MR MICHAEL DAVITT.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 50, 30 September 1892, Page 23

MR MICHAEL DAVITT.

(From the Daily Newt ) Mb Michael Dayitt is, with the possible exception of Mr Edward Blake, tbe most interesting and remarkable of the new members in this Parliament. His entrance into the House of Commons adds little or nothing to his own influence or fame. But, on the other hand, he will be one of the most notable figures in that assembly. It is curious that an Irish patriot of such eminence and ability shonld have been defeated in his first candidature, and should bave had a bard fight in bis second. Tbe reason, of course, is tbat be preferred to contest Parnellite strongholds rather than places where his return wonld have been a foregone conclusion. For Mr Davitt is an ardent Nationalist, and a loyal member of the Irisb parliamentary party. No more striking tribute has been paid to the strength of the Nationalist cause, and the prudence of its leaders, than the adhesion of Mr Davitt. Mr Davitt, as everybody knows, was in youth an active Fenian, and spent some of the best years of his life in penal servitude for treason-felony. His political opioions are much more socialistic than those of bis parliamentary colleagues, and during tbe reign of Mr Parnell he was not on the best of terms with Mr Parnell's principal lieutenants. For Mr Parnell himself be bad a profound admiration, and never lifted a finger to dispute tbe authority of tbe chief. Bat when Ireland bad to choose between a constitutional alliance with British Liberalism and the desperate straggle of a disappointed man for the recovery of his personal ascendancy, Mr Davitt joined the Constitutionalists without a moment's hesitation. If Mr Gladstone's Irish policy had achieved nothing else than the conversion of Mr Davitt it would not have been fruitless. Before 1886 Mr Davitt, though he trusted Mr Parnell, gravely doubted tbe efficacy of political agitation as a weapon for obtaining Home Bule. It was in frank acknowledgment of Mr Gladstone's wisdom and sincerity tbat he fell into line with the general body of Nationalist politicians. Nothing could be more creditable to Mr Davitt. It was Mr Glads' one's Government that prosecuted him in 1870. It was Mr Gladstone's Government that revoked h:s ticket-of leave and sent him back to Portland in 1881. When the interests of his country aie concerned Mr Davitt is incapable of personal feeling. He may not be always judicious ; he may not sufficiently realise the truth of the maxim tbat if speech is silver, silence is golden, but his keenest and bitterest opponents .idmit h:s transparent sincerity, bis chivalrous sense of honour, an ! his absolute devotion to the cause of Ireland. In Ireland the name of Michael Davitt is Bometbir.g more than a household word. Even at the height of the lamentable quarrel to which tht deposition of Mr Parnell gave rise tbe cowardly assault upon Mr Davitt, for which, like Mr O'Brien, be refused to prosecute, excited universal indignation. The characteristic qualities of the intellectual and gentlemanlike party bave been well illustrated ia their references to Mr Davitt. Some of their lower organs in the Press think it dignified and becoming to call him " Davitt." The fact that when he was twenty-four be engaged in a criminal conspiracy to procure the restoration of his freeedom by force has been made tbe excuse for denouncing him as unfit for tbe society of honest men. Chief Justice Cockburn's suggestion, founded on an ambiguous letter, that that he bad been engaged in a plot to murder somebody is still repeated without the full explanation given by Mr Davitt himself to the Special Commissioners. Because in 1882, being in gaol for felony, he was ineligible for Parliament, the jurists and pundits who follow the Duke of Devonshire and Mr Chamberlain

gravely argue tbat, althoagh his sentence expired in 1886, he mast be ineligible now. Their way of putting the argument is even more edifying than* the argument itself. They describe Mr Davitt as " disqualified by a vote of tbe House of Commons." They might as well say tbat he was disqualified by a vote of tbe Ulster Convention, for the House of Commons has no more power to disqualify anybody than, as Sir Fletcher Norton elegantly put it, "so maoy drunken porters." Mr Davit used himself, lt is believed, to feel scruples about taking the oath of allegiance to tbe British Sovereign. Bat that was before Mr Gladstone had recognised tbe right! of the Irish people. Mr Davitt's abilities as a speaker are of a very high order indeed. He is fluent, if anything too fluent. He is in dtadly earnest He ii capable, when deeply move**, of genuine eloquence. In describing before the Special Commission tbe scenes of hardship and suffering which he bad witnessed as a boy, he drew signs of rare emotion from tbe impassive countenance of Mr Parnell. Lord Hanoen aod his colleagues were delighted with Mr Davitt. No doubt, being a hostile tribunal, they relished his candid admissions — admissions so oandid as to raise the question whether he would not have done better to retire from tbe case with Sit Charles Bußsell and the other counsel retained. But there was something about Mr Davitt's manly, straightforward appearance in the witness box which favourably impressed even the most bigoted Coercionist. It would probably not be denied by Mr Davitt's warmest admirers that be was anxious to vindicate his position as tbe real founder and originator of the Land League. A man who has been three times imprisoned for his political faith can afford to be self-assertive without dreading the charge of egoism ; and certainly it would be the height of absurdity, and tbe depth of imbecility, to accuse Mr Davitt of undue personal ambition. More than almost any other Irishman, he has toiled for the advancement and regeneration of the working classes. In pleading for the farmers he did not forget the artisans, and his relations with the Labour party in England are very close. The doctrines of Mr Henry George which he professes, or at least profebßed, bave not been made popular in Ireland, even by him. The Irish peasant is an individualist to the backbone. But as editor of The Labour World he has acquired a good deal of power among the class which lives by weekly wages on this side St George's Channel, and his most recent speeches Lave urged bis countrymen to co-operat* in obtaining social reforms for Great Britain. Two of Mr Davitt's phrases have become commonplaces of the Irish controversy. One contains the famous image of the " wolf-dog of Irish vengeance bounding across the Atlantic," which was at the time he nsed it as accurate as it was vivid. The other introduced the familiar simile of breakfast, dinner, and supper, which gave the Tories an occasion for saying that Mr Davitt at all events did not regard Home Bule as final. But when the context came to be examined, tbe disestablishment of the Irish Church appeared to be Mr Davitt's idea of breakfast, and tbe Land Acts had supplied his dinner, leaving the programme to be completed by a supper of Home Bule. Mr Davitt's recollection goes back almost to tbe great famine and probably covers the cruel evictions which followed it. He exemplifies the truth of John Bright's familiar saying that the people of Ireland were anxious to cross the 3000 miles of ocean and join hands with tbe great Bepublic of tbe West. His parents emigrated to the United States in bis early youth, and his own ways of thought are in many respects more American than Irisb. As a thorough Badical, however, he is q*u>te at home among tbe British Democracy, and a very popular speaker on English platforms. It would be important that Mr Davitt should be in Parliament even if he did not succeed there. For he is a thoroughly representative man, and no, body else could exactly fill bis place. It is quite true, as Mr Lecky says, tbat in tbe time of O'Oonnell aod ever since Irish Members bave given valuable assistance to the cause of progress and reform. It is also true tbat closer intercourse with America has made Ireland more Democratic than she ustd to be. But still Mr Davitt does not belong to any ordinary type of Irisb Nationalist. He is more of a philosopher and a theorist, less conventional and provincial, than most of his colleagues. It is a wonderful thing, which may well make the comfortable classes ashamed of themselves, tint a man kept for years in what tbe Lord Chief Justice of England has called a state of slavery, should have employed the years of bis punishment and seclusion, not in indulging bitterness and planning vengeance, but in thinking out schemes for the use and benefit of. bis fellow countrymen. Mr Davitt's published account of his life and experience in prison is full of strange and painful interest. Tbe jury who fonnd him guilty were probably right on the evidence, and Sir Alexander Cockburn, who sentenced him, was by no means a vindictive judge. Wain Sir William Harcourt, as Home Secretary, revoked Mr Davitt's licence in 1881, he very sensibly and humanely directed that Mr Davitt should be treated as a first-class misdemeanant. It would bave been a thousand times better, though quite without precedent, if either the Judge himself or Lord Aberdare, who was then at the Home Office, bad given such a direction in 1870. Countries far behind Great Britain in many of the things which make up civilization

pat political prisoners on a different level and treat them in a different fashion from other and more sordid criminals. Society U justified in protecting itself from armed attempts at revolution. But the instance of Mr Davitt, with whom men and woven of the highest character are proud to associate, is a valuable warning against the fatal blunder which confounds necessary precautions with degrading penalties.