xistence, Kilmainham and its Treaty, and the Land Act
of 1881, which I can speak of, from my own knowledge, as the first
great forward step in the emancipation of the Irish tenant farmer. Mr
Dillon differed with Parnell as to the efficacy of this Act, but he
was as hopelessly wrong in his attitude then as he was twenty-two
years later in connection with the Land Act of 1903. In 1882 the
National League came into being, giving a broader programme and a
deeper depth of meaning to the aims of Parnell. At this time the
Parliamentary policy of the Party under his leadership was an absolute
independence of all British Parties, and therein lay all its strength
and savour. There was also the pledge of the members to sit, act and
vote together, which owed its wholesome force not so much to anything
inherent in the pledge itself as to the positive terror of a public
opinion in Ireland which would tolerate no tampering with it.
Furthermore, a rigid rule obtained against members of the Party
seeking office or preferment for themselves or their friends on the
sound principle that the Member of Parliament who sought ministerial
favours could not possibly be an impeccable and independent patriot.

But the greatest achievement of Parnell was the fact that he had both
the great English parties bidding for his support. We know that the
Tory Party entered into negotiations with him on the Home Rule issue.
Meanwhile, however, there was the more notable conversion of
Gladstone, a triumph of unparalleled magnitude for Parnell and in
itself the most convincing testimony to the positive strength and
absolute greatness of the man. A wave of enthusiasm went up on both
sides of the Irish Sea for the alliance which seemed to symbolise the
ending of the age-long struggle between the two nations. True, this
alliance has since been strangely underrated in its effects, but there
can be no doubt that it evoked at the time a genuine outburst of
friendliness on the part of the Irish masses to England. And at the
General Election of 1885 Parnell returned from Ireland with a solid
phalanx of eighty-four members--eager, invincible, enthusiastic, bound
unbreakably together in loyalty to their country and in devotion to
their leader.

From 1885 to 1890 there was a general forgiving and forgetting of
historic wrongs and ancient feuds. The Irish Nationalists were willing
to clasp hands across the sea in a brotherhood of friendship and even
of affection, but t