'I send you herewith for your consideration a first sketch which I have made of a possible communication to-morrow after the Cabinet from us to the Legates of the opposite party. I think that if the Cabinet make it an _ultimatum_ we should be safe with it. There was a careful abstention to-day on their side from anything beyond praising this or that, and at the outset they spoke of the one-member system for boroughs "with exceptions" as what they desired. 'Yours sincerely, 'W. E. Gladstone.' 'Mr. Gladstone's memorandum was on my lines. On the next morning, November 27th, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Granville, Hartington, I, and Chamberlain met before the Cabinet at 11 o'clock, and kept the Cabinet waiting, the Cabinet having been called for twelve, and Redistribution alone being considered at it. I announced at the Cabinet that the Tories proposed and we accepted single-member districts universally in counties, boundaries to be drawn by a commission who were to separate urban from rural as far as possible, without grouping and without creating constituencies of utterly eccentric shape. The names of the commissioners had been settled, and both sides were pledged to accept their proposals, unless the two sides agreed to differ from them. [Footnote: At the meeting of the 26th 'it was agreed that the Boundary Commissioners should consist of those gentlemen who had been advising me.'] 'The Tories proposed single-member districts almost everywhere in boroughs, and only positively named one exception--the City of London--but were evidently prepared to make some exceptions. They made our agreement on this point the condition of passing the Franchise Bill, of giving up the decrease of the Irish members from 103 to 100 which they urged, of giving up all forms of minority vote, and of giving up grouping. My own opinion and that of the Prime Minister were in favour of agreement. Hartington, who much disliked what he thought would be the extinction of the Whigs by an omnipresent caucus for candidates' selection, was hostile to the single-member system. I pointed out that we already proposed in our amended scheme 120 single-member borough seats out of 284 borough seats. We had thrown out to the Tories a question as to whether they would accept, say, 184 single-borough seats, and give us, say, not more than 100 for double-member seats; or, if they liked, two-thirds and one-third; and they did not positively decline this suggestion. Mr. Gladstone proposed to "save from compulsory division those urban constituencies, not Metropolitan, which, now possessing dual representation, are to have their representation neither increased nor diminished." (This was the ultimate agreement.) Also, that "cities and towns which are to receive four members and upwards, ten