The time came when the older statesman had perforce to make way for
the younger leader. The man with a noble genius for statesman-like
design--and this must be conceded to Isaac Butt--had to yield place
and power to the men whose genius consisted in making themselves
amazingly disagreeable to the British Government, both in Ireland and
at Westminster. "The Policy of Exasperation" was the epithet applied
by Butt to the purpose of Parnell, in the belief that he was uttering
the weightiest reproach in his power against it. But this was the
description of all others which recommended it to the Irish race--for
it was, in truth, the only policy which could compel British statesmen
to give ear to the wretched story of Ireland's grievances and to
legislate in regard to them. It is sad to have to write it of Butt, as
of so many other Irish leaders, that he died of a broken heart. Those
who would labour for "Dark Rosaleen" have a rough and thorny road to
travel, and they are happy if the end of their journey is not to be
found in despair, disappointment and bitter tragedy.

Parnell, once firmly seated in the saddle, lost no time in asserting
his power and authority. Mr William O'Brien, who writes with a quite
unique personal authority on the events of this time, tells us that
there is some doubt whether "Joe" Biggar, as he was familiarly known
from one end of Ireland to the other, was not the actual inventor of
Parliamentary obstruction. His own opinion is that it was Biggar who
first discovered it but it was Parnell who perceived that the new
weapon was capable of dislocating the entire machinery of Government
at will and consequently gave to a disarmed Ireland a more formidable
power against her enemies than if she could have risen in armed
insurrection, so that a Parliament which wanted to hear nothing of
Ireland heard of practically nothing else every night of their lives.