200 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
“the back swing of the pendulum,” and a reversion towards 
Unionism, 
Accordingly Gladstone retained office, and announced that 
after a very short recess he should summon Parliament to meet 
Gladstone again in November for active legislative work, 
remains in But great difficulties met him: the Irish were 
office, discontented ; the English Radicals were split up 
into cliques and coteries which pulled different ways ; the party 
discipline was evidently deteriorating:; All that was done in 
the way of important legislation was the passage of a Parish 
Councils Bill, which gave parishes the same power of electing 
boards to settle their local affairs which the last Conservative 
Government had given to the counties, 
In March, 1894, the premier announced that he was com- 
pelled to lay down his office ; the stress of work was too much 
. for one whose eyesight and hearing were both 
Oaet beginning to fail, His last speech as prime 
—Lord minister had consisted of a diatribe upon the per- 
hm nn versity ofthe House of Lords in setting itself against 
the House of Commons; and he more than hinted 
that, if they continued to act as they had done on the Home 
Rule question, the nation must take in hand their reform or 
extinction. It was, therefore, curious that a member of the 
recalcitrant house should be chosen to fill Gladstone’s vacant 
place. His successor was Lord Rosebery, his Foreign Secretary, 
an able man in early middle age, who had won considerable 
applause by his administration of our external affairs, but who 
could not be called a typical Radical or an enthusiastic Home 
Ruler. In many ways he was more like the Whig statesmen 
of the eighteenth century than the Liberal politicians of to-day, 
combining considerable literary talents and a wide knowledge 
of foreign affairs with a keen passion for the turf, He is the 
only British premier who has ever run winners of the 
Derby (1894 and 1895). 
On Mr. Gladstone’s retirement, it became at once evident