Returning a number of men as Home-Rulers did not necessarily constitute them a political party. Neither would a resolution on their part so to act altogether carry out such a purpose. The discipline, the unity, the homogeneity, which constitute the real power of a party come not by mere resolving; they may begin by resolution, but they grow by custom and practice. Men behind the scenes in the Home-Rule councils knew that serious uneasiness prevailed amongst the leaders lest their ranks might be broken up or shaken by the prospect or reality of a return of the Liberals to power too soon—i.e., before they, the Home-Rulers, had had time to settle down or solidify into a thoroughly compact body, and before discipline and habit had accustomed them to move and act together. Four or five years training in opposition was the opportunity they most wanted and desired. From a dozen to a score of their rank and file were men who had been Gladstonian Liberals, and whose fealty would be doubtful if in 1875 the disestablisher of the Irish Church called upon them to follow him rather than Mr. Butt. These men would at that time have felt themselves “Liberals first, and Home-Rulers after.” Even in any case, and as it is, there are six or seven of these former Liberals among the Home-Rule fifty-nine who are looked upon as certain to
“cross the house” with their former chief whenever he returns to office. In 1875 these men would have carried a dozen lukewarm waverers along with them; in 1877 they will not carry one, and their own action, discounted beforehand, will disconcert or surprise no one, and will merely cause them to lose their seats on the first opportunity afterwards.
Quickly following upon the general election, the members returned on Home-Rule principles assembled in Dublin, 3d of March, 1874 (the Council Chamber of the city hall being lent to them for that purpose by the municipal authorities), and, without a dissentient voice, passed a series of resolutions constituting themselves a separate and distinct political party for parliamentary purposes. Whigs and Tories, Trojans and Tyrians, were henceforth to be alike to them. The next step was to elect a sort of “cabinet” of nine members, called the Parliamentary Committee, to act as an executive; while the appointment of two of their body most trusted for vigilance, tact, and fidelity, to act as “whips,”[171] completed the formal organization
of the Home-Rule members as a party.
Not an hour too soon had they perfected their arrangements. The new Parliament, after a technical opening a fortnight previously, assembled for the real despatch of business on Thursday, the 19th of March, 1874, and next day (on the debate on the Queen’s speech), in the very first hour of their parliamentary life, the Home-Rulers found themselves in the thick of battle. Mr. Butt had taken the field at once with an amendment raising the Irish question. The house was full of curiosity to hear “the Irish Home-Rulers” and see what they were like. It was struck with their combative audacity. It frankly confessed they stood fire “like men,” and that they acquitted themselves on the whole with astonishing ability. From that night forward the British House of Commons realized that it had for the first time a “third party” within its walls. How utterly opposed this is to Englishmen’s ideas of things proper or possible will be gathered from the fact that they construct or seat the chamber for two, and only two, parties; and that they even still make a great struggle to have it regarded as a “constitutional theory” that there must be two, and can be no more than two, parties in the house—namely, “Her Majesty’s Government” and “Her Majesty’s Opposition.” American legislative chambers, as well as French, German, Italian, Austrian, are constructed and seated in a semicircle or amphitheatre. The British, on the contrary, is an oblong hall or short parallelogram, divided right and left by a wide central avenue running its full length from the entrance door to the “table of the House” fronting
the speaker’s chair. There are, therefore, no middle seats; everyone must sit on one side or another—with the ministerialists or Tories on the right of the chair, or with the opposition or Liberals on the left. Half-way up the floor there runs (right and left to each side of the chamber), at right angles to the wide central avenue above referred to, a narrow passage often mentioned in newspaper reports as “the gangway.” “Above the gangway” (or nearest the chair) on each side sit respectively the thick and thin followers of the present or late ministry. “Below the gangway” (or farthest from the chair) sit on each side men who would occupy some section of the middle seats, if the house possessed any—the right and left centres, so to speak. The Home-Rulers sit in a compact body “below the gangway” on the opposition side.
In their third session public opinion has now pretty well gauged and measured the ability and resources of the Home-Rule party. In their first campaign, 1874, though much praised because they were infinitely better in every respect than most people expected, they exhibited plentifully the faults and shortcomings of “raw levies.” Their formal debate on Home Rule, on the 30th of June and 2d of July, was utterly wanting in system and management, and would have been a failure had not the anti-Home-Rule side of the discussion been incontestably much worse handled. But never, probably, in parliamentary history has another body of men learned so quickly, and so rapidly attained a high position, as they have done. By the concurrent testimony of their adversaries themselves the Home-Rule members are the best disciplined and best guided
and, in proportion to their numbers, the most able and powerful party in the British House of Commons. In order to have a complete and accurate conception of all that relates to the Irish Home-Rule movement, there remains only to be considered the policy or line of action on which its leaders propose to operate. How do they expect to carry Home Rule?
At no time have the criticisms of the English press on the subject of Home Rule exhibited anything but the shallowest intelligence; and many of the Home-Rule victories have been won because of the stolid ignorance prevailing in the English camp. The English journalists disliking the Irish government, believe and proclaim to their readers only what accords with their prejudices; and accordingly upon them has fallen the fate of the general who refuses to reconnoitre the enemy and accurately estimate his strength. On this subject the British journalist will have it that he “knows all about it,” and has no need to investigate things seriously. From the first hour of the Home-Rule movement he has declared it to be “breaking up,” “failing,” “going down the hill.” It has been so constantly going down that hill in his story that one never can find out when or how it got up there, or whether there is any bottom to the declivity which it can ever reach in such a rapid and persistent downward motion. On no feature of the Home-Rule question has there been more affectation of knowing all about it, and more complacent dogmatism as to its inevitable fate, than this of the Home-Rule plan of action. The way these people look at the matter explains their consolatory conclusions. They view the Home-Rulers simply as sixty members
in a house of six hundred and fifty-eight. “Six hundred to sixty—surely it is absurd! Are the Irish demented, to think their sixty will convert our six hundred?”