MR. PARNELL.
MR. PARNELL'S figure is but too likely to become historical. No one questions that there is in him not a little of the mind of the fanatic. Yet, as often with fanatics, nothing ap- pears less on the mere surface. There is no Member of the House who is more completely master of its forms. It has been said that the Speaker himself is not better versed in ques- tions of form than Mr. Parnell. Dr. Playfair as yet is decidedly his inferior. And Mr. Parnell is not only master of the forms of the House, he is almost always master of himself in relation to the astute manipulation of those forms. When he had to de- fend Mr. O'Donnell a few weeks ago for moving the adjournment of the House in order to cast imputations on the French Am- bassador, Mr. Parnell' showed himself studiously moderate—we will not say ostentatiously moderate, for he is far too acute to be ostentatious in his moderation. Last year, when he moved what was virtually a vote of censure on the Speaker for employing a re- porter of his own to take notes of the doings of private Members, he was also studiously moderate. There is nothing he loves better than to veil very embittered feeling under an extremely moderate form of speech. Sometimes his bitterness breaks out, as when, last Wednesday, he wanted to visit on Mr. McIver his confusion and muddle-headedness, by getting him punished under the Standing Order of last Session directed against wilful obstruction, for which, however, there was really no sort of ex- cuse. But, as a rule, Mr. Parnell's use of the forms of the House is that of a rigid precisian. No man knows better the brief on which he has to proceed, when he engages in any struggle requiring minute knowledge. When Mr. Parnell contested the details of the Army vote last year, Colonel Stanley had almost to take the discussion bodily out of the hands of his leader, so inferior was Sir Stafford Northcote's knowledge of his case to that of Mr. Parnell. No man in the House appreciates more highly the value of thorough mastery in matters of detail than he. At the same time he is hardly to be called a dry speaker, for he makes of his detail a dangerous missile at times, and inter-
sperses it with apt and pungent and often biting remarks. We regard Mr. Parnell as a fanatic with a great share of that ap- petite for form and minute fact which gives a fanatic power, and gives him, too, what is even more important,—ample shelter for his personal fanaticism under the cover of practical dis- cussions, which hide from the world the grim fundamental purpose of all this seemingly petty warfare. Mr. Parnell, in his Land-league policy, has the eye of a true soldier for that
cover from the enemy's fire which he may obtain under any detail, however small ; and he uses this cover with admirable skill and dexterity, so that in such Irish discussions as we have lately had, no one would know, except by passing indi- cations, that his ultimate drift is infinitely more stubborn and dangerous than his apparent purpose. If he could afford to set the present Government at defiance in its efforts to amelio- rate the condition of the Irish peasantry in the time of distress, we believe he would do so ; for knowing that this Government is the deadly foe of his ultimate purpose as regards Irish land, he indicates in flashes now and then his personal hatred to it, as when he said the other day, in answer to Mr. O'Connor Power, that he would rather be a cat's-paw in the hands of the Tories than in the hands of the Whigs. But he knows that it will injure his power in Ireland, if he shows too openly his contempt for measures of mere relief, as compared with measures of revolution ; and so, once and again lately, he has shrunk back from accepting the responsibility, which Mr. Forster openly threw upon him, of resisting the " Compensation for Disturbance" Bill, and has returned to the war of detail, by which he can always best restrain his bond fide contempt for everything short of the revolution in tenure which he desires to effect. What he really wants, as he has said again and again, is to get all evictions suspended till a general land-law can be prepared and passed, the general land-law for which he wishes being, no doubt, one that would establish the tenants in the place of the landlords of Ireland at the smallest practicable rate of compensation. That is his real drift ; and anything that the Government does likely to increase its authority in enforcing the payment of rents by tenants who are able to pay them, is evidently highly irritating to Mr. Parnell, and betrays him into those occasional denuncia- tions of Mr. Forster,—he hurled the prophecy, " Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel," at the Chief Secretary about a fortnight ago, with the most malicious emphasis,—and also into those symptoms of satisfaction in Tory impractica- bility and obstinacy, which escape at rare intervals in flashes from beneath the reticence of his gritty practical discussions.
Mr. Parnell is, in a very real sense of the term, conscien- tious, as revolutionists often have been, for nothing allies itself better with a certain kind of revolutionary energy, than abundance of conscientious scruple as to abating a jot of your own principles. On the Bradlaugh question, for instance, he declared himself openly in favour of the abolition of all disqualifying tests inconsistent with religious liberty,—and this, in spite of the unpopularity of Mr. Brad- laugh's cause among Irish Catholics, whom Mr. Parnell cer- tainly does not desire to alienate. Nor do we suppose that on any subject Mr. Parnell would be disposed to sacrifice opinions he had once formed, for the sake of gaining Irish popularity. On the contrary, if the Irish were to turn against his favourite revolutionary measure, we suspect he would retire into private life, rather than veer round to a new position. Mr. Parnell's ambition may be deep, but it is hardly so deep as his pride and the tenacity with which he cleaves to opinions once expressed. It is not so much the wish to lead the Irish people, as the wish to lead them to his own special conclusions,—which, unfortu- nately, however, are also theirs,—that shows itself in every speech he utters. Now and then he is very near indeed to hazarding dangerously his influence with the people, in the bitterness he cannot but express for any policy intended to undermine his own movement.
Keen, capable, in one sense scrupulous, in another the re- verse of scrupulous, with more hatred for the English govern- ment of Ireland than love for the Irish themselves, possessed of no small power for terse taunts, and no small jealousy of rivalry, with a good deal of the lawyer's pleasure in techni- calities, and the lawyer's satisfaction in so handling them as to make them serve larger purposes, Mr. Parnell is at bottom a fanatic of the logical French type, whose fire kindles all the more strongly the longer he has kept silence, and failed to win the victory he expects. By the mother's side he has American blood in his veins, and the Ameri- can-Irishman or the Irish-American almost always hates England, and the English type of institutions, far more than either the true Yankee or the Irishman pure and simple. The American-Irishman, unconsciously perhaps, covets for Ireland a place among the States of the Union, and the Irish-American indulges against England that sort of acrimony which a man is apt to feel who has gained in prosperity by leaving his home, when he sees from his new position how great that
home is in all but its Irish elements. Mr. Parnell's idea of the true policy for Ireland evidently is to Americanise both its land tenure and its political conditions,--to make it a State in the British Union, with much the same land tenure as an American State. And to do this, he is prepared to deal with those who would resist the transformation, without much scruple, as political enemies. We dread his influence on Ireland, both from the capacities he shows and the weakness he evinces, for both will lead him into dan- gerous ways. He has what physiologists call great " irrita- bility " of temperament, with unbending and sharp-cut opinions of a revolutionary type. He is logical, tenacious, and bitter to the point of eager acrimony. He can make of Con- stitutional formulae the outworks of most dangerous assaults on the Constitution. "Incorruptible," sitting apart, jealous, soli- tary, with great intensity of purpose, and very narrow sym- pathies, his mind reminds us of some of those which were most potent in the making of the great French Revolution ; and in Ireland, there is undoubtedly enough combustible element for a small, if not a great, revolution. What Ireland wants is a rival to Mr. Parnell, of wider and more generous sym- pathies, whose motive should be hearty love for the Irish, and not bilious jealousy of the English,—with a temperament and heart to charm Ireland, which Mr. Parnell has never had, and a mind apt to convince England, to which Mr. Parnell does not so much as even aspire.
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