8 - THE FALL OF THE GOVERNMENT, 1873–4

Summary

1873: a wasted session

The Liberals' enforced return to office obliged them to find policies on which unity might be maintained and a sense of purpose rediscovered. It also required them to try to quieten agitation on English and Irish educational questions. The latter was likely to be the less difficult of the two, partly because the defeat of the Irish University Bill had diminished the urgency for a reform of the 1870 Education Act, and partly because of the atmosphere in the House of Commons, which was ‘quite demoralised’ between March and the end of the session.

Compromise proved most easily attainable on Irish university policy. There was general agreement that the defeat of March had paid the government's dues to the Irish MPs. Maintaining that the Catholic bishops had plotted the defeat of the University Bill, Gladstone considered the government ‘no longer hampered by Irish considerations in the direction of our general policy’, and thought further action on the matter unlikely. Fawcett intimated his willingness to cooperate closely with the government in altering his own bill to suit Gladstone's wishes. He now proposed in addition to the abolition of tests, to give powers to Trinity to reform its own government and that of the Dublin university.