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 By J. S. MAHONKY. 
 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 EXCELSIOR PUBLISHING HOUSE. 
 
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Charles Stewart Parnell. ' 
 
Charles Stewart Parnell 
 
 WHAT HE HAS ACHIEVED FOR IRELAND: 
 
 INCLUDING AN EXTENDED BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE 
 
 LIFE OF THE IRISH LEADER, AND A HISTORY OF ALL 
 
 THOSE IMPORTANT EVENTS WHICH HAVE DISTIN- 
 
 GUISHED THE LAND AND NATIONAL LEAGUE 
 
 MOVEMENTS AND PROMISE TO RESULT 
 
 IN THE LEGISLATIVE INDEPEND- 
 
 ENCE OF IRELAND. 
 
 7^ 
 
 By J. s. m:apioney. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 Excelsior Publishing House, 
 
 29 and 31 Beekman Street. 
 

 Copyright, 1885, 
 
 BT 
 
 Excelsior Publishing House. 
 
 Engraving on cover is copied by permission of the publisher t,f 
 John Devoy's " Land of Eire." 
 
CONTEiNfTS. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 Page 
 The Parnells— Ireland in 1846-18r)0 6 
 
 Chapter II. 
 Mr. Parnell's Election to Parliament — The Inception and 
 Practice of Obstruction — J. G. i»iggar — Isaac Butt as 
 a Leader 8 
 
 Chaptek III. 
 The Famine in Ireland 15 
 
 Chaptsr IV. 
 The Irish Land Question 18 
 
 Chapter V 
 The Land League Agitation 23 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 The General Election in 1880 — Mr. Parnell's Election to 
 the Leadership of the Parliamentary Party — Mr. Shaw 
 and his followers Secede - 33 
 
 Chapter VII. 
 The Session in Parliament in 1880 — Political Prosecutions 
 in Ireland — The Fjght against Coercion in 1881 CO 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 The Land Actof 1881 46 
 
 Chapter IX. 
 Gladstone and Parnell 52 
 
 Chapter X. 
 The Arrest of Mr Parnell— The No-Rent Manifesto— The 
 state of Ireland G3 
 
IV 
 
 Chapter XL 
 
 Page 
 The Kilmainham Treaty — The Phoenix Park Tragedies — 
 The Climes and the Ar-rears Acts 68 
 
 Chapter XII. 
 The Organization of The Irish National League — The Ar- 
 rest of the Inviucibles, and the Carey Revelations 73 
 
 Chapter XIII. 
 Forster's Attack upon Mr. Parnell — The Irish Leader's 
 Speech in reply 79 
 
 Chapter XIV. 
 An Attempt at Description of Mr. Parnell's Qualities as 
 a Leader, and the Character and Composition of the 
 Land and National League Movements 88 
 
 Chapter XV. 
 Irish Legislation in Parliament in 1883 — The Orange Out- 
 rages in Ireland — The Progress of the Popular Move- 
 ment 95 
 
 Chapter XVI. 
 The Franchise Bill, and its effect upon the Irish Elec- 
 torate 99 
 
 Chapter XVII. 
 The Powers of Dublin Castle in the Government — The 
 Dublin Scandals 103 
 
 Chapter XVIII. 
 Mr. Gladstone's Foreign Policy — The Prince of Wales* 
 Visit to Ireland — The Fall of the Gladstone Govern- 
 ment 109 
 
 Chapter XIX. 
 The Accession to Power of the Salisbury Government — 
 Mr. Parnell wins a Victory 118 
 
 Chapter XX. 
 Irish Legislation in the Session of 1885 — The Elevation 
 of Dr. Walsh to the Archbishopric of Dublin — Prep- 
 arations for the General Election — How they Resulted. 126 
 
 Chapter XXI. 
 The Prospect for Home Rule — The Policy of the New 
 Irish Party 134 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PAENELLS — IRELAND IN 1846-1850. 
 
 Charles Steavart Parnell was born in Avon- 
 dale, in the county of Wicklow, Ireland, in Juno, 
 1846. His father was John Htnry Parnell, an Irish 
 country gentleman of fortune, and his mother before 
 marriage was a Miss Delia Tudor Stewart, a daughter 
 of Admiral Charles Stewart of the American navy, 
 and a woman of great energy and strength of charac- 
 ter, whom John Henry Parnell met and married while 
 traveling in America. The Parnells came originally 
 of English stock, one of them, Thomas Parnell of 
 Congleton, in Cheshire, having settled in Ireland at 
 the time of the Restoration. The family is Protestant 
 and aristocratic, but it has always been distinguished 
 for the liberality of its views both in religion and 
 politics. Thomas Parnell of Dublin, who came of a 
 branch of the family, attained eminence as a poet 
 and divine in the reign of Queen Anne, and later on 
 the name became a prominent one in the politics of 
 Ireland. The Rt. Hon. Sir Ji.im Parnell, "the in- 
 corruptible," waschancellor of the exchequer in Grat- 
 tan's Parliament, and was dismissed from that position 
 by Loi'd Castlereagh because he refused to vote for 
 the Union. His son, Sir Henry Parnell, afterwards 
 became a member of the British Parliament, and was 
 so high in the esteem and cox:ifidence of O'Connell, 
 that that gentleman, in 1814, took the Catholic claims 
 away from Grattan and entrusted him with their 
 championship. John Hemy Parnell, the father of 
 Charles Stewart Parnell, was a nephew of this last 
 gentleman. 
 
6 LIFE AND SERVICES OP 
 
 The condition of Ireland in 1846 was a sad one in 
 the extreme. The famine, Avliich had set in the pre- 
 [ceding year was making fearful havoc among the peo- 
 ple. They were dying by the waysides in hundreds, 
 and all measures for relief were inadequate or in- 
 operative. Tlie hearts which had erstwhile been 
 buoyant with hope and joyous with anticipations of 
 prosperity and happiness in the glorious prospect of 
 a repeal of the Union, were now subdued and broken 
 beneath the weight of an unutterable and an implaca- 
 ble woe. The futui-e, which but lately had presented 
 to their imaginations the proud picture of a regen- 
 erated nationality, was now filled up by the a"v\rful 
 figure of Death, raging like a demon throughout the 
 land, here smiting down a family by starvation, there 
 a district by fever, and everywhere exulting amid 
 the cries of the stricken, the groans of the dying, and 
 the wail of the hopeless. 
 
 O'Connell and his compatriots did all that it was 
 possible for men to do to avert or to relieve the dis- 
 tress, but their best efforts were necessarily inconsider- 
 able. The glorious career of the great agitator had 
 then reached and passed its zenith. There were 
 grave dissensions in the wonderful oiganization which 
 he had formed, and in which he had wielded such an 
 extraordinary influence for many years. He saw that 
 thenceforward his power must inevitably decline, and 
 his proud spirit felt it keenly ; but mure than all he 
 felt the terrible sufferings of his devoted people whom 
 he was powerless to succor. Witii tlie agony which 
 only a great nature can feel, he realized, almost in a 
 breath, the blasting of his aspirations for his country 
 and the impending annihilation of his race. 
 
 O'Connell died in a foreign land in May, 1847, of 
 a broken heart ; but the famine in Ireland continued 
 and the suffering increased with awful rapidity. 
 Three hundred thousand pei'sons died of fever and 
 famine in 1846, and in 1847 five hundred thousand 
 perished, while hundreds of thousands of those who 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARTSTELL. 7 
 
 could scrape up the necessary means fled from the 
 country as though it was accursed, as indeed it was, 
 so that at the beginning of 1851 the population had 
 fallen aAvay by two millions and a half. 
 
 And during all this time, while the people of Ire- 
 land were starving, fleets of ships were sailing with 
 every tide carrying Irish cattle and corn to Eng- 
 land. 
 
 And in Parliament government was passing Relief 
 acts, which didn't relieve ; and Poor laws, thati made 
 the poor poorer ; and Labor Rate bills, under which 
 the people's money was squandered in unproductive 
 schemes ; and altogether the legislation was admira- 
 bly adapted — and perhaps intended — not to relieve, 
 but to permanently pauperize the country. 
 
 But this was not the only legislation with which 
 the government of that time busied itself. English 
 statesmen have always professed great faith in the 
 virtues of coercion as a remedy for whatever kind of 
 ills Ireland might happen to be afflicted with. It is 
 a government nostrum which is given her to take, 
 whether she likes it or not, whenever she feels indis- 
 posed. On this occasion her people were starving for 
 want of food, and the remedial measures having 
 proved unsuccessful alone, it was thought best to try 
 them in conjunction with coercion — coercion before 
 and coercion after. The habeas corpus act was sus- 
 pended ; the treason-felony act became a law ; the 
 Nationalist press was proclaimed ; the Irish Confed- 
 erates were disbanded ; the gentry were corrupted or 
 frightened half to death, and the people wei-e in 
 despair. 
 
 And now took place that forlorn hope in which 
 O'Brien, Dillon, Meagher, McManus, O'Donohoe 
 and others engaged. It was the last desperate pro- 
 test of a gallant people against an unjust and tyran- 
 nical system of government — and it failed. It was 
 shortly followed by the trials at Clonmel for " high 
 treason," the result being that the prisoners were all 
 
8 LIFE AND SERVICES OP 
 
 convicted and sentenced to death, but the sentences 
 were afterwards commuted to transportation for life. 
 
 In the meanwhile large bodies of police and mili- 
 tary were kept busily employed in town and country 
 ejecting the poor wretches who could not pay their 
 rents ; and in pulling down houses in the search for 
 hidden weapons ; and in putting in execution laws 
 which were cunningly devised to clear the land of 
 Ireland of the native occupiers. 
 
 The country was never so deeply steeped in poverty 
 and misery, and if its conquest was not consummated 
 then it never will be consummated. The popular 
 leaders were all in prison or in exile ; the poorhouses 
 were filled to overflowing, and the dispirited people 
 were either lying down by the roadsides to die, or 
 crowding into emigrant ships to seek more favorable 
 lands to labor in. And the passage of the years up 
 to 1851 brought no improvement. The state of 
 things went from bad to worse, and the London 
 limes was enabled to boast — only too truthfully — 
 "Now for the first time in 600 years England has 
 Ireland at her mercy, and can do with her as she 
 pleases." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ME. TAENELL's ELECTIOlSr TO PARLIAMENT THE INCEP- 
 TION AND PRACTICE OF OBSTRUCTION — J. G. BIG- 
 GAR ISAAC BUTT AS A LEADER. 
 
 Such was the condition of Ireland during th(; 
 earlier years of the future Irish leader, and, although 
 his family's position and means were such as to place 
 him personally above want, he could not but be im- 
 pressed — child though he was — with the painful 
 events occurring and the misery existing everywhere 
 around him in Ireland. 
 
CHARLES STEWAKT TARNELL. 9 
 
 As a boy Mr. Parnell was quiet, thoughtful and 
 studious, his schooldays being spent mostly in Eng- 
 land and marked by no event worthy of note. At 
 18 he entered Cambridge University, and remained 
 there two years, when he left, without graduating, and 
 made a tour of America, in company with an older 
 brother, John II. Parnell, who is now a citizen of and 
 one of the richest peach-growers in Georgia. 
 
 On his return to Ireland, Mi'. Parnell settled down 
 on his estate in Wicklow to the quiet life of an Irish 
 country gentleman, but he emerged from that seclu- 
 sion in 1874 to contest one of the seats for Dublin 
 county in the Home Rule interest. It is worthy of 
 remark that in his address to the voters of this con- 
 stituency, which may be taken as his first public 
 utterance or enunciation of principles, he emphatically 
 pledged himself to "by all means seek the restor- 
 ation to Ireland of our domestic Parliament." In the 
 election which followed, Mr. Parnell was badly 
 beaten, and he retired from the contest without hav- 
 ing given any signs of the possession of more than 
 mediocre abilities. 
 
 His next appearance in public was in the press in 
 1875. Early in that year a vacancy occurred in Tip- 
 perary, and John Mitchel, of '"48" fame, went over 
 from America to stand for the county. Mr. Parnell 
 applauded Mitchel's intention and wrote a letter to 
 the newspapers expressing approbation of his course. 
 He also subscribed £25 toward the expenses of the 
 contest. Mitchel was elected by an immense ma- 
 jority, but he died almost immediately, and within 
 a week he was followed to the grave by John Martin, 
 his brother-in-law and fellow rebel, the member for 
 Mealh. 
 
 This left two vacancies in the Home Rule party 
 and Mr. Butt invited Mr. Parnell to stand for that 
 in Meath. He did so, and was elected on the 19th 
 of April, 1875. On the 22d of that month he made 
 liis appearance in the House of Commons, and that 
 
10 LIFE AND SERVICES OP 
 
 night listened to one of Mr. J. G. Biggar's four hour 
 speeches against cocercion. Mr. Parnell's first speech 
 in Parliament was also made on this occasion and is 
 said to have been couched in most vehement language, 
 and delivered in a shrill, strained voice. He early 
 took his stand beside Mr. Biggar, who, if not the 
 father, may at least be termed the most vigorous ex- 
 pounder and practiser of obstruction, and loyally 
 co-operated in the inauguration of what has since 
 come to be known as the " active" policy. 
 
 Mr. Biggar enjoys the distinction of having brought 
 Mr. Parneli out, as the saying is, and is a character 
 deserving of more than passing mention because of 
 that fact and on account of the great and unselfish 
 labors which he has performed in behalf of Ireland. 
 Joseph G. Biggar was boin in Belfast, August 1, 1828, 
 and received his education — such as it was — in the 
 Academy in that city. In his 17th year he went into 
 the ofiice of his father, who was in the provision trade, 
 where he worked as assistant until 1861, when he 
 succeeded to the business ; and in 1880, having 
 amassed an ample competency, he was enabled to 
 retire. His family were staunch Ulster Presbyte- 
 rians, but Mr. Biggar became a convert to the Catho- 
 lic Church in 1877. He was first elected to Parlia- 
 ment as a Home Ruler from county Cavan in 1874, 
 and was re-elected by the same constituency in 1880. 
 As a speaker he has not a single advantage either of 
 voice or gesture, but he can put his ideas into goo). 
 language, and he has a clear head and plenty ofsoun<l 
 common sense with a grim, quaint humor that often 
 sets the House in a roar. To the insults of the anti- 
 Nationalist press — which have been showered upon 
 him in abundance — and the taunts of opposition in 
 debate, Mr. Biggar is perfectly indifferent, and he 
 goes on his way as calmly as if he did not know 
 of or hear them. As an Irishman he is ardently and 
 intensely patriotic, and he is animated by a fierce and 
 inveterate hate of English rule in Ireland, and an 
 
 / i 
 
CIIA.RLES STEWART PARNELL. 11 
 
 unsleeping and relentless purpose to make tilings 
 as disagreeable for tlie rulers as they can be made. 
 He is greatly devoted to the other members of the 
 Irish party and his patient, plodding, enduring ex- 
 ample has inspired many of them with his own Kpiiit, 
 He is absolutely devoid of jealousy and will not only 
 take a back seat for the youngest in his party, but he 
 "will do all in his power to push the youngster ahead 
 of himself. In private life his character is marked 
 by many honest, sterling and admirable qualities. 
 His disposition is kindly, genial, simple ; his smile is 
 bright and winning and he is a universal favorite 
 with children. 
 
 Such was tbe man who undertook to tutor Mr. 
 Parnell on his entrance into political life and both 
 master and pupil soon attained prominence in the 
 Home Rule party. This party had been returned to 
 Parliament at the general elections of 1874 with a 
 nominal membership of more than 60, but many of 
 the men so returned could not be depended upon. 
 Some of the members had done faithful service in the 
 cause of Ireland, but there were not a few others — 
 expectant lawyers and worn-out office-seekers — who 
 had taken up the cry of " Home Rule " from selfish 
 motives, and who, having been borne into office on 
 the popular wave, now snapped their fingers at their 
 constituencies, ignored or neglected the duties devolv- 
 ing upon them, and intrigued only to secure their 
 own advancement in the good graces of the govern- 
 ment. And the government was not slow to hold out 
 bait for them to catch at. 
 
 The Irish leader at this time was Isaac Butt, a 
 most sincere, excellent and able man, but one hardly 
 fitted either by training or temperament for the 
 trying position of leader of an independent party in 
 the House of Commons. In his earlier years he had 
 been the champion of the Protestant ascendency in 
 Dublin municipal affairs and was a vigorous opponent 
 of O'Connell in the struggle for Repeal, but as he 
 
12 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 grew older his opinions underwent a decided change. 
 He defended the prisoners in the celebrated Fenian 
 trials and later he became a sincere and earnest advo- 
 cate of self-government for Ireland. He was a man 
 of brilliant and powerful intellect, and was possessed 
 as an orator and as a debater of very superior gifts, 
 but it may be questioned whether he had to any con- 
 siderable degree the special qualities which are needed 
 in a leader of men. He was ' irritable and hasty in 
 temper and was given to magnifying trifling differ- 
 ences of opinion into factious and flagrant acts of 
 opposition, to such a degree as made it hard for men 
 of independence and spirit to get along with him. And 
 these faults grew upon him with years. Referring 
 to this side of Mr. Butt's character, Justin McCar- 
 thy, writing in the London Times^iov June, 18*79, said: 
 *'It might have been possible to find a man of far in- 
 ferior gifts as a debater who could have led the party 
 better. It was surely a mistake in the practical art 
 of leadership when Mr. Butt publicly denounced in 
 the face of the House of Commons the action of cer- 
 tain of the more extreme among his followers. A 
 leader has, in truth, to put up with a good deal of 
 independent, or even eccentric, action on the part of 
 some of his followers now and then, and so long as 
 they are loyal to him on the one question which is the 
 cause and the purpo>e of the party, he does wisely by 
 letting them have a good deal of their own way." 
 
 The mistake alluded to by Mr. McCarthy was 
 made during the debate on the South African bill 
 in the House of Commons in the session of 18 77. 
 Messrs. Biggar and Parnell had been seizing every 
 opportunity that offered to put their obstructive tic- 
 tics into practice, and in the long sitting on this ])ill 
 they had given a free rein to the new policy. The 
 result was many scenes of excitement and passion, 
 and an open rupture between Mr. Butt and the 
 structionists. The veteran chief of the Home Rul^[ 
 did not regard the new tactics with favor and he giq 
 
CHARLES STEWART PAENELL. 13 
 
 expression to his displeasure in a very severe speech. 
 But he did not confine himself to this, for outside as 
 ■well as inside the House, he made speeches and wrote 
 letters denouncing th.e new policy in the most vigor- 
 ous language at his command. " Either obstruction 
 will put down the House of Commons," he used to 
 say, "or the House of Commons will put down ob- 
 struction," and it was evidently his opinion that the 
 latter result would be the case. 
 
 But the Irish leader was even then bending under 
 the influence of painful disease and approaching 
 death, and if Biggar and Parnell lost in his good 
 opinion, they more than made up for it by the rapid- 
 ity with which they grew in popular favor. The 
 Irish people were in earnest in their struggle, and if 
 England would not accede to their reasonable de- 
 mands, they gladly gave their support to the men 
 who made all possible trouble for her, and practically 
 paralyzed legislation in her Parliament by their ob- 
 structive methods. When the Home Rule Confede- 
 ration of Great Britain met in Liverpool in the au- 
 tumn of that year, the Irishmen of England showed 
 their approbation of the course of the obstructionists 
 by electing Charles Stewart Parnell to the Presidency 
 of that body in place of Isaac Butt. 
 
 This act strengthened the obstructionists immeas- 
 urably. Almost alone, theretofore, they had pursued 
 their peculiar policy, but their earnestness and per- 
 sistency now began to attract recruits to their flag, 
 and the obstructionists developed into an important 
 and somewhat independent section of the Home Rule 
 party. At first Mr. Biggar had been the leader, but 
 Mr. Parnell's greater activity and ability soon brought 
 him to the front and Mr. Biggar, with that unselfish- 
 ness characteristic of him, was content to fall into 
 line as an enthusiastic and loyal follower. The little 
 party were hated by the English members of all 
 parties and were ostracized and contemned by the 
 moiie influential in their own party, but they held to 
 
14 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 their policy with unabated confidence in its efficacy as 
 an irritant, if not as a remedy. 
 
 The sessions of 1878 and 18Y9 were marked by 
 similar scenes to those which characterized that of 
 1877, only that obstruction was, if anything:, practiced 
 upon a much larger, bolder and more adroit scale. 
 By the latter year, Mr. Butt had lost greatly in the 
 public good will and was practically retired from poli- 
 tics, while Mr. Paraell had risen to the position of a 
 popular idol. 
 
 The people with unerring instinct had discovered 
 that the younger man possessed in a larger degree 
 the qualities that go to make a great and a bold leader, 
 and they helped to push him to the front. The dele- 
 gates of the British Home Rule League, at a con- 
 vention held in Dublin in 1878, avowedly for the pur- 
 pose of influencing Irish opinion, renewed their con- 
 fidence in Mr, Parnell by again electing him to the 
 presidency, and at a great public meeting in the Ro- 
 tundo in Dublin, in the same year, Mr. Parnell and 
 Mr. Biggar were enthu>iastically indorsed. 
 
 On the 6th of May, 1879, Mr. Butt died, and his 
 death was widely and sincerely mourned by the Irish 
 people as that of an honest, amipright and a patriotic 
 man. The leadership of the parliamentary party now 
 should have gone to Mr. Parnell, but many of the 
 members thought that he was too young and too rash 
 to occupy such a position ; and then again, it was 
 said that by some kind of unsettled right of succes- 
 sion, the leadership devolved upon Mr. William Shaw, 
 the member for Cork county, a most excellent and 
 respectable gentleman, and one who, wliile not par- 
 ticipating in the work of obstruction was thought to 
 be cordially friendly to Mr. Parnell. Ho was, there- 
 fore, entiusted with the duties and the resj^onsibilities 
 of the position. But his leadership was destined to 
 bo a bri.i one, and Mr. Parnell's star was rising. 
 
CUAELES STEWAKT PARNELL. 15 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE FAMINE IN IRELAND. 
 
 Shortly after Mr. Shaw's accession to the leader- 
 ship of the Home Rule party forebodings began to 
 be heard of an approaching famine in Ireland. The 
 crops for the season of 1879 and the two preceding 
 seasons had been bad, and it was feared that a period 
 of suffering similar to that of 1845-1848 was about to 
 ensue. The people of the counties of Mayo, Galway, 
 Donegal and other portions of the counties of Sligo, 
 Clare, Kerry and Cork were especially threatened, 
 and it soon became evident that unless some immedi- 
 ate action was taken great distress was inevitable. 
 
 That the famine was not an exaggeration of the 
 fancy, nor a bugbear created by designing politicians 
 to excite the people and help the organization of the 
 land movement is amply proved by the government 
 record of the vital statistics of Ireland for 1879. 
 From a perusal of this document it appears that the 
 number of deaths in this year was 105,432, being the 
 highest recorded in any year since registration was 
 established in 1864. The average mortality for the 
 preceding decade was 93,881, and it must be borne in 
 mind that by 1879 the population of Ireland had 
 fallen off more than 200,000 from the census of 187 K 
 yet the year's record Avas 12,000 above the average. 
 Add to this that the number of persons who died of 
 contagious diseases was far below the average, and, 
 making all allowance for the deaths caused by coll 
 in the early months, the fact remains that thousands 
 of persons actually died of want in that year ; and 
 had it not been for the Land League the mortality in 
 1879 and the years immediately subsequent would 
 have been appallingly large. As it was, the year was 
 far more calamitous for Ireland than is generally 
 known. The destitution was great and widespread, 
 especially among the poorer farmers and the laboring 
 
16 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 classes. The emigration was greater by 8,000 than 
 in 1878 ; and, notwithstanding the deep aversion 
 which the Irish people have for the workhouse, the 
 inmates of these institutions were increased by 7,000 
 in the winter of 1879-80 as compared with the pre- 
 vious winter, and 6,000 more persons received out- 
 door relief. But these are only the open evidences 
 of misery ; there are no means at hand for calculat- 
 ing the number of people who suffered in silence. 
 The only thing that is certain is that a terrible dis- 
 aster to the country was in great measure averted by 
 the prompt and energetic action of the people them- 
 selves. 
 
 The immense falling off in the crops during the 
 years 1877, 1878 and 1879 is shown by the following, 
 which is taken from Eason's Almanac for 1881: 
 
 " The Registrar- General's Annual Returns to the 
 Lord Lieutenant, on the Statistics of Ireland, for the 
 years 1877, 1878 and 1879, are trustworthy, and their 
 collection by the Constabulary for a long series of 
 years has fully established them in the confidence of 
 those who consult them. 
 
 "The year 1877 was reported upon in August, 
 1878. Universal testimony from all four Provinces 
 spoke of the year as very wet ; the crops of oats and 
 especially potatoes were inferior, and although hay 
 was plentiful, it was badly saved and poor in quality. 
 
 " The year 1878 was reported upon in May, 187*9, 
 and general testimony spoke of the inferior character 
 of the potato crop, and the prevalence of disease. In 
 some districts there had been too much wet, and 
 especially in the counties of Cork, Kerry, Limerick 
 and variously in portions of other counties. There 
 was a good deal of jDOtato blight. 
 
 " The year 1879 was reported upon in February, 
 1880, and it stated the relative food supplies in the 
 following manner : ' It is quite clear that food sup- 
 plies produced in Ireland during the year 1879, must, 
 so far as cereal and green crops are concerned, be 
 
CHARLES STEAVART PARNELL. 17 
 
 considerably under the average. In the cereal and 
 potato crops there is an immense deficiency, not only 
 in the amount planted but in the yield, the result rel- 
 atively to the population being, that for the whole of 
 Ireland, the quantity per head of the produce of cereal 
 crops is only 3.8 cwts., as compared with an average 
 for the ten years 1869-78 of 4.9 cwts., and against 4.7 
 cwts. for 1878. In potatoes the deficiency is propor- 
 tionally greater. The annual average amount of 
 potatoes per head produced in Ireland during the 
 past ten years was 11.2 cwts., while in 1879 it Avas 
 only 4.1, or about one-third. The amount per head 
 in 1878 was 9.3 cwts., or more than double that of 
 the present year. The amount of potatoes planted 
 was less by 4,041 acres than in 1878. The salient 
 point, however, is that in 1878 the estimated produce 
 of potatoes in Ireland was 50,530,080 cwts., the aver- 
 age for ten years being 60,752,918 cwts., whereas the 
 estimated yield for 1879 is only 22,273,520 cwts., a 
 most alarro.ing decrease. The potato crop will be de- 
 ficient in every province, county and union. The 
 total yield for Ireland is estimated at 26.4 cwts. per 
 acre, against an average of 64.4 cwts. per acre for the 
 preceding ten years.' " 
 
 So terrible were the portents for the winter of 
 1879-80 that people shuddered to think of the suf- 
 ferings it would bring forth, and the Irish Liberal 
 and Home Rule members of Parliament thought it 
 their duty to unite in a declaration to Earl Beacons- 
 field bringing the deplorable state of Ireland to his 
 notice, anil ui'ging that a special session of Parliament 
 be called to take action in the emergency. 
 
 Parliament was summoned to meet early that win- 
 ter, but government did little or nothing for the re- 
 lief of Ireland. The Queen's speech, indeed, made a 
 meagre and unsatisfactory reference to the state of 
 affairs there, and Lord Beaconsfield in the House of 
 Lords improved the occasion to make a savage attack 
 upoi) the Liberals, Avhom he accused of sympathy 
 
18 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 with sedition in Ireland. He denounced the abettors 
 of Home Rule, too, in unmeasured terms as traitors 
 to their sovereign and to their country. The Duke 
 of Argyll retorted with an attack upon the entire 
 policy of the Tory government and attributed the 
 success of obstruction to what he called the govern- 
 ment's pusillanimous attitude. 
 
 A similar word fight took place in the House of 
 Commons between the Marquis of Hartington and 
 Sir Stafford Northcote, and thus both parties took 
 advantage of the misery existing in Ireland to make 
 pulitical capital for their respective sides, the famine, 
 meanwhile, being allowed to go on. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE IRISU LAND QUESTION. 
 
 The cause of these famines which periodically af- 
 flict Ireland — or, at any rate, of the suffering which 
 accompanies them — is to be ascribed principally to 
 the system of land tenure introduced into the country 
 at the time of the conquest. This system h%,s con- 
 tinued for ages to weigh down the Irish farmer-^and 
 through him the laborer — with a severity that in- 
 creases with the passage of years and leaves him 
 without resource upon the least failure of his crop. 
 
 The great majority of the people of Ireland are de- 
 pendent upon agriculture for a livelihood, and the 
 revenue from that branch of industry is two-thirds 
 of the revenue of the country. This being the case 
 it is obvious that the conditions Essential to prosperity 
 are either a very general ownership by the tillers of 
 the soil themselves, or a fair and equitable tenfincy 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 19 
 
 system. But tlie conditions existing in 1879 in 
 Ireland were that the total area of Ireland was 20,159,- 
 678 acres. Of this — 
 
 452 persons own each more than 5,000 acres. 
 
 135 persons own each more than 10,000 acres. 
 
 90 persons own each more than 20,000 acres. 
 
 14 jjei'sons own each more than 50,000 acres. 
 
 3 persons own each more than 100,000 acres. 
 
 1 person owns 170,119 acres. 
 
 292 personshold 6,458,100 acres, or abo;it one-third 
 of the island. 
 
 744 persons hold 9,612,728 acres, or about one- 
 half of tlie island. 
 
 In Ireland the twelve largest owners hold in the 
 aggregate 1,297,888 acres ; and their respective acre- 
 ages are 170,119, 156,974, 121,353,118,607,114,881, 
 101,030,95,008, 94,551, 93,629, 86,321, 72,915, and 
 69,501. 
 
 Two-thirds of the whole of Ireland are held by only 
 1,942 persons. 
 
 There was no peasant proprietor class in the coun- 
 try. The farmers almost all held as tenants, and of 
 the 600,000 tenant farmers, more than 500,000, repre- 
 senting with their families about 3,000,000 persons, 
 were merely tenants-at-will, who had no securiiy in 
 their homes. This tenancy-at-will has been described 
 by Lord Dufferin thus : 
 
 " What is the spectacle presented to us by Ireland ? 
 It is that of millions of persons, whose only depend- 
 ence and whose chief occupation is agriculture, for 
 the most part cultivating their lands; that is, sinking 
 their past, their present and their future upon yearly 
 tenancies. What is a yearly tenancy ? Why, it is 
 an impossible tenure ; a tenure which, if its terms 
 were to be literally interpreted (and its terms are 
 literally interpreted in Ireland), no Christian man 
 would offer, and none but a madman would accept." 
 
 But, madmen or not, this "impossible tenure " was 
 the one that the great majority of the Irish farmers 
 
20 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 were compelled to accept, and, as a consequence, they 
 were at the absolute mercy of the landlords, who 
 could raise rents wlienover they saw fit, and the 
 tenants either had to pay the advance or get off of 
 tlie land. These tenant-farmers, with their families, 
 numbered, as I have said, about 3,000,000 persons, 
 but, as agriculture was the main source of the country's 
 wealth, the commercial and trading community were 
 dependent upon the industry of the farmers, and it 
 follows, therefore, that the fate and fortunes of nearly 
 five millions of persons were at the mercy of the land- 
 lords, who, at the most numbered not more than a 
 few thousand. 
 
 Many of these landlords were great nobles and other 
 rich men who lived in England on the income from 
 their Irish estates, which were managed by agents 
 whose interest it was to squeeze all they could out of 
 the tenants, and the land was not only compelled to 
 pay the landlords and the agents, but it was compelled 
 to pay the solicitor and tlie bailiffs as well. What 
 was left, if anything, was for the tenant. 
 
 This landlord system was the great social bane of 
 the country. A single class, and that numerically 
 not a large one, kept the nation steeped in indescrib- 
 able misery by exacting rents for their lands enor- 
 mously in excess of their real value. In numerous 
 instances these rents nearly equaled the whole value 
 of the produce of the land, and it was consequently 
 all but impossible for the tenants to pay them. 
 Should the tenant improve his farm the landlord made 
 that a reason why he should pay more rent and he was 
 never remunerated for his improvements, no matter 
 how permanent in character these might be. It will 
 bi} seen, therefore, that no incentive to industry ex- 
 isted and a premium was put upon sloth and indolence, 
 for the higher the degree of cultivation to M'hich a 
 farmer brought his farm the more he had to pay for 
 it. Under this system the whole nation was con- 
 stantly ground down and its people were kept con- 
 
CHARLES STEWART I'ARNELL. 21 
 
 tinually on the very verge of starvation. The 
 smallest unfavorable change in the seasons, therefore, 
 or the slightest failure in the potato crop, entailed 
 wholesale suffering and premature deaths. The land- 
 lords were further armed with the arbitrary and ir- 
 responsible power of evicting the tenantry at their 
 pleasure and upon any scale, and they exercised that 
 power in every part of the kingdom in the most merci- 
 less fashion. 
 
 The Irish people knew the cause of their sufferings 
 and their impoverishment, and their leading men bad 
 often striven to effect a change in the land laws, but 
 to no purpose. *' If they ask me what are my propo- 
 sitions for the relief of distress," said O'Connell, in 
 1846, " I answer, first, tenant-right. I would propose 
 a law giving to every man his own. I would give 
 the landlord his land and a fair rent for it ; but I 
 would give the tenant compensation for every shill- 
 ing he might have laid out on the land in permanent 
 improvements." The same proposition has been made 
 by other leaders since and — until recently — ineffectu- 
 ally. The nation progressed only toward ruin and 
 decay. The lands that should have been used to sup- 
 port the life and promote the prosjDcrity of the people 
 were being turned into sheep walks and cattle pastures, 
 until out of 20,000,000 acres of arable land, only 
 3,000,000 were under cultivation. Then accordingly 
 as the rents decreased in the aggregate, the landlords, 
 in order to keep up their state and have something to 
 spend in debauchery abroad, had to increase the rents 
 per acre until they became so exorbitant that it was 
 simply impossible for the tenants to meet them, and 
 have anything left for the support of their families. 
 
 The necessity for a reform of the land system had 
 been urged upon Parliament again and again, but 
 without avail until 1870, when Mr. Gladstone brought 
 in his Bill to Amend tho Law of Landlord and Tenant 
 in Ireland ; but though this bill was at the time con- 
 sidered a bold and even revolutionary measure, it fell 
 
22 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 far short of the needs of the occasion, and, indeed, 
 not only failed to do any great good, but did con- 
 siderable harm. It has been shown since that the 
 number of evictions after the passage of the bill was 
 greater than in the years preceding it. In the three 
 years before its passage the ejectments on notices to 
 quit numbered 4,253 ; in the three subsequent years 
 the number reached 5,fi41, showing an increase of 
 1,388. In the next three years they numbered 8,439. 
 And these figures represent only the capricious evic- 
 tions ; they do not include ejectments for non-pay- 
 ment of rent or non-title. Mr. Gladstone's bill of 1870 
 was a concession, but it left the tenants about as badly 
 off as they were before. ' 
 
 And this is the great trouble with all the Irish 
 remedial measures which pass the British Parliament. 
 They are never anything but half hearted conces- 
 sions. They are never full or complete, and are of 
 necessity imjjotent in bringing about the reforms 
 which they are passed to effect ; but English states- 
 men seem to be constitutionally incapacitated to ap- 
 preciate this. If their bills contain any instalment 
 of justice, no matter how minute, they laud the 
 measures to the skies and soundly berate the Irish 
 if they do not accept them on the government's 
 recommendation as redress in full for the grievances 
 of centuries. The eleven Ir!sh members who op- 
 posed the bill of 1870 because it was not broad 
 enough in its scope to confer any lasting benefitsu[jon 
 the Irish people, told Mr. Gladstone that instead of 
 settling the question he was only putting it off for a 
 few years, and they were roundly denounced as un- 
 gratef uL ]?Ir. Gladstone liimself, however, lias since 
 come to be of their opinion. 
 
 Tliese Irish members knew that the bone which 
 the government threw to the Irish farmers in 1870 
 would not eatisfy them, and Mr. Gladstone and those 
 who believed it Avould, were soon undeceived. In 
 the years from 1871 to 1880, no less than 23 bills 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 23 
 
 affecting the rights of property and occupation in 
 land in Ireland were placed before the British Par- 
 liament, but only to be rejected, dropped or with- 
 drawn. A day of reckoning had to come, however, 
 and the more it was delayed the more desperate 
 would grow the demands of the oppressed. So it 
 was that when the awfully bad season of 1879 came 
 upon the tenant farmers of Ireland, blighting their 
 crops and destroying their hopes, the people, stung 
 by hunger and the desperation of their situation, rose 
 en masse in an attempt to shake off the chains which 
 weighted them down. 
 
 CHAPTER y. 
 
 THE LAND LEAGUE AGITATION. 
 
 In April, ]879, a meeting of tenant farmers was 
 held at Irish town, in Mayo, at whicli they rehearsed 
 their grievances and passed resolutions demanding 
 an abatement of rents. Similar meetings followed in 
 other parts of the same county, and, in a very short 
 time, the movement had spread all over the west of 
 Ireland. Mr. Parnell, Michael Davitt, John Dillon, 
 Thomas Sexton, Thomas Brennan, Andrew Kettle 
 and others took an active part in all these meetings 
 and their teachings prepared the way for the Land 
 League. 
 
 In July a vacancy occurred in the parliamentary 
 party for Ennis, and Mr. Parnell, determining to put 
 up a candidate for that borough who could be relied 
 upon to support the " active " section of the party, 
 nominated Mr. Lysaght Finigan. Mr. Shaw sup- 
 ported the present Judge O'Brien, and to make the 
 contest more interesting a Conservative actively com- 
 peted for the suffrages of the people. Mr. Finigan's 
 candidacy was at first considered hopeless, but Mr. 
 Parnell, Mr. Finigan himself and Mr. T. D. Sullivan 
 
24 LIFE AND SERVICES OP 
 
 worked night and day and the result was that Mr. 
 Finigan was elected by six votes. This was regarded 
 as a great victory for Mr. Parnell, and it had the 
 more weight as showing the temper of the people 
 with respect to their representatives and foreshadow- 
 ing the result of the general elections which were 
 known to be near at hand. 
 
 The farmei's of the West, meanwhile, were calling 
 loudly upon the landlords for reductions in rents, but 
 the landlords paid no attention to the demands, and 
 at last the people determined to take the matter into 
 tiieir own hands and to compel redress at all hazards. 
 Michael Davitt's scheme for the organization of a 
 Land League was nov/ taken up with enthusiasm and 
 at a great meeting called in Dublin, in October, the 
 Land League was formally organized with Mr. Par- 
 nell as president ; Mr. Davitt, as organizer ; Patrick 
 Egan, treasurer, and Thomas Brennan, secretary. 
 Endurance among the people had reached its limits, 
 and now, instead of being satisfied with an abatement 
 in rents, they demanded the complete and final abo- 
 lition of landlordif-m in Ireland. The programme of 
 the League declared its purpose to be the liberation 
 of the peasant from landlord power by obtaining for 
 him, through constitutional action, the ownership of 
 the land he cultivated with the tender of fair compen- 
 sation to the landlord for the extinction of his interest. 
 « England in 1833 "—to quote Mr. T, M. Healy— "had 
 paid £20,000,000 to free the West Indian slaves. She 
 was at that moment spending a sum as great in inglo- 
 rious wars in Afghanistan and Zululand. Was it too 
 much, therefore, to hope that she would now consent 
 to buy out the Irish slave, who, unlike the West In- 
 dian, would work to pay back every penny laid out 
 on the purchase of his freedom ? " 
 
 The people responded to the call for united action 
 with hearty and unanimous enthusiasm. The time 
 was ripe for the movement and the gi*eedy and cruel 
 exactions of the landlords at a time when famine was 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 25 
 
 again threatening to overwhelm the country with 
 misery spurred on its growth. Nearly all the Iriih 
 organizations existing at the time, recognized the 
 strength of the new movement and amalgamated with 
 it, and its branches spread throughout the country 
 with amazing rapidity, until it developed into the 
 greatest movement in Irish history. 
 
 The aims of the Land League were not, perhaps, 
 so exaltedly patriotic as those of previous movements 
 in L'eland. They were not at all sentimental — on the 
 contrary they were almost un-Irish in their cold, 
 practical selfishness ; but therein lay the strength of 
 the movement. All ihe long centuries since the con- 
 quest are marked by the struggles of L'ishmen 
 actuated by patriotic sentiment, and, though the love 
 of country and the holy fire of patriotism still burned 
 as ardently as ever in every Irish breast, numerous 
 failures and the sacrifices which participation in those 
 failures had involved, of necessity tended to depress 
 and dishearten the people, and some extraordinary in- 
 citement was necessary to arouse them to enthusiasm 
 and weld them into unity. This incitement the Land 
 League furnished. It appealed to the generosity of 
 the whole Iiish race to make one supreme effort to 
 save a majority of that race in Ireland from the rapac- 
 ity of the landlord class ; and it not only appealed to 
 the manhood and the common sense of the Irish 
 farmer himself, but it appealed to his pocket as well, 
 for it told him that he was justified in refusing to pay 
 extortionate rents, and in keeping enough of the bad 
 harvest to support himself and his family, even if the 
 landlord had to go without any. It did more, for it 
 told the farmers that if they would unite rack-renting 
 would be abolished, landlordism would be extirpated 
 from tlie soil, and the tenants would be made pro- 
 prietors. 
 
 It has been charged against the Land League that 
 the princijilcs which it proposed were impracticable, 
 unsound and immoral, but the fallacy of the charges 
 
20 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 have since been thoroughly demonstrated. The Land 
 Act itself is an admission of their practicability and 
 Mr. Gladstone, in a speech at West Calder, in Novem- 
 ber, 1879, has borne testimony to the justice of the 
 Land League principle of expropriation of landlords 
 in the following words : " I freely own that compul- 
 sory expropriation is a thing which is admissible, and 
 even sound in principle." To the charge that it was 
 dishonest to refuse to pay rent, the Irish people re- 
 torted by quoting from the works of eminent English 
 political economists, such as Herbert Spencer, who 
 says in his Social Statics, chap. IX., sec. 2 : " Equity 
 does not permit property in land," etc., and Professor 
 Bonamy Price, who, ^vriting in the Contemporary 
 Heview, in December, 1879, said : "It is not the land- 
 lord, but the tenant, who shall in the last resort deter- 
 mine what the rent shall be." And in the same lie- 
 view in the following August, Professor Price said 
 " Kent is surplus profit reaped by farming, after every 
 expense has been paid, which is in excess of what 
 will satisfy the tenant as an adequate reward for en- 
 tering on the business of farming — which will enable 
 him to get a proper living out of the business. Rent 
 does not come to the fore till after all the preceding 
 stages of the calculation shall have been completed. 
 The final point is the spot where the line of profit is 
 cut ; and it is the will of the farmer at last, not the 
 will of the landlord, which fixes that point of inter- 
 section." 
 
 At a meeting in Westport, county Mayo, Mr. Par- 
 nell had advised the farmers to " keep a firm grip on 
 your homesteads," and this cry, with that of " the 
 land for the people," "reform of the land laws," "the 
 three F's," and others, were taken up and shouted 
 from hundreds of monster meetings all over the island. 
 The national question seemed to be relegated to the 
 background and the land question was the question of 
 the day. 
 
 But it would be unjust to the people and to their 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNKLL. 27 
 
 leaders to admit that the relegation of the national 
 question was real, for it was not. All the leaders 
 were zealous advocates of Ireland's nationality, and 
 though that question was not given prominence in 
 the land movement, it was undoubtedly underlying 
 it, and quietly permeating its every part. Mr. Par- 
 nell said as much afterwards at Dublin in the words, 
 "I would never have taken off my coat and gone to 
 work in this land movement, had I not known that 
 we were laying the foundation for the legislative in- 
 dependence of Ireland," and there can be no doubt 
 but what all his associates in the League were 
 actuated by the same spirit. 
 
 Next to Mr. Parnell, the most popular man in 
 Ireland at this time and the hardest worker in the 
 land movement was Michael Davitt, "the father of 
 the Land League," as he was called, a young man 
 possessing in his composition all the elements of a 
 great hero — character, self-assertive and self-reliant ; 
 eloquence, simple, straighforward, passionate ; un- 
 selfishness, that thinks no suffering too great when 
 endured for country ; devotion to principle, fixed and 
 inflexible ; a courage that no terrors can daunt, and 
 a spirit that no hardship or cruelty can subdue — yet, 
 withal, a quiet, thoughtful, studious, delicately 
 framed man, who in a happier country would have 
 been a scholar and a philosopher. He was born near 
 Straide, in Mayo, in 1846, and is, therefore, of the 
 same age as Mr. Parnell. His father was a tenant 
 farmer and while Michael was still very young the 
 family became victims of the " Crowbar brigade " 
 who evicted them and pulled down their modest 
 home. Mr. Davitt and family then took passage for 
 America to seek the means of livelihood denied them 
 in their native land, but young Michael did not stay 
 here very long, "While still a youth he left America 
 and went to England where he obtained work in a 
 cotton mill at Rochdale. In this employment he lost 
 his right arm by getting it caught in the machinery. 
 
28 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 but upon learning to write with his left hand his em- 
 ployej's promoted him to a clerkship. His national 
 feeling was always strong and when the Fenian move- 
 ment started Davitt was one of its most enthusiastic 
 supporters. He became a member in 1865 and was 
 selected by the directory to purchase arms and war 
 material in preparation for the expected rising. He 
 was arrested while supplying arms to Fenians in Lon- 
 don and upon conviction was sentenced to fifteen 
 years penal servitude. During his iraisrisonment in 
 Portland prison he was subjected to great cruelty and 
 after having served seven years he was released on a 
 ticket-of-leave. On regaining his liberty he worked 
 on the London committee for procuring the release of 
 the other prisoners, and while so employed his capacity 
 attracted the attention of the Home Rule leaders and 
 he was soon engaged in behalf of that movement. He 
 visited the United States in 1878 to see his sister and 
 other relatives who live in Pennsylvania and while 
 here he delivered several lectures in aid of a former 
 Fenian comrade named Wilson. He had given the 
 land question in Ireland much study and upon his re- 
 turn to that country he entered vigorously into the 
 organization of the land movement. On Nov. 19, 
 1879, he was arrested for using seditious language, 
 but the case against him was not pushed. He came 
 to this country again in May, 1880, and stayed several 
 months organizing the Land League here. He re- 
 turned to Ireland in October and a short time later he 
 was again arrested, but this time the jury acquitted 
 him. He was arrested for the third time during this 
 movement in 1881 and was declared to have forfeited 
 his ticket-of-leave. He was released, however, after 
 the Kilmainhani treaty in 1882. In June, 1882, ^ 
 again visited America, but he only remained a 
 days when he returned to Ireland. Since that 1 
 he has been actively engaged lecturing on the 
 question in Ireland and England. 
 
 Mr. Davitt has made a hobby of the nationalizi 
 
CHA.RLES STEWART PAENELL. 29 
 
 of the land, and it was at one time feared that he would 
 come to a rupture with Mr. Parnell over the subject, 
 tlie latter being opposed to it, but the fears were, 
 fortunately, unfounded, Mr. Davitt being too sincerely 
 patriotic to push even his pet scheme at the risk of 
 injury to the Irish cause. Mr. Davitt would not ac- 
 cept of a position in Parliament, which has been often 
 tendered him, nor would he take any money tribut-' 
 from the people which it has been more than ou'j. 
 proposed to give him in recognition of his labors i u 
 the popular cause. He prefers to remain a free lance, 
 unhampered either by authority or obligations. Mr. 
 Davitt was never married. 
 
 Among the other men who were active in the or- 
 ganization of the Land League, and to whose efforts 
 the success of the movement is in great measure due 
 were John Dillon, Thomas Brennan, Patrick Egan, 
 Thomas Sexton, T. D. Sullivan, T. P. O'Connor, M- 
 M. O'Sullivan, John W. Nally, Jas. O'Kelly, Matthew 
 Harris, P. J. Sheridan and others. 
 
 Ml'. Dillon is a son of the gallant Young Ireland 
 chief, John B. Dillon, and is, like his father, a man of 
 great courage and ability. He came to America with 
 Mr. Parnell in 1880, and did good work in organizing 
 the American Land League. While still in America 
 he was elected to Parliament for Tipperary. He was 
 twice arrested in Ireland in 1881 for his utterances on 
 the land question, and after his release in 1882 he was 
 compelled, through ill health, to resign his seat. He 
 then came to America and settled in Colorado, but he 
 went back to Ireland a few months ago, and in the 
 recent elections was elected as member for Mayo. 
 
 Mr. Brennan, the secretary of the Land League, is 
 the son of a Meath farmer, and a young man of 
 superior gifts as a poj^ular speaker. He is now, and 
 has been for two years a resident of America. 
 
 Patrick Egan, the League's treasurer, was a miller 
 of Dublin and was prominent in commercial circles in 
 that city. He is a man of sterling integi'ity and the 
 
30 LIFE A?iD SERVICES OF 
 
 most intense national feeling. In 1881 he was compelled 
 to flee from Ireland to ensure the safety of the League's 
 funds and he then took up his residence in Paris. 
 While holding this office more than £200,000 pass'ed 
 through Mr. Egan's hands, and it was all administered 
 with the most scrupulous care and honesty. He is 
 now a citizen of Lincoln, Neb., and pi'esident of the 
 Irish National League of America. 
 
 Thomas Sexton, the eldest son of Mr. J. Sexton of 
 Waterford, is a journalist, and since 1880 he has rep- 
 resented Sligo in Parliament, where he enjoys the 
 reputation of being, next to Mr. Gladstone, the most 
 eloquent speaker in the House of Commons. 
 
 T. D. Sullivan, a brother of the late A. M. Sullivan, 
 is a native of Bantry, a poet of no mean order, and 
 the proprietor and editor of the famous Dublin 
 Nation. 
 
 T. P. O'Connor, the member for Galway, and James 
 O'Kelly, the member for Roscommon, are both jour- 
 nalists of ability and possess rare powers, either as 
 writers or speakers. 
 
 The other gentlemen mentioned are less widely 
 known, but thoy were all active and earnest workers 
 in the Land League movement. 
 
 Having seen the Land League in Ireland fairly es- 
 tablished Mr. Parnell, accompanied by John Dillon, 
 set out in December, 1879, for America, to explain to 
 the exiled sons of Ireland in this country the deplor- 
 able condition of their brothers at home ; to ask for 
 assistance to relieve the distress then existing, and to 
 invite co-operation in the new movement. He ai-rived 
 in New York on January 2, 1880, and visited nearly 
 all our large cities, being everywhere enthusiastically 
 received. The n:itional Congress accorded him the 
 distinguished honor of inviting hira to make an ad- 
 dress on the state of Ireland in the Representative 
 Chamber at Washington, and several of the State 
 Legislatures expressed their sympathy with the object 
 of his mission in appropriate resolutions. 
 
CHARLES STEW ART PARNELL. 81 
 
 Everywhere that he went he spoke to large audi- 
 ences and met with the warmest greetings. His 
 mission was an nnexamj^led success, and it resulted in 
 contributions of thousands upon thousands of pounds 
 to relieve the suifering in Ireland and to encourage 
 and support the Land League cause. 
 
 As a result of his labors, too, and of those of the 
 other leaders who followed him in the work of organ- 
 ization in America, the Irish National Land League 
 of America was a few months later established to act 
 as an auxiliary to that in Ireland. This organization 
 had a very rapid growth and in a short time it had 
 more than a thousand branches scattered all over the 
 land, from which a perfect stream of money flowed 
 to Ireland. 
 
 As I may not have occasion to refer to the American 
 organization again, a brief notice of its work may not 
 be out of place. Branches of the Land League were 
 organized independently through the different States 
 in the latter part of 1879 and 1880 for the purpose of 
 doing what they could to help the movement in Ire- 
 land. The first convention was held in Buffalo, N. Y., 
 in January, 1881, and a national organization was 
 effected by the choice of Hon. Patrick A. Collins of 
 Boston, Mass., for president ; Rev. Lawrence Walsh 
 of Waterbury, Ct., treasurer ; and Thomas Flatley 
 of Boston, Mass., secretary. The organization was 
 very successful from the start and in its first year it 
 sent more than $250,000 to Ireland. Still there were 
 many Irish organizations in America which were not 
 in affiliation with the League, and these, too, sent a 
 great deal of money to Ireland. 
 
 Upon the arrest of Mr. Parnell and the other leaders 
 in October, 1881, Mr. T. M. Healy, Mr. T. P. O'Connor 
 and Rev. Eugene Sheehy, who were then in America 
 in the interest of the League, suggested that an effort 
 be made to unite all Irish-American organizations, 
 and a great conference of delegates of Irish societies 
 was held in Chicago, 111., for that purpose. An affil- 
 
32 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 iation scheme was laid before the meeting for con- 
 sideration, $27,000 was subscribed on the spot, and 
 $250,000 was pledged to help the L'ish cause and 
 infuse new enthusiasm into the people at home. 
 
 The Land League's second convention was held in 
 Washington, D. C, in April, 1882, and Mr. James 
 Mooney of Buffalo, N. Y., was chosen president ; 
 Rev. Lawrence Walsh of Waterbury, Ct. (since 
 deceased), treasurer, and John J. Hynes, of Buffalo, 
 N. Y., secretary. At a convention held in Philadel- 
 phia, Pa., in April, 1883, the Land League was merged 
 into the Lish National League of America, of which 
 Alexander Sullivan of Chicago, Bl., was chosen pres- 
 ident ; Rev, Charles O'Reilly of Detroit, Mich., 
 treasurer, and Roger Walsh of Chicago, secretary. 
 The National League held its second convention in 
 Faneuil Hall, Boston, JMass., in August, 1884, and 
 elected as officers : Piesident, Patrick Egan of Lin- 
 coln, Neb. ; treasurer, Rev. Charles O'Reilly of De- 
 troit, Mich. ; secretary, Roger Walsh of Lincoln, 
 Neb. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE GENERAL ELECTION IN 1 880 — MR. PAENELL's ELEC- 
 TION TO THE LEADERSHIP OP THE PARLIAMENT- 
 ARY PARTY ^MR. SHAW AND HIS FOLLOWERS SE- 
 CEDE. 
 
 While going through Canada lecturing and organ- 
 izing, in March, 1880, the news of the dissolution of 
 Parliament reached Mr. Parnell and put an end to his 
 tour. He received the message in Montreal on a 
 Tuesday and that night he made his farewell address 
 to an immense audience and hastened to New York, 
 where he took the steamer for Ireland. He landed 
 at Queenstown March 21st, and was greeted by the 
 people as a deliverer, towns and cities vicing with 
 
Joseph Gillis Biggar. 
 
CHARLES STEWART PAKNELL. 33 
 
 each other in doing him honor. He now set energet- 
 ically to work organizing the people in support of the 
 Land League principles and selecting such candidates 
 as would follow out a national policy, and for the 
 next five weeks he gave himself scarcely any rest, so 
 hard did he work, traveling here and there from eiid 
 to end of L'eland. 
 
 But Mr. Parnell was not in a position, at this 
 election, to challenge all the constituencies on the 
 question whether they were in favor of his policy, 
 and as the Land League and the Parliamentary party 
 were at that time distinct organizations his connec- 
 tion with the one did not help him much with the 
 other. He had neither candidates, nor time, nor 
 money, then — for the Land League funds could not 
 be used for election pm'poses — and the great wonder 
 was that, under the circumstances, he did so well. 
 He worked with a marvellous energy, and succeeded 
 in defeating many of the landlord candidates, but he 
 had to allow several of the constituencies to go by 
 default and many of the members returned were known 
 to be antagonistic to liim and his policy. 
 
 Although Mr. Parnell was at this time by all odds 
 the most popular man in Ireland, he did not have 
 that hold upon the people's confidence which he has 
 since attained, and the opposition to him and his policy 
 had many elements of strength in the country. The 
 aristocratic influences in the Home Rule party were 
 all against him and the more conservative of the 
 Catholic clergy regarded his policy with distrust 
 and suspicion. In Cork the four Catholic Bisho2:»s 
 strove hard and successfully to defeat Andrew Kettle 
 whom be had put forward, going so far as to issue 
 circulars over their Episcopal crosses commending 
 Colonel Colthurst to the voters. But this was an ex- 
 ceptional case, and injustice to the bishops and priests 
 of Ireland it should be said that they loyally ranged 
 themselves by the side or at the head of their peeple 
 in this as in all previous Irish movements. And it 
 
34 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 may be added, in extemiation of the course pursued 
 by the more conservative among them, that they were 
 by no means the only men who distrusted Mr. Parncll 
 in 1880. He was as yet a young and almost an un- 
 tried man, and many of his fellow-members in the last 
 Parliament — even among the more patriotic ones — had 
 opinions of his judgment and capacity which were 
 far from complimentary to one who aspired to the 
 leadership of a people. 
 
 Up to this point he had not made it clear, even to 
 some of his friends, that he possessed definite aims or 
 broad and statesmanlike qualities such as a leader 
 should possess. His efforts in Parliament had been 
 confined, for the most part, to what his opponents 
 contemptuously termed " making a row," and many 
 good men and earnest patriots looked upon his policy, 
 so far as he defined it, as unwise and perilous. His 
 advice to farmers to "keep a firm grip on their hold- 
 ings" was interpreted to convict him of socialistic 
 tendencies, and many other causes tended to weaken 
 his canvass — not the least of which was the fact that 
 Mr. Shaw was looked upon as the natural successor 
 of Isaac Butt and regarded generally as a safe man 
 to follow. 
 
 But this timorousness was not shared by the people 
 at large, and Mr. Parnell's popularity among them 
 may be gauged from the fact that he was elected to 
 represent three constituencies, viz.: Cork City, Mayo 
 County and Meath County. Of the candidates of the 
 National Home Rulers 37 were returned, and the full 
 Home Rule strength was 62. To decide the question of, 
 leadership a meeting was called in the City Hall, Dub-' 
 ,lin, for May 17, 1880, and Mt-. Parnell was elected to 
 that post by a vote of 23 to 18, several of the new 
 members not attending. This vote was, perhaps, the 
 first decisive recognition of the new policy in the Par- 
 liamentary party and as such I append it for the 
 satisfaction of the reader. 
 
 For Parnell — John Barry, Wexford ; J. G. Biggar, 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 35 
 
 Cavan ; Garret M. Byrne, Wexford ; Dr. Andrew 
 Cummins, Roscommon ; W. J. Corbelt, Wicklow ; 
 John Daly, Cork ; Charles Dawson, Carlow ; James 
 L. Finigan, Ennis ; H. J. Gill, Westmealh ; Richard 
 Lalor, Queens County ; Edmund Leamy, Waterford ; 
 James Leahy, Kildare ; M. M. Marum, Kilkenny ; J. 
 C. McCoan, Wicklow ; Justin McCarthy, Longford ; 
 T. P, O'Connor, Galway ; Arthur O'Connor, Queens 
 County; The O'Gorman Mahon, Clare ; James 
 O'Kelly, Roscommon ; W. H. O'Shea, Clare ; W. H. 
 O'Sullivan, Limerick ; Thomas Sexton, Sligo ; T. D. 
 Sullivan, Westmeath ; — 23. 
 
 For Shaw — John A. Blake, Waterford ; Maurice 
 Brooks, Dublin ; Philip Callan, Louth ; Col. David 
 Colthurst, Cork ; George Errington, Longford ; J. 
 W. Foley, New Ross ; Charles J. Fay, Cavan ; Daniel 
 F. Gabbett, Limerick ; E. D. Gray, Carlow ; D. H. 
 McFarlane, Carlow ; Sir J. N. 3IcKenna, Youghal ; 
 Patrick Martin, Kilkenny ; Charles H. Meldon, Kil- 
 dare ; Sir P. O'Brien, Kings county ; Richard Power, 
 Waterford ; P. J. Smyth, Tipperary ; John Smith- 
 wick, Kilkenny ; E. J. Synan, Limerick. — 18. 
 
 Mr. Parnell had not sought the leadership, and 
 personally, it was said, he favored Mr. Justin Mc 
 Carthy for the position, but it having been conferred 
 upon him he accepted the trust in a speech character- 
 istically modest. He said : " The functions of chair- 
 man were strictly defined and limited by the resolu- 
 tions unanimously adopted by the party some years 
 ago, and they did not imply in any sense the leader- 
 ship of the party. He did not wish it to be supposed 
 by the country that the L-ish party, in conferring this 
 high and honorable position upon him, had in any 
 way entrusted him with the leadership. True, they 
 had conferred upon him the highest and most honor- 
 able oihce at their disposal, and he could not but feel 
 proportionately proud and grateful, but the position 
 was not that of a leader." 
 
 Mr. Parnell now found himself the chosen leader 
 
36 I'lFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 (notwithstanding his own depreciation of the fact) of 
 the Home Rule party in Parliament, and the events 
 of the succeeding years have ratified the wisdom of 
 the choice. The question now was, could he succeed 
 in holding the members of his party together. Some 
 of his associates considered his election premature ; 
 others personally disliked him ; and others, again, 
 regarded him as a man of inferior abilities, whom ac- 
 cident had put forward, £»nd whom it would be ex- 
 tremely hazardous to follow. Mr. Shaw, although 
 superseded in the leadershij), still retained considera- 
 ble influence in the party. He felt deeply the slight 
 he had received, and it was feared that neither him- 
 self nor his immediate followers would work in 
 harmony with the new leader. Mr. Parnell's 
 staunchest supporters were the young men of the 
 party, and though they were for the most part men of 
 brains, it told against them that they were poor and 
 of no social standing, for it is a fact that such con- 
 siderations, paltry and irrelevant as they may apj^ear, 
 are factors which weigh much with the general pub- 
 lic in their estimation of men and measures. Under 
 the circumstances it was not strange that many, eveu 
 of the supporters of Mr. Parnell, were fearful that 
 the influence of the new party for good, would be 
 rendered nugatory by the dissensions in its ranks. 
 These fears soon took tangible shape. 
 
 When the new Parliament assembled in St. 
 Stephen's on the 20th of May, 1880, it was a subject 
 of remark that Mr. Parnell and his followers took 
 seats in the Opposition, below the gangway, where 
 they were to pursue their policy as an independent 
 party in the House, while Mr. Shaw and his supporters 
 seated themselves among the Radicals on the govern- 
 ment side of the House. This was the first breach of 
 discipline in the party, and as there was no question 
 at issue on this occasion, Mr. Shaw's friends will find 
 it the harder to excuse or explain. The paily was 
 elected as an independent party ; Mr. Parnell was 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARXELL. 37 
 
 fairly chosen its leader, and it was expected by their 
 constituents that all the members would sit together 
 and work together in the interests of Ireland. Mr. 
 Shaw, in addressing his constituents a short time be- 
 fore this had said : " Are we to be met by a Whig 
 government with blandishments and small concessions 
 here and there? Are we then to subside into their 
 ranks and become part and parcel of this great 
 Liberal party? I say most decidedly nothing of the 
 kind. I should be ashamed of myself representing 
 this great constituency ; I should feel a want oi 
 earnestness in the cause in behalf of which I am re- 
 turned to Parliament, if I did not stand as deter- 
 minedly against a Whig majority as against a Tory- 
 majority, if they did not yield to the just claims of 
 the Irish people." 
 
 Yet here was Mr. Shaw on the first night of the 
 succeeding session breaking openly with the chosen 
 leader of the party, and taking his seat among the 
 " Whig majority " — giving notice to the government, 
 in effect, not that he was to stand for " the just claims 
 of the Irish people," but that he was to be against 
 Parnell. That the breach was to be a permanent one 
 soon became evident. Mr. Shaw and his followers 
 gradually ceased to attend the private meetings of the 
 Irish party, and after a time they gave up all pre- 
 tense even of belonging to that body. 
 
 So decisive a step has rarely been taken by Irish 
 politicians and with less reason. If the party had re- 
 mained united, it is certain that much of the coercive 
 legislation of recent years could have been defeated, 
 and there is no knowing what might not have been 
 accomplished for Ireland. 
 
 It may be true that many of the Parnellites had 
 ideas which were extreme and even unwise ; it may be 
 that obstruction was cari-ied out by them to lengths that 
 were inexpedient ; other charges may be made against 
 them, and even allowed ; yet the action of Mr. Shaw 
 and his followers will still i-emair defenseless. In a 
 
38 LIFE AKD SERVICES OF 
 
 party like the Home Rule party mntj is the highest 
 essential. If the party was to be swayed in its action 
 it should be from within and not from without. If 
 Mr. Shaw and his followers thought that the Parnell- 
 ites were adopting an unwise policy, they had the 
 remedy in their own hands. They should have at- 
 tended the meetings of the party and there given ex- 
 pression to their views. And their failure to do this 
 is the more blamable in that it certainly appears, from 
 all I can learn of the inside workings of the Irish 
 party, that at its meetings discussion on all questions 
 is full and free ; that there is toleration and respect 
 for all opinions no matter how divergent, and that no 
 man listens more patiently to all sides than the Irish 
 leader. 
 
 Although it is true that at that time the Irish peo- 
 ple had adopted no detailed platform of principles to 
 guide and govern parliamentary action, it was per- 
 fectly well understood that the Irish party was to act 
 as an independent one ; that it was not to ally itself 
 to either of the great English parties, except in re- 
 turn for concessions to Ireland, and that all the party's 
 objects and aims should be for Ireland first, last and 
 always. That Mr. Shaw so understood the purposes 
 of the party is shown by the extract quoted from his 
 speech. These things being so, it does not seem to 
 me that Mr. Shaw's secession can be justified upon 
 any grounds. I can appreciate his feeling sore at his 
 defeat in the contest for the leadership, but personal 
 feelings should not be allowed to interfere Avith the 
 duty he owed his country. He was elected as a mem- 
 ber of a party which was expected to work as a unit, 
 in accord with the views of the majority, on all ques- 
 tions affecting Ireland, find only two courses were 
 open to him inJionor, One was to gracefully submit 
 to the will of the majority ; the other was resigna- 
 tion. He failed to take eithar course. Instead he 
 challenged comparison with Mr. Parnell, by the atti- 
 tude he took on all questions coming before the House, 
 
fllAKLES STEWAKT PAKNELL. 39 
 
 and he tried to weaken the influence of the Irisli leader 
 in every way possible. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE SESSIOiq" OF TARLIAMEXT IN 1880 POLITICAL 
 
 PROSECUTIONS IN IRELAND THE PIGHT AGAINST 
 
 COERCION IN 1881. 
 
 At the begining of the session of the new Parlia- 
 ment in 1880, Mr. Gladstone's government had no in- 
 tention of dealing with the Irish laiid question if they 
 could help it. They had just come into power and 
 were as yet undecided in their policy ; the time at 
 their disposal was short, and tlie land problem was a 
 complicated one. There were besides many English 
 questions calling for their attention, and theretofore 
 English questions had always, as a matter of course, 
 been given precedence over purely Irish ones. Con- 
 siderations like these, however, although they had 
 great influence with Englishmen, did not weigh with 
 the new Irish members, and at a meeting of the party 
 held immediately after the reading of the Queen's 
 speech, it was resolved to move an amendment to the 
 address in reply to the speech from the throne calling 
 the attention of government to the deplorable condi- 
 tion of affairs in Ireland. This amendment was the 
 seed bud which afterwards developed into such 
 weighty proportions as the Land act of 1881. 
 
 It was on the night when this amendment was 
 brouglit in that Mr. Parnell spoke for the first time 
 in Parliament since he had been elected to his new 
 position. The House was crowded in every part, and 
 when the Speaker called the name of the member for 
 Cork great interest was manifested and nearly every- 
 body in the galleries stood up to catch a glimpse of 
 the new Irish leader. Mr. Parnell sj)oke briefly, but 
 with vehemence and force. He drew a rapid picture 
 
40 LIFE AND SEETICES CP 
 
 of the state of things in Ireland and was listened to 
 ■with more curiosity than sympathy. The result of 
 his speech was tliat lie- was put down as a very vio- 
 lent and somewhat eccentric young man. 
 
 To Mr. ShaAv, who also spoke, the attitude of the 
 House was quite different. He rose from the bosom 
 of the Radical section and was greeted by a burst of 
 hearty applause from all the Liberal benches. His 
 speech, like Mr. Parn ell's, was a brief one, but it gave 
 r. great deal more satisfaction to the English mem- 
 bers, and the opinion was freely expressed that his 
 lemarks were in welcome contrast to those of his 
 rival. 
 
 The contest between the two was held to be still 
 rjidecided. The group of young men who formed 
 j\lr. Parnell's chief support were rather contemptuous- 
 ly spoken of, and the expectation was almost univer- 
 sal among Englishmen that T*Ir. Parnell's tenure of 
 office as leader would be brief and inglorious. Such 
 was the rather unauspicious outlook before the Na- 
 tional party at tlie opening of the session of 1880. 
 
 During this session several measures of importance 
 to Ireland were introduced, but the chief one was 
 Mr. Parnell's " Suspension of Ejectments bill," which 
 first forced upon Parliament the necessity of dealing 
 with the Irish landlord question. So vigorously did 
 Mr. Parnell and his followers press this bill, that Mr. 
 Gladstone finally agreed to consider the subject raised 
 by the measure and to insert a clause in the " Relief 
 of Distress bill " which Avould deal with impending 
 evictions in Ireland. The Speaker held, however, 
 that this would be conti*ary to order, and Mr. Eorster, 
 the new chief secretary for Ireland, was then in- 
 structed by Mr. Gladstone to bring in his " Distur- 
 bance bill," which was substantially Mr. Parnell's 
 bill under another name. 
 
 It was on July 5, during the debate on this measure, 
 that Mr. Gladstone gave utterance to the memorable 
 opinion that "in the circumstances of disti-ess in 
 
CHARLES STEAVART PARNELL. 41 
 
 which Ireland then was a sentence of eviction was 
 equivalent to a sentence of death." Tlie Tories op- 
 posed this bill in each of its stages, hut it was finally 
 carried by a large majority and sent to the House of 
 Lords where it was ignominiously killed. 
 
 Another notable bill of the session was the "Relief 
 of Distress bill," which proposed to relieve the dis- 
 tressed tenants in Ireland by loaning money at three 
 per cent, interest to rack-renting landlords. This bill 
 appealed directly to the English heart, and it passed 
 both houses as a matter of course. It is related of 
 Lord Lansdowne that, under thismeasure,heborrowed 
 a large sum at three per cent, and reloaned the greater 
 part of it at five per cent., the increased interest netting 
 him a nice little profit on the transaction. I have no 
 doubt that there were other landlords equally enter- 
 prising. 
 
 This session, if it did nothing else, afforded Mr. 
 Parnell and his followers an opportunity to show 
 what kind of metal they were made of. They had 
 not succeeded in carrying any measure of importance, 
 but they had acquired an almost invaluable knowl- 
 edge of parliamentary procedure, and several of 
 them who were almost unknown at the beginning of 
 the year had developed into men of considerable 
 ability at its close. If Mr. Para ell had lost the sup- 
 port of many of the older members, he was more 
 than compensated by the ability, energy and earnest- 
 ness displayed by the recruits to his flag, and though 
 the struggle for ascendency between the Parnellite 
 and Whig sections of the Irish party had not yet 
 ended in a decisive victory for either side, it was 
 plain to all that, while Mr. Parnell was rapidly and 
 continually growing in favor, Mr. Shaw was as un- 
 mistakably declining. This was due to the fact tha't 
 the people were behind Mr. Parnell. He and his 
 party took an active part in organizing the Land 
 League and propagating its principles, while Mr. 
 Shaw held coldly and distantly aloof. 
 
42 LIFE AiSD SERVICES OP 
 
 During the vacation monster meetings were held all 
 over Ireland, and at all of these Mr. Parnell or one of 
 Ills lieutenants was among the speakers. The land 
 movement increased in strength, and was now devel- 
 oped into the most potent and wide-reaching of Irish 
 organizations. In a speecli at Ennis, shortly after the 
 close of Parliament, Mr. Parnell laid down, in clear 
 and distinct language, the policy of the agitation — 
 that the farmers were to trust their o^^•n determina- 
 tion and their own combination, and to place no faith 
 in the promises of ministers. His remarks were 
 eagerly seized by the press of England, and were 
 widely and adversely commented upon. 
 
 The agitation had now assumed such vast propor- 
 tions, and the Irish people were so evidently in earnest, 
 that fears were expressed for the security of the Em- 
 j^ire ; and although the meetings, like those of O'Con- 
 nell's time, had been disgracedby no disorders, but were 
 distinguished rather by the thoughtf ulness, the earnest- 
 ness and the sobriety of those attending them, the 
 government, following a precedent which had been 
 successfully established in 1843, under almost similar 
 circumstances, determined to strike a blow, and Mr. 
 Parnell, with fourteen of the more prominent of his 
 colleagues in the Land League, were put upon their 
 trial, charged with " conspiracy to impoverish land- 
 lords." 
 
 This action of government aroused intense indigna- 
 tion in Ireland, and a lai'ge fund was voluntarily sub- 
 scribed by the people, and the most eminent counsel 
 retained to defend the traversers. From the first, 
 however, the prosecution partook of the nature of a 
 mere show, and its abortiveness was foredoomed. To 
 make the proceedings more ridiculous, when Parlia- 
 ment met on the 6th of January, 1881, although the 
 trials were still going on, Mr. Parnell and the other 
 members who were included in the indictment, calmly 
 made their way to London, as though they were not 
 being prosecuted at all, and, when the result of the 
 
CHARLES STEWAKT PAENELL. 43 
 
 trial was finally arrived at, the Jury standing ten 
 for acquittal and two for conviction, the incident had 
 almost been forgotten. 
 
 The government had announced its intention to pass 
 a coercion bill for Ireland at an early day, and the 
 Irish members had made up their minds to frustrate 
 the purpose if possible. On the very first night of 
 the session of 1881, therefore, Mr. Parnell began the 
 obstruction by moving an amendment to the address 
 in reply to the Queen's speech, aftirmingjv" that peace 
 and tranquility cannot be promoted in Ireland by 
 suspending any of the constitutional rights of the 
 'Irish people." In accordance with instructions nearly 
 every one of the Parnellites spoke in stipport of tl;- 
 motion, and they spoke as long as they could. When 
 that amendment was disposed of others were brought 
 forward and supported in the same manner, and by a 
 series of these amendments the debate on the address 
 in reply to the speech from the Throne was kept up 
 for a fortnight, despite all the efforts of government 
 to hurry the passage of the measure. 
 
 The great fight against coercion began on January 
 24. On this date Mr. Forster asked for leave to bring 
 in his " coercion bill," and Mr. (Gladstone moved that 
 the two coercion bills should be proceeded with in pre- 
 cedence of all other business. The Parnellites met 
 Mr. Gladstone's motion with defiant cheers, followed 
 by motion after motion for an adjournment, each mo- 
 tion being discussed in full. 
 
 During the evening Mr. Biggar succeeded in getting 
 himself "named" by the Speaker and seemed proud 
 of the distinction he enjoyed, though his fellow-mem- 
 bers were exceedingly wrathful at the Speaker's arbi- 
 trary act. 
 
 Dilatory motions followed one after the other, and 
 the Parnellites were kept busily employed until 10 
 o'clock on the following morning, when Mr. Glad- 
 stone's motion, giving precedence to the "coercion 
 bill," was finally carried by a vote of 251 to 33. But 
 
44 LIFE ASTD SERVICES OP 
 
 Mr. Forster had yet to get leave to introduce his bill, 
 and on that question the Parnellites kept the House 
 going on the 2'7th, and again on the 28th, and again 
 on the 31st of January. The ministers were driven 
 almost to desperation, and Liberals and Tories alike 
 were furiously angry at the little party which thus 
 made the power of the Empire significantly impotent 
 :uid brought the traditional dignity of Parliament into 
 contempt. 
 
 The English press teemed with invective against 
 them. Parnell was denounced as a disloyal scoundrel, 
 and treats of personal violence to him and his follow- 
 ers were greeted with applause by crowds of English- 
 men who met on the street corners and in the coffee- 
 houses to discuss the unheard-of straits to which the 
 time-honored Parliament of England was reduced by 
 the implacability of a handful of Irishmen. 
 
 On the 31st of January the government began to 
 resort to the system of relays, in the hope of tiring 
 the Irishmen out and beating them by sheer force of 
 numbers. But here again they were met by the Par- 
 nellites, who divided their little party so as to meet 
 the attack in its new form. They were fortunately 
 possessed of many good speakers, Mr. Parnell him- 
 self, Justin McCarthy, J. G. Biggar, T. P. O'Connor, 
 A. M. Sullivan, Thomas Sexton, T. M. Healy, James 
 O'Kelly, John E. Redmond, and many others — men 
 who could talk when they had something to say and 
 when they hadn't. The struggle raged all through 
 that night, then all through the next day and the next 
 night, and when the Speaker came in at 9 o'clock on 
 the morning of the 2d of February, Mr. Biggar was 
 in the middle of a speech, sjjeaking with undiminished 
 and undiminishablc vigor. A large number of mem- 
 bers followed the Speaker into the House ; the cham- 
 ber began to fill up, and it was evident that the cul- 
 mination of the hints and rumors which had been cir- 
 culating of *' something about to happen " was at 
 hand. Mr. Biggai*, who had taken Ms seat at the en- 
 
CHARLES STE^yAET PARNELL. 45 
 
 trance of the Speaker, as is customary, arose now to 
 resume his address. The Speaker woukl not " see" 
 him, however, but declared that he was going to put 
 the motion without listening to any more speeches. 
 His decision was greeted with cheers by English mem- 
 bers and cries of defiance from the Irish benches. Mr. 
 Parnell was not present at the time, having gone to 
 his hotel to snatch a few hour's sleep. Mr. Justin 
 McCarthy attempted to address the Speaker, but the 
 latter ignored him, and went on putthig the question 
 " that leave be given to bring in the coercion bill," 
 and on a division the motion was declared carried by 
 a vote of 164 to 19. The second question, " that the 
 bill be now read," was then put. Mi\ McCarthy again 
 addressed the Speaker, and that functionary not no- 
 ticing him, the Irish members marched out of the 
 chamber and retired to one of the ante-rooms, where 
 they awaited the coming of Mr. Parnell. Having 
 been sent for, Mr. Parnell arrived in a few minutes, 
 and was quickly made acquainted with the situation 
 of ailairs. He had been expecting something of the 
 kind for some days, and was not, therefore, much 
 surprised at the Speaker's action. 
 
 The Parnellites now discussed their future action 
 and it was seriously considered whether the proper 
 course to pursue would not be to leave Parliament 
 altogether, for the time, and devote their energies to 
 the organization of the agitation in Ireland. Many 
 members strongly advocated this course, but they 
 were, fortunately, overruled, and it was decided not 
 to withdraw, but to continue the fight to the end. 
 
 To facilitate business and to put a stronger check 
 upon the obstructionists, Mr. Gladstone brought in his 
 new "Urgency Rules," and it was for refusing to 
 take part in the division on the second reading of this 
 bill, that the Parnellites were expelled from the 
 House. It is not my intention, nor my province, to 
 detail here all that took place during this historic strug- 
 gle for and against coercion, in which England broke 
 
46 LIFE AND SERVICES OP 
 
 through all the traditions of her Parliament and ruth, 
 lessly trampled upon time-honored Constitutional 
 privileges; suffice it to say that Mr. Gladstone, by the 
 aid of his " urgency " rules, succeeded at last in car- 
 rying the second coercion bill through the House of 
 Commons. It j)assed the House on the 11th of March. 
 
 CHAPTER Vni. 
 
 THE LAND ACT OF 1881. 
 
 On the 7th of April, 1881, Mr. Gladstone brought 
 forward his much talked of " Land Act," which was 
 looked upon in England as a radical measure of doubt- 
 ful utility, and by the Irish members was regarded 
 with widely different feelings. Some of these latter 
 thought the light had gone so favorably thus far, that 
 it would be possible to abolish landlordism altogether 
 and that its death, in the condition in which Ireland 
 then was, would not be purchased at a very high price. 
 By these members the Land bill was regarded as a 
 curse, in the disguise of a blessing, and they claimed 
 that it should be defeated at all costs. Others pointed 
 out that though the bill was imperfect, it contained 
 most valuable principles; that it made rack renting 
 very difficult; the sale of tenant right absolutely 
 free, and that it practically abolished eviction. These 
 divisions of opinion caused long and painful discus- 
 sions in the party, which ended in the decision to take 
 a position of neutrality on the bill. 
 
 This decision was severely criticized both in Eng- 
 land and in Ireland, and some of the Irish members 
 openly disobeyed the party injunction, notably Mr. T. 
 M. Healy, who thought that the bill would do a great 
 deal of good and wanted it passed for that reason. 
 To him is due the clause in the measure known as the 
 " Healy clause," the most radical clause in the bill, which 
 provided that " no rent should be made payable in any 
 
CHAELES STEWART PAENELL. 47 
 
 procedings under the act upon any improvements 
 effected by the tenant or his predecessor in title ;" but, 
 as the bill was finally passed, this clause was modified 
 by an addition which read "unless the tenant has 
 been paid or otherwise compensated for these improve- 
 ments," and the addition practically nullified the 
 clause, for a majority of the judges of the Supreme 
 Court afterwards held that by the act of 1870 the laud- 
 lord was entitled to claim that length of enjoyment 
 by the tenant of improvements effected by hirn was 
 a compensation within the meaning of the Ilealy 
 clause and within the meaning of the Act of 1881. 
 
 In the light of this judgment by the Supreme 
 Court and of other and later events, it is now con- 
 ceded that the position of neutrality assumed by Mr. 
 Parnell, with regard to the Land bill of 1881, was ; 
 strong, and in fact the only tenable one, under the cir- 
 cumstances. He had compelled the government to 
 give its attention to the Irish land question, but he did 
 not consider Mr. Gladstone's bill at all adequate to re- 
 dress the grievances of which the people of Ireland 
 complained, and he could not, therefore, accept it as a 
 final solution of the land question, or as an infallible 
 panacea for the tenant's ills. He recognized that it 
 contained germs of good in it, however, and he would 
 not for that reason oppose its passage. Mr. Gladstone 
 had introduced the bill as a government measure and 
 he was bound to carry it through, even without Mr, 
 Parnell's aid. Mr. Parnell knew this, of course, and 
 did not, therefore, in taking a position of neutrality 
 on the bill, in any manner imperil its chances of pass- 
 ing. The Parnellites did, it is true, refuse to vote for 
 the bill on the second reading, but it was not then in 
 any danger. On two subsequent occasions, when it 
 was in real peril, Mr. Parnell and his followers came 
 loyally to its aid and rescued it from defeat. 
 
 The "Land bill " passed the House of Commons on 
 July 28, on which date an amendment was made by 
 Mr. Parnell to clause 44, suspending evictions for six 
 
48 LIFE AND SERVICES OP 
 
 months after the passing of the act, so as to enable a 
 judicial rent to be fixed. The amendment was as- 
 sented to, and the bill was sent to the House of Lords 
 where it was passed in an amended form, the Healy 
 clause being materially changed and Mr. Parnell's 
 amendment struck out all together. Mr. Parnell 
 warned the government that these changes struck at 
 the very core and essence of the bill, but the ministry 
 were unwilling to run the risk of a new general 
 election by inviting a quarrel with the upper house, 
 and they decided to content themselves with a muti- 
 lated measure. In August the bill receivedlhe Royal 
 signature and became a law. 
 
 The bill, ! although very imperfect, is valuable 
 as a progressive measure and as a concession to 
 Irish sentiment, and some of its provisions will be 
 productive of great benefit to Ireland. It re-endowed 
 the Irish tenant farmer with his ancient tenant right, 
 a term used by the Irish tenantry to denote various 
 claims of right which they maintained against their 
 landlords, such as the right of occupancy not subject 
 to removal ; and the right to occupy at a rent not sub- 
 ject to increase on the ground of improvements ; it 
 being, they hold, and justly, inequitable to make them 
 pay rent for what they themselves have produced. It 
 also gave to the tenant the ownership of his improve- 
 ments, and upon removing from his land the improve- 
 ments which he had made would have to be bought 
 by the landlord or the new tenant. This, by giving 
 the tenant a solid interest in the soil, would operate 
 materially in the development of the country's agri- 
 cultural resources, but this provision has been rendered 
 partially inoperative by the decision of the court 
 with reference to the Healy clause previously spoken 
 of. The bill further provided that if a farmer wished 
 to change from the condition of a secure tenant to 
 that of a peasant proprietor, and could find a land- 
 lord willing to sell, the State would advance three- 
 fourths of the purchase money, and if no such oppor- 
 
CHA.BLES STEWART PARNELL. 49 
 
 tunity offered, he could yet obtain advantages ap- 
 proaching such as accrue from ownership by becom- 
 ing a fee farmer, the State coming to his aid with one 
 half the sum required. 
 
 The bill gave the tenant fixity of tenure, too, and es- 
 tablished a system of courts for the fixing of fair rents 
 upon application. The landlord who tried to raise the 
 rent, by never so little, would only fix the tenant in the 
 soil for the space of fifteen years, and so securely, that 
 he could not trouble him for the entire length of that 
 period. In short the bill established four things for 
 which the Irish tenant farmer had long contended, 
 namely, peasant proprietorship, free sale, fair rents 
 and fixity of tenure ; the first fully ; the rest in po- 
 tential principle, demanding earnest and vigilant care 
 to develop and apply. 
 
 Herein I think I have enumerated all the important 
 benefits likely to accrue to the Irish tenant farmers 
 from Mr. Gladstone's bill, but there were many serious 
 difficulties in the way of i)utting the beneficial pro- 
 visions of the act into operation. The expense at- 
 tending application to the courts would be large ; the 
 landlords would fight against reductions to the bitter 
 end, and, on the whole, it was doubtful if the expense 
 of litigation would not more than offset any reductions 
 in rent that might eventually result from application 
 to the courts. 
 
 Under these circumstances Mr. Parnell considered 
 that the Land League would be justified in interven- 
 ing in behalf of the tenants, particularly as the land- 
 lords had organized a Defense Association to protect 
 their interests, and he set about preparing a number 
 of test cases Avhich he would submit to the courts at 
 the expense of the League, and when these were de- 
 cided they would form a basis upon which all other 
 reductions could be made. 
 
 The Land League was now in the height of its 
 power and its infiuence extended to the remotest 
 portions of the land. It exercised a very potent de- 
 
50 LIFE AND SEKVICES OF 
 
 terring influence on rack-renting landlords and it as- 
 sisted the tenants in resisting their greedy exactions 
 in various ways. It advised sturdy opposition to the 
 payment of unjust rents and exhorted farmers not to 
 take any holding from which a tenant had been 
 evicted. It was very servicable too in aiding the 
 evicted ones, building huts for them to reside in free 
 of cost, and furnishing them with the necessaries of 
 life. In this way it was enabled to exert a powerful 
 and wide-reaching influence which was of vast im- 
 portance to the success of the movement. The unique 
 method called Boycotting, which was suggested by 
 Mr. Parnell and almost universally practiced in Ire- 
 land against the people's enemies, als* helped im- 
 measurably in hastening the issue between landlords 
 and tenants. 
 
 By this method the man who took a farm from 
 Avhich a tenant had been evicted was socially ostra- 
 cized. His neighbors would neither buy from him, 
 nor sell to him ; neither would they hold converse with 
 him, nor go to church where he attended, nor deal Avith 
 the shopkeeper who sold him goods, nor in any way 
 recognize or associate with him. 
 
 By this time the priests had almost all affiliated 
 with the movement and Avere giving it their hearty 
 support, being in many instances the presidents, 
 treasurers or other officers in the local branches. A 
 few Protestant ministers also took an active part in 
 the uprising, and it was not an uncommon sight to 
 see priests and ministers addi-essing the people from 
 the same platform. 
 
 In all Ireland's history no parallel organization can 
 be found for the Land League at this time. In num- 
 bers, in organization, in unity, in Intelligent method 
 and in far-reaching influence it surpassed anything of 
 tlie kind ever known in Iieland, or indeed in any 
 other country. Its meetings rivalled in magnitude 
 the monster assemblages of the Repeal agitation Avhile 
 they Avere much more numerously held. Its edicts 
 
CHARLES STEWAKT PAKNELL. 51 
 
 were regarded as lav/ by the great majority of the 
 people, and its constituted courts were more largely 
 resorted to than those of the realm. 
 
 To this powerful organization was due the fact 
 that the distress in Ireland during those years had 
 been in great measure alleviated if not averted. 
 Through its branches, which existed in almost every 
 town in the country, large sums of money had been 
 distributed in relieving su£Eering, and if the famine of 
 1879 and 1880 did not have such tragical results as 
 that of 1845-1848 the Land League and not the Brit- 
 ish government must be credited with the diminution 
 of misery. 
 
 The government had tried in various ways to sup- 
 press the growth of the organization, but in vain. 
 Hundreds of the local leaders had been arrested as 
 suspects under the Coercion act and thrown into jail 
 without even being accorded the grace of a trial, but 
 their places were soon filled and the movement seemed 
 to thrive in proportion as it was persecuted. 
 
 On the loth of September, 1881, the Land League 
 held a convention in Dublin, more than 1,000 dele- 
 gates from all parts of the country attending. 
 Twenty -one members of Parliament and a large num- 
 ber of clergymen were present. Mr. Parnell pre- 
 sided and was greeted Avith the greatest enthusiasm as 
 he took the chair. Li his opening speech he referred 
 to the thinning of tlieir ranks by coercion since the 
 last convention and said that for every ten imprisoned 
 a hundred would join the League. He recapitulated 
 the resolutions and said that the question of self- 
 government was the most important. He had always 
 considered that it could never be settled so long as the 
 questions in regard to rent remained in dispute. The 
 Land act, he said, left the rent question as a contin- 
 ual source of discontent and strife between the differ- 
 ent classes in Ireland. He had no doubt that tliis 
 was designedly so arranged by the British govern- 
 ment. He v/arned the farmers not to trust the Land 
 
52 LIFE AND SERVICES OE 
 
 act which he said was designed to break the League. 
 Nobody should appeal to the land courts until test 
 cases, to be prepared by the League, had been sub- 
 mitted. They should press forward to the abolition 
 of landlordism, and to legislative independence. He 
 advised the farmers to borrow money under the Land 
 act so as to give work to laborers, and invited all the 
 latter to join the League, pledging himself to head the 
 laborers' movement if the farmers did not give them 
 fair play. In regard to the industrial question he 
 said that L'ishmen should encourage home manufact- 
 ures, even if they had to pay dearer than for foreign 
 goods, and things not producible in Ireland should be 
 bought in America. English goods should not be 
 bought in any event. 
 
 The convention was perhaps the most thoroughly 
 representative and enthusiastic assemblage held in 
 Ireland since the famous convention of the Volun- 
 teers in IV 82 and the result of its deliberations was 
 regarded with great interest. Mr. Parnell's speech 
 and the resolution respecting the test cases were 
 especially the subject of criticism in the Irish and the 
 English press, which in Ireland was favorable or the 
 reverse according to the political leanings of the 
 journals, while in England the comment was almost 
 universally condemnatory. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 GLADSTONE AXD TAUNELL. 
 
 The government became very angry because of the 
 position which Mr. Parnell assumed with respect to 
 the Land act, and Mr. Gladstone seemed to think 
 that the Irish leadei^'s speech at the Land League 
 convention callcil for some expression of opinion ou 
 his part. Ou tlie 7th of October following he 
 made an address at Leeds, England, in which he 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 63 
 
 defendea his Land bill and bitterly denounced Mr. 
 Parnell as the instigator of outrages in Ireland. He 
 accused him of preaching public plunder also, and 
 blamed him because he did not publicly repudiate the 
 acts of the dynamiters in England. Referring to the 
 test case policy of the Land League Mr. Gladstone 
 said : 
 
 "The very thing that is most necessary for the 
 Land Leaguers to do is to intercept the progress of the 
 Land act. And how do they set about it? Mr. Par- 
 nell, with his myrmidons around him in his Land 
 League meetings in Ireland, has instructed the peo- 
 ple of Ireland that they are not to go into a court 
 which the Parliament of the country has established 
 in order to do justice. If Mr. Parnell, under the 
 name of test cases, carries before the court moderate 
 and fair rents, of which there are many in Ireland, the 
 court will reject the application ; and when the court 
 has rejected the application, Mr. Parnell and his train 
 will tell the Irish nation that they have been betrayed, 
 that the court is worthless, and that the Land act ought 
 to meet with their unequivocal repudiation. And so 
 he will play his game and gain his object if the people 
 of Ireland should listen to his fatal doctrines. Be- 
 cause, gentlemen, you know as well as I do that the 
 Parliament of this country is not going to over- 
 turn the principles of public right and public 
 order ; and I think you also know, what I fully be- 
 lieve, that the people of this country, in any such 
 question relating to the government of a portion of 
 the Queen's territory, weak as they may be if their 
 case is unjust, ina just case are invincible." After fur- 
 therattacks onMr.Parnell andhisfollowers,andnoend 
 of praises on Buckshot Forster, " the philanthropist," 
 the Prime Minister called him, the right honorable 
 gentleman concluded: "These opinions, gentlemen, 
 are called forth by the grave state of facts. I do not 
 give them to you as anything more than opinions, 
 but they are opinions sustained by references to 
 
64 LIFE AXD SEEVICES OP 
 
 words and to actions. They all have regard to this 
 great impending crisis, in which we depend on the 
 good sense of people, and in which we are deter- 
 mined that no force and no fear of force and no fear 
 of ruin through force shall, so far as we are con- 
 cerned — and it is in our power to decide the question 
 • — prevent the Irish people from having the full and 
 free benefit of the Land act." 
 
 It is unnecessary to say that in this speech Mr. 
 Gladstone did great injustice to the Irish leader, and 
 there is reason to believe that he himself has since re- 
 gretted the unwarrantable charges therein made. Mr. 
 Parnell always deprecated outrages in Ireland and 
 did all in his power to prevent them. " Give no ex- 
 cuse for violence on the the part of the government," 
 he time and again advised the people, *' and our great 
 cause is won." And not the slightest particle of 
 proof can be brought forward to show that he was 
 connected, or ever sympathized, with the dynamiters. 
 Mr. Gladstone was at the time, however, very solicit- 
 ous for the success of his Land bill and was not par- 
 ticular what he said about those whom he deemed its 
 eneinies. He seemed to think that Mr. Parnell 
 was desirous, from selfish motives, of defeating 
 the ends aimed at in his pet measure and that he 
 was actually going to render it abortive simply by 
 getting the people not to make applications under it ; 
 whereas, the facts are that jNIr. Parnell was acting all 
 the while in good faith. He was not satisfied with 
 the act, it is true, but he recognized the good in it, 
 and was anxious that the people should obtain all the 
 benefits that its provisions could give them without 
 any curtailments, and for this purpose he proposed 
 that it should be taken advantage of in a systematic 
 manner. Those best qualified to sjieak on this subject 
 — including the land commissioners themselves — have 
 since confessed that Mr. Parnell's plan was an intel- 
 ligent, a comprehensive and adecisive one, and the plan 
 best fitted to obtain uniformity of judgment, and, as a 
 
CHARLKS STEAYAET PAENELL. 55 
 
 consequence, a decrease of litigation, which would re- 
 sult in a considerable saving to both landlords and 
 tenants. Mr. Parnell's action and advice were en- 
 tirely constitutional. He simply proposed that the ten- 
 ants act in combination, and not singly, the end in view 
 being to obtain the greatest amount of benefit that 
 could be got out of the act at the smallest possible 
 cost. The landlords had a Property Defence Fund 
 Association representing at the time £5,000,000, and 
 their object was to weaken or invalidate, or even de- 
 feat the purposes of the act, if possible — an unconsti- 
 tutional object, while Mr. Parnell's was a lawful one 
 — and yet Mr. Gladstone made no reference in his 
 speech to Mr. Kavanagh or his " myrmidons." The 
 tenants had just as much right to combine as had the 
 landlords, and, in making Mr. Parnell's advice on the 
 test cases the subject of his violent attack, Mr, Glad- 
 stone exposed himself to the retort that in this matter 
 he was acting in just the one-sided manner that Eng- 
 lishmen had always acted in dealing with Ireland — 
 that is, that he was shutting his eyes to the wrong- 
 doing of the dominant class, while at the same time 
 straining points to convict the representatives of the 
 people of violations of law. 
 
 But the Irish leader did not allow Mr. Gladstone to 
 go uiirebuked. Two days later at Wexford he ad- 
 dressed upwards of 10,000 people, and in his speech 
 he took occasion to answer the prime minister in kind. 
 I subjoin the speech almost entire: 
 
 "People of the City and County of Wexford — I 
 am proud to see that your county has not forgotten 
 her traditions, but that you are prepared to-day, as 
 you always were to return a fitting answer to threats 
 and intimidation, even if it should become necessary 
 to use those means which were used in 1798 by an 
 unsci'upulous government, — means which failed then, 
 and which, please God, will fail again if they are 
 tried again. You in this country have arrived at the 
 commencement of the second year of existence of 
 
66 LIFE AIJD SERVICES OP 
 
 this great Land League movement. You have gained 
 something by your exertions during the last twelve 
 months, but I am here to-day to tell you that you have 
 gained but a fraction of that to which you are justly 
 entitled. And the Irishman who thinks that he can 
 now throw away his arms, just as Grattan disbanded 
 the Volunteers in 1782, will find to his sorrow and 
 destruction, when too late, that he has placed himself 
 in the power of a perfidious, cruel, unrelenting English 
 enemy. You have had an opportunity recently, many 
 of you, no doubt, of studying the utterances of a 
 very great man, a very great orator, a person who 
 recently desired to impress the world with a great 
 opinion of his philanthropy and hatred of oppression, 
 but who stands to-day the greatest coercionist, the 
 greatest and most unrivaled slanderer of the Irish 
 nation that ever undertook that task. I refer to Will- 
 iam Ewart Gladstone and his unscrupulous and dis- 
 honest speech the day before yesterday. Not content 
 with maligning you, he maligns John Dillon. " He 
 endeavors to misrepresent the young Ireland party of 
 1848. No misrepresentation is too patent, too low, 
 or too mean for him to stoop to, and it is a good sign 
 that this masquerading kuight-errant, this pretended 
 champion of liberties of every other nation except 
 those of the Irish nation, should be obliged to throw 
 off the mask to-day and to stand revealed as the man 
 who, by his own utterances, is prepared to carry fire 
 and sword into your homesteads unless you humble 
 and abase yourselves before him and before the land- 
 lords of this countiy. But I have forgotten I had 
 said that he had maligned everybody. Oh, no; he 
 has a good word for one or two people. He says that 
 the late JMr. Isaac Butt Avas a most amiable man and 
 a true patriot. When we in Ireland were following 
 Isaac Butt into the lobbies, endeavoring to pass the 
 very act which AVilliam Ewart Gladstone passed, by 
 having stolen the idea from Isaac Butt, William Ewart 
 Gladstone and his ex-government officials were fol- 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 57 
 
 lowing Sir Stafford Northcote and Benjamin Disraeli 
 into the other lobby. No man was good in Ireland 
 until he was dead and unable to do anything more for 
 his country. In the opinion of an English statesman, 
 no man is good in Ireland until he was buried and una- 
 ble to strike a blow for Ireland, and perhaps the day 
 may come when I may get a good word from English 
 statesmen as a moderate man when I am dead and 
 buried. 
 
 " When Mr. Gladstone a little lower down accuses 
 us of preaching the doctrine of public i3lunder, and 
 of proclaiming a new gospel of plunder, and, further 
 down, of the promulgation of a gospel of sheer 
 plunder — (A voice, 'That is his own doctrine.') I 
 would be obliged to my friend in the crowd if he 
 would leave me to make the speech, and not be antic- 
 ipating me. When the people talk of public plunder 
 they should first ask themselves and recall to mind 
 who were the first public plunderers in Ireland. The 
 land of Ireland has been confiscated three times over by 
 the men whose descendants Mr. Gladstone is support- 
 ing in the fruits of their phmder by his baj'onets and 
 his buckshot. When we speak about plunder we are 
 entitled to ask who were the first of the plunderers. 
 Oh, yes; but we can say a little more than that too; 
 we can say, or at all events if we don't say it others 
 will say it, that the doctrine of public plunder is 
 only a question of degree. Who was it that first 
 sanctionedthis doctrine of public plunder will be asked 
 by some persons. I am proceeding in the demand 
 that the improvements of the tenants — and their 
 predecessors in title — shall be his, no matter how long 
 ago they may have been made. I am proceeding 
 upon the lines of an amendment in the land act of 
 1881, which was inti'oduced by Mr. Healy, framed by 
 Mr. Gladstone's attorney-general for Ireland and 
 sanctioned by Mr. Gladstone, his whole cabinet, the 
 House of Commons, and the House of Lords. If 
 your rents are reduced at all under this land act, it 
 
58 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 will be because this land act requires tbat for twenty 
 yeai's back the improvements of the tenant or his 
 predecessors in title shall not be valued by the land- 
 lord for rent, and I say that it is a question of degree 
 if you extend that limit of twenty years, within 
 Avhich period the improvements of the tenants have 
 been protected by the legislature, to that period, no 
 matter how long, within which those improvements 
 have been made. 
 
 " Why should the landlord be entitled to compensa- 
 tion for improvements that may have been made one 
 liundred years ago, any more than lie should be en- 
 titled to improvements made twenty years ago ? And 
 1 say that it is this doctrine of public plunder. It is 
 a question of degree, and William Ewart Gladstone, 
 who has sliown himself more capable of eating his 
 own woids, and better able to recede from principles 
 and declarations which he has laid down with just as 
 much fervor as he made the speech the other evening, 
 will, before long, if he lives long enough, introduce a 
 bill into the House of Commons to extend this very 
 principle of public plunder which he has sanctioned 
 by las act of 1881, and to thoi-oiighly protect the 
 interests of tenants and their predecessors in l-ltlefor 
 improvements they have made, so that if we are to 
 go into this question the utmost that Mr. Gladstone 
 and the Liberal party will be able to make out of it 
 will be to find that there are some persons very much 
 better entitled to call him a little robber than he is to 
 call me a big one. But I was forgetting a point ; he 
 has a good Avord for Mr. Shaw. He has discovered 
 that there are only four or five honest Irishmen in 
 the country, and one of these is Mr. Shaw. He- 
 blames me for not having disapproved of what he 
 falls the dynamite policy. Well, I am not aware that 
 iMr. Shaw has repudiated the dynamite policy either ; 
 i)ut I'il tell you what Mr. Shaw said, and you must 
 b«ar in mind that, in addition to speaking well of him 
 as an honest Irishman, Mr. Gladst(me also offered him 
 
CHARLES STEWART PAENELL. 59 
 
 a situation as one of the land commissioners. Mr. 
 Shaw did not repudiate the dynamite policy any more 
 than I did ; but I'll tell you what he did eighteen 
 months ago in the county of Cork. He said that his 
 blood boiled whenever he saw a process-server, and 
 that he never met one without feeling inclined to take 
 the linch-pin out of his car. Now, gentlemen, if I 
 said that to you to-day Mr. Gladstone would have 
 me in Kilmainham before three weeks were out. Nay, 
 more, if I had- ever spoken anything like that Mr. 
 Gladstone would have had me in Kilmainham long 
 ago." 
 
 Referring to Mr, Gladstone's charge that "he (Mr. 
 Parnell) was afraid, now that the land act was passed, 
 lest the people of England by their long-sustained ef- 
 forts should win the hearts of the whole Irish nation," 
 Mr. Parnell said : 
 
 " Long-sustained efforts in what ? Was it in evict- 
 ing the 2,000 tenants who have been evicted since the 
 1st of January last ? Was it in patting the two hun- 
 dred honorable and brave men in Kilmainham and the 
 other jails of the country ? Was it in issuing a police 
 circular of a more infamous character than any which 
 has ever been devised by any foreign despot ? Was 
 it in the sending of hundreds of thousands of rounds 
 of ball cartridge to his Bashi-Bazouks throughout the 
 country ? Was it in sharpening the bayonets of the 
 latest issue to the Royal Irish Constabulary ? And if 
 it was not all these sustained efforts which Mr. Glad- 
 stone has taken up nobly and well from his predeces- 
 sors in the title of misgoverning Ireland, I should like 
 to know what were the efforts of which William 
 Ewart Gladstone talks when he speaks of those sus- 
 tained efforts which he is making for the ])eople of 
 Ireland. He charges us with having refused to vote 
 for the second reading of his land act ; he charges us 
 with having used every effort to disparage, to dis- 
 credit, and, if we couLl, to destroy his land bill ; he 
 points to our refusal to compromise our position by 
 
60 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 voting on the second reading as his proof, and then he 
 goes on to say that on every subsequent occasion, on 
 the two subsequent occasions when that bill was really 
 in danger, I and the Irish party rescued Gladstone 
 and his cabinet by our thirty-six votes from destruc- 
 tion and defeat. And then in the close of his sjDeech 
 he adraits our whole position and contention. In one 
 last despairing wail he says that when the govern- 
 ment is expected to preserve the peace it has no moral 
 force behind it. The government has no moral force 
 behind it in Ireland. The whole Irish people are 
 against them. They have to depend for their support 
 on the self-interest of a very small minority of the 
 people of this country, and therefore they have no 
 moral force behind them. Mr. Gladstone, in those few 
 short words, admits that the English government has 
 failed in Ireland ; he admits the contention that Grat- 
 tan and the volunteers of '82 fought for; he admits 
 the contention that the men of '98 lost their lives for; 
 he admits the contention that O'ConneU argued for ; 
 he admits the contention that the men of '48 staked 
 their all for ; he admits the contention that the men 
 of '65, after a long period of depression and of appar- 
 ent death of all national life, in Ireland, cheerfully 
 faced the dungeon and the horrors of penal servitude 
 for, and admits the contention that to-day you in your 
 overpowering multitudes have re-established, and, 
 please God, will bring to a successful and final issue, 
 namely, that England's mission in Ireland has been a 
 failure, and that Irishmen have established their right 
 to govern Ireland by laws made by themselves for 
 themselves on Irish soil, and he winds up w^ith a 
 threat. This man, who has no moral force beliind 
 him, he winds up with a threat : * No fear of force 
 and no fear of ruin through force shall, so far as we 
 are concerned, and it is in our power to decide the 
 question, prevent the Irish people from having the 
 full and free benefit of the Land act.' I say it is not 
 in his power to trample on the aspirations and the 
 
CHARLES STEWAKT PAENELL. 61 
 
 rights of the Irish jDeople Avith no moral force behind 
 liim. These are very brave words that he uses, but 
 it strikes me that they have a ring about them like 
 the whistle of a schoolboy on Jiis way through a 
 cliurchyard at night to keep up his courage. He 
 would have you to believe that he is not afraid of you 
 because he has disarmed you, because he has attempted 
 to disorganize you, because he knows that the Irish 
 nation is to-day disarmed, so far as physical weapons 
 go. But he does not hold this kind of language with 
 the Boers. What did he do at the commencement 
 of the session ? He said something of this kind. He 
 said he was going to put them down ; but as soon as 
 he had discovered that they were able to shoot 
 straighter than his own soldiers, he allowed these few 
 men to put himself and his government down, and 
 though he has attempted to regain some of his lost 
 position in the Transvaal by the subsequent chicanery 
 of diplomatic negotiations, yet that sturdy and small 
 people in the distant Transvaal have seen through Mr. 
 William Ewart Gladstone, and they have told him 
 again for a second time that they will not have their 
 liberties filched from them; and, as the result, I be- 
 lieve we shall see thnt Mi'. Gladstone will again yield 
 to the people of the Transvaal. And I trust we shall 
 see, as the result of this great m.ovemcnt, tliat just as 
 Mr. Gladstone, by the act of 1881, has eaten all his 
 bold words, has departed from all his former declared 
 principles, so we shall see that these brave words of 
 this English prime minister will be scattered as chaff 
 before the united and advancing determination of the 
 Iiish people to regain for themselves their lost land 
 and their lost legislative independence," 
 
62 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE ARREST OP MR. PARNELL THE NO RENT MANI- 
 FESTO — THE STATE OF IRELAND. 
 
 A PEW clays after the speech at Wexford — on Oct. 
 13 — Mr. Parnell was arrested as a suspect aad cast 
 into Kilniainham jail. On the day of the arrest Mr. 
 Gladstone happened to be making an address in the 
 Guildhall in London, and he was notified of the event 
 by a telegram from Chief Secretary Forster. He was 
 still speaking when the message reached him, and he 
 stopped to read it, after having done which he an- 
 nounced to his audience, with all the empressement of 
 voice, gesture and langunge at his command, the fact 
 that the Irish leader had been arrested in Ireland, 
 and the audience of Englishmen received the news 
 with cheer upon cheer of savage exultation. 
 
 But this triumphant mood soon passed away, for it 
 was discovered that the arrest of Mr. Parnell and the 
 other leaders, instead of bringing about the pacifica- 
 tion of the country, only induced greater disturb- 
 ances. 
 
 And now, as a, retaliatory measure, Messrs. Parnell, 
 Davitt, Kettle, Brennan, Dillon, Sexton and Egan, 
 who composed the executive of the Land League, 
 issued the "No Rent" manifesto on October 18, in 
 which the tenants were advised "to pay no rents 
 under any circumstances to their landlords until the 
 government relinquishes the existing system of ter- 
 rorism and restores the constitutional rights of the 
 people." 
 
 It is difficult to describe correctly the feelings 
 which the publication of this document evoked among 
 all classes. In England and among the landlord 
 class in Ireland the manifesto was received with 
 mingled feelings of fury and dismay ; but, by the 
 Irish people generally, it was looked upon as a bold 
 move and received vath enthusiasm. 
 
CHAKLES STEWART PAENELL. 63 
 
 The effect of the manifesto was to intensify and 
 invigorate the movement for the time being, and the 
 imprisoned leaders were raised to a more exalted 
 niche in the popular estimation. 
 
 The Irish in America received the manifesto in 
 something the same manner that they would welcome 
 a declaration of war against England — with acclama- 
 tion. And Wendell Phillips — that noblest friend of 
 all oppressed peoples — publicly exclaimed in Boston, 
 " Thank God that Gladstone arrested Parnell ! He 
 has lifted him fi-om being the head of the Land 
 League to being the head of the greatest moral and 
 human movement of the age." The contributions to 
 the League fund redoubled in amount; Dublin, and 
 other corporations in L-eland, honored the prisoners 
 by conferring the freedom of the city upon them and 
 Mr. Parnell's popularity among his countrymen had 
 never been so great. 
 
 The government followed its first blow by others 
 in quick succession. The Land League was pro- 
 claimed ; the local branches were dissolved ; the 
 leadei-s of the people were arrested each week by 
 scores ; the Nationalist press was muzzled, and the 
 country was practically under martial law. Mr. Egan 
 had some time before this Hed to Paris with the League 
 funds, fearing that the government would attempt t>^ 
 confiscate them, and all contributions were now sen. 
 to him in that city. 
 
 By the close of 1881 more than 300 of the people's 
 leaders were in jail, and the number was each week 
 increasing. Among tl^e first victims had been Michael 
 Davitt, John Dillon, whose recent arrest was his 
 second one, T. M. Healy and the celebrated Rev. 
 Eugene Sheehy, C. C. The women of L-eland had 
 formed a Ladies' Land League for purposes such as 
 those created by the present emergency and they now 
 took the place of the men in looking after the evicted 
 and the families of those who were in prison. But 
 the government soon proclaimed their organization 
 
64 LIFE AND SEEVICES OF 
 
 also, and many of the ladies were arrested and im- 
 prisoned. 
 
 Mr. Labouchere, M. P., speaking of the state of 
 affairs in Ireland at that time, said in his paper, 
 London Truth ; 
 
 " The only lawlessness in Ireland is that of which 
 Gladstone is guilty. Kilmainhara jail is full of pris- - 
 oners, not one of whom could be convicted of any 
 crime known to the laws of England before an im- 
 partial jury. And no impartial court would permit 
 the case to go to the jury. No pretence of any inten- 
 tion is made to try them for any crime known to the 
 laws of England. And the only object of urging a 
 declaration of martial law is that they may be con- 
 victed and punished for acts which are not crimes." 
 
 And His Grace Archbishop Croke, of Cashel, in a 
 speech to the people of Ballingarry described the ex- 
 isting state of things in this way : 
 
 "The trusted leaders of the people have been 
 clutched by the salaried supporters of ' law and order,* 
 and cast into prison. The boasted privileges of the 
 British Constitution have been practically canceled, 
 so far at least as this country is concerned. Liberty 
 of sjieech and meeting exists no longer, except for a 
 favored few. Sick men seized upon in the very 
 height of their malady and mercilessly flung into 
 jail ; a reign of terror, in fact, not less certain, though 
 happily less sanguinary, than that which existed in 
 France in the days of its national frenzy, exists in 
 our midst, and no man if free to-day can be sure that 
 he will not be in jail to-morrow. Such is the state of 
 Ireland to-day." 
 
 The constabulary used their authority as merci- 
 lessly as any soldiers that tyranny ever had. If a 
 crowd did not disperse upon the moment they 
 were ruthlessly fired upon, and people were shot 
 down almost daily by these so-called guardians of 
 the peace who had absolutely committed no lawless 
 act. Even the dignity and helplessness of women 
 
Justin McCarthy. 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 65 
 
 afforded them no protection from these warriors, for 
 they shot down women as well as men. In several 
 instances coroners' juries, on their solemn oaths and 
 on sworn testimony, had found and recorded verdicts 
 of willful murder against the police, but of such in- 
 significant incidents the government, of course, took 
 no notice ; and if anybody had the temerity to raise 
 his or her voice in remonstrance against the barbari- 
 ties perpetrated in the name of the law, he or she was 
 immediately flung into prison. 
 
 And during this period of terrorism a whole army 
 of agents and bailiffs and guards of police and soldiery 
 were kept constantly employed in the work of evict- 
 ing, and the number of ejectments which in 1879 was 
 but 1,348 rose inl880 to 10,457 ; and in 1881 to up- 
 wards of 16,000. In the first quarter of 1882 there 
 were more than 7,000 persons evicted and the Dublin 
 Freeman computed that the number would be in- 
 creased to 50,000 before the year expired. 
 
 Many of these evictions took place under circum- 
 stances of the greatest cruelty, women in sickness and 
 old people in a dying condition being thrust from their 
 homes out onto the roadside to perish, and instances 
 are on record where people have died while the bail- 
 iffs were in the very act of evicting them. Even the 
 London Times — never the friend of the Irish — was 
 forced to admit at this time that it was " an irksome, 
 not to say an odious task to enforce wholesale evic- 
 tions and to compel the payment of rent by military 
 or quasi-military force," and recognized the obliga- 
 tion, " not less stringent, on the landlords' part, to 
 abstain from oppressive and unreasonable demands 
 on tenants whose inability to pay in full is clearly 
 demonstrated. It cannot be reasonably doubted that 
 there are such cases, and, whether they be few or 
 many, their existence, and the bitter resentment they 
 engender, is the festering source of the discontents 
 which make Ireland so turbulent and irreconcilable." 
 
 The advice given in the " iS'o Rent " manifesto, al- 
 
66 LIFE AAD SEBVICES OP 
 
 though largely obeyed, was not so widely followed as 
 the leaders liad a right to expect. This was due to 
 many influences of which the most potential was, 
 doubtless, the selfish but natural desire of the 
 farmers to profit all they could from tlie Land act. 
 In a large number of cases great reductions in rent 
 were voluntarily offered by the landlords, and the 
 tenants would be more — or less — than human if there 
 Vv'ere not some among them willing to accept. On 
 the Duke of Leinster's estate, in county Kildare, re- 
 ductions amounting to £5,000 per annum were made 
 in this way without the tenants even going to court, 
 and like reductions on a smaller scale were made and 
 accepted in other parts of the country, not to speak 
 of the many settlements made in the land courts. 
 
 Another influence which tended to modify the ef- 
 fect of the "No Rent" manifesto was that of the 
 Catholic clergy. Archbishop Croke, whose patriotism 
 is unquestionable, made a vigorous protest against 
 the manifesto and the doctrine which it enunciated in 
 a letter to the Dublin Freeman and the bishops and 
 priests were almost a unit in their 023i30sition. 
 
 Even among the Nationalist press the support of 
 the measure was by no means hearty or unanimous, 
 those journals which supported the act doing so 
 mainly on the ground of expediency. The Dublin 
 Freeman, whose editor and proprietor^ Mr. E. Dwyer 
 Gray, was a member of the Irish National party in 
 Parliament referred to the matter in the following 
 terms : 
 
 " We foresee dire confusion and ruin to individuals, 
 and possible strife and bloodshed. However opinions 
 may differ as to the propriety and legality of the ad- 
 vice tendered to the people by the imprisoned leaders 
 of the League, there can be no difference as to the 
 eloquence and alnlity in which the case of the League 
 is stated. We do not believe that tenants will follow 
 the counsel not to pay rents. We believe that a bet- 
 ter and wiser spirit is springing up. There is shown 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 67 
 
 in many districts an extreme desire to terminate the 
 fruitless controversy. We have no proof yet that the 
 Land act will not be carried out otherwise than in the 
 most honest way." 
 
 Notwithstanding all these drawbacks there can be 
 no doubt but what the " No Rent " manifesto made 
 it extremely cold for the landlord class in Ireland, 
 and introduced not a few of them to that state of 
 destitution in which they had long insisted in keeping 
 their tenants. 
 
 But the no rent movement as a policy was fore- 
 doomed to defeat. It might perhaps have succeeded 
 in bringing some of the landlords to a condition of 
 destitution — and there would be some satisfaction in 
 that — but it is now, I think, generally admitted that 
 it could not achieve any i^ermanent benefit for Ireland. 
 It might starve a few landlords, but it could not wrest 
 the ownership of their lands away from them, nor 
 could it vest that ownership in the tenants. The 
 manifesto was, in fact, a mistake, and it was bound 
 to fail. 
 
 If such a movement ever could have succeeded in 
 Ireland, no time was surely so propitious as that at 
 which the manifesto was issued and had there been 
 no such promulgation many extremists would declare, 
 perhaps, that a great opportunity had been missed. 
 As it was day after day through the winter of 1881- 
 1882 brought the leaders in prison news, not of a firm 
 stand against payment of rents, but of settlements for 
 large reductions on a constantly growing number of 
 estates. The poorer cottiers alone were staunch and 
 they suffered for their loyalty. Evictions among 
 them went on increasing from week to week, and it 
 was evident with the array of military force at the 
 landlords' command that the smaller class of tenants 
 whom bad years had left penniless and the Land act 
 unbenefited must if unprovided for be swept from the 
 country. The larger farmers, with few exceptions, 
 had already profited by the land movement , and in 
 
LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 order that these humbler tenants might be secured, 
 Mr. Parnell in his cell drafted the Arrears bill of 
 which I will speak by and bj. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE KILMAINHAM TEEATY THE PHCENIX PARK 
 
 TRAGEDIES THE CRIMES AND THE ARREARS 
 
 ACTS. 
 
 The year 1882 had opened for Ireland with every 
 jDrison in the country a bastile, filled with untried 
 men, arrested and detained on suspicion — some of 
 them the leading representative personages in Ire- 
 land. The natural vent of open agitation was closed, 
 and as a consequence the hedge assassin and the se- 
 cret dagger were coming into prominence. By the 
 spring the government had become pretty well sat- 
 isfied that coercion was not progressing very rapidly 
 in restoring peace to Ireland. The state of things in 
 that country had never been so bad, and, despairing 
 at last of remedying them in his own way, Mr. Glad- 
 stone had recourse to Mr. Parnell. Communication 
 was opened with the Irish leader while still in prison; 
 the Kilmainham treaty followed, and, on May 2, JVIr. 
 Parnell, with others of the suspects, were released 
 upon terms as hard as an English minister was ever 
 forced to accept. Earl Cowper, the Lord-Lieutenant, 
 and W. E. Forster, the Chief Secretary, were to be 
 recalled; the suspects were to be released; the coer- 
 cion policy was to be abandoned; the Arrears bill 
 was to be adopted, and all the amendments required 
 to facilitate the better working of the Land act were 
 to be pushed through as soon as possible. 
 
 The treaty was everywhere regarded as a great 
 Irish victory, and it ranked Mr. Parnell as a diplomat 
 of superior abilities. All the mighty forces of the 
 Empu-e had been employed to put down the agita- 
 
CHAELES STEWART PAENELL. 69 
 
 tion, and the attempt was acknowledged to be a fail- 
 ure. The minister who instigated and defended co- 
 ercion was thrown over; the Lord-Lieutenant who 
 enforced it was asked to resign; the whole policy was 
 abandoned, and every amendment which the Land 
 League had put forward was practically admitted in 
 principle. And in return all that Mr. Parnell agreed 
 to do was to withdraw the "No Rent" manifesto; 
 to accept his own release at the hands of government, 
 and to name such among the suspects as, if released, 
 would be influential in discountenancing outrages. 
 
 On May 4 Messrs. Parnell, Dillon and O'Kelly ap- 
 peared in their places in Parliament, and here they 
 were greeted in such a manner as to prove the belief 
 general that their release from prison was an Irish 
 victory, former enemies even congratulating them on 
 the event. Sir Charles Dilke was effusive in his con- 
 gratulations, and lie gave the Irish leader a hearty 
 shake of the hand in view of the whole house; so did 
 Mr. Shaw, and so did many others of doubtful friend- 
 ship or known hostility, and Mr. Parnell was the hero 
 of the hour. 
 
 While still celebrating this great triumph, and 
 hopefully looking forward to the new and better era 
 that seemed about to dawn, all Ireland and, indeed, 
 the world, were shocked by the news of the assassin- 
 ation of Lord Frederick Cavendish, the new Chief 
 Secretary for Ireland, and Mr. Burke, the Under Sec- 
 retary, which took place in Phoenix Park, Dublin, in 
 the vicinity of the vice-regal lodge, in broad day- 
 light, on May 6; and with the news of that terrible 
 event the bright hopes which so many had begun to 
 cherish crumbled away again. 
 
 It would be too painful a task to go into the de- 
 tails of the terrible event. The murderers escaped 
 and were not discovered for a long time afterwards, 
 but the effects of their deed struck Ireland with dis- 
 may and aroused an intense anti-Irish feeling in 
 England. In one hour almost the position of Mr. 
 
"70 LIFE AND SEEVICES OF 
 
 Parnell was reversed, and he sank from a position of 
 omnipotence to one of absolute and apparently irre- 
 trievable disaster. For a few days the Irish party 
 had sailed on the highest crest of the wave, and in a 
 breath it was once more in the deepest trough of the 
 sea. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone had now a noble opportunity for 
 conciliating Ireland if he. had taken advantage of it, 
 but, great man as he undoubtedly is, he was not 
 equal to the demands of the occasion. After the 
 Phoenix Park assassinations the people of Ireland 
 were in such a frame of mind that had the govern- 
 ment trusted to their honor and gone on with its 
 remedial legislation, relying upon the ordinary laws 
 for the suppression of crime, an era of peace and 
 good feeling between rulers and people would al- 
 most certainly have followed. But instead of rising 
 to the height of the occasion, Mr. Gladstone weakly 
 listened to the counsels of the coercionists and pro- 
 ceeded to punish a nation for the act of a few crazy 
 fanatics — notwithstanding the fact that the nation 
 universally reprobated that act. 
 
 In accordance with this determination, Mr. Glad- 
 stone gave notice in Parliament of his intention to 
 introduce the Crimes Act of 1882 — a measure more 
 drastic in its severity than any previous act of the 
 kind. 
 
 The Parnellltes, of course, detei'mined to oppose 
 the bill in every way possible and the fight which 
 they made against it was conducted with as much 
 zeal, and even greater skill, than that against coercion 
 in 1880. The obstruction v/as scarcely ever open or 
 palpable, but, none the less, the progress of the 
 measure was exceedingly slow. Large numbers of 
 amendments were put upon the paper which afforded 
 excellent opportunities for dilatory debate and some 
 of these the government was driven to accept. Day 
 after day passed without any perceptible advance 
 being made with the bill, and the government at last 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 11 
 
 resorted once again to its favorite system of relays. 
 Then followed an all-night session and close upon it 
 came Speaker Playfair's coup cfhtat and the with- 
 drawal of the Irish members from the House. 
 
 A few days after this master stroke the govern- 
 ment found itself in a dilemma and would be glad of 
 the assistance of the Irish members to enable them 
 to extricate themselves. The ministry had under- 
 taken to confine the searches for arms under the 
 Crimes Act to the daytime and to modify the bill 
 in that respect, but the temper of the House was op- 
 posed to the change and it was insisted by the 
 opposition that the clause should stand as it was 
 originally. In this demand the Whigs and Radicals 
 were as firm as the Tories, and, with these combined 
 forces against them, it was seen that the ministers 
 would be defeated. Mr. Gladstone lent excitement 
 to the occasion by a declaration which was inter- 
 preted as a threat of resignation in case of an adverse 
 vote. The Irish members occupied one of the side 
 galleries and from this position they looked calmly 
 down on the stormy scene. Without their aid the 
 government could not hope to carry their point and 
 many imploring looks were cast up at them from the 
 Liberal benches, and one of Mr. Gladstone's hench- 
 men actually asked Mr. Sexton to come to his aid, but 
 the member for Sligo respectfully declined the invi- 
 tation. The vote was taken and the government 
 were defeated, but Mr. Gladstone did not put his 
 threat to resign into execution. The Crimes Act was 
 passed at last in its most stringent form and receiving 
 the Royal assent on July 12, 1882, it became a law. 
 
 The one legislative measure passed at this session 
 which can be said to be beneficial to Ireland was the 
 Arrear of Rents Act, which Mr. Parnell had drafted 
 while in Kilraainham, and which the government had 
 agreed to adopt. This bill was introduced on May 15 
 and was really one of the most important concessions 
 to Ireland since Catholic emancipation. For the 
 
t2 LIFE AND LIEKVICES OF 
 
 first time in the history of the country a British 
 government made use of the national exchequer, not 
 to coerce Irishmen, nor to make loans which the 
 needy bori'ower would find it hard to repay, but to 
 make a free gift to men whose sufferings were un- 
 avoidable and undeserved. The measure contained 
 in an improved form those features which were con- 
 sidered necessary for the beneficial working of the 
 Land Act of 1881, but which were stricken out of 
 that bill by the landlord interest in the House of 
 Lords. By those who understood the Irish land ques- 
 tion a remission of arrears had always been pro- 
 claimed an essential, without which all curative legis- 
 lation would necessai'ily prove abortive. The pre- 
 tended object of the land acts of 1870 and 1881 was 
 to put a stop to evictions, but it was idle to hope to 
 accomplish this while the smaller farmers, for uhose 
 benefit the legislation was mainly devised, remained 
 in arrears and subject, therefore, to ejectment. Neither 
 of the acts had curbed the power of the landlords to 
 evict for arrears, and in that respect the act of 1881 
 was particularly blameworthy. The arrears bill not 
 only tended to put a stop to evictions, but it brought 
 succor and redress to those who had been evicted 
 during the six months preceding its passage. Very 
 many tenants were in arrears for five, eiglit and, in 
 some cases, fifteen years, but under the bill it did not 
 matter if the tenant owed the landlord rent for twenty 
 years, the latter was in no case to receive more than 
 two years rental ; and of those two the tenant ueuCi 
 pay but one, the government assuming the payment 
 of the other. Nor for these two years was the land- 
 lord to receive the rack-rents fixed by himself. He 
 was to be paid accordingto Griffiths' valuation which 
 was made some 40 years ago. The tenant had, fur- 
 thermore, until July, 1883, in which to tender liis one 
 year's rent according to Grifliths' valuation, on pay- 
 ment of which all arrears, no matter how long accu- 
 mulated, would be cancelled forever. Moreover, any 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARXELL. IS 
 
 money paid as rent during the year 1881 was held, 
 under the hill, to be paid on account of that year 
 and not on account of previous years during which 
 no rent had been paid, and the law was applicable 
 to all tenants paying less than £30 a year upon 
 Griffiths' valuation ; that is to say, to the great mass 
 of the Irish peasantry. The claims of the Irish land- 
 lords were computed as high as £17,000,000, and 
 never placed below £10,000,000. Of this large 
 sum they were to get, under the bill, only £4,000,000, 
 one-half from the tenants and the other half from tlie 
 government, the government portion to be drawn prin- 
 cipally from the Irish Church Surplus Fund. 
 
 The Arrears bill and the Crimes bill were the main 
 legislative enactments of the session, although it had 
 beeii largely intended for English legislation. As it 
 was the English bills were nearly all dropped or never 
 introduced at all, the whole time of Parliament being 
 engrossed by matters relating to Ireland. The sitting- 
 was fittingly closed by the carrying through of the 
 Cloture and the new rules. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF THE IRISH NATIONAL LEAGUE 
 
 THE ARREST OF THE INVINCIBLES AND THE 
 
 CARET REVELATIONS. 
 
 There had been no public meetings in Ireland since 
 the proclamation of the Land League, even members 
 of Parliament being prevented from addressing their 
 constituents, but in the recess of 1882 Mr. Parnell 
 undertook the task of reorganizing the people. In 
 October a great conference was called in the Antient 
 Concert Rooms in Dublin and the Irish National 
 League was inaugurated to succeed the proclaimed 
 Land League. The conf ei'ence was one of the largest 
 ever held in Dublin and its deliberations were marked 
 
74 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 by an ardor and earnestness that augured well for the 
 success of the new movement. The galleries were filled 
 with clergymen, ladies and prominent laymen, and 
 among those seated on the platform were the Lord 
 Mayor ; Justin McCarthv, M. P. ; E. D. Gray, M. P. ; 
 Michael Davitt ; Thomas Sexton, M. P. ; J. E. Red- 
 mond, M. P. ; T. P. O'Connor, M. P. ; T. M. Healy, 
 M. P. ; J. Daly, M. P. ; J. G. Bi^jgar, M. P. ; James 
 Leahy, M. P. ; Philip Callan, MTp. ; William Cor- 
 hctt, M. p. ; G. Byrne, M. P. ; Edmund Leamy, 
 M. p. ; R. A. Metge, M. P. ; Richard Power, M. P. ; 
 T. D. Sullivan, M. P. ; Thomas Brennan ; R, Lalor, 
 M. P. ; H. J. Gill, M. P. ; E. Shiel, M. P. and others. 
 Mr. Parnell presided and in a temperate and states- 
 manlike speech reviewed the work of the Land 
 League and explained the programme of the new 
 organization, whose constitution as proposed con- 
 tained five leading features, namely: (1) national 
 self-government, defined as the restitution to the Irish 
 people of the right to manage their own afl'airs in a 
 Parliament elected by the people ; (2) land law 
 reform, including the creation of an occupying owner- 
 ship or peasant proprietory, by an amendment of the 
 purchase clauses of the Land act of 1881 so as to 
 secure the advance by the State of the whole of the 
 purchase money, and the extension of the period of 
 repayment to 63 years ; the transfer by compulsory 
 purchase to county boards of all land not cultivated 
 by the owners and not in the occupation of tenants, 
 for resale and reletting to laborers or small farmers 
 in plots of grazing commonage ; protection from the 
 imposition of rent on improvements made by the ten- 
 ant or his predecessor in title, to be effected by an 
 amendment to the Healy clause of the Land act of 
 1881 ; the admission of leaseholders and other ex- 
 cluded classes to all the benefits of the Land act, 
 with other amendments such as the admission of oc- 
 cupiers of town parks to the benefits of the Land act, 
 the fixing of the judicial rent from the date of appli- 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 'jd 
 
 cation, etc. ; (3) local pelf-governmont, by the crea- 
 tion of county boards and the transfer to those 
 boards of the fiscal and administrative powers of 
 grand juries — the boards to be elected in a representa- 
 tive system ; the abolition of the principle of nomi- 
 nation by government to membership of the following 
 boards : The local government board, the board of 
 works, the general valuation and boundary survey, 
 the board of national education, the reformatory 
 and industrial school boards, the prisons board and 
 the fishery board, with several minor provisions such 
 as transfer to the county boards of the management 
 of the union workhouses, lunatic asylums and other 
 such institutions, winding up with a demand for the 
 abolition of the office of lord lieutenant of Ireland ; (4) 
 extension of the Parliamentary and municipal fran- 
 chises and their assimilation to those of England ; 
 (5) the development and encouragement of the labor 
 and industrial interests of Ireland by obtaining sej^a- 
 rate legislation to elevate the condition of the agri- 
 cultm*al laborers and encouraging co-operation in the 
 movement for fostering Irish industries by appoint- 
 ing an industrial committee of shop-keepers, artisans 
 and farmers, with proportional representation, to 
 assist in the work of revival. Such, in brief, were 
 the main points in the constitution of the Irish 
 National League. Mr. Parnell was unanimou.^ly 
 chosen president of the organization and at the clothe 
 of its deliberations he set actively to work organizing, 
 so that before the new year opened branches of tlic 
 League were flourishing all over the island. 
 
 A cheering incident in the record of 1882 in Ire- 
 land — otherwise dismal enough — was the great In- 
 dustrial Exhibition, which was held in Dublin, to 
 promote the manufacturing industry and energy of 
 the Irish people. The Exhibition was gotten up 
 under the auspices of the people themselves, and was 
 absolutely independent of all Castle influence. The 
 opening day was chosen for the unveiling of the 
 
76 LIFE AND SEKVICES OP 
 
 noblo monument to O'Connell on O'Connell street. 
 There was an immense procession through miles and 
 m.iles of crowded streets, and all Dublin attended the 
 celebration except the lord lieutenant, Earl Spencer, 
 and his officials. The Exhibition lasted several weeks 
 and was a grand success. It is not too much to say- 
 that it gave an impulse to industry througliout the 
 country, from Blarney to Belleek, though its imme- 
 diate results were slight as compared with the lesson 
 of self-reliance it taught the people. 
 
 The year 1883 began under circumstances that 
 once again shrouded Ireland's hopes in the deepest 
 gloom. A large number of arrests had been made for 
 complicity in the Phoenix Park assassinations, and 
 these were shortly followed by the revelations of 
 James Carey, one of the prisoners and a to"WTi coun- 
 cillor of the city of Dublin. By his own confession 
 this man was a very monster of wickedness. Under 
 the garb of a devout Catholic who approached his 
 duties regularly he was continually meditating and 
 committing crime, and on the day after the Phoenix 
 Park affair he had the moral hardihood to address a 
 letter of condolence to Miss Burke, a sister of one of 
 the victims. He was the leader of the band of In- 
 vincibles, and the killing of the secretaries was 
 accomplished undec liis direction. He it was who 
 planned the deed; and if he did not actually wield 
 the knives that caused the deaths he selected the men 
 that did wield them, drove with them to the place of 
 the murder, and signaled to them the approach of the 
 persons marked for doom. He received gold for his 
 work, but it was made clear from the evidence at the 
 trials that his followers were actuated solely by mis- 
 taken notions of patriotism. They were ignorant and 
 misguided men, influenced by a depraved and dis- 
 torted sense of what in their minds was justice, and 
 what in their judgment was good for the Ireland which 
 they loved and her enemies whom they hated, and 
 they staked their lives unselfishly in reckless dcsper- 
 
CHAELES STEWAKT PAENELL. 77 
 
 ation upon tlie deed. There is no lessening of their 
 guilt ill this, or palliation of the foul crime in which 
 they imbued their hands, but their guilt had at least 
 more to excuse it than had that of the villain who, 
 by playing upon their patriotic feelings, had incited 
 them to the commission of the deed and then basely 
 betrayed them in the hope of saving his own misera- 
 ble life. There is no necessity of going over the de- 
 tails of the trials here. It is enough to say that five 
 of the Invincibles paid the penalty for their crime 
 with their lives and several others were given long 
 terms of imprisonment. Carey himself, although the 
 greatest criminal of all, was given his liberty in con- 
 sideration of his services as informer, and he was fur- 
 nished with funds by government to betake himself 
 out of the country. He went first to England under 
 police protection, and then with his family he took 
 passage for South Africa; but the doom of the in- 
 former sought him out, and he was recognized and 
 shot down by an Irish fellow-passenger named James 
 O'Donnell just as the vessel reached port. O'Donnell 
 was arrested for the act and brought back to Eng- 
 land, where he was tried, convicted and executed, all 
 in the course of a few months. 
 
 The Phoenix Park murders were divested of all the 
 attributes of vulgar crime, and were marked by the 
 rank and position of the victims and the reckless 
 daring of the deed itself, but they were not the only 
 murders that occurred in Ireland during 1882. Al- 
 most every month of the year was marked with 
 blood. Beginning with the murder of the Huddys 
 and going down through the massacre of Maamtrasna, 
 the killing of Mr. Herbert, the unfortunate slaying 
 of Mrs. Smythe, the shooting of Mr. Blake at Lough- 
 rea and of Mi-. Bourke and his soldier escort at Ar- 
 drahan, the Castle Island murder, the shooting of 
 Doloughty, the murder of the policeman for whose 
 life that of young Walsh was taken, the Dublin 
 tragedies of Skipper's alley, Seville place and other 
 
18 LIFE AND SERVICES OP 
 
 by-ways; the deadly affair in Abbey street and the 
 stabbing of Mr. Field — all these prove that Ireland 
 was passing through a crisis most extraordinary and 
 alai'ining, full of horror and of shame. 
 
 But it was a horror and shame for which England, 
 not Ireland, was responsible. The crimes were a di- 
 rect and natural result of methods of misgovern- 
 ment which gave men no choice but to tamely sub- 
 mit to great wrongs or to take the law into their own 
 hands. The nation was bending beneath the weight 
 of great social and political grievances, and the people 
 were forbidden by law even to give voice to the ills 
 from which they suffered. Peaceable measures for 
 redress were prohibited ; repression and coercion 
 reigned. The Land League, which advocated consti- 
 tutional action, was proclaimed. The natural vent of 
 agitation was closed, and, under the circumstances, it 
 is not strange that the more desperate spirits had re- 
 course to secret societies, and that the hedge assassin 
 and the secret dagger took the place of the platform 
 agitator. 
 
 And the manner in which the law was administered 
 in the courts was not such as to reassure a people or 
 make them respect the system of government under 
 which they lived. The judges and prosecutors went 
 to shameful lengths in order to obtain convictions — 
 for it was convictions and not justice they sought to 
 obtain. Juries were packed in the most open and 
 reprehensible fashion, and Catholics were almost en- 
 tirely excluded from serving upon them. The panels 
 were made up almost altogether of creatures of the 
 Castle and of Orangemen who could be depended 
 upon to decide against the hapless prisoners. The 
 jury which tried Francis Hynes for murder during 
 that year stayed out all night and passed the time in 
 drinking and carousing, the quantity of liquors and 
 porter ordered for their use being so large as to jus- 
 tify the opinion that the jurymen were all drunk 
 when they came to a verdict of guilty. The Freeman's 
 
CUAKLES STEWART PARNELL. 79 
 
 Journal exposed this jiuy by publishing the bill for 
 liquors in detail, and tliereby created a great sensa- 
 tion. Mr. Gray, the editor and proprietor of the 
 Freeman, was at tlie time the high sheriff of Dublin, 
 and, therefore, an officer of the courts himself. This 
 fact gave his article the greater weight. The truth 
 of his charges could not be successfully disputed, and 
 anybody would suppose that on the strength of them 
 the court would immediately annul the verdict and 
 administer a sound rebuke to the jurymen, but such 
 was not the case. Instead of doing this Judge Law- 
 son proceeded at once to impose a heavy fine and a 
 term of impi-isonment upon Mr. Gray for contempt 
 of court in discovering the secrets of the jury-room, 
 while the verdict was allowed to stand as rendered. 
 Such action on the part of a judge who held his posi- 
 tion ostensibly to see that the laws were properly and 
 justly enforced was surely not calculated to inspire 
 the confidence or the respect of the people. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 FORSTER's attack upon MR. PARNELL — THE IRISH 
 leader's speech in REPLY. 
 
 It was to be expected that the English press would 
 make the most of Carey's revelations, especially that 
 part of them in which the arch-informer labored to 
 show — it is believed at the instigation of the govern- 
 ment — that his assassination society had been con- 
 nected with and aided by the Land League. 
 
 Among the men suggested by Mr. Parnell in the 
 Kilmainham treaty as likely to be of aid in putting 
 down outrages in Ireland, were Mr. Davitt, Mr. 
 Boyton and P. J. Sheridan ; all of whom had been 
 hard workers in tlie League cause. At the trials in 
 Dublin, Carey made statements vaguely tending to 
 connect Sheridan and an English leaguer named Frank 
 
80 LIFE AND SEBVICES OF 
 
 Byrne and his wife xnth the Invincihles, and although 
 his statements were not supported by any evidence, 
 direct or otherwise, they were at once accepted by 
 the anti-Nationahsts of all classes as gospel truth, 
 and on the day following tliat upon which Carey's evi- 
 dence was given the landlord newspapers in England 
 and Ireland teemed with fierce denunciations against 
 Mr. Parnell and his fellow ofiicers in the late Land 
 League, and accused them of being the allies and 
 employers of murderers. 
 
 It mattered not to these jouraals that there was 
 no proof against the Irish leaders, and that the case 
 against them at the best was only an inferential one, 
 and was not credited by any but those whose inclina- 
 tions led them to believe everything that was ill of 
 Ii'eland and Irishmen. Mr. Sheridan was in America 
 at the time of the trials, but he forwarded to Ireland 
 the most emphatic denials of Carey's statement impli- 
 cating him. Mrs. Byrne was arrested in London and 
 taken to Dublin, where she was confronted by Carey, 
 who, however, was unable to identify her as the per- 
 son who had supplied the Invincihles with weapons, 
 as he had previously charged, and the effort to throw 
 discredit on the Irish popular movement, and dis- 
 grace and guilt upon its leaders, ended in a signal 
 failure. 
 
 A few English papers were fair enough to acknowl- 
 edge this, and the J)aily JVews-puhVishGd an article on 
 the subject, which is worth quoting as a vindication 
 of the character of the Irish leaders at the hands of the 
 enemy. The JVews said: "The whole of the active 
 operations of the assassins were planned, with the 
 exception of the Phoenix Park assassinations, were 
 executed, or unsuccessfully attempted, while Mr. 
 Parnell, Mr, Dillon, and the other Irish leaders were 
 2>risoners in Kilmainham. Mr. Parnell was arrested 
 on the t3th of October, 1881, Mr. Dillon ten days later. 
 The inner circle, according to Mr. Carey's evidence, 
 was founded in the following November, when 
 
CHARLES STEWART PAENELL. 81 
 
 Walsh visited Carey and enrolled liim among tiie 
 'Invincibles.' In the same month the first money, 
 £50, which the Dnhlin directory received from the 
 outside, was given to them. In February, 1882, the 
 determination to murder Mr. Forster, Lord Cowper 
 and Mr. Burke was arrived at. On March 3, the firtt 
 arrangement was made for disposing of Mr, Forster. 
 The murder of Mr. Burke determined on in Novem- 
 ber, 1881, was perfected May 6, 1882. On May 2, 
 Mr. Parnell, Mr. Dillon and Mr. O'Kelly were re- 
 leased from Kilmainham, and they took their seats in 
 the House on the 4th. During the entire period, 
 therefore, of the operations of the Dublin murder 
 league, Mr. Parnell was apparently secluded from 
 Irish polities," 
 
 English statesmen, however, were not so candid as 
 the Daily JSTevs, and they made the most unscrupu- 
 lous use of the Carey revelations to weaken the Irish 
 cause. In parliament Mr. Gorst moved an amend- 
 ment to the address in reply to the speech from the 
 Throne, to the effect that, in view of the disclosures 
 which had taken place in Dublin, no further compro- 
 mise should be made with the Irish party, and Mr. 
 Forster, who owed his dismissal from the office of 
 Chief Secretary of Ireland to the influence of Mr. 
 Parnell, recognized in the revelations the instrument 
 by which he could be revenged upon his great enemy. 
 On February 22 Mr. Forster made a speech in which 
 he mercilessly arraigned the Irish leader. It was a 
 direct and measured accusation of connivance at as- 
 sassination and the perpetration of outrages, and it 
 was delivered with unsparing and vindictive force. 
 He charged Mr. Parnell with responsibility for 
 the utterances of the Irish World published in 
 America, and he claimed that the heading "Incidents 
 of the Campaign," over the list of outrages in United 
 Ireland, of which Mr. Parnell was one of the proprie- 
 tors, was a direct incitement to lawlessness. The 
 speech was frequently interrrupted by cheers from 
 
82 LIFE AND SEI.VICES OF 
 
 the English benches, and they were so hearty and 
 unanimous as to leave no doubt that ho had the sym- 
 pathy of the greater part of his audience. When he 
 reached the climax of his accusation Mr. Parnell, wlio 
 otherwise sat quietly through it all, gave him the lie 
 direct, and Mr. O'Kelly, tlie member for Roscommon, 
 kept on vociferating that he lied until the Speaker 
 "named" him, and, under the new rules, suspended 
 him for a week. When Mr. Forster had concluded, 
 every eye in the House was turned expectantly to 
 Mr. Parnell, and the scene was one of the most stir- 
 ring that the House had witnessed for a long time. 
 Everybody was curious to hear what the member for 
 Cork would say to Mr. Forster's charges, but the mem- 
 ber for Cork did not make any reply, at least on that 
 evening, and the House adjourned with its curiosity 
 still uugratified. 
 
 On the next evening, Feb. 23, in rising to resume 
 the debate on the address, Mr. Parnell took occasion 
 to answer the ex-chief secretary's attack in a calm 
 and dignified speech that elicited praise even from 
 his enemies. He told the House that he did not 
 speak from the belief that anything he could say 
 would have the slighest effect upon the public opin- 
 ion of England. All he wanted to do, he said, was 
 to make his position clear to the Irish people at home 
 and abroad, and in their eyes to clear it from the 
 unjust aspersions of a man who ought to have been 
 ashamed to have devoted his high abilities to the 
 task of traducing him. He reviewed Mr. Forster's 
 speech briefly and repudiated in detail the charges 
 therein made. He denied that he was in any way 
 responsible for the utterances of the IrisJi World 
 newspaper, and asserted that he did not even read it, 
 and he showed that the heading from United Ireland^ 
 cited by Mr. Forster, was only used while its editor, 
 Mr. William O'Brien, the member for Mallow, and 
 most of its staff were in prison, where they were not 
 allowed even to see the paper, and that immediately 
 
CnAELES STEWAET TAKNELL. 83 
 
 upon l^Ir. O'Brien's release the lieading disappeared. 
 Speaking of the evidence which, it was charged, 
 tended to throw suspicion upon some members of 
 the Land League in connection with the Invincibles, 
 and the garbled accounts of the same given bj the 
 Dublin correspondents of the London papers, Mi'. 
 Parnell said : 
 
 " Now, sir, the statements which were made in that 
 direction were made by the approver Carey. They 
 are statements not of fact, but of belief. They are 
 three in number. Carey swore as a fact that lie had 
 met a person in the garb of a priest, and that he was 
 introduced to him as Father Murpliy ; that this man 
 informed him that he was going into the country to 
 form a branch of the Invincible organization, and 
 that he (Carey) was afterwards informed (he did not 
 say who by) that this Father Murphy was Mr. Sheri- 
 dan. Secondly, he swore that some amongst his com- 
 rades believe that the money came from America, 
 and others from the Land League. This is a state- 
 ment of opinion. I do not comment on it, but merely 
 quote it to inform the House what it was, and I should 
 be perfectly satisfied to allow them to draw their own 
 conclusions. Thirdly, the man has sworn that the 
 woman he was informed was Mrs. Byrne, the wife of 
 the secretary of the English Land League confedera- 
 tion, had brought him some weapous. This too, is 
 hearsay evidence. These statements of Carey would 
 not be possible in an ordinary case, if it were not one 
 of conspiracy, and if he had not sworn that he heard 
 these statements from some of the persons who are 
 charged with being participators in the conspiracy. 
 Now, the third statement, that the woman who 
 brought the weapons was Mrs. Byrne, has already 
 been abundantly disproved. She was brought over 
 from England to Dublin. Carey failed to identify 
 her, and she was discharged by the detective depart- 
 ment with public apologies. The second statement, 
 as to the source from which the money came, in 'the 
 
84 LIFE A2<D SERVICES OF 
 
 opinions of his comrades seems to rest on the fact, 
 which I am perfectly ready to admit, and which I be- 
 lieve to be true, that some of these men got checks 
 for the support of their families from the sustenta- 
 tion fund, while they were in prison. Those checks 
 were sent to hundreds and hundreds of families 
 throughout the country. It was an ordinary custom 
 of the sustentation fund to give money to the families 
 of all the prisoners, and tlie money was very often 
 sent through the yjrisoners themselves to the families 
 of prisoners deprived of the ordinary means of sup- 
 port by the imprisonment of the bread winner ; and 
 I believe that evidence will be produced to show that 
 Edward M'Caffery, one of the prisoners, actually 
 sent back his clieck to the Ladies' Land League, on 
 the ground that he did not sympathize with its ob- 
 ject, that he knew nothing of it, and that he had, 
 thei'efore, no right to share the sustentation fund ; 
 and thought it most unjust that the Ladies' Land 
 League should send checks to men not affiliated with 
 that organization. It is strange that a few solitary 
 instances, amongst hundreds of families throughout 
 the country, should be put forward to justify the 
 suspicion of the Land League having found money 
 for the Phoenix Park assassination. 
 
 " Then, as to Sheridan, a statement has been made 
 and circulated that I offered the services of Mr. Sheri- 
 dan to the British government to put down the out- 
 rages in the west of Ireland, because I considered 
 him a fit person for the work, since he knew the de- 
 tails of those outrages. This is based on the cabinet 
 memorandum which the right honorable gentleman 
 says he furnished to his colleagues, and which they 
 had full possession of when they decided to release 
 the suspects ; but it is desiiable to point out for the 
 information of the English public that the right 
 honorable gentleman is coatiadicted as to the cabinet 
 memorandum and the statements on which it is based 
 by the member for Clare. The honorable member 
 
CHA.RLES STEWART PARNELL. 85 
 
 for Clare wrote to the London newspapers on the 
 18th of May last, the day following the publication 
 of the cabinet secret by the right honorable gentle- 
 man," 
 
 Mr. Parnell then read the letter in question, in 
 which Mr. O'Sliea said that he had mentioned to Mr. 
 Forster the names, not only of Sheridan, but of 
 Davitt, Boyton and others, and Mr. Parnell then 
 proceeded: "Therefore, a question of great importance 
 as to a matter of fact has arisen between the right 
 honorable member for Bradford and the member for 
 Clare. It is remarkable that the right honorable gen- 
 tleman should not have mentioned the other names in 
 his cabinent memorandum. Mr. Davitt was released 
 immediately afterwards, owing to the representations 
 which were made by the honorable member for Clai'e. 
 Why was Mr. Davitt not included in this communi- 
 cation? Why was not Boyton included in the 
 cabinet memorandum? He had left Ireland imme- 
 diately after his release, and it was known that he 
 could not return to Ireland without being rearrested. 
 Why was not Mr. Egan's name included in the cabinet 
 memorandum ? Why was only Mr. Sheridan's name 
 selected to make it out that it was privy to the out- 
 rages? I leave these questions to be answered by 
 members who have a better knowledge of what 
 actually passed than I have. I hope their significance 
 will be considered and pondered on by the House. 
 
 " The right honorable gentleman has asked me to 
 defend myself. I have nothing to defend myself 
 against. The right honorable gentleman has con- 
 fessed that he attempted to obtain a declaration and 
 public promise from me which should have the effect, 
 had I given it, of discrediting me with the Irish peo- 
 ple. He has admitted that he failed in that attempt, 
 and failing in it he lost his own position. He boasted 
 last night that he had deposed me from some imagin- 
 ary position he is pleased to assign to me. But I 
 have this consolation ; we both fell into the ditch. I 
 
86 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 do not think that in the business of pulling ourseives 
 out I have suffered so much in the opinion of my 
 countrymen as the right honorable gentleman has 
 suffered in the opinion of his. Yes ; the right 
 honorable gentleman has deposed me from my posi- 
 tion as a prominent Irish politician ; I admit that he 
 has been very successful in that. . I have taken very 
 little part in Irish politics since my release. I ex- 
 pressed my reason for that after the passing of the 
 crimes act. I said that, in my judgment, the crimes 
 act would result in such a state of affairs that between 
 the government and the criminals there it would be 
 impossible to find a place for constitutional agitation. 
 I believe so still. Here is the last item of news which 
 was published in the journal of yesterday. It is that 
 Mr. Patrick Ford, of the Irish World, w^ho used to 
 collect money to send to the Land League, is now 
 collecting for a very different purpose. The right 
 honorable gentleman may be proud of his work. I 
 regi'et it. J look with aj^prehension to the future re- 
 lations between England and Ireland. I see that it is 
 impossible to stem the current of jDrejudice which 
 has arisen during the last few days. I regret that 
 the officials charged with the administration of this 
 crimes act are uniit for their post. I am sure the 
 present chief secretary to the lord lieutenant must 
 admit that to the fullest extreme. I feel that the 
 present secretary to the lord lieutenant must say of 
 his predecessor, in the language of scripture, ' I am 
 not worthy to loose his shoe latchct.' It would have 
 been far better if you were going to jjass an act of 
 tliis kind to have had it administered by the seasoned 
 politician now in disgrace. Call him back to his 
 post, send him to help Lord Spencer in the congenial 
 work of the gallows in Ireland, send hiin to look after 
 the secret negotiations of Dublin Castle, send him to 
 superintend the payment of blood money, send him 
 to distribute the taxes which an unfortunate and 
 starving peasantry have to pay for crimes not com- 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 87 
 
 mitted by them. All this would be congenial woi-k 
 to the right honorable gentleman. 
 
 '• We invite you to man yourselves to send your 
 ablest and best men to push forward the task of mis- 
 governing and oppressing Ireland. For my own part I 
 am confident as to the future of Ireland. Though the 
 horizon may now seem cloudy, I believe her people will 
 survive the present oppression, as they have survived 
 many worse ones. Although our progress may be 
 slow, it will be sure. The time will come when the 
 people of this country will admit once again that 
 they have been mistaken and have been deceived — 
 that they have been led asti-ny as to the right way of 
 governing a noble, a brave and an impulsive people — 
 and that they will reject their present guides and 
 leaders with just as much determination as they re- 
 jected the services of the right honorable gentleman 
 the member for Bradford." 
 
 This sharp wordy encounter created great excite- 
 ment in political circles and for a few days it was the 
 talk of the town. Irishmen everywhere were much 
 pleased with Mr. Parnell's speech — especially its 
 defiant tone — and one effect of it was an immediate 
 ;ind decided strengthening of his hold upon the affec- 
 tions and confidence of his couufcrymLU. 
 
 Some little time before this it had been announced 
 in the newspapers that the ancient patrimony of the 
 Parnells in Wicklow was to be sold under the ham- 
 mer for debt and that Mr. Parnell was unable to 
 redeem it. This now afforded the people an oppor- 
 tunity to make an effective answer to Mr. Forstcr's 
 charges and at the same time to testify in a substan- 
 tial way their gratitude for the splendid benefits 
 which Mr. Parnell had conferred upon Ireland during 
 his political career, and they took advantage of it by 
 presenting him with a national offering. Archbishop 
 Thomas W. Croke of Cashel gave a start to the 
 movement by a letter to the Dviblin Freeman and a 
 subscription of £50, and it proceeded with rapidity 
 
88 LIFE AND SERVICES OP 
 
 until it reached tlie magnificent eumof £38,000, when 
 it was presented to the Irish leader at a banquet 
 given in his honor in Dublin, 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 AN ATTEMPT AT DESCRIPTION OF MR. PAR^ELl's 
 QUALITIES AS A LEADER AND THE CHARACTER AND 
 COMPOSITION OF THE LAND AND NATIONAL LEAGUE 
 MOVEMENTS. 
 
 This is perhaps the place to observe that the open- 
 ing remarks of Mr. Parnell in his reply to W. E. 
 Forster give the key to the extraordinary hold which 
 he undoubtedly has upon the affections and the confi- 
 dence of the Irish people; " I assure tlie House — and 
 though it is not, perhaps, a very respectful assurance, 
 T make it with the greatest respect — I assure the 
 House that I do not expect that anything I can say 
 will have the slightest effect upon the public opinion 
 of England. The utmost that I desire to do is to 
 make my position clear to the Irish people at home 
 and abroad." 
 
 • These two sentences contain in a nutshell the plan 
 of Mr, Parnell's career, so to speak, and the secret of 
 his success. Ireland and the Irish people are with 
 him above and before everything else. It is 
 for Ireland that he thinks ; for Ireland that he speaks; 
 for Ireland that he struggles, and not for Ireland as 
 an integral part of the British Empire, but for Ire- 
 land individually and alone. With him Irish interests 
 are above English interests ; Irish desires are before 
 English desires. He is pre-eminently the representa- 
 tive of Ireland, and though his position compels him 
 to acknowledge himself a subject of the Queen his 
 whole career exemplifies the singleness of his devo- 
 tion to his native land. His interests and those of 
 the Irish people are one. In his eyes all T\^bo impede 
 
CIIMT.KS STEWART PAENELL. 89 
 
 the progress or prevent the prosperity of tlie Irish 
 nation are enemies to be opjjosed to the utmost, and 
 he opposes them with the only effective weapon at 
 his oom-mand. Ireland is the shrine at whit-h he wor- 
 ships, and the object of his ambition is to confer 
 upon her people a government of their own — by 
 themselves and for themselves. 
 
 And it is because the Irish people realize this — be- 
 cause they know that Mr. Parnell's desires are identi- 
 cal with their desires, and that in his aims and objects 
 he has at heart only the betterment of their cojidition 
 politically and socially — that they support him so loy- 
 ally and so unanimously. 
 
 And their's is not an ignorant following. They 
 see in this man, first and above all else, that he is 
 essentially Irish, and next that he is a disinterested and 
 capable leader, who has a thorough acquaintance 
 with the ills from which their country languishes and 
 who has the will and — with their help — the ability 
 to remedy them. Knowing these things Vaqj cannot 
 help but regard him with sentiments of love and 
 gratitude and fealty and hope. 
 
 TJie movement of which Mr.Parnell is the head is very 
 different from those of which O'Connell was the leader, 
 in that the people composing it are different. In the 
 agitation for Catholic Emancipation, and later, in the 
 struggle for Repeal, the mass of the Irish people 
 were ignorant — comj^ulsorily so, under existing 
 British laws — and it was at the heart that O'Connell's 
 appeals were aimed, rather than at the head. He 
 found it necessary to instruct in order to arouse. lie 
 moved the hearts of the people by the pathetic story 
 of their country's wrongs, and he fired their im.agina- 
 tions by the pictures which he drew of that country's 
 future, if they would but follow and obey him. His 
 eloquence thrilled them; his ability encouraged them; 
 his audacity invigorated and his zeal iiispii-! d them. 
 Of those movements O'Connell was tho soul. The 
 Catholic Association was his creation and his creature. 
 
GO LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 It was his brain that conceived it ; his mind that 
 directed and controlled it; liis hand that nourished, 
 and his eye tliat jealously guarded the organization 
 until it grew from infantile to gigantic proportion-^. 
 The Irish people followed him blindl}^, and — it is no 
 detraction to them to say — without knowing hardly 
 what they were to achieve, or how they were to 
 achieve it. They followed him because he told them 
 to do so. "Put your feet in my tracks," he used to 
 say, " and the hand of the law can never touch you." 
 They had confidence in him as an able and dextf'rous 
 lawyer, and they obeyed his behests without ques- 
 tion. 
 
 But the people of O'ConnelTstime could not gauge 
 the progress or the policy of his movement Avitli any 
 degree of accuracy ; their only knowledge was ob- 
 tained from the ispeeches that fell from his lips. The 
 newspaper was not so common in Ireland then as it 
 is at present, and, if it had been, the great majority 
 of O'Connell's followers would be unable to read it. 
 The masses did not know what they were striving 
 for, except in a vague and general way, but they had 
 confidence in O'Counell, and it was enough that he 
 told them to strive. They had implicit trust in his 
 promises, and in his capacity, and the great tribune 
 amply justified that trust by his achievements. 
 Through his exertions Catholic emancipation was 
 accomplished, and a people were aroused from a con- 
 dition of intellectual and political torpitude to one of 
 manly activity. 
 
 The struggle for Repeal was conducted on the same 
 lines as the Catholic agitation. In the former, as in 
 the latter, the potent personality of O'Connell filled 
 up the eye. One movement had freedom of con- 
 science as its object ; the other had self-government. 
 Both movements were patriotic, and, from the stand- 
 point of O'Connell, Shiel, the priests, the Young Ire- 
 landers and a few others, both could be said to be 
 enlightened ; but, from the standpoint of the people, 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL 91 
 
 only the first was true. O'Connell planned, and they 
 blindly, dumbly executed. 
 
 The condition of the people among whom the Land 
 movement was started was infinitely superior, with 
 respect to education, to that of the people in O'Con- 
 nell's day. Ireland has made great strides in educa- 
 tional progress since then, and her schools now are 
 more largely attended, in proportion to population, 
 even than those o"^ the United States. Able news- 
 papers are published in abundance too, and the doc- 
 trines promulgated by them are almost exclusively 
 National. The history of the country — its ancient 
 glories; its conquest; its wrongs and its rights — are 
 graven deeply in the minds and memories of nearly 
 every adult son and daughter, and the patriotic senti- 
 ments which were formerly entertained by the j^eople 
 because of a vague belief that God intended them 
 to be free, have been strengthened and intensified by 
 the knowledge acquired by education. It is a fact, 
 in itself strikingly demonstrative of the incongruity 
 of enlightenment and serfdom, that correspondingly 
 as the Irish people gained in intelligence they grew 
 in National sentiment. 
 
 The Catholic agitation was started among a popu- 
 lation more or less servile and almost wholly unedu- 
 cated, but the movement of the last five years (for 
 the Land League movement and the National League 
 movement are practically one, the last being the com- 
 plement and amplification of the first) had its birth 
 and flourishes among an intelligent, an energetic and 
 an industrious people. 
 
 The Land movement was a voluntary union of in- 
 dividuals suffering under unjust and oppressive laws, 
 who combined in a determined and comprehensive 
 efi^ort to break the shackles which held them down. 
 The movement had for its basis the never dying prin- 
 ciiDles of justice and right, and its programme was 
 reasonable, desirable and attainable. It was an in- 
 tellectual and educational movement and to head it 
 
92 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 the best wisdom and judgment of the country called 
 Charles Stewart Parnell in 1879. 
 
 Mr. Parnell is not a great orator such as O'Connell 
 was. O'Connell could make the people weep or laugh 
 as he willed by the magical power of his eloquence, 
 and his passionate exhortations could arouse them to 
 the wildest enthusiasm. The world had never seen his 
 equal as a popular orator, and the English Parliament, 
 fruitful as it was in great men, could not show his 
 master in debate. But Mr. Parnell makes no preten- 
 sions to be gifted as an orator. Neither on the pub- 
 he platform nor in the House of Commons does he 
 use rhetoric or affect eloquence. His most prominent 
 characteristics.as. a speaker are a cold, unimpassioned 
 manner ; anifriperturbability that nothing can ruffle or 
 disturb; a wide and intimate knowledge of Parlia- 
 mentary procedure ; a prodigious command of facts 
 and princij)les ; great earnestness and clearness in 
 argument ; large powers of convincing reasoning, 
 and a very considerable faculty for crushing invective 
 and concentrated sarcasm. 
 
 His speeches are always interesting and impressive 
 and they have the more weight in Parliament because 
 they are addressed to the intellect rather than to the 
 emotions. He can, however, be impassioned on oc- 
 casion, but never to the extent of losing any of his 
 wonderful self-control. 
 
 If the historian Lecky is right when he says that 
 *'he who can furnish the watchwords of party, the 
 epigrams of debate, will now exercise the greatest 
 and most abiding influence," as contra-distinguished 
 from the eloquent orator of a century ago, Mr. Par- 
 nell is gifted in the highest degree. Every one of his 
 rpeeches contains examples of terse, vigorous and vivid 
 expression which impress the listener and remain in 
 the memory. Hf put a limit to the coersive powers 
 of Parliament in the defiant ex])ression "You cannot 
 imprison a nation." He saved tiie farmers of Ireland 
 in a great crisis by the advice " Keep a firm grip on 
 
CHARLES STEWART PAENELL. 93 
 
 your homesteads," and lie struck down the scheme for 
 the nationalization of land in the sentence " You must 
 either buy the land or fight for it." O'Connell said 
 in praise of Grattan that he was constantly saying 
 ^things that were remembered, and every meeting in 
 Ireland gives testimony to the possession of the same 
 power by Mr. Parnell. His phrases epitomizing great 
 truths or desirable action are instantly caught up and 
 repeated by the popular voice from end to end of Ire- 
 land. 
 
 In stature Mr. Parnell is something above the me- 
 dium height and of rather slight, but active and 
 strong build. His face is a handsome one, but habit- 
 ually pale and stern ; his forehead is broad and high 
 and his bearing aristocratic and dignified. He 
 seldom speaks in the House of Commons except on 
 occasions of moment, leaving that duty to his lieuten- 
 ants, of whom he has several who are very able men. 
 When he does address the House, he always com- 
 mands great attention, and when it is known before- 
 hand that he is to speak the chamber is generally 
 crowded. His parliamentary knowledge is, as I have 
 said before, very great and he is very tenacious of a 
 point, fighting every inch of the ground. He is quick 
 to see an advantage and prompt in acting upon it. 
 He rarely makes an error in statement, and Mi*. Glad- 
 stone himself has testified that " no member of the 
 House can say what he has to say so clearly or 
 in so few words as the member for Cork." Then 
 there is allied to him a touch of the mysterious. No 
 one knows what he is going to say until he says it, 
 and he often delivers himself of that which was 
 wholly unexpected. 
 
 Before an Irish popular audience this cold, clear, 
 logical speaker is listened to with eagerness and the 
 most respectful attention and remarks and phrases of 
 his are treasured up in the memories of the populace 
 or coined into watchwords. He can Fe daring on oc- 
 casion and then can urge the people to the utmost 
 
94 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 limit of safe resistance ; but generally he is cool, cau- 
 tious and persevering. His very coldness and imper- 
 turbability of exterior attracts and he is clioered as 
 enthusiastically as if he were the most fervid and 
 eloquent of orators. And this too, by the traditionally 
 hotheaded and thoughtless Irish peasantry. Nothing 
 is more clearly illustrative of the change in the peo- 
 ple since O'Connell's time. The peasant of Charles 
 Lever and of Samuel Lover has totally disappeared 
 from the country and the men who follow Parnell are 
 cool-headed, intelligent and calculating. 
 
 In the councils of the Parliamentary party Mr. Par- 
 nell is tolerant of all opinions and listens patiently to all 
 sides of every question. His advice is always ready 
 when called for, and is invariably sound, sagacious 
 and safe. The fact that his associates love as well as 
 follow him is testimony to his personal merits and to 
 the statesmanlike judgment with which he forms his 
 plans and carries them out vvnlhout producing envy or 
 irritation in the minds of his colleagues. 
 
 Mr. Parnell is beyond question a man possessing in 
 his character many of the attributes of greatness, but 
 he is too young as yet and his life-work in too unfin- 
 ished a state to warrant an attempt at comparison 
 with the great personages of history. That will be 
 the task of the future historian. However, every day 
 that passes adds so largely to his reputation tha^ it 
 may be predicted with safety that should he succeed 
 in achieving Home Rule for Ireland his name will 
 rank with that of Washington and Bismarck in, the 
 annals of the founders of nations. 
 
CHARLES STBWAKT PAEJSTELL. 95 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 IRISH LEGISLATION- IIST PARLIAMENT IN" 1883 — THE 
 
 ORANGE OUTRAGES IN IRELAND THE PROGRESS 
 
 OP THE POPULAR MOVEMENT., 
 
 A FEW days after the Forster incident in the House 
 of Commons — on Feb. 26, 1883 — Mr. Parnell again 
 moved to the attack upon government by an amend- 
 ment to the address in reply to the Queen's speech, 
 severely arraigning the administration of the Crimes 
 act in Ireland. In his speech he classed Earl Spencer, 
 ihe lord lieutenant, as an autocrat greater than the 
 Czar of Russia in his own dominions ; charged most 
 of the Irish judges with being mere political hangers- 
 on to the Castle, who were more intent on obtaining 
 verdicts of gnilty than in vindicating the law, and de- 
 nounced the methods of packing juries with Protest- 
 ants in the trial of Catholics as unconstitutional and 
 degrading. He warned the government that they 
 would never have an Ireland more tranquil so long as 
 the people were taught tliat to be tranquil was to be 
 treated as though they had nothing to complain of ; 
 but the government was in no mood to receive advice 
 from the Irish leader and his amendment was defeated 
 by an overwhelming majority. Not only that, but 
 the government announced that no more remedial 
 legislation need be expected for Ireland. English in- 
 terests had for too long been neglected and the minis- 
 tei-s were now determined to devote to them all the 
 remaining time of the session. 
 
 But the Irish members were not to be put down so 
 easily. Mr. Parnell had a programme too, and in 
 spite of the government's pronouncement he was re- 
 solved to carry it out. With this end in view he set 
 earnestly to work and by a series of masterly moves 
 he pompelled the passage during the year of three 
 bills of great importance to Ireland, namely : The 
 Fisheries bill, the Laborers' bill and the Tramways bill. 
 
96 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 The first of these was intended to operate in the 
 development of a great Irisli industry by the erection 
 of much needed piers and harbors. 
 
 The Labort-r.^' bill — with the co-operation of the 
 boards of guardians and the National League — would 
 result in giving the laborers decent homes and plots 
 of land, and was a very important contribution lo 
 agrarian legislation. This bill embodied principles 
 of vast importance and of far-reaching scope, whether 
 looked at from the lowest light of expediency or from 
 its highest aspect of justice and morality. It tended 
 to serve as a check on emigration by giving to the 
 laborer the attractive prospect of a home, not in the 
 back slums of towns, but in the healthful and congenial 
 scenes of his daily avocations. 
 
 The Tramways act was intended to open up the 
 counti-y to trade and 'commerce and to confer advan- 
 tages of ready and convenient transit on districts too 
 poor to maintain more pretentious railways. One 
 clause of the bill provided for the carrying out of 
 Mr. Parnell's scheme for a migration, as opposed to 
 the government's emigration pulicj^, by which the 
 surplus population of certain districts in Ireland was 
 10 be transplanted to other districts more fertile and 
 less densely peopled. 
 
 Such is the record of the achievements of the Irish 
 party in Parliament for the year 1883. It does not 
 include a tithe of what the Parnellites aspired to ob- 
 tain, but the bills passed were important, neverthe- 
 less, as progressive measures, and as calculated to ad- 
 vance the National cause by putting the people in a 
 better condition to insist upon the compliance by 
 government with all their just demands. 
 
 The condition of things in Ireland in the meantime 
 was again exciting general remark. Arrests undei* 
 the Crimes act Avere growing more and more frequent 
 and the victims were among the most prominent men 
 in the country, including Messrs. Davitt and Quiun, 
 T. M. Healy, M. P.; the Mayor of Wexford, T. Ilar- 
 
o 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 97 
 
 rington, M. P.; Editor McPbilpinof the Tuam JSFeios 
 and many others equally well known. United Ireland, 
 the orgaa of the National League, was seized by the 
 government and its editor was put upon his trial. It 
 looked as though the reign of terror of the preceding 
 year was about to be revived in all its horrors. 
 
 The arrests were made principally among the Na- 
 tionalists, but nearly all the disorder and disturbance 
 in the country were created by the Orangemen. This 
 was especially the case in Ulster, the Orange strong- 
 hold. Meetings of Orangemen wore called avowedly 
 for the purpose of kindling anew the traditional hos- 
 tility to Catholics, and the northern counties wit- 
 nessed many scenes of riot and disorder, which, had 
 they occurred in other parts of Ireland, would have 
 caused the disordered districts to be instantly pro- 
 claimed. Bands of Orangemen committed many acts 
 of violence upon the persons and property of their 
 Catholic fellow-countrymen, and they explained and 
 attempted to jusiify them on the ground that the vic- 
 tims were disloyal to the Crown. Peaceable Nation- 
 alist meetings were attacked by these ultra loyalists 
 and many fatalities resulted, the government looking 
 supinely on, and the lord lieutenant exercised the 
 plenary powers with which he was clothed by the 
 Crimes act only to suppress Nationalist meetings. 
 The Orange meetings were for a time encouraged and 
 connived at ; but the Nationalist meetings were pro- 
 claimed as assemblages likely to cause disturbances of 
 the peace, not by the Nationalists, but by the Orange- 
 men, who had announced a determination to disperse 
 all Nationalist assemblages — and so the government 
 made the Nationalists do penance to prevent the 
 Orangemen from committing sin. 
 
 But this state of things could not go on. The 
 partiality of the government was too manifest. The 
 ministers professed to be sailing on " an even keel," 
 but Mr. Parnell showed that in the administration of 
 the laws in Ireland Earl Spencer and Mr. Trevelyau 
 
98 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 were very decidedly one-sided. He publicly exposed 
 their bias, and demanded that the same measures of 
 lepressiou to which the Nationalists had been sub- 
 jected should be applied with equal rigjor to the 
 Orangemen. The result was tiiat Earl Spencer did 
 make a pretense of suppressing the Tin'awl'ul meetings 
 of Orangemen as well as the lawful meetings of 
 Nationalists, but he only went far enougli to alienate 
 the Orange leaders, without convincing Nationalists 
 of the sincerity of his intention to use the large and 
 harsh powers conferred upon him with strict im- 
 partiality. 
 
 These were the dai*k clouds which lowered upon 
 the National movement in 1883, but emerging from 
 the shadows the Nationalists could look back witli 
 satisfaction on the work of the year. They had 
 subscribed a magnificent tribute to their leader in 
 testimony of their esteem and confidcnci", and they 
 had won an unparalleled scries of election triumplis 
 in Mallow, in Westmeath, in Tipperary, in AVexford 
 borough, in Wexford county, in Monaghan, in Sligo, 
 and in Limerick. Besides these they had elected 
 Nationalist mayors, sheriffs, aldermen, councillors 
 and guardians in almost every city and town in Ire- 
 land, and everything indicated tlie growing strength 
 and power of the movement. Their representatives 
 in Parliament had never been so closely identified 
 with the people, nor had they ever before been so 
 strong, because never before were they so thoroughly 
 united in the cause of Ireland. They had to fight 
 against great odds in the House of Commons, but 
 the Fisheries bill, the Tramways bill, and the Labor- 
 ers' bill bore testimony to their prowess, and were 
 trophies that showed that they did not fight in 
 vain. 
 
CHABLES STEWART PARNELL. 99 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE FRANCHISE BILL AND ITS EFFECT UPON THE 
 IRISH ELECTORATE. 
 
 Long before the session of 1884 opened Mr. Glad- 
 stone's proposed measure for the reform of the 
 franciiise had been the subject of earnest con- 
 sideration by Mr. Parnell and of discussion by 
 the Irish Parliamentary party. It was not known, 
 of course, just how radical the measure would be, 
 nor to what extent it would favorably aflfect Ireland 
 in comparison with England, but it was hinted that 
 the Irish franchise was to be treated in a separate 
 bill which would be brought forward after the pas- 
 sage of the English and Scotch bill. 
 
 In the cabinet Lord Hartington strenuously ob- 
 jected to entrusting the ballot to what he was pleased 
 to call " the element hostile to government " in the 
 Irish population, and the Tories, with the exception 
 of Lord Randolph Churchill and one or two others, 
 were all antagonistic to the inclusion of the Irish in 
 the benefits of the bill. The Irish landlords and the 
 Irish Orangemen used all their influence against 
 Ireland also, and it became evident that Ireland's 
 only chance of sharing in the benefits of the reform 
 lay in getting recognition in the same bill with 
 England and Scotland. 
 
 Mr. Parnell saw this at once. He knew that if 
 Ireland was treated in a separate bill that bill would 
 stand very little chance of passing. For after the 
 English and Scotch had got all they wanted, the 
 Irish would be left to shift for themselves ; and even 
 should it succeed in passing the Commons, the land- 
 lord interest in the House of Lords would certainly 
 be able to throw the measure out, and they would do 
 this the more readily because neither the Liberals nor 
 the Tories would make their act a party question, nor 
 be likely to take them to task for it. 
 
100 LIFE AX^D tKEVICES OF 
 
 Holding this view on the subject, Mr. Parnell took 
 an early opportunity to make Mr. Gladstone under- 
 stand that unless Ireland was placed on the same 
 footing with England, and in the same bill, he would 
 do his utmost lo defeat the government. And he 
 could defeat tbem, too, for in his position on this 
 question he had the pledge of support from many 
 tladicals, and with their aid he had the English bill 
 at his mercy. Unless Ireland was included there 
 would be no hope of carrying a bill for England. 
 That was the situation. Mr. Gladstone had prom- 
 ised this reform to the English people, and 
 defeat to him would mean deposal from office. He 
 gauged Mr. Parnell's power correctly and he feared 
 it, so he decided that Ireland should have the same 
 privileges as England, and he brought in his bill 
 accordingly. 
 
 As a matter of fact there was far more need of 
 such a bill for Ireland than there was for England or 
 Scotland, the basis of the electorate being far from 
 equal. In Ireland the proportion of electors to the 
 population was only one in every twenty-three and a 
 half, while in England and Wales it was one in nine and 
 a quarter, and in Scotland one in eight and two- 
 thirds. 
 
 The bill was the most democratic measure which a 
 British minister had advocated in half a century. It 
 practically admitted the American idea that the right 
 to vote is inherent in every capable citizen. Mr. 
 Gladstone introduced it in the House of Commons on 
 Feb. 28, 1884, under the name of the Household 
 Suffrage bill, and he explained its provisions in a two 
 hours' speech. He showed that it would greatly ex- 
 tend the franchise and place the voters of boroughs 
 and counties upon an equal footing, thereby increas- 
 ing the voting power of the United Kingdom by about 
 2,000,000—1,300,000 being for England ; 400,000 for 
 Ireland and 200,000 for Scotland. Mr. Gladstone 
 pointed out that the act would abolish the £4 rating 
 
CHARLES STEWART PAK:NELL. 10] 
 
 franchise in Ireland and would substitute a £10 clear 
 yearly value in its stead; that it conferred anew 
 franchise upon the boroughs of England, Ireland and 
 Scotland called the Service franchise, which would 
 enfranchise persons who are neither owners or tenants, 
 but yet are householders, in the sense that they are 
 inhabitants of an integral part of a house. This would 
 apply to the resident officers of institutions and to 
 servants who fulfill functions of responsible inhabitant 
 householders. In the counties the reform was also 
 large. The £12 rating franchise in these was reduced 
 to the £10 annual value franchise as in boroughs, and 
 they would also have the Lodger franchise and the 
 Service franchise, which would give votes to occu- 
 piers in the sense of inhabitancy and would embrace 
 the servants of the gentry, the servants of farmers 
 and the servants of employers generally. 
 
 These were the main provisions of the bill. In his 
 speech Mr. Gladstone acknowledged that the Irish 
 registration law was deplorably inefficient, and he 
 
 Promised that, in accordance with the desires of the 
 rish members, he would try to secure its amendment 
 at an early day. He concluded his speech as follows: 
 " All the three countries have a case for enfran- 
 chisement arising out of the inefficiency of the 
 present Constituency, as compared with what it 
 might be, but of the three cases belonging to the three 
 countries, the strongest is thnt of Ireland. I cannot 
 be any party to passing one bill for Englaud and 
 another for Scotland and then leaving Ireland to take 
 its chance ; but I notice that the language of the 
 Conservatives is in effect that there may be some- 
 thing said in favor of extending the franchise to Eng- 
 laud and Scotland, but that to extend it to Ireland would 
 be madness. That is an indication of what would 
 probably happen — I will not say in this House, but 
 elsewhere — if separate bills were to be brought in. 
 Under those circumstances, the necessity of a com- 
 plete measure, in point of area, has, I would say, been 
 
102 LIFE AND SERVICES OP 
 
 absolute, and nothing would induce us to depart 
 from it." 
 
 The Household Suffrage bill was opposed by the 
 majority of the Tories in the House, but it was finally 
 passed through its several stages and sent to the 
 House of Lords, where is was practically shelved by 
 the adoption of Lord Cairns' amendment postponing 
 the extension of the franchise until a redistribution 
 scheme should be arranged, and with this Mr. Glad- 
 stone was forced to be content until the autumn 
 session should give him another chance to push his 
 pet measure. 
 
 During the vacation the Liberals held great meet- 
 ings in the large towns in England and began a fierce 
 agitation in favor of the extension of the franchise, 
 in the hope that the force of public opinion would 
 move the Lords to pass the franchise bill when next 
 it came before them. A very bitter feeling was 
 aroused against the hereditary chamber, and it was 
 rumored that Mr. Gladstone would make a majority 
 in the Lords by doing away with the L-ish and Scotch 
 representative peer system, giving the Irish and 
 Scotch peers seats in the House. It was threatened, 
 moreover, that, if the Lords persisted in their opposi- 
 tion to the reform, the Upper House of Parliament 
 would be abolished altogether. 
 
 These demonstrations had the intended effect, and 
 when Parliament met again that autumn the House- 
 hold Suffrage bill was brought forward once more 
 under the name of the Representation of the People 
 Act and successfully carried through both Houses, 
 receiving the royal assent on Dec. 6. The Redis- 
 tribution of Seats act was introduced at this session 
 also, but it did not pass until the following year. 
 
CHARLES STEWAKT PARNELL. 103 
 
 CHAPTER XYIL 
 
 THE POWERS OF DUBLIN" CASTLE IN THE GOVERK- 
 MENT THE DUBLIlSr SCANDALS. 
 
 In Ireland the interest of the year centered in the 
 aggressive and successful war which the Nationalists 
 had been making upon the very citadel of British 
 government in the country — Dublin Castle. 
 
 By Irishmen the term Dublin Castle is used to 
 signify the embodiment of the system which controls 
 the government of Ireland. The " Castle " is the 
 center of all the power, as v.'ell as the seat of all the 
 iniquities, in the Irish administration. At its head 
 stands the lord lieutenant ; under him the chief 
 secretary, and next to him the under secretary and 
 the two assistant under secretaries. These comprise 
 what is called the executive of Ireland, and are usu- 
 ally men who are neither amciiable to, nor likely to 
 be influenced by, the wishes of the unfortunate people 
 whom they are supposed to govern. The members 
 of the executive are rarely Irishmen, but if by any 
 chance a man of Irish birth happens to be appointed, 
 he is sure to be of that class having no sympathy 
 with the political ideas of the great mass of the Irish 
 people. At this time the lord lieutenant was Earl 
 Spencer, an Englishman; the chief secretary was 
 Mr. Trevelyan, an Englishman; the under secretary 
 was Mr. Hamilton, a Scotchman ; while one assistant 
 under secretary was Mr. Jenkinson, an Englishman, 
 and the other was I^r. Kaye, an Irishman of the ex- 
 treme Tory type. 
 
 Thus the head of all power in Ireland was a body 
 composed of three Englishmen, a Scotchman, and an 
 Irish Tory — all Protestants. And this in a country 
 where four-fifths of the peo}»le are Catholics. 
 
 The privy council is the advisory body upon which 
 the executive relies for assistance in governing Ire- 
 
104 LIFE AND SERVICES OP 
 
 land. This body consists exclusively of peers, 
 officials, ex-officials, judges, past and present, law 
 officers, and the Protestant archbishops — men who 
 liold their jjosilions not because they have the confi- 
 dence of the people whom they are supposed to assist 
 in governing, but because tliey have it not. 
 
 Yet it is tliis body which issues the proclamations 
 under which arrests for seditious conspiracy and 
 orders for the suppression of public meetings are 
 made. Is it to be wondered at, under the circum- 
 stances, that the laws are not administered with im- 
 partiality as between the rulers and the subjects, or 
 between the Nationalists and Orangemen? 
 
 The subordinate departments of the government 
 of Ireland are equally alien in spirit, if not in f:ict, 
 with the executive and the privy council, and the 
 sanction to which they cater in the administration of 
 their duties is not that of Irish public opinion, but 
 that of the Castle — an antipodean term— and the 
 s mctiou to whicli the Castle caters is that of Eng- 
 lishmen — ihat of a foreign race. 
 
 The government of Ireland is extremely central- 
 ized, nearly all the powers of appointment and of 
 administration being directly or indirectly vested in 
 the Castle. A glance at the make-up of the magis- 
 tracy, the police, and the various boards and com- 
 missions, will show how the influence of the Castle 
 permeates — nay, dominates — every branch of the 
 government, local as well as national. The Irish 
 local government board controls the boards of 
 poor law guardians, and in some respects it also 
 controls all the corporations and town commissioners 
 throughout Ireland. The members of the local gov- 
 ernment board are appointed by the Castle, and the 
 chief secretary is the president of the board. The 
 entire control of the fiscal affairs of each Irish county 
 rests in the grand jury, a body consisting of twenty- 
 three gentlemen selected by the high sherifE, who has 
 himself been appointed by the Castle. The grand 
 
CHARLES STEWART PAR.NELL. 105 
 
 jury meets twice a year, and votes taxes to the 
 atnoiiiit of about c£l,250,uOO and disposes of a patron- 
 age I'Ut of the public rates amounting to over 
 £100,000 annually. The Irish prisons system is man- 
 aged by a board of three members, all appointed by 
 the Castle, and the lunatic asylums of Ireland are 
 controlled by boards which are appointed by the 
 Castle, and the resident and visiting mediial 
 officers, and the inspectors attached to those institu- 
 tions, are also appointed by the Castle. The whole 
 system of primary education in Ireland is under the 
 control of a central board in Dublin, every member 
 of which is indebted to the C.istle for his position, 
 and the Castle also selects the members of the board 
 in Dublin which presides over the system of inter- 
 mediate education for all Ireland. The metropolitan 
 police in Dublin are under the control of a commis- 
 sioner who is appointed by the C'astle, and the entire 
 system of rural police — known in Ireland as the con- 
 stabulary force, and numbering 13,000 men — is man- 
 aged by a commissioner appointed by the Castle, and 
 all the stipendiary magistrates throughout Ireland 
 are appointed by the Castle. The unpaid magistrates 
 are usually appointed on the recommendation of the 
 lord lieutenant of the county, who is himself appointed 
 by the Castle. All the magistrates, paid and unpaid, 
 look to the Castle for advice and direction in the 
 performance of their duties; and prosecutions, in- 
 stead of being undertaken by the magistrates them- 
 selves or by private persons, as in England, are insti- 
 tuted invariably in the name and under the direction 
 of the Irish attorney general, who has his office in tlie 
 Castle. The fisheries board consists of three pai 1 
 members and one unpaid member, and these are all 
 appointed by the Castle. The Irish board of works 
 is under the direct control of the treasury in London. 
 It will easily be seen that under the existing sys- 
 tem the people of Ireland have very little to do with 
 the administration of the law, and ai-e not burdened 
 
106 LIFE A^T) SERVICES OF 
 
 to a great extent with the responsibilities or the 
 emoluments of office in their own land. 
 
 It is not strange that under such a system many 
 great and grave abuses flourished unrebuked. That 
 they did so flourish was a notorious fact which had 
 often been brought to the attention of government 
 by the Irish members of Parliament. The most 
 horrible of all the abuses, however, were those which 
 were exposed under the name of the Dublin Scandals. 
 Mr. William O'lJrien, M. P. for Mallow and editor 
 of United Ireland^ had obtained an inkling of the 
 state of affairs in the Dublin post office and detective 
 departments, and at great expense to himself he set 
 on foot an investigation which led to the exposure of 
 the bestiality of certain officials high in favor at the 
 Castle. 
 
 The details of the scandal are of too recent re- 
 counting and in their nature too horrible to need 
 repeating here. Suffice it to say that Mr. O'Brien 
 made very serious charges against leading Castle 
 officials, one of whom was James Ellis French, the 
 head of the detective department in Dublin, and the 
 other of whom was Secretary Cornwall, of the Dub- 
 lin post office. The charges created a great sensation 
 at the time, but when they were brought to the atten- 
 tion of government in the House of Commons, Mr. 
 Trevelyan refused to believe them, and accused Mr. 
 O'Brien of employing a detective for the purpose of 
 trumping up charges against public men. 
 
 Mr. Cornwall began immediate action against Mr. 
 O'Brien for libel, it is believed at the instigation of 
 the government, but Mr, O'Brien met the action fear- 
 lessly and proposed to defend himself by proving 
 the truth of his charges. The trial resulted in favor 
 of Mr. O'Brien and convinced everybody that his 
 charges were only too well founded. 
 
 The government was not satisfied, however, and 
 Mr. Cornwall moved for a new trial. In delivering 
 judgment on this motion Justice Murphy said : 
 
CHARLES STEWART P.\R:vrELL, lO'J 
 
 "Openly and publicly, on clear and sufficient evi- 
 dence, to the mind of the jury and the mind of the 
 judge, a jury had found him (Cornwall) guilty of 
 loathsome vices that should cause him to be shunned 
 by all persons having regard for decency." And 
 Chief Justice Morris said on the same occasion : " It 
 was not contended on the part of the plaintiff (Corn- 
 wall) — it could not be contended — that there was not 
 ample evidence of the commission by him of loath- 
 some and horrible deeds." 
 
 James Ellis French also began an action against 
 Mr. O'Brien, but he did not have the courage to push 
 it through, and as a result of the evidence brought 
 out, the government was compelled in self defense to 
 bring an action against both French and Cornwall 
 for felony, French was convicted and sentenced to 
 two years' imprisonment with hard labor, Justice 
 O'Brien saying that he unqualifiedly concurred in the 
 verdict of the jury. In Cornwall's case the jury dis- 
 agreed. Several of their accomplices were also tried 
 and upon conviction were sentenced to long terms of 
 imprisonment. 
 
 Mr. O'Brien also made charges of official miscon- 
 duct against Crown Solicitor Bolton, of a nature to- 
 tally different from those brought against Cornwall 
 and French, but still very grave charges, which if 
 true would make him unfit to hold any public office, 
 and it is generally admitted that Mr. O'Brien fur- 
 i.ished evidence enough to establish their truth satis- 
 faciorily to any impartial mind. 
 
 One would think that Mr. O'Brien's labors in ex- 
 posing the hotbed of iniquity, existing right in the 
 midst of the highest government circles in Dublii', 
 merited and would be repaid by the thanks of tlu3 
 amhorities, but the contrary was the case. Mn 
 Trevelyan was compelled at last to believe in tlie 
 guilt of his favorites, but he never apologized to Mr, 
 O'Brien for the accusations which he had made 
 against him, and his example was followed by the 
 
108 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 London press, which used to denounce Mr. O'Brien 
 unmercifully while the charges he made were yet iin- 
 proved; "but, when they were made good, the subject 
 was dropped altogether and nothing more was said 
 about it. 
 
 But Mr. O'Brien was not looking for thanks from 
 English statesmen or English newspapers. He had 
 the satisfaction of knowing that his labors bore bet- 
 ter fruit in that they met with the unanimous approval 
 of Irishmen and tended to weaken the system of gov- 
 ernment against which, as an Irish Nationalist, he 
 was fighting. One result of the exposures was very 
 gratifying to the Nationalists. This was the resigna- 
 tion of Mr. Trevelyan, who gave up his position of 
 chief secretary to accept of a sinecure. He was suc- 
 ceeded by Mr. Campbell-Bannerraan, a Scotchman. 
 
 As a consequence of the exposures, too, Mr. Par- 
 nell's project for the abolition of the viceroyalty came 
 to be regarded much less distastefully in England than 
 it had been theretofore, and many Englishmen of 
 eminence publicly pronounced in favor of giving Ire- 
 land some measui-e of home rule. As an evidence of 
 the change in thought which these disclosures were 
 influential in bringing about, a brief quotation from 
 so able and so prominent an Englishman as Matthew 
 Arnold, will be of interest : " I will not ask," said 
 Mr. Arnold in an English magazine in January last, 
 " if our institutions work easily and successfully in 
 Ireland; to ask such a question would be too bitter, 
 too cruel a mockery. Those hateful cases which have 
 been tried in the Dublin courts this last year suggest 
 the dark and ill-omened word which applies to the 
 whole state of Ireland — anti-natural. Anti-natural, 
 auti-nature — that is the word which rises irresistably 
 in my mind as I survey Ireland. It is unnatural that 
 Ireland should be governed by Lord Spencer and Mr. 
 Campbell-Bannerraan — as unnatural as for Scotland 
 to be governed by Lord Cranbrook and Mr. Healy. 
 It is unnatural that Ireland should be croverned under 
 
CHAELES STEWAKT PAENELL. 109 
 
 a Crimes act. But there is necessity, replies the gov- 
 ernment. A necessity for the Crimes act is a necessity 
 for absolute government. By our patchwork pro- 
 ceedings we set up, indeed, a make-believe of Ire- 
 land's being constitutionally governed. But it is not 
 constitutionally governed; nobody supposes it to be 
 constitutionally governed, except, perhaps, that born 
 swallower of all clap-trap, the British Philistine. 
 The Irish themselves, the all-important personages in 
 this case, are not taken in; our make-believe does not 
 produce in them the very least gratitude, the very 
 least softening. At the same time it adds an hundred 
 fold to the difficulties of an absolute government. 
 The working of our institutions being thus awry, is 
 the working of our thoughts upon them more smooth 
 and natural ? I imagine to myself an American list- 
 ening to us as we talk politics and discuss the strained 
 state of things here. ' Certainly these men have con- 
 siderable difficulties,' he would say, ' but they never 
 look at them straight, they do not think straight. '" 
 
 CHAPTER XVm. 
 
 ME. Gladstone's foeeign tolicy — the peince of 
 
 wales' visit to IRELAND — THE FALL OF THE 
 GLADSTONE GOVEENMENT. 
 
 CiECDMSTANCES now Were all working favorably for 
 the plans and purposes of Mr. Parnell. While Mr. 
 Gladstone's government was harassed, as we have 
 seen, in Ireland, his foreign policy was making mut-li 
 trouble for England abroad. The insurrection in the 
 Soudan, which England had undertaken to quell in 
 the interest of the Khedive's government in Egypt, 
 proved more formidable than Mr. Gladstone had bar- 
 gained for, and at the beginning of 1885, after three 
 years of desultory fighting^and great expenditure of 
 blood and treasure, was no nearer to an end than ifc 
 
110 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 was in the beginning. The expedition up the valley 
 of the Nile to the relief of Khartoum only arrived at 
 its destination to find that General Gordon and his 
 companions had already fallen. 
 
 This news reached England in February, 1885, and 
 created great excitement among all classes. The Con- 
 servatives were not slow to take advantage of the 
 popular feeling, and on Feb. 27, ises, Sir Stafford 
 Northcote moved, in the House of Commons, for a 
 vote of censuie against the government. During 
 1884 two similar votes had been moved, but they 
 were defeated each time, and on this occasion the 
 Conservatives were not successful either, though the 
 vote was so close that the government had no reason 
 to be proud of the result. Indeed, so narrow was the 
 majority in their favor that the ministers were in- 
 clined to regard the vote as equivalent to a defeat, 
 and were actually divided on the question of continu- 
 ing in office. It was decided, however, not to resign, 
 and the death of El Mahdi, which followed in a 
 month or two, made the Egyptian difficulty compara- 
 tively easy of soluiion, and relieved the shoulders of 
 the government, so to speak, of a gre.it burden. 
 
 But it was not yet smooth sailing. Tiie goveni- 
 raent now became involved in a serious dispute with 
 Russia over the Afghan boundary question, and at 
 one time this threatened to terminate in a war be- 
 tween the two empires, bt;t, after much diplomatic 
 negotiation and mutual concessions by the parties 
 to the issue, this trouble assumed a more peaceful 
 aspect, though it was not finally settled until after 
 the Conservatives came into power. 
 
 On April 7, the Prince andPjincess of Wales, with 
 their eldest son and a royal retinue, left England to 
 make a tour of Ireland in the hope of winning the 
 Irish away from Mr, Parnell by soft speeches at re- 
 ceptions and cattle shows. The Nationalist leaders 
 advised that they be respectfully received, and so 
 they were itntil the loyalist press began to make polit- 
 
CHARLES STEWART TAENELL. Ill 
 
 ical capital out of the quiescence of the people. lu 
 Dublin the stores were to a large extent decorated 
 and the loyalists had quite a largo procession in honor 
 of the royal party. At the Castle a levee was given 
 and this was attended by the nobility, the Castle offi- 
 cials and others who were known to be in sympathy 
 with the govei'nment. At Trinity College, where the 
 dons and students come mostly from the Tory class, 
 the Prince was greeted with enthusiasm, as he was also 
 at the Royal University and at the Artane Industrial 
 School. Large crowds were assembled also at the 
 Spencer Dock and the Cattle Show Yard when the 
 Prince visited those places and there was much cheer- 
 ing, but it was evident that the audiences to which 
 Earl Spencer introduced his royal guest were all care- 
 fully selected from among the "loyal" class. The 
 people generally held coldly aloof or looked quietly 
 on. 
 
 The Prince's reception in the Irish capital afforded 
 much satisfaction to Englishmen, but they could not 
 let well enough alone. They evidently mistook the 
 attitude of the Irish people, which was solely dictated 
 by feelings of respectful consideration for a Prince 
 who personally never did them any harm, for one of 
 extreme loyalty; and immediately ihe anti-Nationalist 
 press in Ireland and England began to teem -with 
 articles extolling the faithfulness of the Irish and 
 denouncing Parnell as a demagogue and imposter, 
 who had exaggerated his inlluence in Ireland for his 
 own selfish purposes. 
 
 This effort to make political capital out of the 
 Prince's visit, and to use their self-repression to their 
 disadvantage, naturally caused much irritation among 
 the Nationalists and it was detei'uiined that some- 
 thing should be done to show to England and the 
 Prince the real state of public feeling in Ireland. 
 
 So it was that when the Prince reached Mallow, in 
 Cork, on his visit south, he found several thousand 
 persons assembled at the station and all were singing 
 
112 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 *'God Save Ireland," interspersing lusty cheers for 
 Parnell between each verse. In various parts of the 
 county Waterford and in Cork, the windows of every 
 house from which protruded a bit of ribbon were 
 smashed in with stones. At Kilmacthomas, in Wa- 
 terford, the local board of guardians had a black flag 
 flying from the poorhouse, and at another station in 
 the same county a flag was flying with the motto, 
 "We'll hae na Prince but Charlie," attached. The 
 groups of peoj^le standing about these stations on the 
 route of the royal party opened their moutlis only to 
 groan or hiss, and altogether the rec<^p'ion in the 
 south was not a very encouraging one. Tlie climax 
 was reached at the arrival in Cork city. A crowd 
 of loyalist sympathizers had been admitted to the 
 station by tickets, and these cheered the arrivals 
 heartily, but when the party emerged to the streets 
 where the great mass of the people were congregated 
 the Dame of the Prince was received only with 
 hisses, while that of Parnell was greeted with cheers 
 that vibrated in air for miles. The students of the 
 Queen's College, which used to be a very nursery of 
 loyalty, pulled down the Union Jack from the col- 
 lege walls and hissed his royal highness as he passed 
 them in the street. As a consequence of this he did 
 not make his contemplated visit to that institution. 
 In the west of Ireland the reception to the Prince's 
 party was hardly more cordial, and even in Ulster, 
 the home of the Orangemen, the welcome was rather a 
 cold one. The chief representative bodies in Ireland, 
 including the corporations of Dublin, Cork, Lim- 
 erick, Kilkenny, Waterford, Drogheda and Wexford, 
 deliberately refused to extend addres-es of welcome, 
 and on the whole the two weeks' visit of the Prince 
 could not have been a very enjoyable one, nor could 
 it tend to reassure the government with respect to the 
 sta'e of feeling in Ireland. 
 
 In government circles the subject which caused the 
 mi >st earnest discussion at this time was the Crimes 
 
CHA.ELES STEWART PAR NELL. 113 
 
 act. The act was about to expire by limitation and 
 the cabinet was seriously divided on the question of 
 its renewal. One section, of which Lord Spencer was 
 the leading spirit, strenuously insisted on its re-enact- 
 ment, and Spencer even threatened to resign if his 
 demand was not complied with, while another sec- 
 tion, which included Mr. Childers, Sir Charles Dilke, 
 Joseph Chamberlain and Shaw Lefevre, advocated 
 letting the act drop. To avert the threatened disrup- 
 tion in his cabinet, Mr. Gladstone detennined to draft 
 the Crimes act in a modified form and to accompany 
 the measure by a land purchase bill for Ireland. To 
 this, however, Messrs, Dilke and Chamberlain would 
 not agree. To add to the difficulties of the situation, 
 Mr. Parnell was working very hard to create an ef- 
 fective opposition to the Crimes act, should it be 
 brought forward, no matter in what form, and it was 
 said that he had at least thirty Tories and as many as 
 fifty Radicals pledged to aid him in defeating the 
 measure. It began to look as though the ministry 
 would go to pieces on the Crimes act any way, but a 
 compromise was effected at last between Earl Spen- 
 cer on the one side, and Messrs. Dilke and Chamber- 
 lain on the other. At the meeting of the cabinet on 
 June 8th, it was agreed that the Crimes act should be 
 passed for two years and that its introduction should 
 be accompanied by a measure of local self-govern- 
 ment for Ireland. 
 
 But these measures were fated never to be intro- 
 duced in the House of Commons. The end of the 
 Gladstone government, although unsuspected was 
 near at hand. The government's proposition to in- 
 crease the duty on beer and spirits in order to make up 
 the deficit caused by the Soudan campaign and the 
 preparations for a war with Russia, aroused a strong 
 and fierce opposition, and on June 7, 40,000 people 
 held a meeting in London to protest against the ex- 
 tra tax. It was known tiiat an effoi-t would be made 
 to defeat the Gladstone Budget bill, but it was not 
 
114 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 expected that the government could be hurled from 
 power. Yet, on the evening of the very day when 
 the cabinet finally decided to push forward the Crimes 
 act, the government met with a fatal reverse in the 
 adoption of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach's amendment to 
 the motion for a second reading of the Budget, which 
 was carried in the House of Commons by a vote of 
 264 to 252, leaving the government in a minority of 12. 
 
 The House quivered with excitement as the an- 
 nouncement was made and then the cheers of the Tories 
 and the cries of " Spencer," "Coercion," "Buckshot,'* 
 " Myles Joyce," etc., from the Irish members filled the 
 air. Mr. Parnel.. alone was unmoved and with a 
 smile upon his paie face he sat silently through it all. 
 Sir Randolph Churchill and others of the Tories 
 jumped upon the benches and waved ^ats and hand- 
 kerchiefs wildly, and for a wh.ifc pandemonium 
 reigned. As soon as a lull came Mr. Gladstone arose, 
 pale, but dignified, and moved for an adjournment. 
 
 On the next day, June 9, a cabinet council was 
 held and it was resolved that the resignations of the 
 members be tendered to the Queen at once. Later in 
 the afternoon Mr. Gladstone announced the decision 
 to the House of Commons and requested an adjourn- 
 ment until June 12, so that Her Majesty might be 
 communicated with. 
 
 Thus fell the strongest ministry of the century and 
 Mr. Parnell had cause for congratulation in the knowl- 
 edge that with it fell coercion for Ireland. The 
 Irish leader was one of the few men who foresaw that the 
 division would be the death blow of the ministry, 
 and with his own hand, on the Sunday previous to 
 the vote, he had despatched twenty telegrams to 
 absent members of his party urging them to be pres- 
 ent at all hazards. Some of these though they 
 hastened to obey him, marvelled nmch as to what he 
 could see in this latest of Tory votes of censure to 
 make him so urgent, and but few besides himself 
 realized, even up to the very last moment, what was 
 
CHAELKG STE^VAL.T TAKXELL. 115 
 
 coming.. The tliirty-iiine votes of the Irish j^arty 
 turned the fortunes of the day and the Gladstone 
 government was undone. 
 
 The defeat of the liberal government was nn- 
 doubtedl}^ a victory for Mr. Parnell and it was justi- 
 fied by the fact that — notwithstanding Mr. Glad- 
 stone's authorship of certain measures calculated to 
 improve the condition of the Irish people — the 
 general policy of the Gladstone government was one 
 of injustice to Ireland. Speaking of the defeat, in 
 an interview the day following, Mr. Parnell said : 
 
 "The result of the division is a consequence of 
 tlie policy v>hich the Irish party has adopted during 
 the last four years of this Parliament — to turn out 
 the government at any cost, as a lesson for all future 
 governments with regard to the determination of the 
 Irish people not to submit to unconstitutional govern- 
 ment or coercion. The Irish members have followed 
 out this policy in the most determined fashion. They 
 have pushed the government very closely upon many 
 divisions, and beaten them more tlian once (though, 
 unhappily, not on occasions on which the government 
 were obliged to resign). Members of the party have 
 seldom failed to turn up at critical divisions, where 
 the fate of the government was involved, in larger 
 proportionate numbers than either of the other two 
 parties. We should have succeeded in expelling the 
 ministry from office long ago if it had not been for 
 the secession of twenty members of our party who 
 were elected on the same principles as we, but who 
 have voted with the government as constantly as we 
 have voted against them. The pleasure and advantage 
 of that vote to us is increased by the fact that we 
 have saved almost the only remaining Irish industry 
 from a burden of £500,000 a year. We confidently 
 anticipate the much more important additional result 
 that we have not only got rid of a coercionist govern- 
 ment, but in all probability we have put an end to 
 coercion in Ireland forever." 
 
116 LIFE AND SEr.VICES OF 
 
 And tlie Dablin Freeman adverted to the defeat 
 in the following terms : 
 
 '' The defeat is due to the action of the Parnellites in 
 refusing to uphold a cabinet from which they received 
 nothing but broken promises, and from which Ireland 
 could expect nothing but injustice, as was fore- 
 shadowed in the proposed attempt to again saddle 
 upon Ireland the iniquitous provisions of the Crimes 
 act. The result of the vote last night will cause Earl 
 Spencer and his lieutenants at the castle to quit Ire- 
 land, leaving behind them the memory of an adminis- 
 tration which was pre-eminently noted for cold-blooded 
 brutality and frigid calculating injustice. Earl Spen- 
 cer may receive a dukedom for his misrule of Ire- 
 land, but it would be well for the Queen and Mr. 
 Gladstone to bear in mind that it was the lord lieu- 
 tenant's hand that destroyed the greatest government 
 England has had during the last century. If it had 
 not been for Earl Spencer's misstatements in regard 
 to the condition of Ireland, and his influence in the 
 cabinet, Mr. Gladstone would have sought the friend- 
 ship of Mr. Parnell and his followers, instead of pro- 
 voking their hostility by such arbitrary measures as 
 the proposed renewal of the Coercion bill." 
 
 While United Irelandy the League organ in Ireland, 
 said : 
 
 " The three years which were to have sufficed to ex- 
 tinguish the National League are just expiring ; the 
 National League holds Ireland from the centre to the 
 sea under its triumphant sway ; and it is by the votes 
 of the party, and amidst the cheers of Irish 
 Nationalists, that Earl Spencer tumbles from his 
 throne and overwhelms the whole ministry in the 
 crash. ' The dog it was that died.' The strongest 
 Englishman, armed with the most terrific coercion 
 code, and backed through thick and thin by the most 
 redoubtable ministry of this century, engaged in a 
 three years' bloody duel with an unarmed organiza- 
 tion already stunned, when the duel began, with the 
 
CHAELES STEWART PAKNELL. 117 
 
 terrible blow inflicted in the Phoenix Park and ex- 
 hausted after two years of no less deadly struggle 
 with the no less stubborn oppressor who pre- 
 ceded him. The issue of the three years agony 
 is that Earl Spencer leaves Ireland a ruined man 
 and the destroyer of a ruined ministry ; and it is the 
 power of victorious Ireland that])elts him into the sea 
 and lights bonfires of triumph behind him. His three 
 years' tyranny has solidified and disciplined the Irish 
 nation to a pitch never realized before. He has left 
 behind him deeds and a name which will be as potent 
 to invoke detestation of English rule as the memories 
 of Oarew, or Cromwell or Carhampton. He has 
 shown that Liberal English rule in the last quarter of 
 the nineteenth century can be as savage and unbear- 
 able as in the days of the worst of these monsters — 
 with the very marked differences that nowadays in a 
 life and death struggle between Dublin Castle and the 
 Irish people it is the I)-ish people who in the long run 
 baflie, torture and crush tlie toughest English states- 
 man who undertakes to play the tyrant over them. 
 The mill of the Ii'ish people grinds slowly, but it grinds 
 small. Then, every enemy, high or low, viceroy, 
 land agent, castle ofiicial or hangman, has a way of 
 finding himself a worsted and ruined man when all is 
 said and done. Mi-. Forster is soured for life. Mr. 
 Trevelyan is a white-haired, stooped old man. The 
 vote which expels Earl Spencer from Ireland, hurls 
 Mr. Speaker Peel from the chair. 
 
 We counted tbcm at break of day, 
 And when the sun sets, where are they ? 
 
 When ' Earl Spencer with his mulish obstinancy, 
 his omnipotent Crimes act and his ruthless terrorism, 
 has gone down with a groan, who shall stand against 
 the patient dint of Irish opinion? The Irish people 
 have won by sheer force of patient intrepidity. Had 
 tliey shrank before Earl Spencer's proclamations — 
 had their leaders kept silence because every sentence 
 they spoke might bubjectthem to the plank bed — hi;d 
 
118 LIFE AMD SERVICES OF 
 
 their newspapers taken a tone of whispering humble- 
 ness under the dread that their every issue might be 
 their last — Earl Spencer would have pushed his ad- 
 vantage without mercy, and Ireland would be to-day 
 as reft of spirit as the corpse Sir Charles Gavan Duffy 
 saw on the dissecting table." 
 
 This was the spirit in which the Irish people gener- 
 ally took the downfall of the Gladstone government. 
 They gave Mr. Gladstone full credit for the ameliora- 
 tive measures of which he had secured the passage, 
 but they were not grateful, for there was no solid 
 ground upon which their gratitude could be claimed. 
 All and much more than they had received should 
 have been granted to them years before. Every con- 
 cession had been withheld from them as long as pos- 
 sible and they were only granted at last under the 
 pressure of a strong agitation, and even then they 
 were accompanied by measures of coercion that served 
 rather to intensify than to allay disaffection. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE ACCESSION TO TOWER OF THE SALISBURY GOV- 
 ERNMENT MR. PAUNELL WINS A VICTORY. 
 
 In accordance with the desire of the Queen, Lord 
 Salisbury now took up the reins of government laid 
 down by Mr. Gladstone, and formed a cabinet, of 
 which Lord Randolph Churchill — whose views with 
 regard to Ireland were known to be extremely liberal 
 — was the central and dominating figure. Earl Spen- 
 cer was recalled from Ireland, being succeeded as 
 lord lieutenant by the Earl of Carnaiwon, and Mr. 
 Campbell-Bannerman Avas replaced as chief secretary 
 by Sir William Hart Dyke. The "Red Earl's" de- 
 parture from Dublin, on June 28, is thus described 
 by the Freeman of that city : 
 
 " The precautions to insure the safe passage of his 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL, 119 
 
 excellency over the half a mile of streets he had to 
 travel from the castle before getting out of the cap- 
 ital of Ireland were astonishing in their extent and 
 variety. In addition to the stopping of traffic and 
 the lining of the streets with military, horse and foot, 
 policemen in mtifti were seen everywhere. This class 
 of persons had Nassau street nearly all to themselves. 
 The number of people along the route was, indeed, 
 very small, comparatively speaking, considering the 
 event of the day. There were there not one-tenth of 
 the people who assembled on the same streets to 
 witness the arrival of the Piince of Wales only a 
 few nvmtlis ago. The ' loyalists,' who could have 
 been piesent, made a very poor show, and the event 
 rame off too early in the day to enable the democ- 
 racy to witness it. The windows were as bare of 
 spectators as the streets. Indeed, except a few par- 
 ties of ladies at the windows of the Kildare Street 
 Club, there appeared very little anxiety on the part 
 of the ix'sidents of Nassau street to see the last of Earl 
 Spencer in Ireland. It was expected that the aristoc- 
 racy would have made a brave show, and that his 
 excellency would have left Dublin with their applause 
 and congratulations ringing in his ears. As it was, 
 Earl Spencer was paid but a sorry compliment by his 
 own class, and had he delayed his departure till 4 
 o'clock — the hour originally arranged — the streets 
 would have been gorged with the democracy, and 
 scenes would probably have been witnessed compared 
 to which the striking demonstration that did take place 
 withal would be lost in insignificance. The process- 
 ion, after leaving Nassau street, passed through Clare 
 street and around Merrion street, Lower, to West- 
 land row. A military band in Merrion street played 
 *God Save the Queen,' and the air had the effect of 
 making the people redouble their hooting and shout- 
 ing. When West] and row was reached an exciting 
 scene took place. The large crowd that had assem- 
 bled there was considerably swelled by the numbers 
 
120 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 which had accompanied tlie cavalcade, and as the 
 carriage of Earl Spencer turned into the carriage 
 drive, to tlie terminus, the people became almost 
 frantic with excitement, and again cries of 'Myles 
 Joyce,' 'Cornwall,' 'French,' and 'Down with 
 Coercion,' rang out high above the band-playing, 
 cheering, groaning and hissing. The expressions of 
 popular disfavor gave way to the Irish national an- 
 them, ' God Save Ireland,' when the gates of the 
 station closed on Earl Spencer, and the chorus rang 
 from the throats of thousands in unmistakable heart- 
 iness. The military were then ordered into line, and 
 they marched off, leaving Westland row in the pos- 
 session of the people. The greater portion of the 
 latter formed into a procession and marched up Groat 
 Brunswick street, still singing *God Save Ireland,' 
 and, with the chorus, a not inappropriate close was 
 brought to the demonstrations of the day in Dublin." 
 
 The new government had resolved to let the Crimes 
 act lapse and to rely upon the ordinary lavv's for the 
 government of Ireland. English statesmen had be- 
 come convinced that Mr. Parnell knew how to play 
 to win, and both parties began to compete actively 
 to secure him as an ally. The 40 votes which the 
 Irish leader controlled were indispensable to the Tory 
 government, and it was almost certain that at the 
 general elections his following would be so largely 
 increased as to give him the balance of power be- 
 1 ween the two great parties, and enable him to make 
 or break governments at his pleasure. For these 
 reasons it became the fashion to consider Mr. Parnell 
 a>^ a man whom it was best to conciliate and not to 
 offend. 
 
 Mr. Parnell's motion for an official inquiry into the 
 guilt or innocence of the men who were hanged and 
 i:nprisoned for alleged connection with the famous 
 Maamtrasna murder case gave the first unequivocal 
 evidence of his power in the House of Commons un- 
 der the new {xovcrnment. He made the motion on 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 121 
 
 July iTlh and v/ltlidrow it on the government's prom- 
 ise to institute a private inquiry, and to redress, as 
 far as possible, any injustice that might be brought 
 to light. The story of the Maamtrasna case, taken 
 from Mr. Parnell's speech on this occasion, is very 
 interesting, and places Earl Spencer's conduct, acting 
 through Crown Solicitor Bolton, in a light which 
 makes his later deeds of tyranny seem white by com- 
 parison. 
 
 "At night, in the early part of 1882, a party broke 
 into a house at Maamtrasna occupied by Joyce. They 
 attacked this man and his family, and murdered him 
 and his mother, wife and young daughter, and in- 
 flicted upon his two sons such serious injuries that in 
 tlie one case they were fatal, and in the other case the 
 youth only recovered after a long illness. Two days 
 after the murders two brothers, named Anthony 
 Joyce and John Joyce, came forward with a most 
 extraordinai y statement in regard to their having 
 tracked ten persons, whom they accused of tlie mur- 
 ders, for a long distance over the hills on the very 
 dark night in question. They positively identified 
 and swore to those ten persons as having been the per- 
 sons who committed the murders. These ten men 
 were arrested, and the Crimes act being in force at 
 the time, the venue was changed, and the prisoners, 
 none of Avhom could speak English, were brought away 
 a distance from their homes and from everybody who 
 knew their characters and the circumstances of the 
 locality, and they were tried in Dublin by a packed 
 jury of Dublin shopkeepers, who were mostly depend- 
 ent upon the patronage of the castle for the means 
 of living. That was the time when excitement in re- 
 gard to the Land League ran very high, and when an 
 attack had been made upon jurors in Dublin by the 
 Invincible Society. Every Protestant juryman in the 
 country considered his life was in danger, and the re- 
 sult was that it was perfectly impossible for the class 
 from whom these jurors were chosen to approach the 
 
122 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 consideration of a case like tliis with any sort of im- 
 partialty or judicial freedom of mind. The prisoners 
 were then tried before a special jury. The crown 
 largely exercised its right of challenge, with the re- 
 sult that an ahnost exclusively Protestant jury were 
 empaneled. 
 
 " Just a week or ten days before the trial came on, an 
 informer named Pliilbin, who absolutely knew noth- 
 ing of the circumstances of the mui-ders, but was one 
 of those who had been sworn against by the two 
 original so-called independent witnesses, came for- 
 ward in order to save his own life, and by the in- 
 ducement of the notorious George Bolton, who had 
 the conduct of these trials, and who has been since 
 superseded by the late government in the work- 
 ing of the Crimes act, he offered to corroborate 
 the testnnony of the original witnesses. The day 
 before the tiinls cnine on another informer named 
 Casey, who admits his own guilt, came forward and 
 likewise offered to corroborate their evidence. His 
 first stoiy was not accepted by the crown, because, 
 being guilty, he told the truth and he gave informa- 
 tion which did not tally with the case sought to be 
 proved by the government. He was now compelled 
 to make a second statement which tallied with the 
 evidence of the two original witnesses, which he had 
 heard six times over, and which also tallied in most 
 respects — though differing in some important points 
 — with the evidence of his brother informer, Philbin. 
 An application on the part of the prisoners' counsel 
 for a postponemont of the trial in order that some 
 fuller investigation might bo made into the local cii*- 
 cumstances, and also an application for a jury who 
 would go over the ground traversed by the alleged 
 assassins, were both refused. The first man, Patrick 
 Joyce, whose guilt we admit, was tried and con- 
 demned to death after eight minutes' deliberation by 
 the jury. Patrick Casey was also put on trial and 
 was found guilty after six minutes' deliberation. The 
 
CHAKLES STEWART PARNELL. 123 
 
 sentences were of course delivered in open court, and 
 I desire to take this opportunity of protesting most 
 strongly against the conduct of the judge, which I 
 can only term as injudicious and injudicial, in pass- 
 ing sentence of death on two persons who were con- 
 victed on precisely similar evidence as was offered 
 against eight subsequent prisoners, and in prejudging 
 the case of the other prisoners by making use of 
 very strong expressions in regai'd to the evidence 
 which was also brought forward against the remain- 
 ing prisoners. 
 
 "Such conduct, however innocent the prisoners 
 miglit be, and it turned out live of the remaining 
 seven were absolutely innocent, rendered a fair 
 trial impossible. Myles Joyce was the next person 
 on the list, and with the words of the judge in the 
 previous case ringing in their ears, the jury convicted 
 him after six minutes' deliberation. Of course the 
 remaining prisoners had to consider what they 
 should do. Six now remained to be tried, and 
 of these five were innocent. Michael Casey, now 
 suffering penal servitude in Mount joy jail, was alone 
 guilty. This man offered to plead guilty, but the 
 five innocent prisoners declined to plead guilty, and 
 spoke out against it. The plea of guilty by Michael 
 Casey was brought before George Bolton, but Uolton 
 declined to receive that plea unless it was accom- 
 panied by the plea of guilty by the five innocent 
 men. I am making a statement of facts, all of 
 which we can prove. I can prove the statement I 
 have just made out of the mouth of the solicitor and 
 legal advisers of the six men. A statement of 
 Michael Casey with regard to the main circumstances 
 of this matter, exonerating the five innocent men who 
 had still to undergo their trial, admitting his own 
 guilt and the guilt of two of the three who had 
 already been sentenced, and alleging the innocence 
 of Mylcs Joyce, whose execution was to take place 
 in a few days, was put Icfore George Bolton, and 
 
124 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 he refused to accept Michael Casey's plea of guilty, 
 and he insisted, with this knowledge, which was 
 known to nobody hut himself and the legal advisers 
 of the prisoners — he insisted upon forcing these five 
 innocent men to stand their trial unless they pleaded 
 guilty and accepted the ignominy of a conviction for 
 murder and the penalty of penal servitude for life. 
 Speaking as coolly as I can in reference to this raat- 
 tei", I believe if ever a murderer deserved to be put 
 upon his trial and sentenced to death that man is 
 George Bolton. 
 
 " What were these poor men to do ? They were at 
 a distance from their homes and their friends, and 
 they were strongly urged by their priest to plead 
 guilty. The priest in question lias been very much 
 criticized for his action, but he explains his reasons 
 for advising these innocent men to plead guilty very 
 fairly. The House must bear in mind that the judge 
 who tried the preceding three prisoners, who had 
 been ah'eady convicted, had expressed publicly an 
 absolute belief in the correctness of the verdict, and 
 in the truth of the evidence, and that the remaining 
 five men were to be tried on absolutely the same 
 evidence. What hope had they of anything but 
 death in these circumstances ? They had the same 
 judge ; they had, practically speaking, the same 
 jurors ; at all events jurors chosen in exactly the same 
 way, and from the same class of men — jurors who 
 had been listening to the evidence in the preceding 
 cases, and who had, undoubtedly, formed their 
 opinion on it, and who had been listening to the 
 declaration of the judge. Remember the prisoners 
 had wives and large families depending upon them 
 at home for their subsistence — they were ignorant, 
 and could not speak a word of English, and they had 
 to consider that while there was life there was hope 
 I don't think any of us oug.ht to c mdemn either the 
 men themselves who, being innocent, pleaded guilty, 
 or the priest who advised to plead guilty, without, so 
 
CHARLES STKWABT PAKNELL. 125 
 
 far as we can, putting ourselves absolutely in their 
 place, and I must say ho would be a bold man who 
 would stand up and say that if you or I had been in 
 their place we would not have done exactly as they 
 did. The priest says : "I argued with myself thus — 
 if the men are guilty their plea of guilty would do 
 them no harm ; if they are innocent the truth will 
 leak out. I was by no means a believer in their 
 guilt ; on the contrary, I rather believed they were 
 innocent." 
 
 "That was a candid statement ; and, although no 
 doubt the priest will be found fault with by members 
 of the late government for the course he took, as he 
 was found fault with on the previous occasion, yet I 
 should believe that the disposition to attack this 
 clergyman is rather due to the fact that some chance 
 of disclosing the truth and vindicating justice in re- 
 ference to this matter has resulted from his action. 
 Well, the prisoners pleaded guilty (one guilty man 
 and four innocent men) and were sentenced to penal ser- 
 vitude for life. The execution of the two guilty men 
 previously convicted, and of the innocent man, Myles 
 Joyce, came on. An extraordinary scene took place 
 at these executions, which first directed public atten- 
 tion to the probabilities of this case, but before that 
 the two guilty men lying under sentence of death and 
 awaiting execution, with no hoY)e before them, on the 
 advice of their priest, sent for a magistrate a couple 
 of days before their execution and made dying dec- 
 larations which we have never been able to obtain. 
 
 "We know the nature of these declarations, but no 
 thanks to the late government. They used all the 
 resources of subtlety which lay at their command in 
 their replies to the questions which were put by my 
 honorable friends in regard to this matter. They at- 
 tempted to drag a red herring across the path and 
 throw dust in our eyes. Fortunately they have not 
 succeeded, and we now know as a matter of fact, al- 
 though the present government have followed the 
 
126 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 wretched example of their predecessors and have re- 
 fused to produce the declarations, that the dyiug dec- 
 larations of these two guilty men contained an ad- 
 mission of their own guilt, and an avowal of the in- 
 nocence of Myles Joyce. They contained an admis- 
 sion of the guilt of all the men whose guilt we 
 acknowledge, and an avowal of the innocence of all 
 the men whose innocence we assert. That you deny; 
 but you can only deny it at the cost of producing the 
 declarations." 
 
 The government's promise to institute an inquiry 
 into these cases was everywhere regarded, by friend 
 and foe alike, as a substantial victory for Mr. Parnell. 
 Outside of a few well-informed individuals nobody 
 had expected that the government would yield. It 
 was against all precedent and entirely contrary to 
 British prejudices to allow the acts of a former gov- 
 ernment to be inquii'ed into at the instance of Irish 
 malcontents, and, in conceding so much, Lord Salis- 
 bury's government proved that it estimated the sup- 
 port of the Parnellites as essential to its own reten- 
 tion of power, and that it was willing to go to ex- 
 treme lengths to obtain and hold that support. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 lEISH LEGISLATION" IX THE SESSION OF 1885 — THE 
 ELEVATION OF DK. WALSH TO THE ARCHBISHOPRIC 
 
 OF DUBLIN — THE DISSOLUTION OP PARLIAMENT 
 
 PREPARATIONS FOR THE GENERAL ELECTIONS — 
 HOW THEY RESULTED. 
 
 The Parliament of 1885 was prorogued on August 
 14, and in her speech the Queen gave notice of her 
 purpose before long to seek the counsel of the en- 
 larged electorate by a dissolution of Parliament. 
 
 The principal legislation of the year, with which 
 Ireland had any concern, was the Redistribution of 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 127 
 
 Seats b'll, the amendment of the Irish Registration 
 law and the Land Purchase bill. 
 
 The Redistribution of Seats bill was brought for- 
 ward and passed by the Gladstone government. It 
 completely recor.atructed the existing system of par- 
 liamentary representation in the United Kingdom 
 and abolished twenty of the Irish constituencies, 
 principally in the boroughs, but the representation in 
 some of the counties and large boroughs like Dublin, 
 Belfast and Cork was increased so largely under the 
 bill that the loss was made up again and Ireland was 
 left her full complement of 103 members. 
 
 The amendment to the Irish Registration law was 
 made under ui'gent pressure from the Parnellites, and 
 it not only assimilated the law in all its beneficial fea- 
 tures to the English law, but it made it even better 
 than the English law, by reason of the non-disquali- 
 fication of persons who had received medical relief. 
 
 The Land Purchase bill was introduced by tlie 
 Salisbury government and provided for the creation 
 of a peasant proprietary class in Ireland by the advance 
 by government of three-fourths of the purchase 
 money, at 4 per cent, interest for 49 years, to persons 
 wanting to buy land. Where needed the whole of 
 the purchase money would be advanced on conditions 
 which would not expose the government to any risk 
 or loss. The Irish Church Surplus was to be utilized 
 for the purposes of the bill. The bill also provided 
 for the creation of a cheap and simple form for the 
 conveyance of land. It was to be administered by 
 the existing land commission, reinf oi-ced by two com- 
 missioners. This measure was a step in the right 
 direction, but a very small one, and although the 
 Irish members acquiesced in its passage, they did not 
 do so heartily, but regarded the bill rather with dvu- 
 trust. 
 
 These were the chief measures having to do with 
 Ireland carried through the Parliament in 1885, and 
 it must be said that they were not in themseves of 
 
128 LIFE AXD SEEVicr:s OF 
 
 such weight as to bo caloulatod to very materially 
 advance the intiTCPts of Ireland or in any great de- 
 gree improve the condition of her people ; still there 
 was in them considerable to be thankful for : The 
 Redistribution bill left Ireland her full representa- 
 tion ; t^e Registration law made it easier for the 
 Nationalists to develop their political sti'ength, and 
 the Land Purchase bill, used cautiously, would result, 
 undoubtedly, in ultimate good. 
 
 In Ireland an event of the year which attracted 
 wide attention and occasioned great rejoicing was 
 the elevation of the Yery Rev. Dr. William Walsh 
 from the presidency of Maynooth College to the 
 Archbishopric of Dublin as the successor of the late 
 Cardinal McCabe, Dr. Walsh was the choice of the 
 great majority of the Irish bishops, priests and people, 
 but strong agencies worked against him because of 
 his well known NationaliNtic sympathies. His immedi- 
 ate predecessors in the See of Duldin had been men 
 whose political views were such as to make them wel- 
 come visitors at the Castle, and they had exercised all 
 tbeir influence to suppress the N.itional pro])ensities of 
 the priests under their episcopal control. England now 
 wanted a man of the same stamp, and as Dr. Walsh 
 was not such a man, the government used all its in- 
 fluence to prevent his appointment. The notorious 
 George Errington, M. P. for Longford, was sent to 
 Rome to persuade or intimidate the Pope into set- 
 ting aside the choice of the Irish people, but his mis- 
 sion was, happily, in vain. The Pope preferred the 
 fact that the canons and parish priests had voted Dr. 
 Walsh "most worthy" to be selected permanently 
 to fill the chair of the Metropolitan See, and he ac- 
 cordingly appointed him, gratifying by the act the 
 desire of a vast majority of the Irish people, clerical 
 and l;iy. 
 
 The selection of Dr. Walsh had a great moral effect 
 in Irelrnd and served to greatly encourage the Ka- 
 tional cause. In the meantime Mr. Pavnell and his 
 
CHARLES STEAVAET PAENELL, 129 
 
 lieutenants were not idle. Since the prorogation of 
 Parliament they had been incessantly at work infus- 
 ing new enthusiasm into the people, perfecting the 
 organization of the National League and Inboring 
 assiduously to secure a full registration of the Nation- 
 alist vote, and as a result of their labors the move- 
 ment was brought up to a higher degree of discipline 
 than ever before. 
 
 The general elections were to be held in Novem- 
 ber, and the outlook before the Nationalists had never 
 been so bright. It was all but certain that they 
 would elect more than 80 out of Ireland's 103 mem- 
 bers. Mr. Parnell had a scheme for the payment of 
 the Nationalist membeis from a fund to be subscribed 
 fur the purpose by the Irish people all over the world, 
 and that the scheme would be successful was assured 
 by the re[)or[8 of subsciiptions in America alone. 
 Under this prospect there was no dearth of candi- 
 dates, and a difficulty which presented itself was the 
 selection of the most suitable men. But this difficulty 
 was skilfully overcome. Conventions of delegates 
 fi-ora the National League and the Catholic clergy 
 were held in the different counties rnd attended by 
 Mr. Parnell, Mr. Sexton, or some other of the Nation- 
 alist leaders, and in every instance the candidates 
 who were indorsed by Mr. Parnell were decided upon 
 almost without friction or dissent. All the candidates 
 were required to subscribe to a pledge drawn up by 
 Mr. Parnell. This pledge was designed to ensure 
 the unity of the new parliamentary party beyond 
 doubt or cavil, and was as follows : 
 
 " I pledge myself that, in the event of ray election 
 to Paiiiament, I will sit, act and vote with the Irish 
 Parliamentary Party; and if at a meeting of the 
 party,, convened upon due notice specially to con- 
 sider the question, it be determined by a resolution, 
 supported by a majority of the entire Parliamentary 
 Pnrty, that I have not fulfilled the above pledge, I 
 hereby undertake forthwith to resign my sent." 
 
130 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 This pledge was presented to each of the National- 
 ist candidates upon his nomination by the conven- 
 tions, and in eveiy instance it was signed without de- 
 mur. The holding of conventions for the nomina- 
 tion of candidates v»^as a new idea in Ireland, never 
 having been tried before, but it proved very succes?- 
 f ul in practice, and the harmony which characterized 
 the deliberations of the conventions, as well as the 
 happy results which invariably attended them, bore 
 additional testimony to the tact and sagacity of Mr, 
 Parnell who introduced them. 
 
 On Nov. 18 the Queen dissolved Parliament by 
 proclamation, and almost immediately the writs be- 
 gan to issue for elections to a new Parliament. 
 These elections were to be held upon the basis of the 
 enlarged electorate created by Mr. Gladstone's re- 
 form bill, and it was generally supposed that upon 
 this basis the Liberal party, being the party w^hich 
 had conferred the right of suffrage on the new voters, 
 would have a decided advantage. This was especi- 
 ally true of the county constituencies, where it was 
 expected that by far the larger number of the new 
 voters would pronounce in favor of the Liberals. 
 Should they do so, and should Mr. Gladstone succeed 
 in retaining anything like his former strength among 
 the old voters, which it was probable he would, it 
 was plain that the Liberal party would be returned 
 with a majority so overwhelming as to make its 
 leaders indifferent even to the increased Nationalist 
 vote. Mr. Parnell foresaw this, and with that po- 
 litical sagacity which was never made more apparent 
 than in the masterly manner in which he laid his 
 plans for this campaign, he set about preventing such 
 a result. In order that the Nationalist programme 
 might be successful it was desirable, if not necessary, 
 that the Pamellites should hold the balance of power 
 in the next Parliament, and that this might be the 
 case the Liberals and Tories must be returned in 
 equal, or nearly equal numbers. This was the object 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 131 
 
 which Mr. Parnell had to accomplish. He must 
 weaken the Liberal and increase the Tory strength in 
 Great Britnin. To effect this he advised the execu- 
 tive of the Irish National League of Great Britain to 
 issue a manifesto to the Irish voters of England and 
 Scotland, calling upon them to support the Tory 
 candidates i-n preference to Liberals or Radicals 
 (though exceptions were made in favor of men like 
 He-iry Laboiichere and Joseph Cowen). The Nation- 
 alists in England and Scotland were magnificently 
 organized, and their power was used with dramatic 
 effect. The enormous advantage of the Liberals 
 from the 2,000,000 new vote is was stayed and 
 counteracted by the Irish voting solidly for the 
 Tories. To this action the Liberals owed a loss and 
 the Tories again of at least 40 members. 
 
 In Ireland the elections were a continuous series of 
 triumphs for the Nationalists. Their majorities com- 
 pi-ised liteially the whole voting list of many places. 
 In the toial vote cast in Ireland they had an over- 
 whelming majority. The Liberals were completely 
 wiped out in Ireland. At the elections of ISSO they 
 returned 44 members, but at this election, they did not 
 even return a man. The Tory stiength was also con- 
 siderably reduced. In 1880 the T' lies elected 24 
 members but at this election they only returned ] 8 
 out of Ireland's 103, and these were all in Ulster. 
 The Nationalists won the other 85 seats, and, T. P. 
 O'Connor having been elected for Liverpool, their 
 total stength in the next Parliament will be 8 >. 
 The following is a list of the Nationalist members 
 elected : 
 
 ABRAHAM, W., West Limerick. 
 BARRY, JOHN, South Wexford. 
 BLANE, ALEX., Suuih Armagh. 
 BIGGAR, JOS. G., East Cavan. 
 BYRNE, GARRETT, West Wicklow. 
 CAMPBELL, HENRY, South Fernxiiuagh.. 
 
132 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 CAREW, J. L., North Kildare. 
 
 CHANCE, P. A., South Kilkenny. 
 
 CLANCY, J. J., North Dublin. 
 
 COMMINS, Dr., North Roscommon. 
 
 CONDON, THOMAS J., East Tipperary. 
 
 CONNOLLY, J., South Longford. 
 
 CONWAY, M., North Leitrim. 
 
 CORBET, W. J., East Wicklow. 
 
 COX, J. E., East Clare^ 
 
 CRILLY, DANIEL, North Mayo. 
 
 DEASY, J., West Mayo. 
 
 DILLON, J., East Mayo. 
 
 ESMONDS, Sir T. H. G., South Dublin. 
 
 FINUCANE, J., East Limerick. 
 
 FLYNN, J. C, North Cork. 
 
 FOLEY, P. J., West Galway. 
 
 FOX, Dr., Tullamore, Kings County. 
 
 GILHOOLY, J., West Cork. 
 
 GILL, H. J., Limerick City. 
 
 GILL, T. P., South Louth. 
 
 GRAY, E. D., St. Stephen's Division, Dublin City 
 
 and Carlow County. 
 HARRINGTON, ED., West Kerry. 
 HARRINGTON, T., Harbor Division, Dublin 
 
 City. 
 HARRIS, M., East Gal way. 
 HAYDEN, L. P., South Leitrim. 
 HEALY,^[., Cork City. 
 
 HEALY, i\ M., North Monaghan and South Dcrry. 
 HOOPER, J., South-East Cork. 
 JORDAN, JER.,'West Clare. 
 KELLY, B., South Donegal. 
 KELLY, M., Mid-Tyrone. 
 KENNY, Dr., South Cork. 
 LALOR, R., Leix Division, Queens County. 
 LANE, WM. J., East Cork. 
 LEAHY, J., South Kildare. 
 LEAMY, E., No"th-Enst Cork. 
 McCARTRY, J., North Longford 
 
CHARLES STEWAET PARNELL. 133 
 
 McCarthy, J. H., Newry. 
 
 McDonald, p., North Sligo. 
 
 McKENNA, Sir J. N., South Monaghan. 
 
 MARUM, E. M., North Kilkenny. 
 
 MAYNE, THOS., Middle Tipperary. 
 
 MOLLOY, B. C, Birr, Kings County. 
 
 MURPHY, W., St. Patrick's Division, Dublin 
 
 City. 
 NOLAN, Col., North Galway. 
 NOLAN, J., North Louth. 
 O'BRIEN, J. F. X., South Mayo. ' 
 O'BRIEN, P. J., North Tipperary. 
 O'BRIEN, WM., South Tyrone. 
 O'CONNOR, ARTHUR, Ossory Division, Queens 
 
 County and East Donegal. 
 O'CONNOR, JOHN, South Kerry. 
 O'CONNOR, JOHN, East Tipperary. 
 O'CONNOR, T. P., Galway City and Livei-pool. 
 O'DOHERTY, J. E., North Donegal. 
 O'DOHERTY, K. L, North Meath. 
 O'HANLON, THOS., West Cavan. 
 O'HEA, P., West Donegal. 
 O'KELLY, J. J., South Roscommon. 
 PARNELL, C. S., Cork City. 
 POWER, P. J., East Waterford. 
 POWER, R., Waterford City. 
 PYNE, J. D., West Waterford. 
 REDMOND, J. E., North Wexford. 
 REDMOND, W. H. K., North Fermanagh. 
 REYNOLDS, W. J., East Tyrone. 
 SEXTON, THOS., South Sligo. 
 SHEEHAN, J. D., East Kerry. 
 SHEEHY, DAVID, South Galway. 
 SHEIL, ED., South Meath. 
 SMALL, J. F., South Down. 
 SMITHWICK, T. F., Kilkenny City. 
 STACK, JOHN, North Kerry. 
 SULLIVAN, D., South Wcstmeath. 
 SULLIVAN, T. D., College Green Division, Dublin, 
 
134 LIFE AND SERVICES OP 
 
 TANNER, Dr. C, Mid Cork. 
 TUITE, J., North Westmeath. 
 
 The above list contains 82 names, but as four of 
 them, viz., T. M. Healy, Arthur O'Connor, T. P. 
 O'Connor, and Ed. D. Gray, have been returned each 
 for two constituencies, and as they can hold but one 
 seat each, and new elections must be held for the 
 seats vacated, the full strength of the Irish party 
 after those four elections have taken place will be 86. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE PROSPECT FOR HOME RULE — THE POLICY OF THE 
 NEW IRISH PARTY. 
 
 The result of the elections virtually made Mr. Par- 
 nell the master of the situation. A Parnellite and 
 Tory coalition would have a small majority over the 
 Liberals and would be able to continue Lord Salis- 
 bury in power, but in return for his assistance the 
 Irish leader would certainly exact a full recognition 
 of the claims of Ireland. Should Lord Salisbury re- 
 fuse such terms, Mr. Parnell would have it in his 
 power to depose him almost at will. The probability 
 is, however, that the Tories will not be able to carry 
 a Home Rule scheme through Parliament on account 
 of the opposition of the Ulster Tories, who threaten 
 to desert their party should its leaders make any 
 compromise with Mr. Parnell, but Mr. Parnell is not 
 dependent solely on the Tories. Mr. Gladstone has 
 already made advances to him, audit is not improba- 
 ble that the Liberals and Parnellites will form a com- 
 bination by which Mr. Gladstone will again take up 
 the reins of government, the consideration being a 
 comprehensive measure of Home Rule for Ireland. 
 With Mr. Parnell's aid the Liberals would have an 
 immense majority and they could easily carry such a 
 
CHAELKS RTEWAKT PAKNELL. 135 
 
 measure througli Parliament. If they refuse Ire- 
 land's demands tliej are doomed. Mr. Gladstone 
 never had such an opportunity to show himself a 
 a great statesman. It remains to be seen whether he 
 will profit by the opportunity and win for his party 
 power and renown, or neglect it and allow his oppo- 
 nents to profit by it. 
 
 In any event it is certain that with the votes of 
 eighty-six members at his command, Mr. Parnell can 
 compel the concession of Home Rule or can depose 
 the government at his pleasure. And, under the 
 present method of electing and continuing govei'fl- 
 ments in ofiice in England, every succeeding govern- 
 ment will be equally at his mercy. The question, 
 therefore, will resolve itself into this: Home Rule for 
 Ireland, or a revolution in the forms and traditions of 
 government in England. When confronted by such 
 an alternative English ministers will hardly hesitate 
 to grant to Ireland the boon she craves. 
 
 And even should Mr. Parnell not hold the balance 
 of power in future Parliaments — should the Liberals, 
 after another dissolution, be returned by so large a 
 majority as to outnumber the Conservatives and 
 Nationalists together — the Irish leader will still have 
 a large and effective working force and can assuredly 
 accomplish much for Ireland. Mr. Gladstone was 
 elected to the last Parliament with a majority of 
 more than one hundred over tlie Conservatives and a 
 clear and decided majority over the united vote of 
 the Conservatives and Parnellites, and yet Mr. Par- 
 nell with only thirty-eight — and sometimes less — fol- 
 lowers, was able to compel legislation which he 
 wanted; to prevent much of that which he did not 
 want, and in the end to hurl a tyrannical government 
 from power altogether. If he was able to accom- 
 plish so much with Ipss than forty followers, what 
 will he not be able to do with eighty-six? 
 
 But the policy of the new party will not be hasty 
 or ill-advised. Its lines are marked out and will be 
 
136 LIFE AND SERVICES OP 
 
 followed closely, but Mr. Parnell will not jeopardize 
 his chances ot' ultimate success by undue precipita- 
 tion. He will be patieut and watchful and discreet, 
 as he has ever been, and when his opportunity comes 
 he will be ready to lake advantage of it. That his 
 policy would be one of caution he intimated at the 
 dinner given in London, on July 23, 1885, in honor 
 of Hon. Patrick A, Collins of Boston, Mass., ex-presi- 
 dent of the Land League in America. In his sj)eech 
 on this occasion Mr. Parnell said : 
 
 "It is for those at home, for the man who is riding 
 the horse to judge as to whether the fence shall be 
 rushed or taken slowly, and being to some extent 
 myself in the position of jockey, I won't say a suit- 
 able one, but as the rider at the present moment I 
 desire to give my own oiDinion to-night, that the situa- 
 tion in Ireland, just at present, at all events, demands 
 cautious riding and that we may, perhaps, find that we 
 shall have got over the fence without a fall if we put 
 our steed slowly at it upon the present occasion ; 
 and I am sure that those of my colleagues who know 
 my own disposition will agree with me that none of 
 us would for a single moment shrink from rushing 
 the fence if we thought that the safety or success of 
 our steed or of our country could be best secured in 
 that way. We have had some projects mooted dur- 
 ing the last few days for the revival of a movement 
 upon the lines of the Land League. Speaking for 
 myself, and without consulting with my colleagues, 
 as one who has never shrunk from any risk, from any 
 sacrifice in the times of the Land League, as one who 
 may be wilUng to go much further than any of us 
 went in the times of the Land League if the occa- 
 sion required, and who does not feel himself less 
 eager than he felt himself five years ago when he 
 shook General Collins by the hand at Boston, Mass., 
 I will say that I consider that our movement of this 
 winter should be one distinguished by its judgment, 
 its prudence, and its moderation that public men, and 
 
CHARLES STEWAUT PAENELL. 137 
 
 that public speakers should carefully scnitinize be- 
 forehand their every word and their every action, 
 tliat we should advise our fellow countrymen against 
 being carried away by any excess, and against any 
 immoderation, and that while sometimes it is wise to 
 strike hard, it is also sometimes wise to remem- 
 ber the motto, ^/<25;'ma lente, and that I consider that 
 those counsellors will be the best and the wisest who 
 will, during the next few months, urge upon our peo- 
 ple at home the exercise of great caution and pru- 
 dence in their actions, lest unhappily, by too great 
 elation at the extraordinary turn that events have 
 taken in favor of our country they should mar what 
 would otherwise most undoubtedly be the speedy 
 fruition of our hopes as a nation, and the speedy con- 
 quest of those rights in the land of Ireland which we 
 have fought for and struggled for during so many 
 years." 
 
 Caution is a characteristic of Mr. Parnell's,but it is 
 such caution as is possessed by the best and the 
 bravest generals. He wisely a^'oids risks when the 
 probabilities are against success, but when the 
 chances are favorable he strikes with the decisive 
 force of a master mind. He has always counseled 
 moderation, but I think that an impartial study of 
 his career will show that it was from motives of pru- 
 dence, not principle. He believes heartily in the 
 maxim "Ireland for the Irish," but his policy has 
 been — in the words of T. D. Sullivan, M. P. — to 
 "take all he could get — and then go for the remain- 
 der," and events have shown that his policy was a 
 wise one. 
 
 Like O'Connell Parnell can say that he is "an agi- 
 tator with an ulterior object," and that object the Na- 
 tional independence of Ireland. Indeed, he said this 
 in his speech at the banquet in his honor given by the 
 Parliamentary party in Dublin on August 24. In re- 
 plying to tlie toast to his health on this occasion Mi*. 
 Parnell said : 
 
138 LIFE AND SERVICES OF 
 
 " I feel convinced that I interpret your sentiments 
 best and most fully, as I certainly express ray own, 
 when I say that each and all of us have only looked 
 upon the acts — the legislative enactments which we 
 have been able to wring from an unwilling Parlia- 
 ment — as means towards an end, that we would have 
 at any time in the hours of our deepest depression 
 and greatest discouragement, spurned and rejected 
 any measure, however tempting, and however appar- 
 ent for the benefit of our people — if we had been 
 able to detect that behind it lurked any danger to the 
 legislative independence of our land. And although 
 during this Parliament, which has just expired, we 
 may have said very little about Ilumc Rule — very 
 little was said about legislative independence — very 
 little about repeal of the Union — yet 1 know well 
 that through each of your hearts the thought of how 
 those great things might be best forwarded was 
 never for a moment absent and that no body of Irish- 
 men ever met together who have more consistently 
 worked, and woi-ked with a greater effect for that 
 which always must be the hope of our nation until 
 its realization arrives. We might, I say, refer to 
 those legislative achievements. We might refer to 
 the Land Act, an admirable measure in its way, even 
 an unthought-of measure since many of us have come 
 into political life. We might refer to the Arrears 
 Act. We might dwell on the Franchise Act, under 
 which almost manhood suffrage has been conceded to 
 Ireland. We might recall to our recollection the Re- 
 distribution Act, under which, despite the open hos- 
 tility of one party and the hardly-concealed envy of 
 the other, we succeeded in getting in the new Parlia- 
 ment the full rejiresentation of Ireland without the 
 loss of a single man. But these things, although im- 
 portant in themselves, are not, as I have said, the end 
 and aim of our existence as a party ; and although we 
 connot refuse, and never have refused — although we 
 have always, and wisely, I think, made it part of our 
 
CIIARI.Ti:S STEWAKT PAENELL. 139 
 
 programme to gain for Ireland such concessions as 
 might be got at the while, provided we did not sacri- 
 fice greater and more enduring national interests, yet 
 "we have always got before us that we were sent from 
 this country, not to remain long in Westminster but 
 to remember that it was for us to look upon our 
 presence there as a voluntary one, and to regard our 
 future, our legislative future, as belonging to our own 
 native country of Ireland. 
 
 Referring to the services of the Irish Nationalist 
 members, Mr. Parnell said: "I can only say as regards 
 myself that those services have been my constant 
 admiration ; that I have marvelled that it was pos- 
 sible for any nation, for any country, to get together 
 such a body of men under any circumstances ; but 
 that it should have been possible for Ireland in her 
 position, with all her talent, her supposed best talent, 
 divorced from her, with the ten-ible engines and 
 means which have been used to terrify, to cajole, and 
 to persuade her sons to enlist under another flag than 
 her own — it is a marvel to me, it seems to me that it 
 must have been a dispensation of Providence that it 
 could have been possible for our country to have 
 found such sons and to have been served as she has 
 been served during the five years of the Parliament 
 of 1881 to 1885. And what is our present position? 
 It is admitted by all parties that you have brought 
 the question of Irish Legislative Independence to the 
 point of solution. It is not now a question of 
 self-government for Ireland, it is only a question as 
 to how much of the self-government they will be 
 able to cheat us out of. It is not now a question of 
 whether the Irish people shall decide their own des- 
 tinies and their own future, but it is a question with, 
 I was going to say our English masters, but I am 
 afraid we cannot call them masters in Ireland — it is a 
 question w^ith them as to how far the day — that they 
 consider the evil day — shall be deferred." 
 
 On this occasion also, he laid it down as a princi- 
 
140 LIFE AND STIEVICES OP 
 
 pie that the Irish party in future would ha/e a pro- 
 gi-amme with only one plank, and that one the plank 
 of National independence, and that all its efforts 
 and all its energies should be directed to secure that 
 end. 
 
 Will he succeed ? Mr. Parnell himself, than whom 
 no statesman of modern times has more conspicuously 
 shown tlie possession of tact, ability, sound judg- 
 ment and unerring political foresight, firmly believes 
 that he will ; the whole Irish people at home and 
 abroad hope and pray that victory may crown his 
 labors, and even his enemies admit that the issue of 
 his efforts will more than probably be a triumphant 
 one. But I leave the answer to the question to time, 
 confident that it will vindicate Mr. Parnell's pledges 
 and justify me in classifying him above all previous 
 Irish popular leaders and statesmen, not only for 
 what he has done, but for what he has made it possi- 
 ble to do, and for the glorious hope which his won- 
 derful successes has awakened in the hearts of his 
 countrymen, that after seven centuries spent in the 
 darkness of bondage, the Sun of National Independ- 
 ence — and its inevitable concomitant, National Pros- 
 perity — is at last about to dawn upon " dear Old 
 Ireland." 
 
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German at a Glance. 
 
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NEW AND STANDARD BOOKS 
 
 'DJii!^maii(lliclloa 
 
 Alphabets, Ornamental and Fancy. Geo. E. Woodward. 4to 
 
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 Fishing in American Waters. By Genio C. Scott. 200 Illustrations. . . 
 
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 Lewis' Practical Poultry Book. 100 Illustrations 
 
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 Wallace's American Stud Book. 1,000 pages, 8vo 
 
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 29 and 31 Beekman Street, New York, N. Y. 
 
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