CHAPTER XVI.
REDUCED MAJORITIES.
[Sidenote: The week before.] On Friday, July 7th, we just entered on the fringe of the ninth clause.
The ninth clause had all along been held to be, perhaps, the very gravest rock ahead of the Government.

This is the clause which regulates the position of the Irish members at Westminster after Home Rule has been passed.

There were as many plans for settling this question as there were members of the House of Commons, and all plans were alike in being illogical, unsymmetrical, and, therefore, liable to attack from a dozen different quarters.

Already within a few days of each other, there had been two divisions, on which everybody felt it to be quite possible that the Government would go down, and that we should once more go back face to face with the country and probably with a new and a stronger Tory Government than ever.

The first occasion was the clause dealing with a Second Chamber.