we   forget!**	251
the eighty-six Irish members under Parnell's leadership a deciding
voice in a new parliament, he let it be known that he proposed
to introduce a scheme of Home Rule for Ireland.
Had the question only been political, Gladstone would
probably have carried his measure. The religious issue split the
Liberal majority. Though religion as a political factor was a
dying force in England, there were many of Gladstone's followers
who could not look unmoved on the subjection of a Protestant
minority to a Catholic majority. In such a case the democratic
formula was somehow inadequate. The little handful of Whig
aristocrats who still provided leaders for the Liberal Party
derived their lands and honours from the glorious day when a
Protestant Prince delivered England from a Catholic King.
From the conquests of that Prince the Orange patriots of Ulster
still boasted their claim to be the ruling faction in Ireland
If the Right wing of the Liberal Party could not conscien-
tiously drive Ulster out of a Protestant union into a Papist
province, nor could the Left. Nonconformity, with its strong
local organisation, was still a mighty power in the land. Though
fast mellowing into humanitarianism, its historic inspiration
had always been hatred of Popery. Its political leader was the
uncrowned king of Birmingham, radical Joe Chamberlain.
Though a man of wide sympathies who had looked with a
lenient eye on Irish rebel aspirations—perhaps because he had so
many himself—he now showed himself a true mirror of pro-
vincial middle-class England. Sooner than endorse Home Rule,
he resigned from the Cabinet and joined hands with the Whig
leader, Lord Harrington, to raise the fiery cross of Protestant
and imperial unity.
When the Home Rule bill came up for its second reading,
more than a hundred Liberals voted against the government or
absented themselves. Defeated by thirty votes, Gladstone appealed
to the country. Protestant scruples, patriotic pride and the fear
and hatred engendered by the long Irish campaign of violence
and intimidation were stronger even than his courage and
magnetism. Three hundred and sixteen Conservatives and 78
Liberal "Unionists" were returned, but only 191 Gladstonian
Liberals.
The decision was vital. The English democracy had refused
to allow the Irish the right to govern themselves. Though for
a further nine years Gladstone laboured to reverse that decision,