The opponents of the whole scheme contended that it gave no effective guarantee for Imperial unity, that it put the loyal minority entirely in the power of the disloyal majority in Ireland, that it multiplied the risks of collision between Ireland and the Imperial Government, that, in point of fact, it was virtually a Bill to repeal the Union. Mr. Gladstone’s chief argument in favour of the scheme was that the English democracy could no longer be trusted to hold Ireland down by repressive legislation, and that Home Rule was the only alternative to Coercion. Moreover, as Coercion bred Irish disloyalty, it weakened the Imperial power of England in the world. Though the Orangemen of Ulster plainly declared that they would plunge into civil war rather than submit to a Home Rule Government in Ireland, Mr. Parnell accepted the Bill in principle as an adequate concession of the Nationalist claims. The weak points in the scheme were soon detected. One of these was the exclusion of the Irish Members from the House of Commons--the only proposal of Mr. Gladstone’s which had been hailed with applause from both sides of the House when he expounded his Bill. The absence of the Irish Members from the House of Commons was taken as a visible sign, not only that the Parliamentary Union between Ireland and the United Kingdom was dissolved, but that the control and authority of the Imperial Parliament over Ireland was impaired. The Purchase scheme alarmed the taxpayers, who objected to pledge the credit of England in order to buy the Irish landlords out of Ireland. It is now known that, if Mr. Gladstone had made concessions by promising to reconsider the question of retaining the Irish Members at Westminster, and to remodel the Bill accordingly, the Second Reading would have been carried. A meeting of Liberals was indeed held at the Foreign Office to hear what concessions Mr. Gladstone would make. Subsequently, in explaining his speech at this meeting to the House of Commons, his phraseology seemed to the wavering Liberals so illusory that they refused to support him. Lord Hartington and Mr. Chamberlain accordingly organised their followers (about fifty in number) into a separate Parliamentary party, describing themselves as Liberal Unionists, and at their first meeting a letter was read from Mr. Bright casting in his lot with theirs. They bound themselves to vote against the Second Reading of Mr. Gladstone’s Bills. [Illustration: LORD TENNYSON. (_From a Photograph by H. H. H. Cameron, Mortimer Street, W._)]