Two Dissolutions in Twelve Months (1910-11)

Chapter XXXVII

Two Dissolutions in Twelve Months (1910-11)

At the Dissolution William O’Brien returned from abroad to stand for Cork.

I wrote Maurice:

Chapelizod,

3rd December, 1909.

“I imagine O’Brien to-night is paying his hotel bill in Florence, and examining the time-table for the mail to Paris! He could easily be in Cork for the nomination.

Samuel’s papers in the Irish Times on the Budget are valuable. The Sinn Feiners are active in Dublin and growing… .

There was a demonstration this morning in the Four Courts Library in favour of Charles O’Connor when he came in as Solicitor-General, which was unique in my experience. The barristers believed he had been hardly treated, and cheered. It was the result of Dillon’s boycott of him for the judgeship.”

Because Charles O’Connor, K.C., had been counsel for Lord de Freyne, against whom Dillon had a grudge, John went to the Castle and protested against his being made a judge. O’Connor had, therefore, to wait and be content with a law officership.

At the new General Election the Party to which I had been adjoined again attacked me. In my canvass for North Louth I was supported by a letter from the most distinguished voter in the constituency, Cardinal Logue.

His Eminence wrote to one of my friends:

Arl Coeli, Armagh,

13th January, 1910

Dear Sir, -

“I do not think that it would be strictly in keeping with my position to take so prominent a part in a contested election as to nominate a candidate, otherwise I should willingly nominate Mr. Healy.

I shall, however, endeavour to be in Dundalk on Thursday, the 20th, to vote for Mr. Healy. You can make any public use of this fact which you may find necessary for the purpose of contradicting rumours or allegations to the contrary.

I have never sympathized with the determined and persistent attacks which have been made upon Mr. Healy by a section of the Press and some politicians for the purpose of driving him out of public life, thus depriving the country of his undoubted abilities) his unimpeachable honesty, and a devotion to the interests of Ireland which, whatever occasional mistakes he may have made - mistakes from which his opponents are by no means free - has never wavered, and which has been proved by long years of disinterested service.

I regret very much that Dundalk and North Louth have been thrown into such disorder and confusion by a contest which I, at least believe to have been neither necessary nor useful, and which is little calculated to promote that “unity” of which we hear so much.”

Yours faithfully,

Michael Cardinal Logue.

Bernard Hamill, Esq., J.P.

I won, and a Dublin paper recorded that during the courting of the votes,

“In the Four Courts business was suspended for close on three hours. No other topic was discussed in the Law Library except the anticipation of Mr. Healy’s defeat or victory.”

On the 22nd January, 1910, His Grace Dr. Walsh, Archbishop of Dublin, telegraphed: “Sincere congratulations on renewed expression of confidence from your constituency.”

My brother was defeated in Cork by a split caused by the candidature of an alderman who had been made a baronet on the visit of King Edward VII.

Redmond now had the Government in the “hollow of his hand.” Ministers went out independent of his Party, and came back dependent on it; yet Winston Churchill announced that they would pass the Budget “without the change of a comma.”

Redmond at Rathmines made a speech attacking his supporters for declaring that the Government was at his mercy.

This made plain that he didn’t intend to wield the power which the Dissolution gave him, although William Redmond went to his Clare constituents and heralded a fleet of concessions on the Budget to soothe Irish taxpayers. None were made, for the Party cry grew that it was more important to kill the Veto of the House of Lords than to amend the Budget.

Redmond, in order to carry it intact, excluded O’Brien’s supporters and myself from his Party. He had no authority from that body to do so. He simply sent us no invitations to its meetings. Against this I published a protest:

Chapelizod,

8th February, 1910.

Dear Redmond, -

“From to-day’s newspapers I learn that you have invited certain Irish M.P.’s to attend a meeting to-morrow, which you style a meeting of “the Irish Parliamentary Party.” Having the honour to be a member of that Party, but not the honour of sharing in the select invitations you have issued, I think I am entitled by my seniority to yourself in the Party to inquire on what principle your selection has been made. No rule or canon of the Party has conferred on you any authority to pick or choose amongst the Nationalists elected by the Irish constituencies. Your duty is to call together every member returned on National principles, prepared to “sit, act, and vote” together under the Pledge devised by me. To fail in that duty, as you have done, is to create, by a deliberate act a second Party amongst the Nationalist representatives, and I wish to make clear that if such second Party is established, it is by your premeditated plot and design that it will come into existence.

As the author, in 1885, of the Party Pledge, I perhaps take a more serious view of your proposal to create a split in the Irish representation than you do, seeing that for 10 years you headed a fratricidal strife against the Party. I therefore claim the right to point out, that the result of your conduct must be to nullify the effect and operation of the Pledge, which henceforth win become impossible of enforcement. That instrument is based on the inviolable principle that every representative who accepts it becomes a juror upon the acts of his colleagues. His vote is assured to each of his fellows on every question, and no decision can be come to unless each representative is afforded the opportunity of passing judgment on every matter affecting Irish public interests, political or personal. For you to make a selection of pledged persons pleasing to yourself, and exclude those whom you have quarrelled with, or dislike, is plainly subversive of the rights of the constituencies and their representatives. A former Chairman of the Party, Mr. William Shaw, tried a similar device after the General Election of 1880, and his conduct was instantly impeached by Mr. Parnell, although the Pledge had not then been designed.

The case to-day is much stronger against juggling with invitations and tampering with the rights of representatives, because the Party has been established on the constitutional basis of a Pledge taken to the constituencies by all its members. Now there exists between each constituency an implied contract that each representative accepting that obligation shall share in, and be bound by, the deliberations of his colleagues similarly pledged.

No prior vote of the Party (which is still unconstituted) authorized you to make a selection from amongst the adherents of the Pledge. No Convention purporting to exclude any of them has been called. Solely by a personal act you, who since the dissolution of Parliament, enjoy no more authority in the Irish representation than any other member, attempt to proscribe and excommunicate men whom the constituencies (hitherto supposed to be sovereign) have chosen to constitute the Party. That such misconduct vitiates the Pledge even of those whom you have condescended to invite, becomes evident on a moment’s consideration. A packed or partial body cannot enforce the Pledge. Any member arraigned thereunder can object to a packed jury, such as you propose to constitute by your personal design-for a number of qualified members will have been unlawfully excluded from the panel entitled to participate in trial and verdict. The incoherency of your procedure is not the less absurd because you invite, or purport to assemble, the larger number of our representatives. Your authority in the matter must be tested by seeing where the right to exclude anyone resides. If you enjoy this power, you can exclude 60 as well as six; or, indeed, you could convene an” Irish Parliamentary Party” consisting of Mr. William Redmond and yourself.

During the Split you held that the orthodox Party consisted of nine individuals, and this was no more illogical than it is now for you to decide that the Party must consist of 70. On the new principle of selective invitations, a perpetual Chairman could be provided by inviting annually to your election personal adherents in the interests of “unity.”

I make this protest against the usurped authority which has plotted the exclusion of myself and other Nationalists from the Party, not because it will affect your designs, but in order to make plain where the responsibility rests for the consequences certain to flow from the disruption you seek to bring about. It is you, and you alone, who will be saddled with the disseverance of the Party and the nullification of the Pledge. We who are excluded by you from council with our former colleagues are certainly not guilty.

Every Nationalist, I hope, will take note of the manner in which you have entered upon this course. Recklessly, causelessly, and unpatriotically as you acted in 1890 - when you began a 10 years’ war against the will of the Irish people - your misconduct to-day is, in my opinion, more criminal and less excusable.”

We were thrust from the Party without impeachment, trial, or cause assigned. In English Parties no withdrawal of “whips” takes place unless a member has notoriously broken his allegiance and defied the Party programme. We had done nothing of the kind, and there was no pretence or allegation of incivism.

What was concealed from the public was that a trick to enable the Budget to be carried “without the alteration of a comma” was in progress. The Party had the year before voted against that measure as injurious to Ireland, and we were excluded as being likely to favour the continuance of that hostility. In other words, we were victimized in furtherance of a secret arrangement with the Liberals. Had we been allowed to remain in the Party (which held the balance of power), there was no more chance of a Budget oppressive to Ireland being carried “without the change of a comma” than there was of recalling from the political limbo the vanished Liberal hosts which passed it despite our opposition.

No precedent for the illegality thus practised existed in the 36 years since the establishment of the Party under Isaac Butt. In 1900, when Redmond was made leader, the expulsion of a member was deemed so grave a matter that Mr. William O’Brien summoned a National Convention to expel me. Against this course both Redmond and Harrington voted. Now, by a silent and secret process, Mr. O’Brien’s friends were “in one red burial blent,” although willing to work harmoniously with our colleagues, and to be bound by the majority as before. The Budget was swallowed on the plea that the House of Lords was to be smashed. The Fouquier Tinvilles who lurked behind the guillotine had by this time reduced Mr. Redmond to a nonentity.

He never acknowledged my letter.

I wrote Maurice.

Chapelizod,

14th February, 1910.

“If Asquith has the authority of the King to make peers, it doesn’t matter which measure is taken first, Veto or Budget. If he has not that authority, he should not hold office, and if he carries on without it, and the Lords throw the Budget out a second time, Asquith will have played a false part, which he is incapable of enacting.

The consideration for the Irish voting for the Budget is the promise of the destruction of the Lords’ Veto. This cannot be paid unless Asquith can assure us that he has the King’s promise to make peers. If the Redmondites bad been allowed to meander along, they would have got the Budget passed with nothing besides, but thanks to our attitude, we shall have the certainty of scalps. Then we need only stipulate as to conditions and finance for Ireland.”

During the second Budget debates, the Master of Elibank (Lord Murray), the Liberal whip, came to ask me was I spending the week-end at Marlow with the Devonports, and could he see me there on Sunday.

I said, “Yes.” He came and requested me to secure an interview between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and William O’Brien.

Accordingly, on the following Tuesday, I piloted O’Brien to Lord Devonport’s London house, where Lloyd George came. O’Brien outlined to him our policy, and said that our support of a modified Budget could be secured if the Wyndham Act was restored. I added that Home Rule could not be won if Nationalists were divided, and suggested as an essential of the situation that a reunion of the Irish forces must follow any agreement on the Budget. Letters to my brother state:

House of Commons,

30th March, 1910.

“I had a note from the Master of Elibank, asking me to meet the Chancellor of the Exchequer at seven to-night, and I must go, however reluctantly.

Redmond’s speech last night wound up with the demand that there should be an immediate Dissolution, and that beforehand the Prime Minister should see the King, and request assurances, and, if His Majesty refused, dissolve. I have since seen Lloyd George.

Tell O’Brien he has not changed in the least from the policy we agreed upon. He denounced Redmond and Dillon for their treachery in publishing the pith of our understanding in the Independent, and in the Liverpool speech. Said how it impressed the Cabinet and that they would bring on the Budget in the sense we desired, whether Redmond agreed to it or not, and that if they wanted to turn them out, let them do so. He said he would show me the Budget before he brought it in. I said, ” Better still, I will send you the omissions we want made.”

He asked me to let him have them by Monday, and I enclose a copy of the Bill, and wish you would send me your suggestions. I told him we wanted no “triumph,” and he said Redmond and Dillon did. He has his difficulties with the Cabinet, and Birrell is not giving him assistance, though not from disloyalty, but from constitutional temperament.

Suggest to O’Brien to take the line that, being invited to see Ministers) after Redmond had consented to do so, we should be betraying Irish interests to withhold our opinion, and that it would be treachery, while negotiations were in the balance, to publicly disclose them.

Also throw ridicule on the policy about the “Veto” as to Home Rule. It is evident the Government are determined to go on with the Budget, so I told Lloyd George that if he adhered to his suggestions to us, we should support him. The Redmondites think we have plunged them in a trap, and have no idea how to extricate themselves.”

The Master of Elibank laid our suggestions for the reunion of the Party - which we had not divided - before Redmond and Dillon, and for the agreement as to action on the Budget in exchange for concessions to Irish interests. Redmond’s party held the balance of power and could have extracted anything in reason from the Government. I wrote Maurice

London,

2nd April, 1910.

“Churchill’s speech last night was splendid, and lull of significance. Lloyd George is only concerned with his Budget, and he will never introduce another, as the problem has become too big. The last person he sees makes the greatest impression on him.”

House of Commons,

4th April, 1910.

“As I understand Lloyd George, he was to exclude all” agricultural land” from increased Death Duty or Conveyance Duty, and your amendments do not provide for this. To merely exclude the Land Commission mortgage would leave the tenants’ interest still to be hit by the increased stamp duty …

I intend to vote to-night with the Government, as I think any other course would be injurious to Irish interests. The time has come when we must take one side or the other. I admit it is doubtful which is the better side.

I was with the Gavan Duffys last night, and Miss Barry O’Brien told us that Redmond complained of Dillon’s “bossing” and of our having outmanoeuvred them.”

We were still hopeful that Redmond would press for amendments to the Budget. He had just before outlined the policy for which O’Brien and I were contending. For, on the 21st February, 1910, he declared:

“The financial crisis is a great weapon and a great lever in your hands, and I believe you will throw it away the moment you pass the Budget, and trust to luck-to another General Election to get the Veto Bill. We in Ireland are not going to throw away that weapon.”

This, however, was the very thing he did within less than two months. The abolition of the Veto of the House of Lords had no success as affecting Ireland. It was hampered by the provision that a Bill must be passed by the House of Commons three times in succession without the alteration of a comma before it operated. I, however, maintained civil relations with Lloyd George, and wrote Maurice:

London,

6th April, 1910.

“I noticed Lloyd George showing my letter to Asquith on the Front Bench on Monday. Asquith put it in his pocket to read. Lloyd George spoke to me to-night as he was passing into the Division Lobby, and said he had sent the amendments to Greer [the Irish draftsman], and asked would I be here on Monday. I said Tuesday, and asked did he note the moderation of my suggestions? He assented, and said they at any rate gave them something to go upon, and I think he is in such a pinch that we shall get what we want for the farmers either now or in the next Budget… .

Redmond will get a sore sell in the end with his “policy.""

The Government Whip found that Dillon was opposed to reunion. Lloyd George did not see that this, instead of hurting the chances of his Budget, would lead to its acceptance by the Irish Party, although they voted in the previous session against it.

They preferred to maintain the Split with O’Brien rather than restore the Wyndham terms of Land Purchase. Dillon did not want mere concessions to farmers, so the Budget was swallowed without the Party which “held the Government in the hollow of their hands” trying to insert a single amendment for the benefit of Ireland. I wrote:

Chapelizod,

10th April, 1910.

“Lloyd George referred to O’Brien’s letter in his interview with me, but said he had not made any promise about Land Purchase, unless he could find a fund from which the deficiency could be made up.”

Finally, there was a conflict in the House of Commons between O’Brien and Lloyd George, who was in difficulties with his colleagues in the Cabinet, and with Redmond and Dillon as to his negotiations with us. The Chancellor supposed that the Redmond Party would not take the line of injuring the Irish farmers by rejecting the proposal to implement the finance of the Wyndham Act. This the Treasury had undermined when the Liberals came in. He, therefore, “gambled” a little without the knowledge of the Cabinet. Then Redmond foolishly offered to accept the Budget if a Bill to restrain the House of Lords’ Veto was passed, and the Chancellor gladly took that quid pro quo, which secured the passage of the Budget.

When it became law, the Government produced the Veto scheme, which bitterly disappointed the “Party.” The only Bill which came into effect under it was that for Welsh Disestablishment, pressed forward by Lloyd George. True, the Home Rule Bill was passed three times, in 1912-13-14, but the Government strove to modify it in 1914, and the 1920 Act nullified it and partitioned Ireland. Asquith, of course, was not then in office, but Redmond might have been expected to look ahead.

The Westminster Gazette (19th April, 1910), a Liberal organ, wrote of the conflict between Wm. O’Brien and Lloyd George:

“The artistic interest in tile debate centred on the Irish Benches and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. William O’Brien and Mr. Tim Healy, that extraordinary couple, sat side by side, leading a little band of comparatively unknown men - less than a round dozen in all - who frantically endeavoured to demonstrate in force as Mr. O’Brien screamed his shrill war-cry and Mr. Healy shot his barbed arrows in all directions. There is an incongruous and almost ludicrous dissimilarity between these two irreconcilables - Mr. O’Brien, hirsute, Boheinian, all passion and fury; Mr. Healy, taut, trim, waspish, but always under control… .

I wrote my brother:

Chapelizod,

5th May, 1910.

“The Cardinal has been expressing himself against O’Brien’s League again, and wrote me against it. O’Brien is full of some project of getting a Conference, and urges me to get the Archbishop of Dublin to move.”

His Eminence was not friendly to O’Brien; yet I attended O’Brien’s meeting at Dungarvan in the autumn of 1910. The Cardinal wished me to fight a “lone hand” in Parliament, unknowing what might be effected by adhesion to a group Biggar used to quote a saying of his father’s: “Never propose anything until you have got a seconder.” Ecclesiastics, however well-read and far-sighted, sometimes as little understand the links and kinks of parliamentary politics as laymen would the direction of a monastery.

I knew that the neutrality of His Eminence would cost me my seat in North Louth. Yet I preferred taking sides with O’Brien in what I believed to be the right course for Ireland.

King Edward’s death, however, upset all speculations.

I wrote Maurice

Chapelizod,

9th May, 1910.

“The King’s death did not take me by surprise. The Daily News Biarritz corespondent a month ago had a letter which pointed to it.

The new King’s Civil List will have to be voted, and there will be questions about the Coronation Oath. I thought it remarkable that as Duke of York he should have come down twice to hear O’Brien. Last year he came to listen to a debate on Coercion in the Lords. His Majesty might fairly require time to consider the situation after his accession.

It could not be expected of a young monarch that he could swallow at a gulp whatever is proposed to him, affecting constitutional changes. Hence I think the likelihood of a Dissolution this year has lessened.

Both Lloyd George and Churchill said to me that they would do better for Ireland in the next Budget.”

In King Edward’s reign the theft of the Crown jewels from the office of the Ulster King-of-Arms, Dublin Castle, took place. It still remains a mystery. Sir Arthur Vicars (slain during the troubles of 1920-I at Kilmorna) was then King-of-Arms under the Liberal administration. Despite the theft, King Edward shook hands cordially with him at the Dublin Exhibition of 1906.

Appointments to inferior posts in “Ulster’s” gift were afterwards criticized. The late G. D. Burtchaell, of that office, told a friend that when an official resigned a post worth £40 a year his successor promised £500 to get it. The uniform alone would cost £150. (These facts I had from the late Judge H. D. Conner, K.C.)

Before the jewels were stolen, a strange appointment was made. The Conservative Member for Canterbury was given a position in “Ulster’s” office.

A London magistrate, Chester Masters, was appointed to investigate the theft. Lord Glenavy (then James Campbell) and I were counsel for Sir Arthur Vicars. Our instructions were to withdraw unless the Press was admitted. Admission was refused, so we left. No report of the inquiry has since been made public.

Vicars retired to Kerry, and to death.

Birrell (Chief Secretary) was upset by the theft of the jewels. Meeting me at hazard in a Dublin street, he walked me to the Castle denouncing Vicars.

I was not impressed, and on a different topic wrote my brother:

Chapelizod,

18th June, 1910.

“Sergeant Moriarty tells me Redmond has six clerks at work on my speeches over the last 30 years. This will afford them a liberal education.”

At that time I was engrossed in the litigation as to the ownership of tough Neagh. The claimants’ title turned on the oath of the Registrar of the Ulster King-of-Arms in Dublin Castle, Burtchaell, whom I have just mentioned.

The right of the Lough Neagh fishermen to earn a livelihood in the largest sheet of water in the Three Kingdoms was at stake, and opened up an historical vista reaching back three centuries to the Plantation of Ulster.

A previous claim to the tough had been made in 1878, but the House of Lords rejected it and confirmed the decrees of the Irish Courts, which pronounced in favour of the right of the public to fish in its waters. Then the Patents purporting to have been granted to the ancestor of Lord Shaftesbury by James I were scoffed at by Earl Cairns, an Ulsterman, the Tory Lord Chancellor. He asked what title that King had to give away this huge expanse of water, and ruled that Crown title must be traced and proved like that of private persons.

No evidence of Crown ownership existed when the patents relied on were “enrolled.” These were “faked” by the then Lord Deputy (Chichester) for his own benefit, although Deputies were forbidden by Statute to hold estates in Ireland without Royal licence, no such licence had been sought by, or was granted to Chichester. Still, no one in 1878 suspected fraud.

In 1907 the previously defeated litigants resorted to the office of the Ulster King-of-Arms, and employed its Registrar, Burtchaell, to invent some colourable case to show Crown title to warrant the issue of the bogus Patents. Burtchaell made an affidavit adducing documents bearing on the tough, and swore these were the only records that could be found. This was false.

He omitted vital instruments stored in the Record Office, which showed that the Crown never held title to tough Neagh. Some shore fisheries may have vested in the Crown under an Act of Henry VIII, which confiscated monastery possessions, but at that date the King had no foothold in Ulster, and in any case, the monks’ forfeiture could not affect the entire Lough.

Advocates are not archivists, and none of the counsel for the fisher-folk delved into the original MSS. before the case was tried. These lay uneasy of access in cramped and abbreviated Latin in the Record Office at the Four Courts. We believed Burtchaell’s oath that he had scheduled all relevant documents.

Years of research were necessary to cope with his falsehoods. He cited a parchment entirely blank, save for the words, “James I by the Grace of God,” and declared that if it only could be deciphered it would prove to be the “missing link ” or” King’s Letter” entitling the Deputy to issue a patent for Lough Neagh.

Another document relied on (for which Burtchaell was not responsible) was a pretended lease of Lough Neagh, made in 1803, by Lord Donegall. The “Memorial” (supposed to be a copy thereof) lodged in the Registry of Deeds, was signed in the presence of three witnesses. It never mentioned tough Neagh, and was confined to the River Bann. In the lease put in evidence the signature of Lord Donegall was witnessed by only two persons. This clearly proved forgery. The fraud was confirmed by the fact that another lease of the same date (relating to a different property) made by Lord Donegall was also attested by the same three witnesses. Such attestations demonstrated that a lease which only bore the signature of two witnesses was a forgery.

Of the arguments in the Appeal to the Lords I wrote my brother:

House of Commons,

11th July, 1910.

“The Lords to-day wavered in the Lough Neagh case. Lord Shaftesbury came in and got seats for persons interested in his lease.”

Chapelizod,

16th July, 1910.

“I intend to devote the Long Vacation to compiling a history of the seizure of Lough Neagh under bogus patents, and if the Lords decide against us, it will be a brief for future times,

It would be a pity if the learning I mugged up should be forgotten.”

The Lords, after a week’s argument, were divided, and decided that the case must be set down for re-argument in 1911. This I deal with later, and wrote Maurice on electoral matters:

Chapelizod,

1st October, 1910.

“My North Louth friends sent me £400 for election expenses, but I am returning it with a letter which will be published on Monday, devoting it to the registration of voters.”

The “Party” were then starting a fresh campaign to increase the strength of their supporters, as another Dissolution lay in the offing.

When Parliament met, the Sketch (29th October, 1910) set forth:

“A satirist of the most scathing description, “Tiger Tim” … for the last 18 years has been a familiar figure in the House of Commons, where he is regarded as the most bitter-spoken, most ready-witted man on the Irish benches. Constantly “in eruption,” his interventions in debate are always piquant if not helpful. His sardonic temperament has made him a phrase-maker. Thus he described one Bill as “the offspring of a headache at the Irish Office.” He declared that the making of the late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannermnn Chief Secretary was an attempt to govern Ireland with Scotch jokes.

One of Tim’s most exquisite imaginings, however, was during a recent divorce case, when he said that “the spectacle of his learned friend’s weeping was the greatest miracle since Moses struck the rock.”

When the Lord Chancellor of England, Lord Loreburn, called me to the Inner Bar in London in November, 1910, I wrote Maurice:

House of Commons,

5th November, 1910.

“I went through an extraordinary ceremony in London for my call as K.C. on Tuesday, having to be “called” in more than 15 courts, with endless bowings and scrapings.

Sam Evans, President of the Divorce Court hailed me as “learned in the laws of Ireland and England.” In view of our conflicts over the Budget this was handsome of the Probate President.

Byles tells me that John O’Connor says an important letter was delivered to Redmond from Asquith before he sailed for New York.

Moreton Frewen, who is on intimate terms with Balfour, writes in the Irish Times that yesterday “made history,” and tells me Balfour will join Asquith with his forces if Redmond makes trouble, so that he shall not be at the mercy of the Irish.

There has been an adjournment to enable the Tories to consider the Government proposals as to Ireland.”

At the Dissolution caused by the Lords’ rejection of the Budget, I wrote:

Dublin,

24th November, 1910.

“The Cardinal’s withdrawal of his priests in N. Louth will do me harm.

The fact that I went on O’Brien’s platform in Dungarvan against his letter affected him. There is no help for spilt milk, and I would have gone with O’Brien even if I knew that this was to be the consequence.”

I was beaten at the election. Bribery and intimidation were rampant, and I could not go out of doors in Dundalk without being attacked. I, therefore, lodged a petition against my opponent, who was nominated by the Party in his absence.

I wrote my brother:

Chapelizod,

20th December, 1910.

“Archbishop Walsh’s secretary called on me to say His Grace would visit me to-morrow evening. This is kind, after my defeat.

The Lords have fixed the 16th January for the re-hearing of the Lough Neagh case, before seven peers.”

A re-hearing was costly. Poor litigants suffer the loss of service which can be commanded by the rich, who can pay for exceptional work.

Home Tooke, when told “the law is open to every one,” sighed “Yes, and so is the London Tavern” - then the great seat of entertainment. Lord James (a Liberal) now disappeared from the tribunal, and Lord Halsbury (a Tory) replaced him. I wrote Maurice:

London,

23rd January, 1911.

“I finished to-day my three days’ argument in the Lough Neagh re-hearing in the Lords, and have raised more points on a patent than were raised for 300 years.”

Yet Burtchaell’s perjuries prevailed in the Lords, and that Tribunal, by four votes to three, decided against the fishermen. Still, it should be made plain that the Peers had not before them the real facts which afterwards I dug up.

Of a smaller case I wrote my brother:

Dublin,

5th February, 1911.

“I received endless congratulations over my first jury case in London.

After I returned to Dublin, Judge Wright not only sent me a note, but when I bowed my acknowledgments, he stood up on the bench, and said, “Mr. Healy, we are all proud of you.”

Such are Munster Circuit men. Carson acted splendidly towards me, and spread my praises in London.”

Of the case referred to in the last-quoted letter, Edmondson v. Amery, a London evening paper (2nd February, 1911) described my speech as “‘an impassioned gem of rhetorical art, tinged with subtle satire, and full of matter-of-fact logic - a masterpiece of counsel’s art.”

Stephen Gwynn, M.P., said (27th January, 1911):

“He had heard literature spoken, let him say, perhaps, above all by Mr. T. Healy. He had not agreed with the contents of all that was said, but he had admired the beauty of the form, and he thought it was well for them that they had the art of spoken literature still alive amongst them.”

The trial of the petition in North Louth now came on. The bribery and intimidation resorted to by the “Party” to oust me was established, and my opponent was condemned in costs.

I wrote Maurice:

London,

10th March, 1911.

“O’Brien tells me he has sold £13,000 of his wife’s investments to finance his movement, and it is a serious blow to him to he without further help in men or money.

He was bitter about the management of my petition in Louth, though we won, and strong for the necessity of exposing the Molly Maguires in the coming East Cork petition.”

The “Mollies” were Devlin’s Belfast organization. O’Brien’s irritation as to the North Louth Petition may have been due to the speech of one of my own counsel who dealt with my “faults and follies.”

In the East Cork Petition which I conducted soon after, Mr. Devlln’s admission that the books showing expenditure were burnt greatly helped. The late Max Green (Redmond’s son-in-law), private secretary to the Viceroy, dispatched a motor of the Lord-Lieutenant to East Cork for service against O’Brien. The Petition there was also successful.

Owing to O’Brien’s arrangement in N.E. Cork, Moreton Frewen - that widely cultured and highly gifted man - resigned in my favour, and I was elected there unopposed in July, 1911. I wrote Maurice:

House of Commons,

21st July, 1911.

“The Parliament Bill will be passed under the threat of the creation of peers. I hope it will leave the road free for a Home Rule Bill next session.

Yesterday when I was coming to the House from Bird Cage Walk to be sworn in as a new member, a hand was laid on my shoulder. It was Lloyd George with Grey, and though I attempted to let them pass on, they walked to the House with me! I told Lloyd George he should drop the Insurance Bill for Ireland, and he said it the Irish members desired this he had no wish to force it on them. He made it plain that the matter depends on Redmond.”

In the session of 1911 a member of Redmond’s Party tried to provoke O’Brien by an irrelevant question put without notice, suggesting that his mother was a relative of a notorious informer of the 1865 era named Pierce Nagle. It was the worst incident I had known in the House of Commons. I wrote my brother:

House of Commons,

27th July, 1913.

“O’Brien was upset to-day, having been grossly insulted by Lundon in the House. He tried to go for Lundon, who fled. Then O’Brien wished to turn on Dillon, saying he abetted the misconduct, and wanted to smite Dillon, panting after his vain hunt for Lundon. I restrained him, though I pitied him greatly. I doubt that any Irishman has suffered such unprovoked insult since the Union of 1800.”

I then felt the force of Grattan’s phrase that the magnitude of the accusation is lost in the insignificance of the accuser.

In March, 1912, there appeared in Pearson’s Magazine an article by P. W. Wilson, of the London Daily News, which described me as an “exquisite.” Until then every pressman made fun of my raiment. Wilson’s indictment began:

“For six stormy years I have watched the House of Commons day and night, and of all the puppets in that venerable pantomime the most fascinating has been, neither Mr. Balfour, nor Mr. Asquith, nor Mr. Redmond, but that strange and solitary enigma - Timothy Healy, K.C., M.P., once member for Louth, now a colleague of Mr. O’Brien at Cork.

I have sat through debates on Dreadnoughts and domestic service, and whisky and University education, on the House of Lords and trouble at Teheran, but, amid all the blurred medley of reminiscence, I see one figure, standing at a corner seat below the gangway, squat and square as the first Napoleon, with Napoleon’s shoulders, Napoleon’s thrust of his short bull-neck, Napoleon’s suggestion of corpulence, and Napoleon’s habit of linking his well-formed, well-fleshed hands behind his back, as he talked. He is the picture of Napoleon as Orchardson painted him on the deck of the Bellerophon.

Or I see him seated - so much of him, that is, as can be caught glowering through eyeglasses, darkly from beneath a polished silk hat - the very beau ideal of a buccaneer in broadcloth.

Whence comes this Tim, half-tiger and half-wasp, with the cruelty and kindness of a woman, the dexterity of an advocate, the phrase-making of a poet, who speaks without notes and interrupts without remorse? Whence comes he? And who is his tailor that, otherwise so reckless, he should be in raiment such an exquisite?

The first time I summoned up courage to address him, I expected to be stung. Instead I discovered in this wasp-like man a courtly, mild and kindly gentleman of the old school - a little precise - with a face that did not seem the same as I had deemed it to be, and the meekest of eye. It was “Tim” in private life - not profile as caricaturists love him, but full face; “Tim,” ready to do anybody a good turn behind the scenes, as all his younger acquaintances would be ready to testify…

He is the one lawyer, other than Mr. Birrell, who talks literature spontaneously.”

This is unfair to Birrell - one of the most delightful and readiest of speakers, who besides is, unlike me, a scholar.

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