Apart from the two men that I have mentioned the Irishmen of the ’92 Parliament were dreary and uninteresting. The old spirit of Irish wit seemed to have died out: if it still had a spark of life in the drivers of the jaunting-cars in Dublin there was none of it at Westminster among the dull dogs whom Ireland sent to us. Their leader, Mr. Justin McCarthy, was an amiable man of letters, whom, I believe, everybody who knew him liked, but as a politician he was not inspiring, and the rest of the men were long-winded bores. When they got up to speak the tea-room, the library and the smoking-room rapidly filled. The message that one of the _Dî majores_ was up—Gladstone, Chamberlain, Morley, Balfour, Hicks-Beach, was needed to charm men back to the green benches, and among our men Colonel Saunderson could always draw an audience. Party considerations and not Mr. Gladstone’s eloquence carried the Bill through. Just before the final Division I was speaking with a not very violent Liberal friend of mine, and asked him how he, with his opinions, could vote for Home Rule. His answer was that he did not like it any better than I did, “But I can’t desert the old man.” Shortly afterwards he was made a Baronet! I cannot do more than record a few sketchy impressions of what took place in regard to this revolutionary measure. Its history is public property. The Home Rule Bill was passed by the House of Commons on the 1st of September, after a fight which had lasted eighty-five days. It was promptly thrown out by the House of Lords, in which the Duke of Devonshire led the attack. After a holiday of about a month the House of Commons met again and took in hand the Parish Councils Bill, a highly contentious measure of great importance, in which Sir Henry Fowler was the Prime Minister’s Chief Aide-de-Camp. The Employers’ Liability Bill, in which the Government were beaten by the Lords on the question of contracting out under certain conditions, was another Bill of great weight which had to be dealt with, and with all this burden of work to carry Parliament continued to sit on into March, when on the 3rd it was prorogued, after a session of thirteen months—the longest on record. The respite was but short, for the new session began only eight days later.