From the ‘Memoirs of the late Lord Selborne’

(Part ii. pp. 261-263).

... Each new step Gladstone takes is, as it seems to me, more and more on the side of moral as well as political evil. Much as I disapproved of his surrender of last year to Parnell, I disapprove very much more of his present endeavour to prevent the restoration in the present stage of the Home Rule question, of the reign of law in Ireland, and of the means he is attempting to use for that purpose. Deliberate and organised obstruction in the House of Commons, and an attempt to overrule a majority against him there, of more than one hundred, by violent appeals to popular passions outside,—those appeals being supported by representing the cause of anarchy and conspiring against law as the cause of liberty,—by denying the existence of any case for strengthening the law, in the face of a complete and manifest paralysis of law by the power of a seditious organisation, into whose scale he has now thrown his whole influence,—and by denouncing, in the most violent terms, the principle of measures for the protection of the loyal, and for securing the due administration of justice, which are the same (in their general character, for it is not necessary here to go into questions of detail) with those by means of which he himself governed Ireland for the last years of his power, and far more consistent with all real ideas of liberty than the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, which he introduced in 1881. It was quite open to him (of course) to contend that, by the acceptance of his Home Rule scheme, the necessity for any such measures might be prevented, and that he prefers and insists upon that alternative,—so much as that was involved in his measures of last year; but it is quite a different thing to denounce the principle of maintaining law and government, and defending those who respect and obey law from the tyranny of conspirators against it, and making the ordinary criminal law of the country a reality and not a mere idle name,—‘as coercion,’ in the sense of an undue invasion of liberty. To do this, and to appeal ad populum against it from an overwhelming majority in Parliament is Acheronta movere, with a vengeance.... For a man who, with his attainments, his experience, his professions, his fifty years’ public service, his political education under some of the greatest and best men of the time, has three times filled the highest office in the State, and is now on the verge of the grave, so to end his career, seems to me more shocking and disheartening than anything else recorded in our history. It is only the old respect, and old attachment, which makes one search about for the possible explanations, in the workings of a very complex and intricate mind. If (as I trust) the Government and the House of Commons stand firm, all his efforts in the cause of anarchy will be in vain. The clause as to removing trials to England may have to be given up; but the permanence of the Bill (its best feature of all) must remain, if any good is to be done.

... I will spare you a long yarn about politics this time. The G.O.M. seems to be determined to pull the whole Irish house down, parliamentary government and all, unless he can have his own way. But I have no fear that he will have his way, just at present, whatever harm he may do in the endeavour. But the struggle is very disagreeable, as well as sharp.