“The Irish Nationalists had already become restive, for, while not openly repudiating Home Rule as an ultimate solution, several of the friends and adherents of Lord Rosebery among the leaders of the Liberal Party had proclaimed that they would not only not support, but would resist any attempt to introduce a Home Rule measure in a Parliament that was about to be elected.  It was under these circumstances that I had an interview of any length with Campbell-Bannerman for the last time.  He invited a friend and me to breakfast with him....  This exchange of views was brief, for there was complete agreement as to both policy and tactics....  It was shortly after this that he made his historic speech in Stirling.  That was the speech in which he laid down the policy that while Ireland might not expect to get at once a measure of complete Home Rule, any measure brought in should be consistent with and leading up to a larger policy.  Such a declaration was all that the Irish Nationalist Party could have expected at that moment and it enabled them to give their full support at the elections to the Liberal Party.”

This is a very notable statement, because it shows that the Nationalists, who poured out their vials of vituperation upon Lord Dunraven and the Irish Reform Association, were now eager to accept an infinitely lesser instalment of Home Rule from their own Liberal friends.  And it also demonstrates that for a very meagre modicum of the Irish birth-right they were willing to sacrifice the position of Parliamentary independence, which was one of the greatest assets of the Party, and to enter into a formal alliance with the Liberals on a mere contingent declaration that “any measure brought in” should be “consistent with and leading up to a larger policy.”  Note, there was no guarantee, no positive statement, that a measure would be brought in, yet Mr T.P.  O’Connor tells us that this declaration was “all that the Irish Nationalist Party could have expected,” and that it enabled them “to give their full support at the elections to the Liberal Party.”  I wonder what Parnell, had he been alive, would have thought of this offer of the Liberals and whether he would in return for it make such an easy surrender of a nation’s claims.  And I wonder also whether a paltrier bargain was ever made in the whole history of political alliances.  It does not require any special gift of vision to divine who was “the friend” who went with Mr O’Connor to Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman’s breakfast-party and who was in “complete agreement as to both policy and tactics.”  They were good Liberals both of them, and for my own part I would find no fault with them for this, if only they had been better Nationalists.