'The whole stream of public excitement is now turned upon me, and I
am pestered with incessant telegrams which I have no defence against
but either suicide or Parnell's method of self-concealment. The
truth is I have more or less of opinions and ideas, but no
intentions or negotiations. In these ideas and opinions there is, I
think, little that I have not more or less conveyed in public
declarations: in principle, nothing. I will try to lay them before
you. I consider that Ireland has now spoken, and that an effort
ought to be made by the _Government_ without delay to meet her
demand for the management, by an Irish legislative body, of Irish as
distinct from Imperial affairs. Only a Government can do it, and a
Tory Government can do it more easily and safely than any other.

'There is first a postulate--that the state of Ireland shall be such
as to warrant it.

'The conditions of an admissible plan, I think, are--

'(1) Union of the Empire and due supremacy of Parliament.

'(2) Protection for the minority. A difficult matter on which I have
talked much with Spencer, certain points, however, remaining to be
considered.

'(3) Fair allocation of Imperial charges.

'(4) A statutory basis seems to me to be better and safer than the
revival of Grattan's Parliament, but I wish to hear more upon this,
as the minds of men are still in so crude a state on the whole