Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/229

 The ship of the State was sailing under a jury-mast, and in a brief time there was another crisis. Nothing but a Democratic Government was possible, and the Ministry I had recently proposed would now, it was assumed, necessarily resume office. But some gladiators in the Corner who thought they had been improperly omitted from that combination were discontented, and the Conservative Press stimulated their impatience by treating them as the natural leaders of the party improperly set aside. If politics were a game of personal ambition in which principles might be ignored the Conservatives struck what would be regarded as a successful coup. I had rendered their Ministry impossible, because their success would mean the destruction of the Land Bill; they struck a stroke against me equally effectual, but purchased by the open abandonment of their cherished opinions. Mr. O'Shanassy communicated to them through a trusted agent that he and Mr. Ebden and their friends would support any Democratic Government formed, provided I was not a member of it. Mr. Brooke came to report this overture to me. I was not greedy of office; I had resigned from the O'Shanassy Administration; I had refused a seat in the Nicholson Cabinet; I had refrained from gazetting a Government of which I was the chief, and I said I would offer them no advice, nor would I attend any party meeting summoned on the occasion. Wilson Gray came to me to say that though the plot was a shocking one, he thought we ought to get the Democratic Party into office for the first time, on any conditions. A meeting was held in which Mr. Ebden and Mr. O'Shanassy took part with the Democrats of the Corner, and agreed on the formation of a Government exclusively from the latter party. This fraternal squatting of the young lions of the Land League with the ancient and grizzly rams of the Pastoral Association was a puzzle and perplexity to those not acquainted with its secret history. The Heales Government—for Mr. Heales was at its head—did not include one of the Corner whose discontent had enabled it to be created. It was for a time very tame and purposeless. To secure its ground was its first care, and Mr. Brooke considered it a stroke of policy to placate me. Mr. M'Evoy, of Studley Park, was a man at whose table we had