ABSTRACT
Gladstone’s faith rested on confidence. The secession of the Whigs and Chamberlain had split the National Liberal Federation, which gave an overwhelming vote of confidence to the Prime Minister and moved its headquarters to London. Chamberlain managed to keep a precarious hold on the Birmingham bit of the machine, which he reorganised as the National Radical Union, while Hartington formed his own Liberal Unionist Association. Salisbury was called back from the French spa to which he had retired and, as leader of the strongest party, was invited to form a government. Chamberlain was summoned to defend his course on his home ground on the evening after the news of Churchill’s departure had taken him almost by surprise. His reaction was to emphasise the things which united Liberals, even as regards Ireland, and to suggest that ‘almost any three men sitting round a table’ could find acceptable solutions to the things which divided them.
