MR. DAVITT AND WATERFORD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 18, 19 February 1892, Page 27

MR. DAVITT AND WATERFORD.

(Mr. Micael Davitt in the Pall Mall Gazette.')

The campaign proper was to be opened on Sunday, December 13th, by a National demonstration, at which Mr William O'Brien and myself were to attend. I reached Waterford on Saturday evening without any hostility being Bbown me by the Parnellites. On Sunday I went to the railway station on the Kilkenny side of the Suir to meet Mr O'Brien, wbo was to arrive in company with Nationalists from towns outside tbe city of Waterford who were to take part in tha meeting, and if necessary to defend the right to hold one. That ia where, in my opinion, a blunder was committed on our side. What waa intended as a defence by us was.lookei upon as a defiance by onr opponents, and a regrettable 1 scene of violence followed. To this disorder 1 unconsciously contributed- I insisted, against the advice of more experienced men, tbat if Mr O'Brien andSmyself beaded our procession across tbe bridge of the Suir the Parnellites would not attack us, and tbat peace would be maintained. The Parnellites, however, seeing us at tbe front of a large body of men from districts not included in the constituency concluded we were leading an aggressive " invading " force, which Mr Edmund Leamy had asked big friends on the previous evening " to meet as their forefathers had met the Cromwellian intruders." This patriotic appeal was responded to.

Then occurred what has tended to turn the laugh against me. It appeared that Mr William Keane had most stenuonsly objected to his name being put before the electors as a candidate. He had not up to Saturday given any assent to the importunities of those who had advocated bis candidature before the convention, which had adopted it in tbe belief that be was willing to stand. On Sunday morning a telegram, in reply to an urgent appeal from Mr William O'Brien, was found in the Adelphia Hotel saying, in substance, if all inducements failed to get me to go forward he would do so. Mr Keane was aware that several deputations had waited upon me at Ballybrack, asking my consent to be named as Nationalist and Labour candidate. No one likes to be bludgeoned, whether he feels he deserves it or not, and knowing how friendly I was disposed to be to words the interest of peace in Waterford, I answered the blow struck at me by Mr Redmond's friends, by announcing myself as bis opponent for the honour cf representing Waterford. From that moment, anyhow, I can claim that I preserved the peace of the city, and prevented the recurrence to disorders, which I regret to say my opponents did their best to provoke whenever and wherever an opportunity presented itself.

The forces against me in Waterford were all but overwhelming. Mr Richard Power's seat was considered as bequeathed in a political will to his own party. No less than six local newspapers supported Mr Red mood.' The Pig-buyers Association, a most influential body, which practically controls the whole trade of Waterford, was dead against me, and exerted Us powers of intimidation to tbe ntmost to secure my defeat. All the Tory employers gave Mr Redmond fret access to their men, while only one permitted to me a similar privilege. That oldest of all political institutions, '' the mob," was Parnellita and I could not, without the certainty of provoking a row, hold a single meeting in tbe open air. The canvassing of voters was carried on in my behalf under every species of difficulty up to the day of tha polling. Threats of violence were held oat against some of my most prominent helpere, while appeals to every form of prejudice and pas* sion were made night after night by the Bedmondite orators to the

Nationalist feeling of a patriotic city. It was in face of an opposition of this character that my candidature was carried on up to tbe even-ing-of the polling. On the polling day the formidable Pig-buyers were everywhere. They swarmed in the booths as Mr Redmond's " personating agents. " They hung round the doors and actuned every elector wLo came to record his vote. They took charge ot the illiterates and " educated " them. In fact, they " bossed the whole show " of the election, and made it practically impossible for me to induce a single one of my supporters to stand at the entrance of a booth to look after my interests.

The labour vote was largely coerced. The wives of pour labouring men told my canvassers that if their husbands voted for me they would be dismissed their employment or beaten. They were told that it would be known and published how every man would vote, and that those who did not support Mr Redmond would have to take " the consequences." In addition to this, it was circulated among the timid business folk of the city that if Mr Redmond were beaten Waterford would bo the scene of similar disorders to those which took place in 1870, when Bernal Osborne defeated P J Smithe.

It is by the aid of these tactic, coupled with the Tory vote, that Mr Redmond has succeeded in retaining Waterford for Factioniam by a majority of 646 votes. The rowdyism and terrorism alone prevented me winning for though I believed in the beginning that Mr Keane would lose by 500, and that the seat would be secure for the Factionists, I am certain now after a close study of the constituency that if the Tories could have been eliminated, and fair play allowed by the Parnellites, I would have beaten Mr Eedmond by more than five hundred of a majority. I am convinced that Waterford ia more strongly on the side of the Nationalist Party than it was believed to be before the election, and I see nothing in the return of the Faction-ist-Tory candidate by the means which were employed to secure bis election that should cause a single Nationalist in Ireland to entertain any unkindly feeling towards the one constituency which has so far endowed the mad and wicked policy Mr Redmond and his friends are pursuing, in the hope of ruining a movement which they are no longer permitted to rule. The Home Rnle cause stands in no danger from a pyrrhic victory like that of Waterford.