'"I felt well pleased and easy after receiving your note of the 21st, but there is a point I should like to put to you with reference to your self-denying ordinance making the three points conditions of office.

'"Suppose Parnell to come back eighty to ninety strong, to keep them together, to bring forward a plan which shall contain in your opinion adequate securities for the union of the Empire, and to press this plan, under whatever name, as having claims to precedence (claims which could hardly be denied even by opponents), do you think no Government should be formed to promote such a plan, unless the three points were glued on to it at the same time? Do you not think you would do well to reserve elbow-room for a case like this? I hope you will not think my suggestion—it is not a question— captious and a man-trap. It is meant in a very different sense. A Liberal majority is assumed in it.

'"Yours sincerely,
'"W. E. Gladstone."'

When that letter reached Highbury, Sir Charles was in France, awaiting Mrs. Pattison's arrival from India. Mr. Chamberlain's reply was written without consultation on September 28th. In it he said that he had assumed that Local Government would be the first work of a Liberal Government, and that Bills for the three countries would be brought in together. Mr. Parnell's change of front would, he thought, have limited the proposals to the establishment of County Councils, with certain powers for the acquisition of land by Local Authorities. He thought it unlikely that Parnell would bring forward a scheme that any Liberal Government could support; but if he did, he would do all he could to assist the Government in dealing with it, whether from inside or outside the Cabinet.

Chamberlain further urged Dilke to lay stress on the determination of his party not to be 'mere lay figures in a Cabinet of Goschens.' He regarded his party as indispensable, and if the Government tried to do without them, they were determined to make trouble. He expressed an earnest wish that Sir Charles Dilke could be working with them; but he did not press this at the moment, if Sir Charles was taking a holiday after his marriage.

Dilke took the briefest of holidays; on October 6th, three days after his wedding, he spoke at Chelsea. After dwelling at length on Chamberlain's proposal to give powers of compulsory land purchase to local authorities, he asked for the widest form of elective self- government for Ireland consistent with the integrity of the Empire, [Footnote: 'In my individual opinion, the natural crowning stone of any large edifice of local government must sooner or later be some such elective Local Government Board for each of the three principal parts of the United Kingdom and for the Principality of Wales, as I have often sketched out to you. As regards Ireland, we all of us here, I think, agree that the widest form of elective self-government should be conferred which is consistent with the integrity of the Empire. No one can justify the existence of the nominated official Boards which at present attempt to govern Ireland. I care not whether the Irish people are or are not at the moment willing to accept the changes we have to propose. If the present system is as indefensible as I think it, we should propose them all the same. If they are not at first accepted, our scheme will at least be seen and weighed, and we shall be freed from the necessity of appearing to defend a system which is obnoxious to every Liberal principle. I would ask you to remember some words in Mr. Ruskin's chapter on "The Future of England," in his Crown of Wild Olive, which are very applicable to the situation:—"In Ireland, especially, a vicious system has been so long maintained that it has become impossible to give due support to the cause of order without seeming to countenance injury." The bodies which would deal with education, with private Bills, with provisional order Bills, and with appeals from local authorities in matters too large for county treatment, in Wales and Scotland and England itself, if I had my way, as well as in Ireland, would, I believe, make the future government of the United Kingdom, as a United Kingdom, more easy than it is at present.'] and went on to assume that the first session of the new Parliament would be 'a Local Government session.' In the following week 'I made an important speech at Halifax on Local Government which attracted much attention.' 'Halifax will be all Local Government,' he wrote to Mr. Frank Hill, 'which is necessary, as it is clear that Balfour and Salisbury have cribbed my last year's Bill.'

'I may note here that on October 6th, at my Chelsea meeting, George
Russell told me that he had on the previous day induced Mr.
Gladstone to send for Chamberlain to Hawarden. On October 7th
Chamberlain wrote:

'"Hawarden Castle.

'"My Dear Dilke,

'"I was sent for here, but up to now I do not know why…. My present object is to say that you made a capital speech, and that I approve every word of it except the part about London Government. But as to this I suppose that Londoners must have their way and their own form of municipal government though I doubt if it will not prove a fatal gift. Why will the papers invent differences between you and me? I verily believe that if I spoke your speech, and you spoke mine, they would still find the distinguishing characteristics of each speaker unchanged. I thought your last part admirable and just what I should have said. Yet the Standard thinks it quite a different note to the South London and Bradford speeches. Mr. G. thinks Mr. Parnell's last speech more satisfactory I confess I had not perceived the improvement. He (Mr. G.) is still very sweet on National Councils."