Hence on the 10th of June Mr. Gladstone brought in a Supplementary Budget, in which he abolished the Malt Tax, substituting for it a Beer Duty, reduced the duties on light foreign wines, increased and readjusted the licence duties on the sale of spirits, and added a penny to the Income Tax. The general result was that a final surplus of £381,000 could be shown on the year’s accounts. Nothing could be more embarrassing than the condition of Ireland when Mr. Gladstone became Prime Minister. The Home Rulers returned sixty-eight members to the House of Commons, and, though a few of them were lukewarm Nationalists, they had organised themselves into a separate Party, under the leadership of Mr. Parnell. He plainly indicated that they would make use of the feuds between the Opposition and the Government to further their own cause. Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Forster first of all decided to rule Ireland without coercive legislation. But during the debates on the Address to the Crown it was made manifest that they had no clear idea of the extent to which agrarian distress prevailed in Ireland; that they ignored the alarming increase of harsh evictions, which were certain to excite the peasantry to savage deeds of retaliation; that they failed to understand how famine had been averted solely by the charitable funds raised during the previous year; and that they accordingly did not mean to reopen the Land Question. The Irish Party, therefore, at the outset ranged themselves with the Opposition, and even sat beside the Tories below the gangway on the left side of the Speaker’s chair. They began operations by bringing in a Bill to suspend evictions for non-payment of rent, which the Government opposed. But the case presented by the Irish Members seemed too serious to be put aside.