But there was an Irish member, a leader of a party which seeks to claim Irish support as a better Irish party than the other, proposing that Ireland should have her full total of members.

The Irish members naturally would be inclined to support their countrymen, if not to seek to keep the Irish representation as high as it could possibly be.
[Sidenote: A splendid gambler.] On the other hand, if all the Irish members went the same way it was all up with the Government.

Some fifty to seventy British Liberals adopt the same policy as the Irish members with regard to the Irish question and the Home Rule Bill, and if the Irish members only give the word, they also would vote with Mr.Redmond, and the Government would be "snowed under," to use an expressive Americanism, a majority of upwards of two hundred against them.

Mr.Gladstone had evidently made up his mind that this was the situation he would have to face, and played his last, his supreme, his desperate card.

You could see that he himself felt that this was the kind of card he was playing from his look as he played it.
There was outward calmness in the face, there was the same evenness of tone in the voice; he built up his case with the same unbroken command of his language and ideas as is his usual characteristic.