people for whom he had laboured so potently and well.

I have read all the authentic literature I could lay hold of bearing
upon the Parnell imbroglio, and it leaves me with the firm conviction
that if there had not been an almost unbelievable concatenation of
errors and misunderstandings and stupid blunderings, Parnell need
never have been sacrificed. And the fact stands out with clearness
that the passage in Gladstone's "Nullity of Leadership" letter, which
was the root cause of all the trouble that followed, would never have
been published were it not that the political hacks, through motives
of party expediency, insisted on its inclusion. That plant of tender
growth--the English Nonconformist conscience--it was that decreed the
fall of the mighty Irish leader.

It is only in recent years that the full facts of what happened during
what is known as "The Parnell Split" have been made public, and these
facts make it quite clear that neither during the Divorce Court
proceedings nor subsequently had Parnell had a fair fighting chance.
Let it be remembered that no leader was ever pursued by such malignant
methods of defamation as Parnell, and it is questionable how far the
Divorce Court proceedings were not intended by his enemies as part of
this unscrupulous campaign. Replying to a letter of William O'Brien
before the trial, Parnell wrote: "You may rest quite sure that if this
proceeding ever comes to trial (which I very much doubt) it is not I
who will quit the court with discredit." And when the whole mischief
was done, and the storm raged ruthlessly around him, Parnell told
O'Brien, during the Boulogne negotiations, that he all but came to
blows with Sir Frank Lockwood (the respondent's counsel) when
insisting that he should be himself examined in the Divorce Court, and
he intimated that if he had prevailed the political complications that