Irish questions, produced at the same time a visible effect on Parnell's attitude to England. His defiant assertions of irreconcilable hostility were not repeated. He evinced a diplomatic readiness to come to terms with the enemy. Without disguise, he played one party against the other, and promised his favour to the higher bidder. He did not believe that the tories would grant home rule. But he did not object if others believed it, particularly if the liberals believed it. His intention was to draw the tories on to a point at which he felt convinced that Mr. Gladstone would take up the question in order to outstrip his opponents. He decided that the tories should make the running for the liberal leader.
Parnell devoted the autumn to the twofold purpose of strengthening his party in Ireland, and of baiting the hook for the English political leaders. At a banquet at Dublin on 24 Aug. he defined, for the first time, what he meant by home rule. He was resolved to extort from England an Irish parliament (to consist of one chamber) and an Irish executive in Dublin, managing Irish affairs, developing Irish industries, controlling Irish education, dealing with Irish land, and directing the national, religious, and commercial life of the people. ‘Our only work in the next parliament,’ he said, ‘will be the restoration of the legislative independence of Ireland.’ Three days earlier he had at Arklow declared himself in favour of the protection by high duties of Irish trade and manufactures against English competition, and on this point he thenceforth repeatedly insisted.
On 25 Aug. he presided at a meeting in Dublin, when resolutions were passed arranging for the selection of candidates all over the country by local conventions acting in conjunction with himself. All candidates pledged themselves in the event of their return to sit, vote, and act with the Irish parliamentary party on every question that should arise, and to resign when called upon to do so by a vote of the majority of their colleagues. Parnell attended many of the electoral conventions, and encouraged his followers by prophecies of the speedy triumph of his cause. In reply to hostile criticisms of his definition of home rule by Lord Hartington and other liberal politicians, he replied that there was no halfway house between governing Ireland as a crown colony and giving her legislative independence. Although many of his speeches during the campaign were as violent as of old, he showed ample signs of his diplomatic temper. It is true that at ‘rebel’ Cork (January 1885) he said, in accordance with his true sentiments, that, although under the British constitution he could not ask for more than the restitution of Grattan's parliament, ‘no man had a right to say to his country, Thus far shalt thou go, and no further; and we have never attempted to fix ne plus ultra to the progress of Ireland's nationhood, and we never shall.’ But on 3 Nov., at Castlebar, co. Mayo, he dissuaded an electoral convention from adopting the convicted fenian P. W. Nally as the parliamentary candidate, although he described Nally as the victim of a conspiracy wilfully contrived by Lord Spencer and his police agents. At Wicklow, on 5 Oct., he declined to accept any legislative chamber for Ireland which was not endowed with absolute control of Irish affairs, including the right to levy protective duties; but he added that, intensely disaffected and disloyal as Ireland was to England, no demand on the part of Irishmen for separation from the ruling country would be pressed if English statesmen granted home rule with a free and open hand.
Parnell's utterances were, as he anticipated, watched with attention by English statesmen. On the liberal side Mr. Chamberlain replied that he was in favour of a large scheme of local self-government. Mr. Morley went further, and declared for home rule ‘as in Canada.’ Mr. Childers, a member of Mr. Gladstone's government, while announcing himself a home-ruler, only claimed that the British parliament should exclusively deal with matters of trade and imperial questions. Parnell concluded that Mr. Childers's precise pronouncement would not have been made if Mr. Gladstone were wholly averse to home rule. When Mr. Gladstone set out on his Midlothian campaign in November, he asked to be returned to parliament with a majority independent of the Irish vote. But he declared at the same time that, subject to the supremacy of the crown and the unity of the empire, Ireland should be given a generous measure of local self-government. Parnell placed a favourable interpretation on this statement, and invited Mr. Gladstone to frame a constitution for Ireland ‘subject to the conditions and limitations he had stipulated.’ Mr. Gladstone replied that, until Ireland had chosen her members, there could be no authoritative representation of her views. Parnell's answer was a manifesto (21 Nov.) calling upon the Irish of Great Britain to vote against the liberals, and likening the liberal leaders to Russian autocrats who were bent on treating Ireland as a second Poland.
Meanwhile the tory leaders framed manifestos in a key calculated to attract Parnell's favour. It is true that on 8 Aug. both Lord Salisbury and Parnell publicly contradicted a rumour, circulated by Mr.
