'I had been left by Mr. Gladstone in a certain doubt as to whether I was to be completely responsible for the Redistribution Bill, or whether Hartington was to share the responsibility. I wrote to Hartington: "Mr. Gladstone sends me everything on Redistribution, and expresses no opinion of his own. Northcote and Salisbury write to me only, and the whole thing is more and more in my hands. If I let things drift, it is clear that I shall practically have sole charge of the Bill, for no one else will know anything about it. I do not shrink from this at all. It is work I like. But, as you will probably be called on to form an Administration immediately after the passing of the Bill, don't you think it would look well, and that our people and the Press and the country would like it, if you were to take charge of the Bill? If so, I had better have two or three days' work at it with you." 'Hartington had asked me to stay with him at Hardwick to talk it over, but it was only a Saturday to Monday visit from January 10th to 12th, and there were many people in the house, and our whole conversation was but very short; and Hartington continued to show but little desire to work at the detail, and the Bill could only be handled by those who knew its detail.' Although the Opposition leaders had accepted the compact, it was at this time quite uncertain whether the House of Commons would consent to the Redistribution scheme--affecting as it did the interests of every member. The Fourth Party had not been consulted in the arrangement, and inevitable friction followed. 'On January 27th I had a correspondence with Northcote in reference to some mischief which had been made by Randolph Churchill. Northcote had been told by the Conservative Chief Whip, "Dilke told Randolph that the Government would have given more grouping if we had pressed for it." The Conservative party being angry at the absence of grouping of the boroughs, Northcote had taken up the point, but he now wrote: "Whatever Churchill said must have been in the nature of an inference of his own from what had previously passed, from which he had probably gathered that the Government were ready to concede grouping." But there was a lady in the case who had gossiped about what Northcote had said to her, and he promised to write to the offender.'