ABSTRACT
In the autumn of 1885 there were two men who thought the Irish question the most urgent of all the problems of politics. They were Carnarvon and William Ewart Gladstone. Salisbury, Chamberlain, Harrington, and Churchill, were all more interested, from one point of view or another, in the fate of the Church and of property. Carnarvon among the Conservatives had only joined Salisbury’s Government because he believed that the constructive settlement of the Irish problem was a vital need. Gladstone might reasonably hope that after appointing a Home Ruler as Viceroy and dropping measures for keeping order that Spencer had considered essential, Salisbury had in mind some political concession to the Irish demand. Herbert Gladstone had long been a Home Ruler and his Home Rule speeches had more than once been cited by Gladstone’s opponents, as evidence of Gladstone’s own sentiments.
