rliamentary
party; not half a dozen men in all the House had been longer
continuously members; he had always been one of the most popular figures
at Westminster and in Ireland; and he had always spoken a great deal.
Yet he had never been in the front rank either as a speaker or as a
politician. The humour and the wit which made him the joy of groups in
the smoking-room on the occasions when he was in full vein of
reminiscence never got into his set speeches--though no man oftener lit
up debate with some telling interruption. He was often merely
rhetorical; he had the name--though in my experience he never deserved
it--for being indiscreetly vehement. His early reputation, which he had
never lived down, is not unkindly represented by a story which he used
to tell against himself. When the first Home Rule Bill was introduced he
had a great desire to speak in the debate, and went to Parnell with his
request. "Will you promise," said Parnell, "that you will write out what
you are going to say, and show it to me, and say that and no more?" He
promised, and handed in his manuscript. Days went by and he heard
nothing, so he went back to the Chief. "Ah yes," said Parnell, "I have
it in my pocket. An excellent speech, my dear Willie. If I were you I
shouldn't waste it on the House of Commons. It's too good for them."

Later, in the days from 1906 onwards, with all his experience, it cannot
be said that he ever affected opinion in the House. What he said was the
common stuff of argument: it was all what someone else might have
said--until the war came. Then, he was a changed creature. He went
through in the Army the same experience as hundreds of other members of
Parliament; but he and he only seemed to have got the very soul out of
it. He took to his soldier's duty as a religion: he saw all that
concerned him in the light of it. It has been told already how his two
speeches on almost casual occasions affected public feeling: but in them
he was chiefly an Irish member of Parliament speaking about soldiers and
about Irish soldiers. In this debate he was an Irish soldier pleading
with Parliament for Ireland in the name of Irish soldiers--who had
responded to the call to arms because, as he said, they were led to
believe that a new and better and brighter chapter was about to open in
the relations of Great Britain and Ireland.

"I do not believe that there is a single member of any party in this
House who is prepared to get up and