ABSTRACT
The duration of Parliaments should be shortened, and members of Parliament should receive reasonable payment. Candidates should be relieved of official election expenses. The elections of November and December 1885 yielded a House of Commons of 333 Liberals, 251 Conservatives and 86 Parnellites, and the greater part of the Liberal majority had committed itself to Radical pledges during the election proceedings. The most important factor in the Government’s favour was the notorious division in the Liberal camp between the “moderate Liberals” and the Radicals. The “Cabinet crisis” of December 1886 was not terminated without great trouble. Dependent as the Tory Government would be on the support of the anti-Home Rule Liberals and Radicals; an immediate resort to Coercion Acts was out of the question. Some Conservatives must certainly have considered this a high line to take by one who had lost his seat at the General Election and had no great chance of finding another without Conservative support.
