O'CONNELL & DISRAELI

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 92, 20 April 1931, Page 3

O'CONNELL & DISRAELI

(To the Editor.)

Shy—Mr. O'Regan's letter in attempted justification of O'Connell is unhappy in charging me ■with, inaccuracy. No doubt, when it is necessary to pass judgment on an episode tli.it took place many ye.ar» ago, it is also inevitable that one does'en by way of inference from certain estab» lished facts. The facts established sim> rounding this episode show clearly, enough that O'Connell was the aggressor* and also a most unjustifiable aggressor. Probably Mr. O'Regan will concede tha accuracy of the remarks of the writer of the biographical note of O'Connell in Ilia "Encyclopaedia Britanniea" when refer* ring to O'Conncll's eloquence, who said? "His oratory massive and strong in argument, although too often scurrilous and coarse, and marred by a bearing in which cringing flattery and rude bullying were strongly blended, made a powerful i£ not a. pleasing impression." The inference then is not difficult to draw that O'Connell was well capable of impetuosity in act and word towards one who displeased him. It seems clear that O'Connell took no' steps at all to see if the remarks supposed to have been made of him by Disraeli were in fact made. Disraeli at th« time, to quote the Buckle Moneypenny biography (which Mr. O'Regan himself relied on in his letter), "then and ever afterwards maintained that the summary misrepresented him, and' that he had only quoted from the Whigs the language in which they had but recently denounced their present ally (O'Connell), and his explanation is in full accord with the speeclt as reported in all the local papers." Indeed, at the beginning of the quarrel, when Disraeli challenged O'Connell's son, he wrote: "Had Mr. O'Connell, according to the practice observed among gentlemen, appealed to me respecting the accuracy of the reported expressions befors he indulged in offensive comments upon them, he would, if he can be influenced by a sense of justice, have felt that sued comments were unnecessary." The charge of political inconsistency, which, even if it had been true, would never have formed a plausible justification for O'Connell's offensive language, was answered by Disraeli in his letter to the Press replying to O'Connell's attack. The words he wrote, and which I now quote, and with this quotation I can, I think, satisfy even O'Connell's enthusiastic admirer that his 'liberator" Vm shamelessly at fault. The letter began with these words: "Mr. O'Conuell, —Although you havg long placed yourself out of the pale of civilisation, still I am one who will not be insulted, even by a Yahoo, without chastising it. The truth is, ycra wer« glad to seize the first opportunity for pouring forth your venom against a masx whom, it serves the interest of yonr party to represent as a political apostate. In. 1831, when Mr. O'Connell expressed t(» the electors of Wycombe his anxiety to assist me in my election, I came forward as the opponent of the party in power, which. I described in my address as .*'. 'rapacious, tyrannical, and incapable faction'—the English Whigs, v who in _ tb*. ensuing year denounced you as a traitor, and every one of whom only a few month's back you have anathemised with, all the peculiar graces of a tongue practised in scurrility. You are the patron of thesa men now, Mr. O'Connell; you, forsooth, are 'devotee! to them.' I am still their uncompromising opponent. Which of us is the most consistent? You say that I was once a Radical and am now a Tory. My conscience acquits me of ever having deserted a political friend, or ever having changed a political opinion. I worked for a great and avowed end in IS3I, and that was the restoration of the balance of parties in the State: a result that I believed necessary to tlie honour of tha. realm and the happiness .of the people. I never advocated a measure which I did' not believe tended to this result; and if there be any measures which I then urged and am now not disposed to press, it 1a because the great result is obtained." Mr. O'Regan would have it that Disraeli had called him an incendiary. Tha following quotation is taken from the biography of Disraeli written by one of th» greatest ornaments of the English Bar, Sir Edward Clarke, a gentleman who followed the profession of which Mr. O'Regan is likewise a distinguished member: ' , ~ ~ "The short report of' his speech, whicli appeared in the 'Morning Chronicle' represented him (Disraeli) as having said that O'Connell was 'an incendiarr and a 'traitor.' The word 'incendiary has not been used by Disraeli in any part of hi* speech." —I am, etc., '