[S]urely it were better to regard these islands as forming but one nation and let each man, whatever his nationality, have such share of the common inheritance as he shows himself fitted for.

The loss of Chamberlain alone was an immeasurable disaster; his influence with the democracy had for some time past exceeded Gladstone's … In any case, the energy of a Parliament created for social reform was to be spent on prolonged struggle over a subject which had formed no part of the election programme. Working men would find that their devotion had been thrown away, their confidence abused, the promised reforms to which they gave their votes postponed indefinitely, if not altogether sacrificed, to a measure of which no one among them had ever heard.