ABSTRACT

The speech in which the most powerful Liberal Premier of the century disclosed the Kilmainham Treaty to the House of Commons was one which, but for the tragedy in the Phoenix Park, would have accelerated Home Rule by a quarter of a century. Ministers and House had only to rise one stage higher of magnanimity, and the Phoenix Park murders, instead of being the signal for denouncing the Kilmainham Treaty between the two countries, might have that day made it an eternal bond of amity between them. Considering that the funds were running out at the rate of more than £1500 a week when the Kilmainham Treaty stopped the drain, it is only too easy to calculate for how many weeks they would have held out, if the appalling figure of a million of evicted people, which Mr. Davitt so lightly contemplated, had been realised.