“Beside the local Parliament in Ireland having full and perfect local authority,” he writes in that year, “there should be, for questions of Imperial concern, colonial, military, and naval, and of foreign alliance and policy, a Congressional or Federal Parliament, in which Ireland should have a fair share and proportion of representation and power.”

The proposed change of programme came in a questionable shape to a suspicious time.  It was not received with universal favour, and, to avert dissension, it was represented as a mere ballon d’essai and was abandoned.  O’Connell died, and Repeal and Federation alike were swallowed up in the Great Famine.  But time was to renew its urgency.  The essential facts, and the logic of the facts, remained unaltered.  When Isaac Butt came to formulate his scheme at the Home Rule Conference in 1873 he renewed the Federal proposal in terms almost verbally the same.  The Conference resolved: 

“That, in claiming these rights and privileges for our country, we adopt the principle of a Federal arrangement, which would secure to the Irish Parliament the right of legislating for and regulating all matters relating to the internal affairs of Ireland, while leaving to the Imperial Parliament the power of dealing with all questions affecting the Imperial and Government, legislation regarding the colonies and other dependencies of the Crown, the relations of the Empire with Foreign States, and all matters appertaining to the defence and stability of the Empire at large; as well as the power of granting and providing the supplies necessary for Imperial purposes.”

Parnell, who was a supreme master of the art of doing one thing at a time, naturally laid the emphasis on Ireland.  But when he was asked by Mr Cecil Rhodes to agree to the retention of Irish representatives at Westminster in the interests of Imperial Federation, he declared himself in very definite terms: 

“It does not come so much within my province to express a full opinion upon the larger question of Imperial federation, but I agree with you that the continued Irish representation at Westminster immensely facilitates such a step, while the contrary provision in the Bill of 1886 would have been a bar.  Undoubtedly this is a matter which should be dealt with largely in accordance with the opinion of the Colonies themselves, and if they should desire to share in the cost of Imperial matters, as undoubtedly they now do in the responsibility, and should express a wish for representation at Westminster, I certainly think it should be accorded to them, and that public opinion in these islands would unanimously concur in the necessary constitutional modifications.”

That is, if you will, thinking Imperially.  Mr Redmond stands where Parnell stood.  He claims for the Irish people “the legislative and executive control of all purely Irish affairs.”  But he is altogether friendly to a later and larger application of the principle of autonomy.