13 OCTOBER 1894, Page 18

On Monday, Mr. John Redmond addressed a great gather. ing

of Parnellites, held in the Rotunda, Dublin, the Lord Mayor, Mr. Henry Parnell, several provincial Mayors, and nearly all the Parnellite Members, being on the platform. When Mr. Parnell was their leader, said Mr. Redmond, they had a united party and Home-rule was in the forefront of the great Imperial questions of the day. Now the Irish were divided, and they had no man as leader fit to combine the various elements of their race, and Home-rule had absolutely dis- appeared from the list of urgent Imperial political questions. The notion that they would get Home-rule through an agitation against the Lords was sheer midsummer madness. If the proposal meant anything, it meant the postponement of Home-rule for this generation,—a remark obviously true. The country will want a long rest from big things if it abolishes the Lords, and will not dream of going on at once to such a question as Home-rule. An immediate Dissolution, Mr. Redmond went on, was the essential thing for Home-rule. " The plain duty of the Parnellites was, in season and out of season, in and out of Parliament, to force an immediate Dissolution." This, if he gauged the signs of the times rightly, the Parnellites would now be able to accomplish. Possibly ; but Mr. Redmond will not even get Home-rule that way. He forgets that:the Glad- stonian worm may turn, and that if he kicks out the present Ministry, its followers will not be more, but less, inclined to give him what he asks.