more powerful than they previously possessed. We had deliberately
asserted our faith in the Irish people. Impossible after this to fall
back on Coercion Bills. Impossible to refuse any request compatible with
the general safety of the United Kingdom, which Ireland as a nation
might prefer. Impossible to establish that system of Crown Colony
Government which we had come to perceive was the only real and solid
alternative to self-government. To those of us who had been feeling that
the Irish difficulty was much the greatest of all England's
difficulties, this stood out beyond the agitation of the autumn and the
compromise of the winter as the great political event of 1884.[4]

Although this sketch is in the main a record of Parliamentary opinion, I
ought not to pass over the influence which the study of their
constituents' ideas exerted upon members for the larger towns. We found
the vast bulk of our supporters--English supporters, for after 1882 it
was understood that the Irish voters were our enemies--sympathetic with
the Irish people. They knew and thought little about Home Rule,
believing that their member understood that question better than they
did, and willing, so long as he was sound on English issues, to trust
him. But they pitied Irish tenants, and condemned Irish landlords.
Though they acquiesced in a Coercion Bill when proposed by a Liberal
Cabinet, because they concluded that nothing less than necessity would
lead such a Cabinet to propose one, they so much disliked any
exceptional or repressive legislation that it was plain they would not
long tolerate it. Any popular leader denouncing coercion was certain to
have the sentiment of the English masses with him, while as to
suspending Irish representation or carrying out consistently the policy
of treating Ireland as a subject country, there was no chance in the
world of their approval. Those of us, therefore, who represented large
working-class constituencies became convinced that the solution of the