to the debates, standing by the entrance outside the magical strip of matting which indicates the bar of the House. From this point of vantage he watched the first stages of a Parliament in which Mr, Gladstone set out with so triumphant a majority—and watched too the inroads made upon the power and prestige of that majority by the new parliamentary force which had come into being.

Redmond himself described thus (in a lecture delivered at New York in 1896) the policy which came to be known as "The New Departure":

"Mr. Parnell found that the British Parliament insisted upon turning a deaf ear to Ireland's claim for justice. He resolved to adopt the simple yet masterly device of preventing Parliament doing any work at all until it consented to hear."

In the task of systematic and continuous obstruction Parnell at once found a ready helper, Mr. Joseph Biggar. But Parnell, Biggar and those who from 1876 to 1880 acted generally or frequently with them were only members of the body led by Butt; though they were, indeed, ultimately in more or less open revolt against Butt's leadership. When Butt died, and was at least nominally replaced by Mr. Shaw, the growth of Parnell's ascendancy became more marked. In the general election of 1880 sixty Home Rulers were returned to Parliament; and at a meeting attended by over forty, twenty-three declared for Parnell as their leader. A question almost of ceremonial observance immediately defined the issue. Liberals were in power, and Government was more friendly to Ireland's claims than was the Opposition. Mr. Shaw and his adherents were for marking support of the Government by sitting on the Government side of the Chamber. Parnell insisted that the Irish party should be independent of all English attachments and permanently in opposition till Ireland received its rights. With that view he and his friends took up their station on the Speaker's left below the gangway, where they held it continuously for thirty-nine years.

Mr. William Redmond was no supporter of the new policy. As the little group which Parnell headed grew more and more insistent in their obstruction, the member for Wexford spoke less and less. His interventions were rare and dignified. In 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 that he was considered a nuisance. His voice would have been drowned in a buzz of conversation or by less civil interruptions. This implied, however, a willingness to be influenced by social considerations, and, more than that, a loyalty to the traditions and purposes of the House. Parnell felt no such willingness and acknowledged no such loyalty.

"His object," said Redmond in the address already quoted, "was to injure it so long as it refused to listen to the just claims of his country." The House, realizing Parnell's intention, visited upon him and his associates all the penalties by which it was wont to enforce its wishes: but the penalties had no sting. All the displays of anger, disapproval, contempt, all the vocabulary of denunciation in debate and in the Press, all the studied forms of insult, all the marks of social displeasure, only served to convince the Irishmen that they were producing their effect. Still, the House continued to act on the assumption that it could vindicate its traditions in the old traditional way: it was determined to change none of the rules which had stood for so many generations: it would maintain its liberties and put down in its own way those who had the impertinence to abuse them. The breaking-point came exactly at the moment when Redmond was elected.

On Monday, Jan. 24th, 1881, Mr. Forster introduced his Coercion Bill. It was open, of course, to any member to speak once, and once only, on the main motion. But every member had an indefinite right to move the adjournment of the debate, and on each such motion every member could speak again. The debate was carried all through that week. It was resumed on Monday, 31st. The declaration of Redmond's election was fixed for Tuesday, February 1st, in New Ross—there being no contest. A telegram summoned him to come instantly after the declaration to London. He took the train at noon, travelled to Dublin and crossed the Channel. At Holyhead about midnight another telegram told him that the debate was still proceeding. He reached Euston on the Wednesday morning, drove straight to the House, and there, standing at the bar, saw what he thus described:

"It was thus, travel-stained and weary, that I first presented myself as a member of the British Parliament. The House was still sitting, it had been sitting without a break for over forty hours, and I shall never forget the appearance the Chamber presented. The floor was littered with paper. A few dishevelled and weary Irishmen were on one side of the House, about a hundred infuriated Englishmen upon the other; some of them still in evening dress, and wearing what were once white shirts of the night before last. Mr. Parnell was upon his legs, with pale cheeks and drawn face, his hands clenched behind his back, facing without flinching a continuous roar of interruption. It was now about eight o'clock. Half of Mr. Parnell's followers were out of the Chamber snatching a few moments' sleep in chairs in the Library or Smoke Room. Those who remained had each a specified period of time allotted him to speak, and they were wearily waiting their turn. As they caught sight of me standing at the bar of the House of Commons there was a cheer of welcome. I was unable to come to their aid, however, as under the rules of the House I