ABSTRACT
Mr. William Ewart Gladstone has reserved for his closing days a conspiracy against the honour of Britain and the welfare of Ireland more startingly base and nefarious than any of those other numerous designs and plots which, during the last quarter of a century, have occupied his imagination. Most people thought of the collapse of the Liberal party and the disaster in which Gladstone’s long career seemed to have reached its end. In certain important respects the Tariff Reformers in 1906 had an advantage over the Home Rulers in 1886. Home Rule was an absolutely novel idea to the British electorate and it had only been discussed for a few months. Gladstone’s belief that coercion would bring over a great mass of opinion to Home Rule was soon justified. Gladstone and Parnell had agreed in regretting the organization of the Plan, for they both held that disorder in Ireland would make it more difficult to convert England.
