the debate on the Address in
the new Parliament of 1880 he acted as a lieutenant to Mr. Shaw. Yet he
was on very friendly terms with Parnell--almost a neighbour of his, for
the Parnell property, lying about the Vale of Ovoca, touched the border
of Wexford.

Mr. William Redmond's career in that Parliament was soon ended. In
November 1880 he died, and, normally, his son, whose qualifications and
ambitions were known, would have succeeded him. But collision between
Government and the Parnellite party was already beginning. Mr. T.M.
Healy, then Parnell's secretary, had been arrested for a speech in
denunciation of some eviction proceedings. This was the first arrest of
a prominent man under Mr. Forster's rule as Chief Secretary, and
Parnell, with whom in those days the decision rested, decided that Mr.
Healy should immediately be put forward for the vacant seat. In later
days he was to remind Mr. Healy how he had done this, "rebuking and
restraining the prior right of my friend, Jack Redmond." Redmond had not
long to wait, however. Another vacancy occurred in another Wexford seat,
the ancient borough of New Ross, and he was returned without opposition
at a crucial moment in the parliamentary struggle.

That struggle was not only parliamentary. From the famine year of 1879
onwards a fierce agitation had begun, whose purpose was to secure the
land of Ireland to the people who worked it. Davitt was to the land what
Parnell was to the parliamentary campaign: but it was Parnell's genius
which fused the two movements.

To meet the growing power of the Land League, Mr. Forster demanded a
Coercion Bill, and after long struggles in the Cabinet he prevailed.
Against this Bill it was obvious that all means of parliamentary
resistance would be used to the uttermost.

They were still of a primitive simplicity. In the days before Parnell
the House of Commons had carried on its business under a system of rules
which worked perfectly well because there was a general disposition in
the assembly to get business done. A beginning of the new order was made
when a group of ex-military men attempted to defeat the measure for
abolishing purchase of commissions in the Army by a series of dilatory
motions. This, however, was an isolated occurrence. Any English member
who set himself to thwart the desire of the House for a conclusion by
using means which the general body considered unfair would have been
reduced to quiescence by a demonstration