ABSTRACT
William Ewart Gladstone and Salisbury were in some respects in similar circumstances as party leaders, for both the great parties were in considerable internal discomfort. Gladstone had to defend one party against the dangerous energy of Chamberlain and Dilke as Salisbury had to defend the other against the dangerous energy of Churchill and Gorst. A man may like Chamberlain’s ideas and dislike Harrington’s and yet read with some sympathy the letters in which Hartington complained to Gladstone of Chamberlain’s views of what was due from one colleague to another. When Chamberlain said that he wanted to do for the English labourer what the Gladstonian government had done for the Irish peasant, Gladstone, though cautious about any plan proposed to him, was attracted by the spirit of such language. Hartington, like Salisbury, thought it the reckless mischief-making of the demagogue.
