his management or mismanagement of his Cabinets. The
prejudices he had to overcome were hard set in many
Liberal minds. It was not enough to give a general view of
those relationships, for the judgment formed by the reader of
his wisdom will often depend on his treatment of particular
issues in the day to day life of a Government. It was
therefore necessary to discuss his relations with other politi-
cians in detail and, as this detail concerned other reputations
besides his own, it was the writer's duty to set out docu-
ments bearing on questions which though they may seem
small to-day, had great influence on events.

When Lord Morley wrote his great biography, Hartington
and Chamberlain, Gladstone's principal opponents in his
last struggle, and Harcourt, his principal opponent in the
early 'eighties, were all alive. To-day the reader can learn
of their part in these controversies from Mr. Bernard Holland's
Life of the Duke of Devonshire, Mr. Garvin's
great work on Chamberlain, and Mr. Gardiner's masterly
biography of Harcourt. Lord Morley's reminiscences have
also been made available partly in his book of Recollections
and partly in Mr. Hirst's interesting volumes on his early
life and letters. Of the other biographies that have appeared
since Lord Morley wrote, one stands out as specially im-
portant for the light it throws on the history of the Irish
question. This is Sir Arthur Hardinge Life of Lord Car-
narvon, Viceroy in 1885. This book tells the story of the
treatment of the Irish problem by Lord Salisbury's first
Government from the inside. As the events made intelli-
gible by this book had a decisive influence on the course of
politics, every writer on Mr. Gladstone's career must draw
largely on its revelations. Lord Carnarvon died in 1890,
but the biography was not published till 1925.

In another respect conditions have changed. When
Lord Morley wrote he had to treat as confidential the
negotiations carried on between Gladstone and Parnell
through the agency of Captain and Mrs. O'Shea. On
these it is no longer necessary to keep silence for the silence
was broken by Mrs. O'Shea who published her own account
of these transactions. Those transactions are described in

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