struggles of a crowded assembly.  It was due entirely to our feeling that there was a great balance of wrong standing to the debit of England; that if the Irish were turbulent, it was the ill-treatment of former days that had made them so; and that, whatever might be their methods, they were fighting for their country.  Although, therefore, there was little social intercourse between us and them, there was always a hope and a wish that the day might come when the Liberal party should resume its natural position of joining the representatives of the Irish people in obtaining radical reforms in Irish government.  And the remarkable speech of February 9, 1882, in which Mr. Gladstone declared his mind to be open on the subject, and invited the Nationalists to propound a practicable scheme of self-government, had encouraged us to hope that this day might soon arrive.

SESSION OF 1883.—­Three facts stood out in the history of this comparatively quiet session, each of which brought us further along the road we had entered.

One was the omission of Parliament to complete the work begun by the Land Bill of 1881, of improving the condition of the Irish peasantry and reorganizing Irish administration.  The Nationalist members brought in Bills for these purposes, including one for amending the Land Act by admitting leaseholders to its benefits and securing tenants against having their improvements reckoned against them in the fixing of rents.  Though we could not approve all the contents of these Bills, we desired to see the Government either take them up and amend them, or introduce Bills of its own to do what was needed.  Some of us spoke strongly in this sense, nor will any one now deny that we were right.  Sound policy called aloud for the completion of the undertaking of 1881.  The Government however refused, alleging, no doubt with some truth, that Ireland could not have all the time of Parliament, but must let England and Scotland have their turn.  Nor was anything done towards the creation of new local institutions in Ireland, or the reform of the Castle bureaucracy.  We were profoundly disheartened.  We saw golden opportunities slipping away, and doubted more than ever whether Westminster was the place in which to legislate for Irish grievances.

Another momentous fact was the steady increase in the number of Nationalist members.  Every seat that fell vacant in Ireland was filled by them.  The moderate Irish party, most of whom had by this time crossed the floor of the House, and were sitting among us, had evidently no future.  They were estimable, and, in some cases, able men, from whom we had hoped much, as a link between the Liberal party and the Irish people.  But they seemed to have lost their hold on the people, nor were they able to give us much practical counsel as to Irish problems.  It was clear that they would vanish at the next General Election, and Parliament be left to settle accounts with the extreme men, whose spirits rose as those of our friends steadily sank.