'On September 29th Mr. Gladstone wrote at length conveying his general approval of my plan, and stating that he did not intend to "handle" the Bill in the House of Commons; and so wished to defer to the opinions of his colleagues. He gave me leave to add 12 members to the House for Scotland, instead of taking the 12 from England; and he congratulated me upon the "wonderful progress" which I had made.... On the same day on which I had received Mr. Gladstone's letter I saw one from Sir Henry Ponsonby to Mr. Gladstone with Mr. Gladstone's reply. Sir Henry Ponsonby made proposals.... Mr. Gladstone had refused both for the present; the former with scorn and the latter with argument. [Footnote: The first was "that the Lords should read the Franchise Bill a second time, and then pass a resolution declaring that they would go into Committee as soon as the Redistribution Bill reached them."] 'On September 30th further letters were circulated, one from Sir Henry Ponsonby on the 27th, in which he said that the reform of the House of Lords must in any case come, but must come later, and that he would see the leaders of the Opposition about the second suggestion of his previous letter as it had not been absolutely refused (the suggestion being that the Lords should provide in the Franchise Bill that it should come into force on January 1st, 1886, unless the Redistribution Bill were sooner passed). 'On October 4th Hartington made a speech which produced a storm upon this subject of Compromise as to Reform.' (He proposed that the Lords should pass the Franchise Bill 'after seeing the conditions of the Redistribution Bill and satisfying themselves that they were fair.') 'But Mr. Gladstone went with Chamberlain and myself against any compromise.' Mr. Chamberlain put the point that no bargain could be considered unless the Franchise Bill were first passed without conditions very plainly in a speech on October 7th, and next day at the Cabinet 'Mr. Gladstone expressed his approval of Chamberlain's speech of the previous night, and attacked Hartington for his earlier one. It seemed to me that at this moment Lord Salisbury might have caught Hartington by offering the compromise which Hartington had suggested.... I refused to discuss Redistribution with the Cabinet, telling Chamberlain that they would "drive me wild with little peddling points."' The appreciation of Sir Charles's competence was general. It was not limited to Parliament, and he met the expression of it when he appeared on the platform in three great centres of the Lancashire industrial democracy. 'On Tuesday, October 14th, I spoke at Oldham, and on October 15th at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, and on the 16th at Stockport. I had a wonderful reception at all these meetings, but especially at the Manchester meeting.'