could not take my seat until the commencement of a new sitting. My very presence, however, brought, I think, a sense of encouragement and approaching relief to them; and I stood there at the bar with my travelling coat still upon me, gazing alternately with indignation and admiration at the amazing scene presented to my gaze.

"This, then, was the great Parliament of England! Of intelligent debate there was none. It was one unbroken scene of turbulence and disorder. The few Irishmen remained quiet, too much amused, perhaps, or too much exhausted to retaliate. It was the English—the members of the first assembly of gentlemen in Europe, as they love to style it—who howled and roared, and almost foamed at the mouth with rage at the calm and pale-featured young man who stood patiently facing them and endeavouring to make himself heard."

An hour later the closure was applied, for the first time in Parliament's history. The records of Hansard spoil a story which Redmond was fond of telling—that he took his oath and his seat, made his maiden speech and was suspended all in the same evening. In point of fact he took his seat that Wednesday afternoon, when the House sat for a few hours only and adjourned again. Next day news came in that Davitt had been arrested in Ireland. Mr. Dillon, in the process of endeavouring to extract an explanation from the Government, was named and suspended. When the Prime Minister after this rose to speak, Mr. Parnell moved: "That Mr. Gladstone be not heard."

The Speaker, ruling that Mr. Gladstone was in possession of the House, refused to put the motion. Mr. Parnell, insisting that his motion should be put, came into collision with the authority of the Chair and was formally "named." Mr. Gladstone then moved his suspension and a division was called—whereupon, under the rules which then existed, all members were bound to leave the Chamber. On this occasion the Irish members remained seated, as a protest, and after the division the Speaker solemnly reported this breach of order to the House. For their refusal to obey the Irish members present were suspended from the service of the House, and as a body they refused to leave unless removed by physical force. Accordingly, man by man was ordered to leave and each in turn rose up with a brief phrase of refusal, after which the Sergeant-at-Arms with an officer approached and laid a hand on the recusant's shoulder. Redmond, when his turn came, said:

"As I regard the whole of these proceedings as unmitigated despotism, I beg respectfully to decline to withdraw."

That was his maiden speech. Having delivered it, "Mr. Redmond," says Hansard, "was by desire of Mr. Speaker removed by the Sergeant-at-Arms from the House." It was a strange beginning for one of the greatest parliamentarians of our epoch—and one of the greatest conservatives. The whole bent of his mind was towards moderation in all things. Temperamentally, he hated all forms of extravagant eccentricity; he loved the old if only because it was old; he had the keenest sense not only of decorum but of the essential dignity which is the best guardian of order. Yet here he was committed to a policy which aimed deliberately at outraging all the established decencies—at disregarding ostentatiously all the usages by which an assembly of gentlemen had regulated their proceedings.

What is more, it was an assembly which Redmond found temperamentally congenial to him—an assembly which, apart from its relation to Ireland, he thoroughly admired and liked. In 1896, when Irish members were fiercely in opposition to the Government, he concluded his description of Parliament with these words:

"In the main, the House of Commons is, I believe, dominated by a rough-and-ready sense of manliness and fair-play. Of course, I am not speaking of it as a governing body. In that character it has been towards Ireland always ignorant and nearly always unfair. I am treating it simply as an assembly of men, and I say of it, it is a body where sooner or later every man finds his proper level, where mediocrity and insincerity will never permanently succeed, and where ability and honesty of purpose will never permanently fail."

That was no mean tribute, coming from one who held himself aloof from all the personal advantages belonging to the society whose rules he did not recognize. The opinion to which the Irish members of Parnell's following were amenable was not made at Westminster; it did not exist there—except, and that in its most rigid form, amongst themselves.

It is worth while to recall for English readers—and perhaps not for them only—what membership of Parnell's party involved. In the first place, there was a self-denying ordinance by which the man elected to it bound himself to accept no post of any kind under Government. All the chances which election to Parliament opens to most men—and especially to men of the legal profession—were at once set aside. Absolute discipline and unity of action, except in matters specially left open to individual judgment, were enforced on all. These were the essentials. But in the period of acute war between the Irish and all other parties which was opening when Redmond entered there was a self-imposed rule that as the English public and English members disapproved and disliked the Irishmen an answering attitude should be adopted: that even private hospitality should be avoided and that the belligerents should behave as if they were quite literally in an enemy's country.

Later, when Mr. Gladstone had adopted the Irish cause and alliance with the Liberal party had begun, the rigour of this attitude was modified. Many Irish members joined the Liberal clubs and went freely to houses where they were sure of sympathy. Yet neither of the Redmonds followed far in this direction, and the habit of social isolation which they formed in their early days lasted with them to the end. If John Redmond ever went to any house in London which was not an Irish home it was by the rarest exception.

For society, Parnell's party depended on themselves and their countrymen and sympathizers. But they were in no way to be pitied; they were the best of company for one another. It was a movement of the young, it had all the strength and audacity of youth, it was a great adventure. A few men from an older generation came with them, Mr. Biggar, Justin McCarthy and others. But their leader, though older than most of his followers, was a young man by parliamentary standards. In 1880 Parnell was only thirty-three; and within four years more he was as great a power in the House as Mr. Gladstone. Some few years back I heard Willie Redmond say in the Members' smoking-room, "Isn't it strange to think that Parnell would be sixty now if he had lived. I can't imagine him as an old man." Yet the accent of maturity was on Parnell's leadership; the men whom he led were essentially young. In 1881, when Redmond entered Parliament, Mr. Dillon was thirty, Mr. T.P. O'Connor and Mr. Sexton veterans of thirty-three, Mr. Healy twenty-six. Mr. William O'Brien (who did not come in until 1883) was of the same year as Mr. Dillon. Redmond was younger than any of them, being elected at the age of twenty-four. Yet nobody then thought it surprising that he should be sent in 1882 to represent the party on a mission to Australia and the United States at a most difficult time. The Phoenix Park murders had created widespread indiscriminating anger against all Irish Nationalists throughout the Empire, and Redmond found it difficult to secure even a hall to speak in. For support there was sent to him his brother, then a youth of twenty-one, and feeling ran so strong against the two that the Prime Minister of New South Wales (Sir Henry Parkes) proposed their expulsion from the colony. Nevertheless, Redmond made good. "The Irish working-men stood by me," he said, "and in fact saved the situation." Fifteen thousand pounds were collected before they left