily News. I wrote to
Chamberlain to tell him, and he replied: u It is lovely. And his
conversation with Clemenceau will send Hartington into hysterics re
Irish Local Government.'
Sir Charles's first Cabinet Council was on Tuesday, February 6th, 1883.
'This was the Queen's Speech Cabinet, and my notes show that I wrote a good deal of the speech, especially the part which concerned the Bills. I was much surprised at the form of the circular calling the Cabinet: "A Meeting of Her Majesty's servants will be held," etc…. We were thirteen on this day, and spent a portion of our valuable time in wondering which of us would be gone before the year was out. Mr. Gladstone still stated in his letters that he would retire at Easter, or at the latest in August, and it was generally thought that he meant August.'
A series of Cabinets followed in which the Prime Minister continued to make himself felt, though absent, and Sir Charles wrote in his Diary:
"Talk of two Kings of Brentford! This Cabinet has to serve two despotic monarchs—one a Tory one, at Osborne, and one a Radical one, at Cannes."
It shows the temper of the moment that Sir Charles should have described the second monarch as 'Radical.' But Ireland was then the central subject of contention, and concerning Ireland Mr. Gladstone was with the Radicals, Dilke and Chamberlain, and against those who wanted to revenge upon the whole Irish nation, the plots of the "Invincibles," then being exposed by the evidence of James Carey, the Phoenix Park assassin, who had been accepted as an informer.