WI: The Liberal Party and Irish Home Rule without William Gladstone

If Gladstone died during his second premiership, say from a heart attack in 1883, would a future Liberal government introduce a Home Rule Bill? That would depend on Gladstone's successor as Prime Minister. The three most likely men would be Hugh Childers, the Chancellor of the Exchequer; William Harcourt, the Home Secretary; and the Marquess of Hartington, the Secretary of State for War. He had served as leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons from 1875 to 1880. I think it is unlikely that Earl Granville, the Foreign Secretary would become Prime Minister, while Joseph Chamberlain, the President of the Board of Trade, was too radical.

Childers was one of the few Liberals who adopted the policy of Irish Home Rule before Gladstone's conversion in 1886. Harcourt did not leave the Liberal Party over Home Rule, so he did not oppose it. But he was not a convinced Home Ruler like Gladstone. Hartington was opposed to Home Rule and did not serve in Gladstone's third government and was the first leader of the Liberal Unionist Party.

If Childers was Prime Minister after a general election in 1885, there would probably be an Irish Home Rule Bill, but it would be defeated in the House of Commons, and the Liberal Unionist split would still happen. If Harcourt was Prime Minister there would probably not be a Home Rule Bill, and definitely not if Hartington was.


[1] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Childers, section headed Home Secretary.
 
Based on your own analysis, it seems that none of the alternatives to Gladstone could have passed Home Rule either.
 
Without Gladstone, the Whig/Radical (internal) split might start earlier and cause an outright loss in 1885/86. Meaning no Home Rule then, but a stronger Liberal Party might mean a better chance of it later on.

But a lot depends on who takes over and if there's still a third reform act.
 
The problem from what I have read is that Home Rule wasn't very popular within the party or outside of Ireland at the time. I think it comes down to how to make it able to get though both houses of Parliament and be a workable law. The only way I could see home rule happening is something similar to otl.
 
If after a general election in 1885 or 1886 the Irish Nationalist Party held the balance of power in the House of Commons, Parnell would want to get the most advantage from his party's position. So would a Liberal Prime Minister offer Joseph Chamberlain's central board scheme for Ireland? The following information about the scheme is taken from the book Home Rule and the Irish Question by Grenfell Morton, London: Longman, 1980.
1. County boards, to be elected in every county, one-third to be renewed annually; the voting to be by ballot.....

The county boards would have extensive powers of taxation and full authority to deal with all local authority to deal with all local matters......

2. A central board. This board should have if possible some distinctive title, as for instance, the 'national board of Ireland.....It might be elected a the same time as the county board either by the same constituencies voting in classes and in their several districts, or if preferred it might be returned by the vote of the several county boards each electing delegates according to population....

The central board would have independent powers of direct taxation and it would enjoy legislative as well as executive authority in the reference to the matters committed to its decision. The principal of these would be:
(1) National education in all its branches, university, secondary and primary.

(2) Public works, including all proposals for reclamation, harbours, drainage, and communications.....

The various boards which now, under government supervision and control, regulate local administration would disappear and every purely Irish question would be dealt with by an exclusively Irish authority without reference or responsibility to any external body.

In OTL Parnell rejected this scheme, but if a Liberal Prime Minister who was opposed to Home Rule offered this scheme, would Parnell accept it as a second best option?
 
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