Evening Memories

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 21, 25 May 1922, Page 7

Evening Memories

(By William O’Brien.)

CHAPTER Vlll.(Continued.) “24th May.—P. drew me into a corner to warn me against Mrs. of Chicago.* He was white with excitement. Suspects she is over on the business of the dynamiters. Quite solemnly believes she is capable of throwing ,a bomb from the Ladies’ Gallery. I laughed and told him H(arrington) and I had just been showing her over the House and giving her a cup of tea on the Terrace in full view of the public. He spoke with extraordinary energy and implored me to have no more to do with her. One of his remarks was: ‘No man can ever be sure' he knows a, woman. It is not the first time a clever and able man was deceived by one.’ Told me M(orley) knew she was in town and asked him what brought her. Both he and G(ladstone) were alarmed for fear of dynamite explosions that would finish everything. Told him it was much more likely she was out for an interview for her paper. He grow downright angry and kept on repeating, ‘ I know.’ Warned me not to mention his name in the matter, adding, ‘ It is not because I trust you that I would trust everybody you would trust.’ How like 'the secret societies if .he should be right! “25th May.‘Three hours closeted together. He told me G. is meditating surrender. Except Spencer he has not a man ready to face the panic in the party. He has called a meeting for Thursday at the Foreign Office. P. believes we must count upon an announcement that Bill will bo withdrawn after Second Reading. A dangerous Radical Cabal are saying; ‘ Send the old man to the Lords. Nothing could resist the cry if the Bill were once withdrawn. Talked the whole thing up and down with sore hearts. Were agreed that withdrawal would be worse than any defeat in the lobbies. P. said he would write to tell him we should have to vote against the Second Reading if C(hambcrlain) was to be allowed strangle the Bill.

_ “26th May.—Telegraphed article to United Ireland nailing our colors to the mast against surrender. 27th May. G. announced at Foreign Office meeting he would agree to withdraw Bill after Second Reading and reconsider Clause 24. t His own friends are even more rejoiced than the kickers. They dread a General Election more abjectly than any schoolboy of spirit would dread a flogging. Their hearts are only half in their votes. Resentment against the Irish for voting Tory still rankling. They now pretend to think the Second Reading quite safe.

P. when he could afford to say anything said, ‘ A bad day’s work.’ Later. —P. has just seen G., who told him there was nothing else to be done to avoid defeat. ‘ I am afraid,’ ho said, ‘ this is defeat in its worst form, for it can’t be undone in your time or in mine.’ He believes the difficulties in his own set are too much for G., who is in the mood for withdrawing himself as well as the Bill. P. thinks time is come to call a meeting of the Party to decide whether wo should not straightly throw out the Bill. He was called away by message from Chief Secretary.

“28th I ay.—A surprise. Chamberlain is not satisfied with concessions. Will hear of nothing short of putting the old man out of action once for all. P. says, ‘ More fool he. His victory would make him master of the situation.’ I asked if he was actuated by personal pique, was there no chance of his taking Home Rule in hand himself on the Canadian model of his speech on First Beading? That speech was on full Dominion lines. ‘Yes, because he only wanted to make a. point and hadn’t thought it out. He has now fallen back on some petty Canadian Provincial thing which won’t do.’ He might twist round again if it was his game, but it was not. He has lost his grip on the Liberals and would go down before a coalition of Hartington and the Tories if he appropriated Gladstonian Home Rule as his own. He has seemingly decided Jack Cade must turn Tory. The general ruck of the Liberals still cocksure the Second Reading is safe. ‘They don’t mean it, they can’t mean it,’ P. said, ‘ the Bill is doomed. But that being so, we should be mad to take the odium of finishing it ourselves and finishing the old man with it.’ He told me M(ichael) D(avitt) has done some mischief among the Radicals by going about saying ho has no objection to the withdrawal of the Bill. ‘ Poor Davitt!’ ho said, with his indulgent smile. ‘But nothing now really matters!’ “29th May. Fall Mall has a scandalous paragraph 'hinting that P. is domiciled at Eltham. Stead has a detective shadowing him. That is his scurvy way of arguing Clause 24 must be dropped. “30th May.—Called in at Airs. R(edmond)’s At Home. Airs. pounced on me and showed her teeth. She must have tried to force an interview with P. and been repulsed. Among other nasty things said she had evidence of a speech of P. saying he would not be content until the last link of the Crown was severed. I lost all my diplomacy and told her she might rely on it his enemies and Ireland’s were already sufficiently well informed. She said nothing short of separation would satisfy the Irish in America. I remarked that I had understood her very differently when we met a, few days ago; that she would quite possibly find the virtue of the Irish-Americans would not bo put to the temptation of accepting the Bill but that be that as it might, it was we at home who had taken the risks before and would have to take them again; and that the happiness of our own people must be our first consideration. Aly heat was, I am afraid, as undiplomatic as P.’s coldness; but she felt she had gone too far and became prodigiously civil, and will certainly throw no bombat least of the nitro-glycerine order.

“31st May. While Fowler was speaking, Trevelyan came in from the Chamberlain meeting and in an hysterical state spread the news: 48 of them, it seems, have resolved to vote against the Bill. The word passed all over the House as swiftly as if the Speaker had announced it from the chair. The old man held his ground on the Treasury Bench all the dreary night through, and shook hands cordially with Fowlerseemed to be sitting in some grey shadow of death, but a noble study in dignity and longanimity.

“Ist June.—Chamberlain answered by Sexton in the best speech of his life. Began badly in an overwrought condition, with the nervous smirk of self-satisfaction that mars half the effect of his speeches, but restored himself 'by some ironic thrust which set the House laughing at the status of Birmingham Town Commissioner to which he reduced the arrogant Radical renegade. From that time forth S. held the House under command and sailed along at ease in his glittering firmament of sarcasms and epigrams. C. took his punishment manfully, save once or twice when he hissed out some spitfire interjectionhis arms folded, his boxer’s head thrust back, his keen closeshaven face presenting the smallest surface for attack, the

“2nd June. —Dilke, who had intimated he would bo glad to speak on the Irish side, if reassured as to how our fellows would receive hirn,t made the plunge to-day in a weighty speech which set us all dismally reflecting: ‘ He might have saved Chamberlain if he had not ruined himself.’ Ireland’s usual luck! Debate really only prolonged at request of Ministerial Whips in belief that the waverers are getting more shaky and that they may still turn a dozen votes or two. But long-headed Liberals like Henry Wilson are sure we are in for a General Election, and that, as the Party have no candidates and no money, the smash will be phenomenal, even in Yorkshire. Their one comfort is that C(hamberlain) can’t win either, but may be ground to dust by a Tory-Whig Coalition. Labby is going about telling the story that the G.O.M. acknowledges all is up, consoling himself with the thought that the Lords must in any case throw out the Bill. ‘ Not if you send 500 old Dodds § across to teach them wisdom.’ ‘ Do you think,’ suggested the sly old parliamentary hand, ‘ do you think we could trust them to cross the Hall?’

sharp point of his nose high in the air smelling the battle of the next round. A quaint sequel. Mrs. Gladstone, hearing that Mrs. was in the Ladies’ Gallery, sent for her to tell her that she wished the Irish-Americans to know that Mr. G. considered S.’s speech the finest thing in contemporary Irish oratory. What a Tragi-coinedy of Errors! There was also a touch of pure comedy. P.’s object of all things was to tide over the remaining days of the debate without any maladroit explosion from our own camp, and seeing Matt H(arris) rise, whispered; ‘For goodness’ sake, don’t let Matt, give us an exhibition.’ As he sat down after a first failure to catch the Speaker’s eye, I gently suggested: Don’t you think, Matt., after Sexton’s speech, we cannot well improve upon matters for to-day?’ ‘Well,’ was the majestic reply, ‘that was Sexton’s speech. It wasn’t mine.’ At first signal of peroration from the man on his legs, Matt, popped tip again, indomitable.*

“3rd June. —T. P. O’Connor resumed the debate in the worst speech of his life or of anybody else’s. Read from lengthy galleys of type, sprawling all over the benches. Such pretension, such bad taste, so stupidly astray in whatever can have happened to him? Was content with Bill as conceding the naked principle of an Irish Parliament, and in words of nauseous flattery left G. at full liberty to reconstruct the whole thing in a new Bill. Pr was very angry. ‘He has left G. out of the box without a question.’ ‘ That is what comes of leaving these men out of your confidence,’ I said. ‘ T.P. had not the least notion of what was the eonsigne, or he would have cut off his hand rather than make that speech.’ ‘ Nothing could make an Irish Nationalist out of an English Radical,’ was the reply. ‘ I shall have to beat up the old man and insist on his sticking to the Bill, if the sky falls.’ Did not hear the result, but fancy we owe to it M(orley)’s speech later on. He gave a vehement pledge that there must be no lessening of the powers of the Irish Parliament. His speech was all that T.P.’s was not pluck, passion, the old Adam in him flaring up and lashing around him with the fury of one of Cromwell’s saints. We had no longer to organise a clay to enhearten him in the awkward pauses. Just because it was plainly unprepared, it was the speech of a man alive in every nerve of his body and mind. We all knew he could die on his own sword with the grace of an old Roman. To-night he was putting his sword to better use on the astonished heads of the enemy.”