The Parliamentary work of 1885 was Redistribution. The principles had been settled in secret conclave by the leaders on both sides; but the details were exhaustively discussed in the House of Commons. By this time we had become inured to Tory votes of censure on our Egyptian policy, and had always contrived to escape by the skin of our teeth; but we were in a disturbed and uneasy condition. We knew--for there was an incessant leakage of official secrets--that the Cabinet was rent by acute dissensions. The Whiggish section was in favour of renewing the Irish Crimes Act. The Radicals wished to let it expire, and proposed to conciliate Ireland by a scheme of National Councils. Between the middle of April and the middle of May, nine members of the Cabinet, for one cause or another, contemplated resignation. After one of these disputes Gladstone said to a friend: "A very fair Cabinet to-day--only three resignations." Six months later, after his Government had fallen, he wrote: "A Cabinet does not exist out of office, and no one in his senses could covenant to call _the late Cabinet_ together." The solution of these difficulties came unexpectedly. The Budget introduced by Hugh Childers on the 30th of April proposed to meet a deficit by additional duties on beer and spirits; and was therefore extremely unpopular. Silently and skilfully, the Tories, the Irish, and the disaffected Liberals laid their plans. On Sunday, June 7th, Lord Henry Lennox--a leading Tory--told me at luncheon that we were to be turned out on the following day, and so, sure enough, we were, on an amendment to the Budget moved by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach.[41] It was thought at the time that the Liberal wirepullers welcomed this defeat, as a way out of difficulties. Certainly no strenuous efforts were made to avert it. The scene in the House when the fatal figures were announced has been often described, and in my mind's eye I see clearly the image of Lord Randolph Churchill, dancing a kind of triumphant hornpipe on the bench which for five momentous years had been the seat of the Fourth Party. On the 24th of June Lord Salisbury became Prime Minister for the first time.