During the first two months of the Session the Irish Party vied with the Conservatives in assailing the Land Act. Radicals began to murmur against the development of Mr. Forster’s coercive policy, every incident and detail of which was subjected by the Irish Members to bitter criticism and violent denunciation. In the meantime, Mr. Forster’s scheme for pacifying Ireland was not prospering, and it was seen that he had made a fatal mistake when he pledged himself to suppress agitation, if he were only empowered to arrest the leading agitators. From the day they were imprisoned, Ireland drifted towards anarchy and terrorism. Then the experiment was tried of arresting, not only the leaders, but their lieutenants. Finally Mr. Forster crowded the prisons with the rank and file of the Home Rule host. Men began to wonder whether the gaol accommodation of Ireland was adequate for Mr. Forster’s policy. But the more people he put in prison the worse the country grew, the more did evictions increase, and the less rent was paid. A bid for the Irish vote was now made by the Tories. They put up Sir John Hay to move that the detention of the “suspects” was “repugnant to the spirit of the Constitution.” Through Mr. W. H. Smith, in one of the debates on the Land Act, they offered the Nationalists a scheme for buying out the landlords at the expense of the State, and establishing peasant proprietorship in Ireland, such as had been advocated by Mr. Davitt and Mr. Parnell. It was clear that the Tory-Parnellite alliance was becoming a formidable combination, and the Radicals urged the Government to make terms with the Nationalist Party whilst there was yet time. But Mr. Gladstone hesitated, and then the Radicals moved without him. An intrigue, instigated by Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dilke, was set on foot to get Mr. Forster removed from his place as Irish Secretary. Through Captain O’Shea as an intermediary, Mr. Parnell was approached. He had certainly seen with alarm the increase in evictions, and knew that if the struggle were prolonged the financial resources of the Leaguers must fail them. He was, therefore, disposed to come to terms. Letters were exchanged, in one of which Mr. Parnell said that a promise to deal with the question of arrears would do much to bring peace to Ireland, for the Nationalists would then be able to exert themselves, with some hope of success, in stopping outrages. But the Land Act would have to be extended to leaseholders, and the Purchase Clauses enlarged. If this programme were carried out, wrote Mr. Parnell on the 28th of August to Captain O’Shea, it “would enable us to co-operate cordially for the future with the Liberal Party in forwarding Liberal principles; and I believe that the Government at the end of the Session would, from the state of the country, feel themselves thoroughly justified in dispensing with future coercive measures.” This letter was shown to Mr.