upon a misunderstanding; that the Obstructive never used the words which the Chairman thought he heard him use, and that consequently he has never been out of order at all.

This is scarcely an exaggerated description of one of these so-called scenes 'with the Obstructives. That those Members who belong to the little party have been guilty of many most foolish and unjustifiable actions, cannot, I think, be denied; but nothing is more certain than that the manner in which they are habitually treated by Conservative Members is the cause of no small part of that obstruction of business, the whole responsibility for which is laid upon their shoulders. I have no call to defend Mr. Parnell and his comrades. I disapprove as strongly as any one can do of many of their Parliamentary proceedings, and I cannot but regard systematic obstruction as one of the

gravest of all offences.

But I am convinced

that if these Home Rule Members got something like fair play from their Conservative colleagues, if they were not habitually treated with a cavalier discourtesy that cannot fail to be aggravating in the highest degree even to persons so low in the Parliamentary scale as Irish Obstructionists, we should not have half the trouble with them of which we have now to complain. It is hardly in human nature to submit quietly to the jeering cries with which Mr. Parnell, Mr. O'Donnell, Mr. Callan, Mr. O'Connor Power, and Mr. Biggar are treated, whenever they attempt to address the House. Granting, as one must do, that these gentlemen have offered serious provocation to their fellowMembers, I may still question the wisdom of irritating them in the fashion pursued by the heedless Tories. Let my readers rest assured that in these 'scenes with the

Obstructives,' of which we are told so much just now, it is not always the Obstructives themselves who are the only or even the chief offenders.

I have selected Mr. Parnell as the typical Obstructionist, not only because there can be no doubt that he is the real author of the policy which his little party has for several sessions pursued so zealously, but also because he himself is better worth studying than are most of his fellow-Obstructionists. Of him one can say, what certainly cannot be said of all his companions, that he is a man of real ability, of good education, of fair social position, and of very clear and decided political opinions. In spite of his unpopularity in England, those who know him well insist that he is a thoroughly honest and honourable man, working for what he believes to be great public ends, in the only mode he thinks likely to prove successful.

It is right that this fact should be stated,

not merely because he has himself done much to arouse a strong and well-founded the part

on

prejudice against his name of the English public, but also because he is too commonly identified with other Obstructionists, who carry out their policy in a ruder and more offensive manner than that which he adopts. Mr. Parnell has learned by experience; and whilst he is far more efficient as an Obstructive than he was two or three years ago, he is also far more careful to keep himself strictly in order. His contention is, that the House of Commons is overloaded with work, and that it is unable in consequence to do justice to Irish business. if Parliament were to lay aside all other matters in order to attend exclusively to the affairs of the sister country, he would still maintain that justice was not being

Probably

done to Irish interests, for he is one of the

men who cherish the hopeless vision of a restoration of the Irish Parliament sitting in Dublin and dealing absolutely with Irish affairs.

But inasmuch as the House of Commons cannot afford to abandon all its other work in order to devote itself to Hibernian politics, the Member for Meath makes it his business to prove that it has too much on its hands, and that, as a consequence, it can do nothing properly; his object being, of course, to suggest that for its own sake it will do well to let those troublesome Israelites, the Home Rulers, depart from that land of Egypt which they regard as a veritable house of bondage. In pursuing this curious policy, he fastens upon some important Government Bill, containing a number of clauses, and subjects it to the most minute and careful examination. He insists upon discussing