[Sidenote: Westminster.]
I cannot attempt to give all the strong points of a speech which
bristled with strong points at almost every turn. To the House its
entire character must have come as a surprise. The mass of members that
crowded every bench, and filled the vacancies which Ashmead Bartlett had
made--Mr. Gladstone sitting attentive on the Treasury Bench--Mr. Balfour
listening with evident friendliness and sympathy--all these were enough
to transport any orator into the realms of high stirring rhetoric, and
to attune the nerves to poetic and exalted flight. But Davitt's nerves
stood the test. Slowly, deliberately, patiently, he developed a case for
the Bill, of facts, figures, historical incident, pathetic and swift
pictures of Irish desolation and suffering, which would have been worthy
of a great advocate placing a heavy indictment. Now and then there was
the eloquence of finely chosen language--of a striking fact--even of a
touching personal aside--but, as a whole, the speech was a simple,
weighty, careful case against the Union--based on the eloquent
statistics of diminished population, exiled millions, devastated
homesteads.
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