Ireland Since Parnell | Page 4

the legend: "Ireland for
the Irish and the Land for the People."

The country people were present from far and near. Cavalcades of
horsemen thronged in from many a distant place, wearing proudly the
Fenian sash of orange and green over their shoulder, and it struck my
youthful imagination what a dashing body of cavalry these would have
made in the fight for Ireland. Michael Davitt was the founder and
mainspring of the Land League and it is within my memory that in the
hearts and the talks of the people around their fireside hearths he was at
this time only second to Parnell in their hope and love. I am told that
Mr John Devoy shared with him the honour of co-founder of the Land
League, but I confess I heard little of Mr Devoy, probably because he
was compulsorily exiled about this time.[1]
In those days Parnell's following consisted of only seven men out of
one hundred and three Irish members. When the General Election of
1880 was declared he was utterly unprepared to meet all its
emergencies. For lack of candidates he had to allow himself to be
nominated for three constituencies, yet with marvellous and almost
incredible energy he fought on to the last polling-booth. The result was
astounding. He increased his following to thirty-five, not, perhaps,
overwhelming in point of numbers, but remarkable for the high
intellectual standard of the young men who composed it, for their
varied capacities, for their fine patriotism, and their invincible
determination to face all risks and invite all dangers. It has been said of
Parnell that he was an intolerant autocrat in the selection of candidates
for and membership of the Party, and that he imposed his will
ruthlessly upon them once they were elected. I am told by those who
were best in a position to form a judgment, and whose veracity I would
stake my life upon, that nothing could be farther from the truth. Parnell
had little to say with the choosing of his lieutenants. Indeed, he was
singularly indifferent about it, as instances could be quoted to prove.
Undoubtedly he held them together firmly, because he had the gift of
developing all that was best in a staff of brilliant talents and varied gifts,
and so jealousies and personal idiosyncrasies had not the room wherein
to develop their poisonous growths.
I pass rapidly over the achievements of Parnell in the years that
followed. He gave the country some watchwords that can never be

forgotten, as when he told the farmers to "Keep a firm grip of your
homesteads!" followed by the equally energetic exhortation: "Hold the
harvest!" They were his Orders of the Day to his Irish army. Then came
the No-Rent Manifesto, the suppression of the Land League after only
twelve months' existence, 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