The Bill was rejected; at the general election which ensued the people of England declared against the measure; Gladstone resigned, and Lord Salisbury became Prime Minister.

CHAPTER XI.

THE UNIONIST GOVERNMENT OF 1886.

The Unionists, on returning to power in 1886, fully realized the difficulty of the problem with which they were faced.  The Nationalists held a great Convention at Chicago, at which they resolved to make use of the Land League not merely for the purpose of exterminating landlords but as a means for promoting universal disorder and so bringing about a paralysis of the law.  As J. Redmond stated at the Convention:  “I assert that the government of Ireland by England is an impossibility, and I believe it to be our duty to make it so.”  And, as he afterwards explained in Ireland, he considered that if the Tories were able to carry on the government with the ordinary law, the cause of Home Rule might be set back for a generation; but if the Nationalists could succeed in making such government impossible, and the Tories were obliged to have recourse to coercion, the people of Great Britain would turn them out of office, and Gladstone would return to power and carry Home Rule. (This avowed determination on the part of the Nationalists to reduce the country to anarchy should be borne in mind when people now express their horror at the Ulstermen being guilty of such conduct as breaking the law.) With this object, the Nationalists in 1887 organized the “Plan of Campaign,” which was in fact an elaboration of the “No Rent” manifesto of 1881, and a scheme for carrying out, step by step, the programme laid down by Lalor in 1848.  One of Lalor’s adherents had been a young priest named Croke.  By 1887 he had become Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cashel.  He had considered the “No Rent” manifesto inopportune; but now formally sanctioned the “Plan of Campaign,” and in a violent letter urged that it should be extended to a general refusal to pay taxes.  The Plan was also approved by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin and the leaders of the Nationalist movement in Ireland and America, such as J. Dillon and Ford; but Parnell seemed doubtful, and in England the Daily News denounced it.

However, the Unionist Government had decided on their policy, which they were determined to carry through.  The main items of their programme were (1) To enforce the law; (2) To facilitate land purchase; (3) To develop the industries of the country; and (4) To extend local government.  It is well to examine these in detail, so as to arrive at a just estimate of the two rival policies.