The Life Of Charles Stewart Parnell Vol - I

JET. 31] IRISH IN ENGLAND 121
organisation—himself a member of the Fenian brotherhood—to me some years ago ; ' we made him.' It would not be accurate to say that the Fenians made Parnell. Parnell made himself. But it would be accurate to-gay that in Fenianism he found the lever on which his power turned. Here it will be necessary to add a few words about the Home Eule Confederation of Great Britain.
In 1873 a member of the supreme council of the I. E. B., whom I shall call X., asked Butt if he intended to take any steps for pushing forward the Home Eule cause in England. Butt said that he was rather puzzled to know what to do; he was anxious to found an English organisation, but afraid that the Fenians might smash it. X. said that he did not think they would smash it; that they certainly looked suspiciously on Home Eule and disbelieved in parliamentary agitation, but that nevertheless they would not place themselves actively in opposition to Butt. It was ultimately agreed between Butt and X, that a Home Eule organisation should be formed in England; and X. set to work to form it. He found many difficulties in the way. Many Fenians did not take kindly to the notion of co-operating with the Constitutionalists; they said that union with the Parliamentarians would only weaken their movement. The minds of the people would be fixed on parliamentary agitation and drawn away from Fenianism. Parliamentary agitation would end, as it always had ended, in failure; the upshot of the whole business would be collapse, both of Fenianism and Constitutionalism. X. took a different view. He said: 'We need not give up our own principles by joining the Home Eulers. They go part of the way in our direction;