Willie Redmond was elected to Parliament in his absence for his father's old seat--Mr.Healy having vacated Wexford to fight and win a sensational election in county Monaghan.
This early visit to the great transmarine dominions, and the ties which he formed there, left a marked impression on John Redmond's mind, which was reinforced by other visits in later years, and by all the growing associations that linked him to life and politics in the dominions.
Redmond knew vastly more, and in truth cared vastly more, about the British Empire than most Imperialists.

His affection was not based on any inherited prejudice, nor inspired by a mere geographical idea.

He was attracted to that which he had seen and handled, in whose making he had watched so many of his fellow-countrymen fruitfully and honourably busy.

He felt acutely that the Empire belonged to Irish Nationalists at least as much as to English Tories.

America also was familiar to him, and he had every cause to be grateful to the United States; but his interest in the dominions was of a different kind.