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 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
