On the 7th of June the Home Rule Bill was rejected by a majority of 341 against 311. Mr. Gladstone obtained from the Queen permission to dissolve Parliament and appeal to the country. The Ministerial candidates, at the General Election which followed, relied mainly upon the contention that Home Rule was the only alternative to Coercion, and the Tories and Liberal Unionists, on the other hand, pledged themselves to govern Ireland without Coercion, and still retain the Parliamentary Union unbroken. The Liberal Unionists and the Tories formed an alliance for electoral purposes similar to that which Lord Malmesbury, in 1857, had vainly attempted to cement between the Peelites and the Derbyites. The Irish vote failed to balance the votes of the Liberal Unionists, and when the new House of Commons was elected it was found to consist of 316 Tories, 76 Liberal Unionists, 192 Liberal Home Rulers, and 86 Parnellites. Mr. Gladstone resigned, and Lord Salisbury formed a Ministry, having unsuccessfully endeavoured to persuade Lord Hartington and the Liberal Unionist leaders to join a Coalition Cabinet. The services rendered by Lord Randolph Churchill in rousing the fanaticism of Ulster were rewarded with the Chancellorship of the Exchequer and the leadership of the House of Commons. Lord Iddesleigh became Foreign Secretary; Mr. Matthews, Q.C., who had carried one of the seats in Birmingham, became Home Secretary; Sir M. Hicks-Beach was deposed from the leadership of the Commons, and relegated to his old post of Chief Secretary for Ireland. As soon as Lord Salisbury assumed office he found that a fresh agrarian crisis was menacing Ireland. The Irish farmers were demanding a revision even of the fixed judicial rents in terms of the recent fall in prices. There seemed no end to the difficulty, and, in a pessimist mood, Lord Salisbury, at the opening of the Session, declared that he was now in favour of getting rid of the dual-ownership of land in Ireland. In fact, he accepted the principle of a great Land-Purchase scheme, but he also broached the theory that, if judicial rents were cut down, the State should recoup the landlords for their losses.