"rather as a colleague than as a subordinate." Officially and publicly,
the credit for the Land Act of 1903 went to the Chief Secretary, and Mr.
Wyndham deserves much of it. But no one who knew the two men could have
doubted that in the shaping of a measure involving so wide a range of
detail, the leading part must have been taken by the Irish Civil Servant
who in India had acquired most of his fame from a sweeping measure of
land reform.

Proposals to alter the method and conduct of Irish administration before
touching the parliamentary power to legislate and to tax came with
extraordinary weight in coming from such a man; and the history of the
previous Home Rule Bills was not encouraging to anyone, especially to
those who had been members of Mr. Gladstone's two last administrations.
From the time of the Parnell divorce case onwards, the Irish question
had brought to Liberals nothing but embarrassment and embitterment. The
enthusiasm for Home Rule which grew steadily from 1886 up to the
severance between Gladstone and Parnell had vanished in the squalid
controversies of the "split." Moreover, now, by the action of Mr.
Chamberlain, a new dividing line had been brought into British politics.
The cry of Protection seemed in the opinion of all Liberals to menace
ruin to British prosperity; the banner of Free Trade offered a splendid
rallying-point for a party which had known fifteen years of dissension
and division. Prudent men thought it would be unsafe, unwise and
unpatriotic to compromise this great national interest by retaining the
old watch-word on which Gladstone had twice fought and twice been
beaten.

It was clear, too, that a Home Rule Bill would provoke a direct conflict
with the House of Lords and would raise that great struggle on not the
most favourable issue. Statesmen like Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Asquith