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 present moment and if his forces should prove inadequate … we shall be blamed for not supporting him’ [Monypenny and Buckle, vi. 421]. This statement convinced the Cabinet that reinforcements must be sent, but they directed that they should be for defence only [cf. Hicks Beach to Frere, 28 November 1878, Worsfold, 137]. Frere, probably with justice, considered that the only method of defending an exposed frontier two hundred miles long against greatly superior numbers was to take the initiative, and on 11 January 1879 the British commander, Lord Chelmsford, crossed the Tugela.

On 28 December 1878 Hicks Beach wrote to Frere taking exception to certain demands contained in the ultimatum on the ground that they had been made without reference home, and that Frere had hitherto made no mention of the necessity for ‘a final settlement with Cetywayo’. The latter assertion does not seem to be borne out by the earlier correspondence between Hicks Beach and Frere, which treats the Zulu danger as urgent [Worsfold, 68–72, 79, 91, 102–4, 115–16, 158–9], and it is clear that the actual position, with the Zulu forces partially mobilized near the frontier, was not one which could be indefinitely prolonged. Before the catastrophe at Isandhlwana (22 January 1879) Hicks Beach expected that Frere's policy would be successful and all would turn out for the best [Monypenny and Buckle, vi, 423], but the news of the Zulu victory greatly affected Disraeli and led the Cabinet to censure Frere. This censure was conveyed by Hicks Beach in a dispatch dated 19 March 1879 [ibid., 426]. At that time Frere was requested to continue in office, but in May his functions were restricted to Cape Colony and he was replaced as high commissioner for Natal, the Transvaal, and Zululand by Sir Garnet (afterwards Viscount) Wolseley in spite of Queen Victoria's strong disapproval [ibid., 429–33]. The part played by Hicks Beach in these arrangements was mainly official. There is little doubt that throughout he sympathized with Frere and was personally inclined to support him, but that after October 1878 the policy in South Africa was modified and largely controlled by Disraeli, who was apprehensive that the development of the South African situation might interfere with his other plans. The position was a difficult one for a young minister, who had only recently entered the Cabinet and owed much to Disraeli's high opinion of him.

During the second Gladstone ministry (1880–1885) Hicks Beach was in opposition, and devoted his attention chiefly to the subjects of local taxation and the land. On 12 May 1884 he attacked the government for their treatment of General Gordon, in a speech which made a great impression on the House of Commons and led Lord Randolph Churchill on the following day to indicate him as the future leader of the party in the House [Churchill, Life of Lord Randolph Churchill, 283–4, 310–12]. Outside parliament he exerted his influence to keep the conservative party united. After the Sheffield conference in July 1884, when a reconciliation was effected between the supporters of Lord Randolph Churchill and the Marquess of Salisbury, Hicks Beach, as a friend of both sections, was elected chairman of the council of the National Union. In October and November his conferences with the Marquess of Hartington [see, Spencer Compton, eighth Duke of Devonshire] led to an agreement with regard to the general line of the Redistribution Bill, which facilitated the passage of the Franchise Bill through the House of Lords [Holland, Life of the Eighth Duke of Devonshire, ii, 54–8]. In 1885 he turned to finance, and on 8 June he moved and carried an amendment to the budget, which led to Gladstone's resignation.

When Lord Salisbury formed an administration in June 1885, Hicks Beach at first accepted the Colonial Office. But on learning that Lord Randolph Churchill refused to take office if Sir Stafford Northcote (afterwards first Earl of Iddesleigh) led the House of Commons, he withdrew his assent and thus assisted Churchill to force Northcote into the House of Lords [Churchill, 326–7, 336–9]. He became chancellor of the exchequer on 24 June and leader of the House of Commons. During his short tenure of office he displeased a section of his party by his refusal, in the Maamtrasna debate on 17 July, to make himself responsible for the coercive measures of Lord Spencer, the late lord-lieutenant of Ireland, without affording opportunity for judicial investigation in particular cases. His position was subsequently restated more strongly and more generally by Churchill, and several tory members were moved to protest [ibid., 353–7; Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, vol. 289, 1085].

The general election in November 1885 was followed by the resignation of Lord Salisbury's ministry on 28 January 1886, but in the five months' session which followed, Hicks Beach, as leader of the 255