R. Why do you allow the most bitter partisans – the local Healys who are always insulting large sections of their fellow townsmen – to be picked out for the magistracy?
M. My instructions are quite the reverse.
[Chancellor Walker had entered the room.]
…
R. What view do you take of the Meath petitions [brought by the Parnellites against the 1892 election results in South and North Meath]?
M. I take the gravest view possible. I look with more apprehension to them than [to] anything whatever. If what I hear is to be the evidence be substantiated it will mean ruin.
R. But it is a vital matter that the people should be freed from the monstrous clerical intimidation which is prevalent all over Ireland. Meath is only an example.
M. I fully recognise this. It is horrible and almost incredible, but surely the time to defeat it is when you get Home Rule, not while trying to get it.
C. Can nothing be done to save this exposure?
R. Nothing as far as I can see except not to defend the petitions and to let us have the seats.
C. That of course is impossible …
M. Sd. he hoped I would consent to see him again … complained that no one went to see him except ‘the wrong sort’ – no Irish member had called upon him.2
***
The Second Home Rule Bill was introduced by Gladstone in February 1893. Redmond, ostensibly representing a more militant form of constitutional nationalism than the anti-Parnellites, had to steer a careful course between venting criticism of the Bill’s inadequacies and avoiding its rejection by his more extreme supporters. Although the Second Reading was passed with the support of all nationalist factions, Redmond’s widely acclaimed speech in its favour included the stricture that the Bill could not be regarded as a final settlement of Ireland’s claims. When the financial clauses were debated in Committee in June, his criticisms were much tougher than those of anti-Parnellite spokesmen. Similar censures would be voiced by nationalist critics of Redmond two decades later in the debates on the Third Home Rule Bill.
TO JOHN MORLEY MP
House of Commons, 13 June 1893:
… in regard to the financial clauses [of the Home Rule Bill] the rumour of the intentions of the Government … has reached me from another source ... I consider the matter so grave, that I feel bound to let you know the view taken by at any rate some Irish members. I have had an opportunity of consulting my friends and they agree with me that it will be our duty to vote against the 3rd Reading of the Bill in the event of the Government making any proposal … to take from the future Irish Government the collection, even for a time, of all Irish taxes … as unjust and humiliating in the last degree. If not too late, I would urge most strongly upon you the desirability of endeavouring, in consultation with Irish Nationalists of both parties, to frame such financial arrangements as will enable all of us to continue our support of the measure.3
***
The second Home Rule Bill passed the House of Commons on 1 September but was rejected by the House of Lords, exercising its veto. In charting a way forward for the Parnellite minority after the Bill’s defeat, Redmond continued to receive sound advice, judiciously seasoned with flattery, from T.P. Gill.
FROM T.P. GILL
13 October 1893:
… You won’t mind me telling you how [your speeches] struck me:
(i) I approve of your making it clear that ‘Ireland stops the way’ – both as agitation in Ireland and … well-timed disturbance of the House of Commons; (ii) I approve of the nine [Parnellite MPs] devoting themselves to agitation and organisation in Ireland during the autumn session – provided they pair all right.
However … I disapprove of the offensive tone in speaking of the Liberal party and things and measures which the English democracy and working classes hold very dear … [This] can only do you harm both in England and in Ireland … you can make the effect you want without it … speaking in this way was one of the mistakes poor Parnell admitted to me and he tried and generally managed to avoid it in his later speeches …
In Ireland mark this – whatever growth of Parnellite strength has taken place during the year is largely due to the impression created of the sagacity of your actions in Parliament throughout the session; to the confidence thus inspired in your wisdom, discretion and skill – your Parnellesque qualities in short, a confidence which has been greatly heightened by the squabbling on the other side. Men who feared that in supporting Parnellism they were helping to wreck Home Rule have begun to feel that they are doing the contrary and that Parnellism is likely to furnish from its bosom a new leader to whose prudence and adroitness and courage they can trust the constitutional cause …4
FROM T.P. GILL
24 October 1893:
… you should come over and make a tour, taking the opportunity to give a word for the British working man … address a meeting in England in a strongly democratic tone … and point out to the British democracy that we have no quarrel with them, that those who have been Ireland’s oppressors have also been theirs … a series of meetings, indeed, addressed in that vein, with variations, would do a lot of good both to you and to the cause at large …5
***
One of the concessions salvaged by Redmond from the wreck of the Home Rule Bill was a Liberal commitment to set up a Royal Commission to inquire into the whole topic of British–Irish financial relations since the Act of Union. The Commission’s 1896 report, which confirmed the over-taxation of Ireland, would be a landmark event that ignited an island-wide agitation for redress that drew support from nationalist and unionist opinion alike.
FROM JOHN MORLEY MP
5 December 1893:
I was very pleased to get your kind note last night. You and I shall yet have some business to do together in this world, and I believe neither of us will do anything in the meantime to make that business more difficult … I shall continue to be at one end of a wire, and Ireland at the other.6
MEMORANDUM IN REDMOND’S HAND: ‘INTERVIEW WITH JOHN MORLEY ABOUT NAMES FOR FINANCIAL COMMISSION’
19 February 1894:
Incidentally he sd. he was going to appoint a batch of R.M.s and sd. he wd. appoint one Parnellite barrister if I would name one. I sd. I cd. not do so. Asked me if I knew Miles and Dan Kehoe and were they Parnellites. I said yes.7
FROM JOHN MORLEY MP
24 February 1894:
I hope you will allow me to propose your name as a member of the Commission on the References enclosed. It is, as you know, a Royal Commission, and Mr. Childers will be in the chair … Let me have a reply as soon as you conveniently can.8
FROM THE SECRETARIES OF WELSH PARLIAMENTARY PARTY
25 February 1895:
The opponents of Welsh Disestablishment will divide against the introduction of the Welsh Bill on Thursday next. On behalf of the Welsh
