On June 29th Lord Lansdowne announced in the House of Lords that the "consultations" which had been taking place were "certainly authorized" by the Government but were not binding upon it; and that he, speaking for the Unionist wing of the Cabinet, had not accepted the proposals.

This was disturbing.

Lord Selborne had retired from the Government before the negotiators went to Ireland, because he knew of the proposals and was not prepared to sanction them.

We assumed that other Unionists who shared this view would have followed him in his frank action.

Now we perceived that Lord Lansdowne and his friends had frugally husbanded their force.