THE O'CONNOR MEMOIRS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20235, 20 April 1929, Page 10

THE O'CONNOR MEMOIRS.

REMINISCENCES OF "T.P»

BURNING THE OIL,

LEGISLATOR AND JOURNALIST.

A PARLIAMENTARY CHRONICLER. (Copyright.) No. VI. Theso meetings in Dublin had at onco rushed me to the front in my Party, and on the reputation of a few not unsuccessful speeches I made in the House of Commons soon afterwards, I became one of the Party spokesmen. Afterwards I was hated, distrusted, covered with a Niagara of vituperation from the organs of every kind of opinion—Liberal as fiercely as Tory—sometimes I was shouted down; but I had made my footing. This was all very gratifying, though I think I may say not unduly so. What advance I have made in political and Parliamentary life was always valued more by my friends than by myself. But, still, there was this paradox of destiny within a few weeks—a nameless and penniless journalist playing a prominent part in one of the great Parliamentary conflicts of the age.

The question, however, still remained: How was I<to make my living? This ate into my heart, and my friends who had known me in my pre-Parliamentary days noticed the deep depression which hung over my spirits, and made absentminded and silent one who is not a silent man when jn normal spirits. It \yas my realisation of all the perils and disrepute and hunger which lay before a man who had nothing but journalism to live upon.

An Unexpected Appointment. This immediate and most difficult problem received a rapid and unexpected solution. An old Scottish friend and colleague of mine gave up suddenly his position as the descriptive writer of Parliamentary proceedings for the Scotsman. He recommended me as his successor, and I was appointed, but I held the job for only a week or two- One of the things that synchronised with the general election was the purchase of the Pall Mall Gazette by Mr. H. Yates Thompson, and his selection of Mr. John Morley as its editor. I had never seen Mr. Morley, but I had already had some correspondence with him. He had rejected, for the Fortnightly Review, an article of mine which pleaded the cause of Irish Home Rule, and illustrated its pleas with the struggle of Poland '• The memory of that rebuff did not daunt me. I wrote to Mr. Morley, and proposed that I should get the appointment of Parliamentary chronicler. To my surprise I received a summons to the Pall Mall Gazette,,office; met- there Mr. Yates Thompson and Mr. Morley; was appointed, and received what to me then was the princely salary of £l2 a week; with, above all, certainty of work and income for an indefinite time. The experiment proved very satisfactory to both sides; it was hard work for.me. and had to be done under tremendous difficulties. Work in the Early Hours.

I. was one of the most indefatigable members of the House of Commons, speaking in season and out of season, leading or following in scenes of violence, embroiled it{ all-night sittings, and in all the other tremendous drudgery as well as excitement of the times. And when it was all over—sometimes in the midst of it—l had to sit down and write my chronicle. With the characteristic disinclination of a journalist to begin one moment too soon, I usually put off my article till midnight, when a large dish of tea in the tea-room gave me a renewal of clearness of mind and of activity. Sometimes I did not begin until later. I lived for a while at the Westminster Palace Hotel, in Victoria Street, so as to be always close to that great battleground in which I was taking so prominent a part, through the long watches by night as well as by day. At four o'clock on many a morning I went into the room which was at that angle of the hotel which faced Westminster, and there, amid the silence, while the hundreds of other occupants of the hotel were asleep, I wrote for a couple of hours, and had my article in the Pall Mall office by six or seven o'clock. I did not use the typewriter in those days. It was not a very easy article to write. It had to be descriptive and it had to be dramatic; but it had always to assume an air of an impartial though picturesque chronicle. I succeeded so well that, though the article excited a great deal of attention, its authorship remained a secret. The House of Commons in which I started found itself in a very unfortunate position. As Lord Beaconsfield had not resigned till the general election was over, the appointment of the new Ministers had to be postponed till after the meeting of Parliament. « Intrigues Against Gladstone.

I need not go into the tangled story of intrigue which was organised bv many forces to keep Gladstone out of the Premiership. . Lord Oxford has published recently a letter of the late Sir William Harcourt in which the possibility of Glaastone's becoming Premier was dismissea with contumely.- Stories were current in London society as to pronouncements even more vigorous against Gladstone. The Daily. News had then a very brilliant and very cynical and rather saturnine figure in,, the late Mr. Frank Hill. He was a Gladstonian, and when Harcourt, with his usual somewhat tive self-confidence, proclaimed to Hill that he knew several men who would refuse to serve under Gladstone, Hill drily replied that the noughts might revol against the figure one, but could not ge nn without it—which was a humorous but true description of the situation. Gladstone had conducted almost alone the tremendous- campaign against Disraen. Gladstone had won the victory ana become the idol of the democracy, and n was the inevitable head of the new .Government. " . No description of the Parliament °* and of subsequent Parliaments would be true to the if it did not put in tn forefront the immense power of Gladstone. Literally, even when in hopeless opposition, he dominated the assembly, and his domination was physical as we as mental. Be the House ever so tu • however many good-looking men in _,j 9 and figure there might be in it, Gla ■ stone physically, with the beauty and tn impressiveness of his face and figure, stoo out different from and above them all. He had, in the first place, an immense head, the full size of which, of co "^ se ? was brought out more by tli.e fact tnaO. by 1880 he was very nearly bald. Growth of the G.O.M.'s Head. I may here insert a curious little anecdote told me by the late Mr. McEwa > el great and wealthy Edinburgh brewer, who was for some years a niembei t his native city'. He was a daring, P' aI j_ spoken man, and once, meeting Mr. I Wa " stone, was so free from awe, even ot 1 1 awe-inspiring man, that he told him 1 he had first seen him many years be oi at an Anglican meeting in Scotland, a that frankly *he was rather disappmn then by his physical appearance, above all, by the sinallness of his nea ■ which was in great contrast W] tn splendid magnitude of this later dajGladstone not only took the somew bold statement with good humour, said: " You were quite right; my " , was then small!" and he revealed curious fact that his head had. as > went on, st.eadily increased in size a that he had to get his hatter to inc ' ea . ■' by at least two inches, the size ot hat. (To b« continued daily.)