The Life Of Charles Stewart Parnell Vol - I

-168 CHARLES STEWART PARNELL [1878
prevention of arbitrary eviction, and the creation of a peasant proprietary as a step in the right direction.'
This was the policy of John Devoy. This was the policy of the New Departure. The Fenians were to have a hand in everything that was going on, and ' above and before all' they were to have a hand in the land question. Agrarian reform or agrarian revolution was to be made the stepping-stone to separation from England. Devoy did not believe in Home Bule. But he did not wish to raise the separatist flag publicly. He suggested that the limits of national independence should not be defined. Let ' self-government' and * self-government' only be demanded. Then the Fenians could co-operate cordially with the Constitutionalists. Each section could put its own construction on the meaning of the words.
] )ovoy succeeded in carrying many of the leaders of the Clan-na-gael with him on these lines, and in October 1878 he despatched a cablegram to Pamell, setting out the terms of alliance between the Eevolutionists and the Constitutionalists; the cablegram ran as follows: 4 The Nationalists here will support you on the following conditions :
* First. Abandonment of the Federal demand and substitution of a general declaration in favour of self-government.
* Second. Vigorous agitation of the land question on the basis of a peasant proprietary, while accepting concessions tending to abolition of arbitrary eviction.
' Third. Exclusion of all sectarian issues from the platform.
1 Fourth. Irish members to vote together on all Imperial and Home Bule questions, adopt an aggressive policy, and energetically resist coercive legislation.