10 QUEEN ANNE'S GATE, May 1, 1886. MY DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--I have been doing my best to get some sort of _modus vivendi_ in which the honours of war would be divided. I had a letter from Morley yesterday in which he promised to be most conciliatory at Glasgow. He said: "I don't think there is a pin of difference between you and me as to the desirableness of passing the Second Reading at almost any cost. But Chamberlain wants us to go down on our knees, and this cannot be done for the money." He had previously suggested to me what he said, I see, at Glasgow about the Irish Members coming back in three years. I replied that this might possibly form a basis, but that it must in this case be understood that they came back without any further legislature on the subject. To this he demurred, but I think that he would not make difficulties. I do not dispute your figures, but I would point out to you that some of your fifty can be manipulated. As a rule a big cave does not hold together. Some of its Members in the end take refuge in voting for a Party Bill, and give as a pretext some {331} phrase used by the Minister for having done so, and in the G.O.M. you have a past master in these sort of catching phrases. I was brought up in diplomacy. When two countries send each other their ultimatums, a third country desirous of peace proposes something between the two, and peace is made upon its adoption by the belligerents. I have been suggesting that Mr. Gladstone should agree to leave the question an open one, the word "open" being understood to signify that the Whips do not tell, and that every one--Ministers included--should be allowed to vote as they please. I don't well see how the G.O.M. could go further. Although we may call it a detail, the exclusion of Irish Members is really a fundamental principle in the Bill, and were he absolutely to agree to change it, this would be, as Morley says, going down on his knees to you who, whether right or wrong, are the head centre of the Radical minority, and not of the majority. Would you, yourself, eat humble pie to this extent? Moreover, I think that, if he had to submit this proposal to his Cabinet, there would be suspicions, and the Cabinet just now can hardly stand another split. I have never gathered that Mr. Gladstone himself is opposed to the retention of the Irish. All that he says is, "The problem is a difficult one: show me a good plan and I have no objection to adopt it." There is another way of meeting you, but I don't know whether Mr. Gladstone would accept it. It is this. Leave matters as they now are with respect to the Irish Members, by eliminating all clauses excluding them. Their position would thus be left to future legislation on the subject. They would in this case sit as they are, and vote upon Imperial and English local issues until the entire question is treated in a separate Bill.