Wednesday, July 21.—The Cabinet met at eleven, and I went to it in the mind of last night. [Not to abandon the Bill absolutely, but only to suspend the Government’s responsibility for it, leaving the Opposition to work their own will, and with the intention, when this had been done, of considering the matter further]. We discussed, however, at great lengths all possible methods of proceeding that occurred to us. The course adopted was to go through the endowment amendments, and if they were carried adversely, then to drop their responsibility.
Thursday, July 22.—I was laid up to-day and the transactions were carried on by Lord Granville, in communication with me from time to time at my house.
The proceedings of this critical day are narrated by Lord Granville in a memorandum to Mr. Gladstone dated August 4.
“After seeing you, I met Lord Cairns at the Colonial Office. He offered me terms.... I asked him whether, in his opinion, he, the Archbishop, and I could carry anything we agreed upon. He said, ‘Yes, certainly.’ After seeing you, I met Lord Cairns a second time in his room in the House of Lords. I asked, as a preliminary to giving any opinion on his amendments, how he proposed to deal with the preamble. He said, ‘To leave it as amended by the Lords.’ I then proposed the words which were afterwards adopted in the 68th clause. He was at first taken aback, but admitted that he had personally no objection to them.... We agreed upon the commutation clause if the 7 and the 5 per cent. were lumped together. On the curates’ clause we could come to no agreement. He proposed to see Lord Salisbury and the Archbishop, and to meet again at four at the Colonial Office. He spoke with fairness as to the difficulty of his position, and the risk he ran with his own party. I again saw you, and asked the Irish Attorney-General to be present at the last interview. I stated to him in Lord Cairns’ presence how far we agreed, and expressed my regret that on the last point—the curates—our difference was irreconcilable. Lord Cairns said he hoped not, and proceeded to argue strongly in favour of his proposal. He at last, however, at 4.30, compromised the matter by accepting five years instead of one. I shook his hand, which was trembling with nervousness. We discussed the form of announcing the arrangement to the House. We at once agreed it was better to tell the whole truth, and soon settled that it would be better for its success that he should announce the details. I was afterwards apprehensive that this latter arrangement might be disadvantageous to us, but nothing could be better or fairer than his statement.”
“The news was brought to me on my sofa,” Mr. Gladstone says, “and between five and six o’clock I was enabled to telegraph to the Queen. My telegram was followed up by a letter at 7 p.m., which announced that the arrangement had been accepted by the House of Lords, and that a general satisfaction prevailed.”
To the Queen he wrote (July 22):
“Mr. Gladstone is at a loss to account for the great change in the tone and views of the Opposition since Sunday and Monday and even Tuesday last, but on this topic it is needless to enter. As to the principal matters, the basis of the arrangement on the side of the Government is much the same as was intended when Mr. Gladstone had the honour of an audience at Windsor on Saturday; but various minor concessions have been added. Mr. Gladstone does not doubt that, if the majority of the House of Lords should accede to the advice of Lord Cairns, the Government will be able to induce the House of Commons to agree on the conditions proposed. Mr. Gladstone would in vain strive to express to your Majesty the relief, thankfulness, and satisfaction with which he contemplates not only the probable passing of what many believe to be a beneficent and necessary measure, but the undoubted and signal blessing of an escape from a formidable constitutional conflict.”
THE IRISH LAND BILL (1870).
Source.—Morley’s Life of Gladstone, vol. ii., pp. 293, 294. (Macmillan and Co.)