The condition of Ireland was now forced upon the attention of both parties. The Irish Nationalist party had demanded Home Rule since Parnell assumed the leadership in 1879. The General Election of 1885 gave this demand a force which it had never possessed before. The extension of the franchise by the Act of 1884 gave a much larger representation to agricultural Ireland, and agricultural Ireland was wholly Nationalist. Out of eighty-nine contests Parnell's party won eighty-five. All the fourteen Liberal Irish members were thrown out. The Protestant half of Ulster remained Tory and returned seventeen members. But the general sense of the country was made clear. Parnell, so long denounced by both English parties as the head of a faction, was now manifestly what he had always claimed to be, the leader of a nation. Strong and resolute English government had hopelessly failed. Crime was suppressed. But no Nationalist had been converted by punishment into a good citizen. Egoistic government by England could not succeed. Altruistic government by England could not succeed. The only alternative was the government of Ireland by Ireland. Both English parties showed signs of a change of temper. Gladstone had hinted in his first Midlothian Speeches at a general devolution of local control upon England, Scotland, and Ireland,[332] and in his election address in 1885 he declared that, subject to the unity of the Empire being preserved, grants of such control {295} to portions of the country averted danger and increased strength. Mr. Chamberlain denounced government by officials at Dublin Castle as heartily as any Nationalist could have wished. Mr. Childers pronounced definitely for Home Rule. The other side hinted at a complete change of policy. They appointed, in Lord Carnarvon, a Lord-Lieutenant who was known to be in sympathy with Home Rule, and he actually entered into informal negotiations with Parnell. They declined to renew the last Coercion Act, and Lord Salisbury at Newport, Lord Carnarvon in the Lords, and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach and Lord Randolph Churchill in the Commons denounced coercion with different degrees of vigour.[333] So far as the political leaders were concerned, the most definite opposition to Home Rule came from the Liberal Lord Hartington. But everything pointed to the abandonment of government by force and the substitution for it of government by sympathy. Parnell actually instructed Irish Nationalists in all constituencies to vote against the Liberals.