DEATH OF MR. DAVITT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13192, 1 June 1906, Page 5

DEATH OF MR. DAVITT.

By Telegraph..—Press Association.—Copyright

(Received May 31, 11.20 p.m.)

.-•-'•-■• -■ London, May 31. * Mr. Michael Davitt, the wellknown Irish leader, died after midnight on Wednesday, in a , private hospital at Dublin.

Mr. Michael Davitt was born in 1846, and was the son of an Irish farmer of Straide, County Mayo, from which his parents were evicted when he was four years old. The family removed to Haslingden, in Lancashire, where Davitt worked in a factory, and suffered an accident, through which be lost his right arm, and was afterwards bookkeeper in a printing office, and a commercial traveller. He defended the Catholic Church during the Murphy anti-Catholic riots, was concerned in the Fenian movements of 1867 and the following years ;. and in 1870 was arrested for having illegal arms in his possession. He was sentenced to 15 years' penal servitude, but in. December, 1877, was released on ticket-of-leave. Received with great enthusiasm in Ireland, he shortly afterwards addressed a London audience, for the first time, in St. James' Haiti. In. August, 1878, he paid his first visit to America, and there formulated a programme which was afterwards to be developed into that of the Land League. On his return to Ireland he directed the agitation begun in Mayo against excessive rent, and having made a successful appeal to America for funds, the Irish National Land League was established on October 21, 1879, with C. S. Parnell as president; and (1) the protection of the people against the injustice or caprice of landlords; (2) the abolition of the Irish landlords; (3) the assistance of evicted tenants OR its programme. " The soil of Ireland for the people of Ireland " w■: ■ its war-cry. AriPsted in November for using seditious laupuge Davitt was admitted to bail, and addressed a large number of meetings in England and Ireland, notably one on the ruins of the homestead from which his family had been evicted. The prosecution being "allowed to drop he went to America, and there, in company with Mr. John Dillon, organised the Land League throughout the United States. On his retain he found thai the instrument of " boycotting" had been invented, and used with telling effect, and that the Land League was supreme. Afjain arrested in February, 1881. for a breach of his ticket-of-leave,. ' ; the father of the Land League'' was conveyed to Portland prison, and remained there until May, 1882, when he was again set free. His experiences of prison life were amusingly told in "Leaves From a Prison Diary" (1885), the latter volume of which is chiefly devoted to the exposition of his peculiar views on the subject of land. Mr. Davitt, indeed, had by this time separated from Mr. Parnell on this question, and, in harmony with Mr. Henry George, was in favour of la.nd nationalisation. In 1880 the two parties came into somewhat violent collision when the question arose as to what form of association would best supply the place of the deceased Land League. Mr. Davitt's socialistic " National Land and Industrial Union of Ireland" was rejected in favour of a " National League," after recriminations between Mr. Davitt and its new president, Mr. T. P. O'Connor, M.P. Nevertheless, Mr. Davitt must be, on the whole, described as -having worked the parallel to, rather than against, Mr. Parnell; they both agreed on the necessity of api independent parliament, for Ireland: and in company with Mr. Parnell's lieutenant, Mr. Healy, Mr. Davitt was in 1882 imprisoned for six months on refusing to find securities for his good behaviour. The expiration of Mr. Davitt's ticket-of-leave in 1885 made him ai free man once more. Mr. Davitt was first elected to Parliament (for County Menth) when a prisoner in Portland convict prison in 1882. but was disqualified by special vote of the House of Commons for non-expiry of his sentence for treason felony. He unsuccessfully contested Walsford in 1891. and on being elected for Meatli in 1892 was unseated on petition. In the same year he was returned for East Cork, afterwards for East Kerry, and for Southway, 1895. He retired from parliamentary life in 1899, and lie had published several books, mostly 'on Irish subjects, and obtained his living as a journalist. .