ative, in view of the necessity for assisting
to return to Parliament a sufficient majority to enable Mr. Gladstone to
carry his Home Rule Bill through the House of Commons.

The result of the General Election of 1892 was the return to power of
Mr. Gladstone. His majority was the best proof to friend and foe of the
value of the work done by our organisation during the previous years in
adding to the Irish vote in Great Britain. It also showed we had the
power and the influence in the constituencies we had claimed. Indeed,
the books in the offices of the League could show, by the figures for
every constituency, that without the Irish vote Mr. Gladstone would have
had no majority at all.

When we come to consider the terrible crisis we were passing through,
the result was magnificent.

Although, as we all expected, Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill was thrown
out by the House of Lords, the fact that a Bill conferring
self-government on Ireland had been passed in the Commons was recognised
as a step towards that end which could never be receded from, and that
it was but a question of time when the Home Rule Cause would be won.

Moreover, the event proved that our grievance was no longer against the
English democracy, but against the class which misgoverned us, just as
it, to a lesser extent, misgoverned them.

Most of us have, no doubt, taken part in a family gathering on some
joyous occasion when the mother realizes that _all_ her children are
not around her, and is overcome with sadness. So it was with us. Well
might mother Ireland ask why were not _all_ her children in the one
fold, to be one with her and with each other in the hour of rejoicing,
as they had been loyally with her in all her sorrows? Why was the bitter
feud over the leadership of the Irish Party so long kept up? Why was the
happy reconciliation so long delayed?

While the majority, it is true, were arrayed on one side, the fact
remained that on the other side there were men of undoubted patriotism
and great ability, not only members of Parliament such as John and
William Redmond or Timothy Harrington, but some of our best men all over
the country, who had done splendid service for the Cause, and were
either in fierce antagonism or holding aloof.

It was during this sad time that I met that distinguished orator, Thomas
Sexton, to whom John Barry was good enough to introduce me. Sexton came
specially from Ireland on this occasion in the interests of pe