"As I regard the whole of these proceedings as unmitigated despotism, I
beg respectfully to decline to withdraw."

That was his maiden speech. Having delivered it, "Mr. Redmond," says
Hansard, "was by desire of Mr. Speaker removed by the Sergeant-at-Arms
from the House." It was a strange beginning for one of the greatest
parliamentarians of our epoch--and one of the greatest conservatives.
The whole bent of his mind was towards moderation in all things.
Temperamentally, he hated all forms of extravagant eccentricity; he
loved the old if only because it was old; he had the keenest sense not
only of decorum but of the essential dignity which is the best guardian
of order. Yet here he was committed to a policy which aimed deliberately
at outraging all the established decencies--at disregarding
ostentatiously all the usages by which an assembly of gentlemen had
regulated their proceedings.

What is more, it was an assembly which Redmond found temperamentally
congenial to him--an assembly which, apart from its relation to Ireland,
he thoroughly admired and liked. In 1896, when Irish members were
fiercely in opposition to the Government, he concluded his description
of Parliament with these words:

"In the main, the House of Commons is, I believe, dominated by a
rough-and-ready sense of manliness and fair-play. Of course, I am
not speaking of it as a governing body. In that character it has
been towards Ireland always ignorant and nearly always unfair. I am
treating it simply as an assembly of men, and I say of it, it is a
body where sooner or later every man finds his proper level, where
mediocrity and insincerity will never permanently succeed, and