“I am an Irishman, a Roman Catholic, and a Liberal in politics,” he wrote.  “I have strong Irish sympathies.  I do not see eye to eye with you in all matters of Irish administration, and I think that there is no likelihood of good coming from such a regime of coercion as the Times has recently outlined.”  For all that, being anxious to do some service to Ireland, he declared his willingness to take office provided there was some chance of his succeeding, which he thought there would be, “on this condition, that I should have adequate opportunities of influencing the policy and acts of the Irish administration, and subject, of course, to your control, freedom of action in Executive matters.  For many years in India I directed administration on the largest scale, and I know that if you send me to Ireland the opportunity of mere secretarial criticism would fall short of the requirements of my position.  If I were installed in office in Ireland my aims, broadly stated, would be:—­(1) The maintenance of order; (2) the solution of the land question on the basis of voluntary sale; (3) where sale does not operate the fixation of rent on some self-acting principle whereby local inquiries would be obviated; (4) the co-ordination, control, and direction of boards and other administrative bodies; (5) the settlement of the education question in the general spirit of Mr. Balfour’s views, and generally the promotion of general administrative improvement and conciliation.”

Mr. Wyndham’s acceptance of these terms was explicit, and it was understood, as the Chief Secretary put it in the House of Commons when the whole subject came up for review, that Sir Antony was appointed rather as a colleague than as a mere Under Secretary to register Mr. Wyndham’s will, and although in the House of Commons Mr. Balfour said that Sir Antony was bound by the rules applying to all Civil Servants, in the House of Lords Lord Lansdowne declared that, “it had been recognised that the Under Secretary would have greater freedom of action, greater opportunities of initiative, than if he had been a candidate in the ordinary way.”

One of the first results of the new departure was the withdrawal of the application of the Coercion Act, which had been in force since April, 1902, an action which roused angry protests from the Orangemen, as did also the words used, in what was almost his first speech, by Lord Dudley, the new Viceroy, who had succeeded Lord Cadogan, and who announced that, “the opinion of the Government was, and it was his own opinion, that the only way to govern Ireland properly was to govern it according to Irish ideas instead of according to British ideas.”

During 1903 interest was largely engrossed in the fate of the Land Act, and it was not till the autumn of 1904 that it became known that before drafting in its final form the programme of the Irish Reform Association Lord Dunraven had secured the assistance of the Under Secretary with the knowledge of the Chief Secretary and the Viceroy, the latter of whom, according to Lord Lansdowne’s declaration in the House of Lords, “did not think that Sir Antony was exceeding his functions”—­a fact to which colour was given by the circumstance that on several occasions the Under Secretary discussed the reforms with the Lord Lieutenant.