to Nationalist sentiment when Home Rule was formally abandoned by
Gladstone's successor, Lord Rosebery. "Home Rule is as dead as Queen
Anne," declared Mr Chamberlain. These are the kind of declarations
usually made in the exuberance of a personal or political triumph, but
the passing of the years has a curious knack of giving them emphatic
refutation.

Divided as they were and torn with dissensions, the Nationalists were
not in a position where they could effectively demand guarantees from
Lord Rosebery or enter into any definite arrangement with him. They
kept up their squalid squabble and indulged their personal rivalries,
but a disgusted country had practically withdrawn all support from
them, and an Irish race which in the heyday of Parnell was so proud to
contribute to their war-chest, now buttoned up its pockets and in the
most practical manner told them it wanted none of them.

In this state of dereliction and despair did the General Election of
1895 surprise them. The Parnellites had their old organisation--the
National League--and the Anti-Parnellites had established in
opposition to this the National Federation, so that Ireland had a
sufficiency of Leagues but no concrete programme beyond a disreputable
policy of hacking each other all round. As a matter of fact, we had in
Cork city the curious and almost incredible spectacle of the
Dillonites and Healyites joining forces to crush the Parnellite
candidate, whilst elsewhere they were tearing one another to tatters,
as it would almost appear, for the mere love of the thing.

There was one pathetic figure in all this wretched business--that of
the Hon. Edward Blake, who had been Prime Minister of Canada and who
had surrendered a position of commanding eminence in the political,