CHAPTER XLI
FALL OF ADMINISTRATION
JUNE TO JULY, 1885
On June 8th, as has been seen, the Government were defeated by a majority of 12.
'On June 9th there was a further Cabinet. We had been beaten on the Budget, but in the meantime Spencer had yielded, and Mr. Gladstone was very anxious to be able to say that we were all agreed. Therefore we discussed a Coercion Bill in the first place, but the four of us at once refused to agree to Spencer's concession as sufficient.' [Footnote: Namely, that the Coercion Bill should only have effect after a special proclamation had been issued. Sir Charles Dilke notes, September 20th, 1891, the receipt of a letter from Mr. Chamberlain, thanking him for extracts from his Memoir of 1884-85 on Irish affairs, and saying that where it dealt with the same points it tallied exactly with his recollections.] 'It passes my understanding, therefore, how Mr. Gladstone is able to pronounce, as he has done, "unfounded" the statement that the Cabinet was at odds upon the Irish question at the moment of its defeat. Three of us had resigned on it, and our letters were in his pocket. The next matter discussed was resignation, which did not take a minute; and then the question of what Customs dues should be levied….
'After the Cabinet there was a levee, at which I had some conversation with Lord Salisbury as to the Redistribution Bill in the Lords, and his reply showed that he meant to form a Government.'
'On June 10th my discussions with Lord Salisbury as to the Redistribution Bill were continued, and it was decided that the Bill was to go forward in spite of the Ministerial crisis, although this was resisted by the Fourth Party in the House of Commons.'
On the previous evening Sir Charles Dilke addressed an audience at the City Liberal Club in a speech of unwonted passion. Confidently anticipating that the Redistribution Bill would go through in spite of any change of Ministry and the resistance of the Fourth Party, he dwelt on the magnitude of the change for which he had so long wrought. But the central point of the speech was a eulogy of Mr Gladstone, which reflected the temper of a scene that had passed in the House of Commons the same day, and he demanded in the name of Liberalism that the battle should be won, 'not only with his great name, but under his actual leadership.'
This was the declaration of the Radicals against all thought of a
Hartington Administration. Referring to the speech, he writes:
'I was greatly congratulated on this day on a speech which I had made at a house dinner of the City Liberal Club on the 9th. Chamberlain wrote: "Your speech was admirable, and I have heard from one who was present that the effect was electrical. You never did better in your life." He went on to agree with me in my wish that Herbert Gladstone should be appointed Chief Whip for the Opposition, and then to say that we must be very careful what we did, or "we shall destroy the Tory Government before it has done our work." I had asked him to sit to Holl for a portrait for me, and he said that he would do so, but that he was going to speak all over the country in support of the unauthorized programme. He did sit, and a very fine picture was the result.' [Footnote: Now at the National Portrait Gallery, to which Sir Charles bequeathed it.]