Evening Memories

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 45, 16 November 1922, Page 5

Evening Memories

(By William O'Brien.)

CHAPTER XV.—(Continued.) For the honor of old age, it is a pity that the last public act of Professor Goldwin Smith’s not unenlightened life should have been a speech in the Queen’s Park worthy of the intellectual level of the least reputable of the listeners who translated his words into brickbats and gunshots. A Protestant Bishop of the suggestive name ot Sullivan, gained for himself'a no less tHHe distinction .on the occasion. Lord Lansdowne himself was indiscreet enough to choose that for quitting Government House for Toronto, and thus risking a fresh spark within a yard of the cask of'gunpowder'that was known to bo on the point of exploding there. The explosion did not fail to come off.. St. Andrew’s Hall, which was hired for our meeting, shut its.doors against us; so did every other public building in the city. The Orange Grand Masters improved the hints from the platform into open and insolent boasts that we should never be allowed to enter the city, or, at the worst, never be allowed to leave it unless in our coffins. But now a phenomenon occurred of auspicious omen for the greatness which has since raised free Canada to a world-power. For the intolerance which disgraced Toronto, so far from intimidating our friends, created a notable reaction in our favor, and a very general condemnation of the Governor-General, among the wisest elements in the Canadian Parliament and in the press. The principal Liberal organ, the Montreal Herald which (it was mournfully cabled to the London press) was previously adverse, to the -Irish visitor, now approves his course, and declares if Lord Lansdowne has any answer, the public will expect it from him.” The conservative organ, the Gazette, was no less severe on the “blundering and intemperate language” of Professor Goldwin Smith who, it cruelly reminded him, “has long been out of sympathy with Canadian opinion,” and Mayor Howland’s disgust was expressed in a blunt declaration that' “Mr. Goldwin Smith’s speech has aroused prejudices which make a riot seem inevitable.” >

The Governor-General himself in his reply to the resolutions of the “loyalist’ meeting” in the Queen’s Park, could not refrain from avowing his chagrin ‘in the words: “It has been the source of the deepest regret to mo that those who have sought for political purposes to stir up strife . between me and the tenants on’ a part of my Irish estates should have been for a time successful.” . .Our friends, boycotted in our design to be content with a modest indoor meeting, announced that the meeting must now be held in the most conspicuous place in Toronto, viz., the Queen’s Park, and from the very platform from which the bloodthirsty Professor and the Bishop had hurled their comminutions. ~ The sensational riot, of the following day in a. surprise attack upon two or three of us, as we were taking an evening stroll, led the public to forgot that in the real trial of strength in- the. Queen’s Park,/ the boasts ,of Mr. Goldwin Smith’s disciples -were completely put to shame. They failed even to drown our voices. The newspaper correspondents ' estimated the ;.Assemblage at fifteen thousand. The banks were closed, and the Orange operatives of the factories' were let loose; so. that the f mail forces 'of. the intolerants was undoubtedly

included in the muster. They made terrifying faces and bellowed forth their curses- in all the approved forms of Chinese, warfare, and in the course of their three or four hours’ roaring made three separate and very' resolute charges to gain possession of the platform. They were favored by the benevolent neutrality of ail enormous force of police who kept steadily never minding when, wave after wave of the Orange attack surged towards the platform; but on each occasion as the Orange tide was forced back by the magnificent tenacity of the Nationalists, it was upon the Nationalists, and not upon their assailants the truncheons of the police battalions fell in all their fury. But the Nationalists, although doubtless considerably in the minority, to the end maintained an unbreakable wall around the platform, against rioters and police combined. The chairman of our meeting, Mr. Mulligan (the Law partner of the Conservative Prime Minister of the Dominion) repeatedly told the Police Commandant (a Major Grissell, or some such name) that his men were the only effective disturbers of the meeting. The selfcommand and good humor with which danger and responsibility seldom fail to inspire me, joined with a voice not quite, unequal to the tumult of battle, enabled me to devote my speech largely to bantering the clumsy fanatics upon their inferiority to the House of Commons in the arts of howling down an Irish opponent. * They charged and charged again,this time within a- yard or two of the platform with uplifted clubs; but once more our own trusty phalanx scut them reeling back into the arms of the police, and I was able to ask free Canada to note the collapse of Lord .'Lansdowne’s method of answering a plain indictment. The day wound up with, a banquet of enormous dimensions at the Rossin House, and toasts of legitimate thankfulness for the victorious close of an experiment not without its anxieies.

This was the result in the open light of day, and with due notice to all concerned. The next day the Rossin House was astir with callers of all politics or of none, soberly thankful that the first meeting in the Queen’s Park had been unaggressively but 'effectively answered by the second. There were reports . that a sullen sense of defeat was still smouldering in the Orange quarter, but there was so little semblance of excitement in the streets that when I proposed* to walk off the fatigues of the day by a stroll in the golden evening air, a stranger would as readily have anticipated an earthquake as that even our anonymity should be penetrated. The little airing was-so unpremeditated that, half an hour before, Kilbride ■ and Charlie Ryan, and the American newspaper correspondents had dispersed to see the town for themselves, confident that there were no storm signals to threaten their evenings amusements. The Prime Minis-

ter’s colleague, Mr. Mulligan, alone accompanied me as ; Ave left the Rossin House: a. young barrister named Cahill -..' joined .us in the street outside. We had turned the first corner of the block containing the hotel buildings, on our way to the lake shore, before we were recognised. Even then we had entered the second street of the block before we noticed that the group was beginning to form behind ■ us, and that a. policeman had taken up his position in their midst. Every moment there were additions to tho group, and there began a muttering of growls and curses I? which left no doubt of their temper. Mr. J. M. Wall, of the New York Tribune, who, had just hoard of our departure - from ■ the . hotel, hurried up with the news that v a torchlight procession was being organised to escort Lord b'Lansdowne to and from the theatre, and that the streets

v - ~ . i t ' ■ .■ •- ..:■■'■„ were getting excited. Mr. Mulligan decided that it would be wiser to abandon our walk and return to the hotel by the third street of the block. '; " • No blow had yet been struck, and our growling escort remained all the time behind our backs, although pressing closer and closer. We four had got almost to tho corner of the third street, walking at a leisurely pace with a view to avoiding a rush, when from behind the blow of a heavy club on the head of Mr. Cahill laid him prostrate on the footpath beside me in a pool of blood. : As I turned, the miscreant who had struck the foul blow —a -bearded mechanic, whose face was yellow with passion or cowardice —darted back into the crowd who also fell back a pace or two, as it seemed to me, in a moment of remorse. Unfortunately, the policeman who might still have saved the • situation took to his heels in a fit of the most abject panic it. has ever been .my fate to witness. When questioned at a -police investigation into his conduct a few days afterwards, the poor wretch made a defence which, if it did not smack of Sparta. had a good deal to commend it to the indulgence of the average Sunday citizen: "Well, if O'Brien wanted to-throw away his life, I did not want to throw away mine; I had my wife and children to think of." ; ■ :" ■•■, "-.

(To be continued.)