predecessors to settle the University question or to range the bishops
on the side of the Government.

The autumn and winter of 1881 revealed the magnitude of the mischief
done by making a Coercion Bill precede a Relief Bill. The Land Bill was
the largest concession made to the demands of the people since Catholic
Emancipation. It was a departure, justified by necessity, but still a
departure from our established principles of legislation. It ought to
have brought satisfaction and confidence, if not gratitude, with it;
ought to have led Ireland to believe in the sincere friendliness of
England, and produced a new cordiality between the islands. It did
nothing of the kind. It was held to have been extorted from our fears;
its grace and sweetness were destroyed by the concomitant severities
which the Coercion Act had brought into force, as wholesome food becomes
distasteful when some bitter compound has been sprinkled over it. We
were deeply mortified at this result of our efforts. What was the malign
power which made the boons we had conferred shrivel up, "like fairy
gifts fading away"? We still believed the Coercion Act to have been
justified, but lamented the fate which baffled the main object of our
efforts, the winning over Ireland to trust the justice and the capacity
of the Imperial Parliament. And thus the two facts which stood out from
the history of this eventful session were, first, that even in
legislating for the good of Ireland we were legislating against the
wishes of Ireland, imposing on her enactments which her representatives
opposed, and which we supported only at the bidding of the Ministry;
and, secondly, that at the end of a long session, entirely devoted to
her needs, we found her more hostile and not less disturbed than she had
been at its beginning. We began to wonder whether we should ever succeed
better on our present lines. But we still mostly regarded Home Rule as a
disagreeable solution.