Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/205

Herbert  assumed power, that act, which had been passed for a term of three years only, was on the point of expiring. The incoming ministry determined to allow it to lapse, and to rely for the repression of crime on the ordinary law. Carnarvon was naturally inclined to such pacific courses. At the earnest request of the leaders of his party, he personally undertook, as lord-lieutenant of Ireland, to give the new conciliatory policy a fair trial; but in a letter to the prime minister he limited his period of office to the end of the year, or the opening of the new parliament. When announcing the new Irish policy in the House of Lords on the eve of his departure for Dublin (6 July 1885), he declared it no hopeless task to conjoin ‘good feeling to England with good government in Ireland.’ On 7 July he made his state entry into Dublin, and was received with enthusiasm by all classes.

Carnarvon claimed to approach Irish problems in a free and unprejudiced spirit, and as soon as he was firmly installed in office he resolved to obtain exact information as to the legislative demands of the Irish parliamentary party. To this end he invited Mr. Parnell to meet him in London at the close of July. Mr. Parnell accepted the invitation. At the opening of the interview, Carnarvon, according to his own account, mentioned firstly, that the invitation was the act of himself by himself, and that the responsibility for it was not shared by any of his colleagues; secondly, that his only object was to obtain information, and no agreement or understanding, however shadowy, was to be deduced from the conversation; and thirdly, that, as the servant of the queen, he could listen to nothing inconsistent with the maintenance of the union between England and Ireland. Carnarvon stated that his own part in the conversation was confined to asking questions and suggesting objections to the answers. Something was said about a second interview, which did not take place. Nearly a year later a serious controversy arose out of this meeting. Mr. Parnell made the earliest public reference to it in the House of Commons on 7 June 1886, in the course of the debate on Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill. Carnarvon had promised, Mr. Parnell asserted, that in the event of the conservatives obtaining a majority in the House of Commons at the election of November 1885, they were prepared to give Ireland a statutory parliament with the right to protect Irish industries, and would propose at the same time a large scheme of land-purchase. Carnarvon at once denied having given any such undertaking (, 10 June 1886). Mr. Parnell replied in a detailed statement (Times, 12 June) which the English advocates of Home Rule long quoted to prove that the conservatives were readier than themselves to yield to the demands of the Irish parliamentary party. Carnarvon, in his latest public review of the subject (10 May 1888), reproached himself with holding the interview without witnesses. Nothing is more common than for two persons to take different views of an hour's conversation in which they alone participated, and their differences may not materially reflect on their veracity. It seems clear that Carnarvon had no distinct scheme in mind when he met Mr. Parnell, but he was inclined to ‘some limited form of self-government not in any way independent of imperial control, such as might satisfy real local requirements and to some extent national aspirations.’ So much he subsequently stated in the House of Lords he would gladly see achieved (10 June 1886).

Carnarvon's Irish administration, which closely resembles Lord Fitzwilliam's, raised the hopes of the nationalists higher than his powers of achievement or the views of his colleagues justified. He spent a week in the west in August. He visited Galway and Sligo on the journey; received deputations from the mayors and corporations, and, while avoiding political references, spoke hopefully of improving the material condition of the people. At Belfast on 8 Sept. he announced that ‘he did not come to Ireland to tread the weary round of coercion and repression.’ At Dublin Castle he examined memorials begging him to reverse sentences of long terms of imprisonment passed in his predecessor's time on persons convicted of complicity in agrarian murder. On 17 July 1885 he authorised Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, the leader of the House of Commons, to state, in reply to the Irish members, that he would personally inquire into the convictions in the Maamtrasna murder case, which had excited special attention in Ireland (cf., 3rd ser. ccxcix. 1086 sq.) Except in one instance, Carnarvon did not, after investigation, entertain any notion of planting reprieves; but his courteous demeanour to all parties led to rumours, which were not conducive to good government, that he sympathised with the reckless charges of injustice brought by the nationalists against the recent liberal government. In November the general election brought unsatisfactory results to all parties. The conservatives, together with the Irish members, were practically equal to the liberals, but without the Irish or some liberal support it was impossible for the conservatives to carry on the government, and they