During the first two months of the Session the Irish Party vied with the Conservatives in assailing the Land Act. Radicals began to murmur against the development of Mr. Forster’s coercive policy, every incident and detail of which was subjected by the Irish Members to bitter criticism and violent denunciation. In the meantime, Mr. Forster’s scheme for pacifying Ireland was not prospering, and it was seen that he had made a fatal mistake when he pledged himself to suppress agitation, if he were only empowered to arrest the leading agitators. From the day they were imprisoned, Ireland drifted towards anarchy and terrorism. Then the experiment was tried of arresting, not only the leaders, but their lieutenants. Finally Mr. Forster crowded the prisons with the rank and file of the Home Rule host. Men began to wonder whether the gaol accommodation of Ireland was adequate for Mr. Forster’s policy. But the more people he put in prison the worse the country grew, the more did evictions increase, and the less rent was paid. A bid for the Irish vote was now made by the Tories. They put up Sir John Hay to move that the detention of the “suspects” was “repugnant to the spirit of the Constitution.” Through Mr. W. H. Smith, in one of the debates on the Land Act, they offered the Nationalists a scheme for buying out the landlords at the expense of the State, and establishing peasant proprietorship in Ireland, such as had been advocated by Mr. Davitt and Mr. Parnell. It was clear that the Tory-Parnellite alliance was becoming a formidable combination, and the Radicals urged the Government to make terms with the Nationalist Party whilst there was yet time. But Mr. Gladstone hesitated, and then the Radicals moved without him. An intrigue, instigated by Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dilke, was set on foot to get Mr. Forster removed from his place as Irish Secretary. Through Captain O’Shea as an intermediary, Mr. Parnell was approached. He had certainly seen with alarm the increase in evictions, and knew that if the struggle were prolonged the financial resources of the Leaguers must fail them. He was, therefore, disposed to come to terms. Letters were exchanged, in one of which Mr. Parnell said that a promise to deal with the question of arrears would do much to bring peace to Ireland, for the Nationalists would then be able to exert themselves, with some hope of success, in stopping outrages. But the Land Act would have to be extended to leaseholders, and the Purchase Clauses enlarged. If this programme were carried out, wrote Mr. Parnell on the 28th of August to Captain O’Shea, it “would enable us to co-operate cordially for the future with the Liberal Party in forwarding Liberal principles; and I believe that the Government at the end of the Session would, from the state of the country, feel themselves thoroughly justified in dispensing with future coercive measures.” This letter was shown to Mr. Forster, and it seems that the Cabinet was also put in possession of Mr. Parnell’s views. Mr. Forster was not of opinion that they justified his release. Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dilke thought that they displayed a reasonable spirit which would justify a new departure of conciliation in Irish policy. Mr. Parnell, Mr. Dillon, Mr. Davitt, and the other suspects were therefore released, and Lord Cowper, the Irish Viceroy, and Mr. Forster resigned office. Mr. Forster was of opinion that Mr. Parnell should have been compelled to promise publicly not to resist the law, or failing that, that a stronger Coercion Act should have been passed before he was set at liberty. Lord Spencer was appointed to succeed Lord Cowper, and Lord Frederick Cavendish succeeded Mr. Forster as Chief Secretary. On the 6th of May, within forty-eight hours of their appointment, Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke, the Under-secretary for Ireland, were butchered by a band of assassins in broad daylight in the Phœnix Park, Dublin. Mr. Forster, in fact, had allowed a secret society of assassins, calling themselves “Invincibles,” to organise itself at his own doors, whilst he was scouring the country far and wide to arrest and imprison the patriotic but respectable _bourgeoisie_ of Ireland as suspects. In his speech condemning the release of the suspects, whilst he maintained that Ireland was not yet quiet, he had declared that the country was quieter than it had been, that the Land League was crushed, and boycotting checked! He had never suspected that the place of the Land League had been taken by a secret society of desperadoes called the “Invincibles” and that assassination was to be substituted for boycotting. His administration had been indeed singularly ineffective.