Sir Michael Hicks-Beach laid the National Union peacefully to rest in an obscurity from which its members have only emerged at infrequent intervals to pass Protectionist resolutions. Nearly twenty years elapsed before it recovered, at another Sheffield Conference, a passing shadow of its old importance, and the distinction which it achieved on that occasion may excuse the hope that its future repose will long remain unbroken. The reconciliation of Lord Randolph Churchill with Lord Salisbury which followed on the Sheffield Conference, was comprehensive and loyally observed. The tactics of the Opposition became more effective in the House of Commons and their councils more harmonious. But strife in the constituencies was to succeed this session of storm and effort. Faced by the rejection of a great popular measure at the hands of hereditary legislators, the Liberal Government did not waver. The autumn was consumed in angry agitation and Parliament was specially summoned for a winter session to pass the Bill again. The Radicals were full of hope that no compromise would be offered or accepted. Never before or since had they laid hands upon so good a battering-ram as the Franchise Bill. Never since those days has the House of Lords placed itself on ground so insecure. But the pressure of public opinion proved effective; Mr. Gladstone was benevolent; and the Queen urgent for a settlement. Lord Randolph Churchill was deeply impressed with the danger of a continuance of the constitutional struggle between the Lords and the Commons. ‘It was not a little owing to the urgency,’ writes Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, ‘with which he pressed on me the need of some arrangement that, with the consent of Lord Salisbury and Sir Stafford Northcote, I had the preliminary conferences with Lord Hartington which led to the more formal meetings of the leaders of both parties.’ Finally, after weeks of haggling, expostulation, menace, and intrigue, it was finally arranged that the Franchise Bill should pass first and that Redistribution upon lines agreeable to both parties should follow forthwith.