Note 210 — Chapter XXVIII · THE NEW DEPARTURE.

Whilst the anti-Coercionists in the Cabinet (Sir Charles Dilke, Mr. Chamberlain, and Mr. Shaw-Lefevre) were struggling with the Coercionists, the subterranean arrangements between the Tories and Parnellites were also publicly ratified in a speech delivered by Lord Randolph Churchill at the St. Stephen’s Club, in which, amidst ringing cheers, he condemned the renewal of Coercion. Signs of disorder in Ireland, he argued, had passed away, and such being the case Government was bound by “the highest considerations of public policy and Constitutional doctrine to return to and rely on the ordinary law. They were all the more strongly bound at that time because they had just enfranchised the Irish people, and declared them capable citizens fit to take part in the government of the Empire.”—The Parnell Movement, by T. P. O’Connor, Chap. XIII.