easure of self-government from which they could march onward to the
fullest emancipation that the status of nationhood demands.

There was never stagnation, nor stupidity, nor blundering in the
handling of Irish affairs whilst his hand was on the helm. It was only
later that the creeping paralysis of inefficiency and incompetence
exhibited itself and that a people deprived of his genius for
direction and control sank into unimagined depths of apathy,
indifference and gloom.

He thwarted and defeated what appeared to be the settled policy of
England--namely, to palter and toy with Irish problems, to postpone
their settlement, to engage in savage repressions and ruthless
oppressions until, the race being decimated by emigration or, what
remained, being destroyed in their ancient faiths by a ruthless method
of Anglicisation, the Irish Question would settle itself by a process
of gradual attenuation unto final disappearance.

It was Parnell who practically put an end to evictions in
Ireland--those "sentences of death" under which, from 1849 to 1882,
there were no less than 363,000 peasant families turned out of their
homes and driven out of their country. It was his policy which
invested the tenants with solid legal rights and gave them
unquestioned guarantees against landlord lawlessness. He and his
lieutenants had their bouts with Dublin Castle, and they proved what a
very vulnerable institution it was when courageously assailed.

Taken all in all, he brought a new life into Ireland. He left it for
ever under manifold obligations to him, and whilst grass grows and
water runs and the Celtic race endures, Ireland will revere the name
of Parnell and rank him amongst the noblest of her leaders.

CHAPTER V

THE WRECK AND RUIN OF A PARTY

The blight that had come upon Irish politics did not abate with the
death of Parnell. Neither side seemed to spare enough charity from its
childish disputations to make an honest and sincere effort at
settlement. There was no softening of the asperities of public life on
the part of the Parnellites--they claimed that their leader had been
hounded to his death, and they were not going to join hands in a
blessed forgiveness of the bitter years that had passed with those who
had lost to Ireland her greatest champion. On the other hand, the
Anti-Parnellites showed no better disposition. It had been one of
their main contentions th