REMINISCENCES OF MR T. P. O’CONNOR, M.P.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20705, 1 May 1929, Page 4

REMINISCENCES OF MR T. P. O’CONNOR, M.P.

[Copyright.] f

MEMORIES OF “THE FATHER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.” Rights of Publication Secured by the Otago Daily Times. VOLUME I. CHAPTER VII (Continued). Mr Biggar was the most fearless man I have ever known., It was almost incredible that this little hunchbacked man, slow of speech, with no power of appealing to the House of Commons, should stand up there and .continue unmoved when nearly 600 men were shouting words at him of execration and contempt. One of the-Coercion Bills to govern Ireland against her will was under discussion. Biggar got up and madia a speech of four hours. This was really the beginning of the policy of obstruction which fills party followed with such success years after. Biggar, and not Parnell, was the true author of the policy of obstruction, 41x0115]!, by a curious coincidence, this performance by Biggar took place on the night that Parnell took his seat in the House of'Commons for the first time. This 'was the gem fx'om which Parnell was .able, later on, to create the formidable policy of Iris great party. I happened to'bh in the House at that'time, though in the Strangers’ Gallery and not on tire floofr Such a feat by some of ourfliarty would not have been a remarkable achievement, but this little man, with no rhetorical resources, actually managed to carry out this project of holding Bills Time after time, attempts were made to confound him, but no one could. Then,the Speaker complained that lie could not hear the words of the hon. member. Biggar had’been speaking from a seat below the gangway, and he calmly walked to a seat above the gangway, so that he might meet, as he put it, .the convenience of the Speaker, and he began his rigmarole all over again. Biggar, of course, gave enthusiasm to Parnell’s new and violent policy, but his feelings towards that great - leader were always extraordinarily mixed. When the famous O’Shea election of 1885 came on, he was one of the men who dealt at Parnell the first deadly blow, from which, iu reality, he. never quite recovered. If anyone bad drawn the contrast of Biggar in . that election jiosing as an apostle of sexual purity, with that wellknown story of his earlier life, he would have_ replied that he had never sacrificed political principles in any of hiV transient passions. Of course, such a collision as at Galway would have made, between any other man except Parnell and Biggar, deadly enmity. But . Parnell could be curiously Indifferent to attacks upon himself, and if anyone criticised Biggar in his presence, Parnell would always say that “no one minded Biggar,” There was a certain groteequeness in Biggar’s individuality as well as in his policy, but deep down within him he had a positive affection for his leader.

Mr Sexton, the .next man in nxy portrait, gallery, was quite an opposite type.’ If Biggar. wers-a Northern of Northerns, Sexton waS' an Southern of Southerns. He had the southern sensitiveness, the. southern versatility, the southern eloquence. I - have, known in the course of my 47 years in Parliament many very great, parliamentarians. The greatest, unquestionably, in my judgment, Was Gladstone. I would put Sexton in .no inferior place to that of the very next to Gladstone as a parliamentarian. He had a most - singular-combination of gifts. He could rise to heights of eloquence that touched even-the unsympathetic ear of a hostile House of Commons; he could reason’out a case with close-knit logic; he had, a 1 power with words that seemed something like magical.—lt was perhaps a defect M this command of language that his speeches were now and then weakened by prolixity;, but even in proxility. he could be impressive. On one of these terrible all-nights I am about to describe, he spoke for three bburs—from a quarter to 5 until 20 minutes'- to 8.. The House to which he spoke consisted of about six to eight members, most of them fast asleep. One of the members who listened to him throughout was a Cabinet Minister— George Shaw-Lefevre, in those' days; the venerable Lord Eversley in ours. Mr Shaw-Lefevre reported afterwards that he had listened to every word of Sexton’s long speech, and found them all fascinating, arid not one of them redundant.

Side by aide with this extraordinary power ,as an orator there was in Hr Sexton another gift which is very rarely allied with great powers of speech. He had an extraordinary mastery of figures, and in mental arithmetic he was far beyond any man in the House. This talent was developed in him while ue was little more - than a child. His schoolfellows afterwards used to tell how the., or the masters would pitch at him a great bundle of figures, and. how, quick as lightning, he would give the proper answe.. ; This gift was immensely useful to him as a member of Parliament. Once Sir George Trevelyan, then” Chief Secretary l for Ireland; produced a loqg and com-! plicated>Biff. crammed, full, of' figures, dealing with' the; question of police salariesand police pensions. Rising immediately’ afterwards,' Mr Sexton was able to ,re-; peat and. 'to all , the figures of this’ statement;-wdxich it had’‘taken the' Chief Secretary many laborious days to. master. ■ . , - ■.

Finally, he- industry. Other, members might be usually present: m: the House, and .some of ua had to be almost always; present^-but' Sexton - was never absent.-,except when he went out to take a burned ineal or. to indulge in his °9® relaxation,-- a”cigar.'-.■' He was not visible until the House met. but he worked at home for hours before he came tp. the House. He x’ead every official phper that had any connection .with IrelancL In l a, mici-oseopic but very regular handwriting there would be in ixie pocket innumerable pages of notepaper on which, there .were comments. on all these papers. - So he went into the conflict of debate with all his armoury ready. So great was the ascendancy wh.ch ho . ultimately obtained over all' parts - of. the House That, 'in- later years than those' with which T am ' dealing ‘mow, his rise immediately after Mr ,-Balfour, ' theLoader of the House, was regarded asmost fitting. A caricaturist accompanied 3ns portrait with the title, the UViccLeader’of the House”; and so. indeed, he was. Even Mr Balfour, with all his faeree antagonism to Mr Sexton and his party, always listened to him with respect, and yielded to hig representations when it ceemed to him possible. There was a strange contrast between these immense 'powers rind extraordinary authority ind the physinue and, I mav add. the habits’,of the man. He was of small stature, his beautiful .bands and his feet were ;as small -‘as those of-a woman his body had not upon it' an ounce of superfluous flesh; the face long thin high-coloured, with a beard all round! was chiefly remarkable for the eyes, which were large, expressive, sometimes so blazing thaU they seemed to obliterate tlie rest, of Ins face. The bead was large; a friend satirically-described Mr .Sexton once as consisting of a big head balancing a small body. His habits were those or an ascetic, and this mightv pai’lia* mentary figure lived in two small sh-abbv rooms in the desolation of Tatchbrook street, one of the mean streets of meat. limlico. He rarely took any food beyond a cup of tea and toast until the dinner hour in the House of Commons. He had one devastating defect, and that was supcrsensitiveness. Other men much less gifted, but much leas sensitive, were able to confront and to defy the hailstorm of calumny and attack, but he found it in the end intolerable. At a time ' v ncn lie might have been most useiu! to the party, and when any constituents in Ireland would liavc boon proud to have him -as their representative, and immediately after lie had been elected leader of, the party, he retired from the House of Commons, and it knew him no more; one, T think, of the most, tragic incidents in all those years of our parliamentary conflict.