Undoubtedly he held them together firmly, because he had the gift of
developing all that was best in a staff of brilliant talents and
varied gifts, and so jealousies and personal idiosyncrasies had not
the room wherein to develop their poisonous growths.

I pass rapidly over the achievements of Parnell in the years that
followed. He gave the country some watchwords that can never be
forgotten, as when he told the farmers to "Keep a firm grip of your
homesteads!" followed by the equally energetic exhortation: "Hold the
harvest!" They were his Orders of the Day to his Irish army. Then came
the No-Rent Manifesto, the suppression of the Land League after only
twelve months' existence, Kilmainham and its Treaty, and the Land Act
of 1881, which I can speak of, from my own knowledge, as the first
great forward step in the emancipation of the Irish tenant farmer. Mr
Dillon differed with Parnell as to the efficacy of this Act, but he
was as hopelessly wrong in his attitude then as he was twenty-two
years later in connection with the Land Act of 1903. In 1882 the
National League came into being, giving a broader programme and a
deeper depth of meaning to the aims of Parnell. At this time the
Parliamentary policy of the Party under his leadership was an absolute
independence of all British Parties, and therein lay all its strength
and savour. There was also the pledge of the members to sit, act and
vote together, which owed its wholesome force not so much to anything
inherent in the pledge itself as to the positive terror of a public
opinion in Ireland which would tolerate no tampering with it.
Furthermore, a rigid rule obtained against members of the Party
seeking office or preferment for themselves or their friends on the
sound principle that the Member of Parliament who sought ministerial
favours could not possibly be an impeccable and independent patriot.