'During Sunday, May 10th, Harcourt tried hard to patch matters up on the basis of "No Home Rule, no coercion, no remedial legislation, no Ireland at all."'
On May 13th 'Cardinal Manning dined with me, and we further discussed the position of Chamberlain's scheme.'
Then suddenly a new and complicating factor was introduced:
'On Friday, May 15th, there was another Cabinet, from which Trevelyan was absent through illness. A Land Purchase Ireland Bill was suddenly presented to us, to which I expressed strong opposition, unless it were to be accompanied by "Chamberlain's Local Government scheme"; and a Coercion Bill was also presented to us, against which Chamberlain, Lefevre, and I, protested. We, however, declared that we would yield as regards some points in the Coercion Bill provided the Land Purchase Bill were dropped or the "Local Government measure" introduced.' [Footnote: A Land Purchase Bill had been proposed in the end of April, 1884, by Lord Spencer, which after preliminary consideration by a Committee was discussed in Cabinet.
'I opposed the whole thing. Lord Derby gave five reasons against it, all five unanswerable, and then supported it. Northbrook agreed with me. Childers, supported by a unanimous Cabinet committee, proposed a scheme of Chamberlain's suggestion for advancing the whole purchase money. Spencer proposed three-fourths. Mr. Gladstone had a scheme of his own which nobody could understand. Spencer insisted on counting heads. Lord Granville, who would, of course, have supported Mr. Gladstone, had gone away. Trevelyan, who had been called in, was not allowed to vote, and the result was that the majority pronounced against Chamberlain's scheme; Spencer who was for three-fourths, and I against the whole thing, voting together with Carlingford, Northbrook, the Chancellor, Hartington, and Dodson—a scratch lot—against Mr. Gladstone, Childers, Harcourt, Kimberley, Derby, and Chamberlain.']
'On Sunday, May 17th, I dined with Edward Levy Lawson, [Footnote: Afterwards the first Lord Burnham.] and met the Prince of Wales and Randolph Churchill; and Randolph told the Prince and myself that which he had previously told the Irish members—namely, that Salisbury had promised to have no coercion; but I noted in my diary that I did not believe this. I was wrong, for Salisbury afterwards said at Newport that his mind had been made up against coercion long before the change of Government. I knew that Randolph had seen Parnell, as I had twice seen them together in Gosset's room, which only Randolph and I ever used before 5 p m.'
There were now two separate subjects of division leading to resignations in the Cabinet. There were those who would resign unless coercion was renewed, and there was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was resigning because he could not get his way as to the Budget. His resignation was 'suspended'; but Mr. Gladstone was evidently anxious to be out of it all.
'On the Sunday Childers informed us that he would go on for three weeks. On Wednesday afternoon, May 20th, Mr. Gladstone spoke to me at the House, and told me that he would go on until the end of the Session, and would then resign, and that Hartington would try to form a Government, although he might fail in getting one that could agree on Irish proposals. Mr. Gladstone said nothing about land purchase, but in the course of the afternoon he suddenly announced publicly the introduction of a Land Purchase Bill, thinking, I believe, that he had Chamberlain's consent to a Bill limited to one year. I at once wrote him a letter of resignation, and then sent off for Chamberlain, Lefevre, and Trevelyan.
'Chamberlain's interview with Mr. Gladstone that had misled the latter had taken place after the Cabinet of Saturday—I think on the morning of Monday, the 18th—and their meeting was on the subject of Childers's Budget proposals. Chamberlain, writing to me about it, said: "We are likely to want four millions less money. Therefore, says Childers, let us have a new Budget and clap an additional tax of £300,000 on wine." Chamberlain also wrote to me, after his interview with Mr. Gladstone, on the Monday afternoon, telling me that Randolph Churchill was going to give notice of a Committee to inquire into the state of Ireland, that Churchill thought that we should be out by that time and supporting him, and that he contemplated a separation from his own leaders, and a union, on a Radical Irish policy for "Local Government," and against coercion, of the two sides from below the gangway. Chamberlain added that, if the Russian matter "were out of the way, Mr. Gladstone would let us go, and I think we must go." This correspondence had left me unaware of any change in Chamberlain's view, if there was any, about the Land Purchase Bill. As soon as Chamberlain reached the House on the 20th, and heard from me what I had done, he also wrote a letter of resignation; but he was not pleased, and perhaps rightly, at my having taken so strong a step without consulting him on the precise point.
'In Chamberlain's letter, which was sent at 6 p.m. on the 20th, he said: "Dear Mr. Gladstone,—I have heard with great surprise that you have this afternoon given notice of the introduction of a Land Purchase Bill for Ireland, unaccompanied by any reference to the large scheme of Local Government, the promise of which for next year was the condition of the assent given by Sir Charles Dilke and myself to the proposal for dealing with Land Purchase during the present Session. I am convinced that a measure of the kind suggested by Lord Spencer will have a distinct tendency to increase the agitation for a separation between the two countries, and at the same time will seriously prejudice the success of any such scheme of Local Government as I have submitted to the Cabinet…. In the circumstances I feel that I have no alternative but to place my resignation in your hands."