Ministers meanwhile preserved an impenetrable silence. No one knew in what spirit, with what intention or with what allies they would meet Parliament. The Queen’s Speech still engaged the attention of the Cabinet. Lord Randolph Churchill was indebted to a friend for a happy suggestion, which he did not delay to forward to Lord Salisbury:—
Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Salisbury.
India Office: January 14, 1886.
Mr. Buckle has just been to see me, full of an idea of his own which struck me as good, and which I persuaded him not to spoil by bringing it out in to-morrow’s Times.
1886
Æt. 36
He wishes the Queen’s Speech of 1833 to be imitated, when, after the agitation of O’Connell, the Government declared in the Speech their intention of maintaining the Union. I send you the paragraph and also the paragraphs from the Speech of 1834, which seem still more to the purpose. Mr. Buckle very forcibly argues that some declaration of such a kind will force on the question at once, and prevent Gladstonian shuffling being resorted to successfully. The Irish would be obliged to meet such a challenge, and all parties would have to declare themselves....
The paragraph which was finally adopted was modelled on the lines of the Speech of 1834:—
| The King’s Speech, Feb. 4, 1834.
But I have seen, with feelings of deep regret and just indignation, the continuance of attempts to excite the people of that country to demand a repeal of the Legislative Union. This bond of our national strength and safety I have already declared my fixed and unalterable resolution, under the blessing of Divine Providence, to maintain inviolate by all the means in my power. In support of this determination I cannot doubt the zealous and effectual co-operation of my Parliament and my people. | The Queen’s Speech, Jan. 21, 1886.
I have seen with deep sorrow the renewal, since I last addressed you, of the attempt to excite the people of Ireland to hostility against the Legislative Union between that country and Great Britain. I am absolutely opposed to any disturbance of that fundamental law, and in resisting it I am convinced that I shall be heartily supported by my Parliament and my people. |
But the Tory leader was meditating a more decided challenge. He proposed to meet Parliament with a declaration of a Coercion policy which should disperse all doubts as to the relations of his Government with the Parnellites and should throw upon the Opposition the odium of defeating a Government upon a measure affecting law and order. He may have been led to this decision partly by a desire that the armies should face each other squarely in the coming battle. Partly, no doubt, he was persuaded thereto by the growing clamour and pressure of those sections of his own party who are always powerful to urge repressive measures. Sulky murmurs at the Carlton; loud complainings in the Times; trumpeted advent of Loyalist and Orange deputations claiming the protection of the Crown—all the storm-signals were flying. But there was a considerable case upon the merits. When Lord Randolph Churchill had visited Ireland in October he found the Viceroy anxious and alarmed by the growing power of the National League, and that organisation was now greatly extended. Throughout those parts of Ireland where the National League was supreme, liberty and law were gravely endangered. There was not, indeed, that kind of treasonable organisation which had existed in 1865 and 1867; nor was there such an amount of capital crime as culminated in the Phœnix Park murders; but a sullen, widespread, and well-organised spirit of resistance to the laws of property had taken possession of the Irish people and grew worse week by week. ‘There were in Ireland, and there are in Ireland now,’ said Lord Randolph at Paddington (February 13, 1886), ‘two governments—there is the Government of the Queen and the government of the National League—and the Government of the Queen is not the stronger government of the two in many parts of Ireland.’
Lord Salisbury first mentions the subject on January 13. ‘I am very perturbed,’ he writes, ‘about the state of Ireland.’ Three days later he met the Cabinet with definite proposals. Lord Ashbourne had prepared a Coercion Bill, and the Prime Minister had drafted a paragraph for the Queen’s Speech announcing its immediate introduction. The Cabinet was startled. Lord Randolph Churchill and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach had not prepared themselves for such a departure, grave as they knew the situation in Ireland to be. They were not satisfied that a case for special legislation was disclosed, still less that it could be sustained in the House of Commons. Both remembered their speeches of the previous summer. Neither responded sympathetically to the militant and autocratic temper of the mass of the party. The council was long and stormy and Ministers separated without having come to any decision. Meanwhile the resignation of Lord Carnarvon was publicly announced.