'On July 4th I received from Maynooth a letter of thanks from Dr. Walsh for my congratulations on his appointment to the Archbishopric of Dublin, and he expressed the hope that we should meet in Dublin when I came over with Chamberlain. On the same day, Saturday, July 4th, there took place at noon at my office a meeting of Chamberlain, Trevelyan, Lefevre, John Morley, and myself, in which we discussed the proposed mission of Wolff to Egypt, resolving that we would oppose it unless the Conservative Government should drop it. We were wrong, for it afterwards turned out that they meant evacuation. Next the proposed movement on Dongola, which we did not believe to be seriously intended; then the proposal to increase the wine duty, which I was able to announce (on Foreign Office information) that I knew that Lord Salisbury would drop; then the succession duties, with regard to which we decided to support a motion to be brought forward by Dillwyn; then police enfranchisement, we deciding that I was to move an instruction on going into Committee to extend the Bill, so as to shorten the period of residence for all electors.' 'Before we separated we discussed the inquiry proposed by the Irish members into the Maamtrasna business. Trevelyan thought that he was obliged in honour to speak against inquiry, but we decided that he must not press for a division in resistance to the Irish demand.' 'On Monday, July 6th, I presided over my Royal Commission in the morning, and in the evening dined at Grillion's Club. In the afternoon Mr. Gladstone sent for me, and told me that whether he would lead that party or would not, at the dissolution, or in the new Parliament, would depend on whether the main plank in the programme was what I called Home Rule or what Chamberlain called the National Council scheme, or only the ordinary scheme of Local Government for all parts of the United Kingdom. If the latter alone was to be contemplated, he said that others would suffice for the task. Parnell's acquiescence in the Home Rule scheme he thought essential. If Parnell, having got more from the Tories, was going to oppose, he, Mr. Gladstone, could not go on: and he evidently thought that I should have the means of discovering what would be Parnell's attitude. Parnell had, of course, been for what I believe was really his own scheme, suggested to Chamberlain by O'Shea. But he was now in league with R. Churchill and Lord Carnarvon. I advised Mr. Gladstone to deal directly with Parnell, but he said that he would not, and I noted in my diary that he and Parnell were equally tortuous in their methods. Mr. Gladstone, failing me, as he said, would deal with Grosvenor and Mrs. O'Shea. But it was clear to me that he had already tried this channel.'