that after the most careful and sustained attention he had not detected
"any signs of anything which is likely to occur which tends in any way to show that the decision of her Majesty's Government to rely upon the ordinary law for the government of Ireland was in any way an unwise or an unsound decision".
But immediately after the result of the general election was known there was hesitation in the decision, and in January the policy of conciliation was completely abandoned. Experience teaches us that in choosing between Mr. Gladstone and Lord Salisbury it is useless looking to the Tory party for either consistency or resoluteness.
In 1884 the House of Lords, in which Lord Salisbury is paramount, endorsed what the House of Commons had, after opposition from Tory leaders, voted, and granted to the majority of the Irish people the right to choose their own representatives in Parliament. Now Lord Salisbury says: "Government by the majority works admirably well when it is confided to people of the Teutonic race, but it does not work so well when people of other races are called upon to join in it." If this means anything it means the perpetual denial to Ireland of the political right freely accorded in this country. In arranging in 1885 the redistribution of political representation, Lord Salisbury concurred with Mr. Gladstone in keeping the number of Irish representatives relatively to population in excess of the representation accorded to the rest of the United Kingdom. Early in November, 1885, Lord Salisbury and his friends, then trusting to be supported by the Irish vote, helped to circulate Mr. Parnell's manifesto, which called on the Irish in England, Wales, and Scotland to vote for Tories and against Mr. Gladstone and his friends. Last autumn
