The Life Of Charles Stewart Parnell Vol - I

MT. 30] ' NO QUAKRELS' 103
Irish member—a political Ishmael, who would not conciliate and who could not be conciliated. Butt's policy was a policy of peace. Biggar's was the embodiment of a policy of war, and Parnell believed in a policy of war. His faith was centred in a policy of (aloofness' from all English parties, and indeed from all Englishmen. He regarded them as enemies, and he would treat them as enemies. He did not believe in negotiations. He believed in fighting. The fighting force in Ireland was the Fenians. Any man, Constitutionalist or "Revolutionist, who was prepared to fight England anywhere or anyhow was sure of Fenian sympatlry, though, his methods might not always meet with Fenian approval.
Were the Fenians to be fought on the one hand, and the English on the other? Could any party of Constitutionalists hope to succeed if the Fenians were actively against them? Butt himself had leant on the Fenians in founding the Home Eule movement. What would become of him if the Fenian support were withdrawn? There was the Church, certainly. But what would become of Home Eule if there were to be an open struggle between the Church and the Fenians? The one thing Parnell hated throughout his whole career was quarrels among Irishmen. < Parnell's great gift,' Mr. Healy once said, ' was his faculty of reducing a quarrel to the smallest dimensions/ He was, in truth, a centre of unity and strength. He was able, if not to reconcile, certainly to neutralise the antagonism of opposing forces and hostile characters. He was, indeed, a great peacemaker as well as a great fighter, and herein lay his power. ' No war' was, we are told, a favourite expression of Queen Elizabeth at the council board. ' No quarrels ' was cer-