'I had been summoned by Chamberlain, who desired a meeting of our party within the party, in a letter in which he said:
'"It does not look as if the Tories would have the chance of doing much mischief; but I should much like them to be in for a couple of years before we try again, and then I should 'go for the Church.'"'
Dilke notes that Chamberlain was persuaded to drop this line of attack, on which he had already embarked. Disestablishment of the Church of England had proved to be anything but a good election cry; the ransom doctrine had not brought in more votes than it lost; and the 366 certain Liberal seats with twenty-six doubtful ones which Mr. Schnadhorst counted up at the end of October were now an illusion of the past. The election was generally taken as a set-back to the extreme Radicals.
'On Saturday, December 5th, we met at Highbury, and remained in council until Monday, December 7th. Mr. Gladstone, we were informed (that is Morley, Lefevre, and myself), had presented a Home Rule scheme to the Queen, who had shown it to Lord Salisbury, and Randolph Churchill had told Lady Dorothy Nevill, who had told Chamberlain, but no statement had been made by Mr. Gladstone to his former colleagues.'
CHAPTER XLV
BEGINNING OF THE HOME RULE SPLIT
DECEMBER, 1885, TO FEBRUARY, 1886
After the meeting of Radicals, December 5th to 7th, at Highbury, Sir
Charles went back to London.
'On Wednesday, December 9th, I spoke at the Central Poor Law Conference…. I carried the assembly, which was one of Poor Law Guardians, and therefore Conservative, along with me in the opinion that it was desirable to elect directly the whole of the new bodies in local government, instead of having either a special representation of Magistrates or any system of indirect election or choice of Aldermen.'
He argued in the belief that the next session might still see a Tory Government in power. 'If the Conservatives propose a Local Government Bill,' he said at Chelsea, 'it will be our Local Government Bill which they will propose.' He notes: 'They proposed two-thirds of it, and carried one-third, in 1888.'