In the ordinary course of events Lord Dudley resigned with the Conservative Ministry, and on the appointment of a successor departed from Ireland. A few months' previously--September 21, 1905, to be exact--he had escaped death in the waters of Lough Erne, where, with a small party, he was unlucky enough to see his yacht capsize during a race. It was one adventure of many he {325} has experienced in his comparatively brief life. Following his resignation, he still evinced a keen interest in Ireland, and when the Liberal premier asked him to preside over the deliberations of a Royal Commission on Congestion, he accepted it as one who has never allowed his actions to be guided and controlled solely by party motives. The work of the Commission finishing, he went to the other end of the world as Governor-General of Australia, holding the post for three years, when Lady Dudley's ill-health compelled him to return home in 1911. This willingness to serve the Liberal party has been taken by some as additional evidence of his lukewarm Unionism, but Lord Dudley remains a member of the party that made him Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and he is a Unionist at heart, though he permits himself the luxury of thinking on the subject. It is certain that while in Ireland he examined the claims and pretensions of the Home Rule party, and endeavoured to arrive at an understanding. The fact that he was not hounded out of the country by his fellow-Unionists is proof positive of the fact that a new spirit of conciliation has arisen, and that Irish political controversialists are aware that there can be two sides to every question, even an Irish one. {326} CHAPTER XXII [Sidenote: Lord Aberdeen's return]