Revieic of Reviews, 1]910G 



Character Sketch. 



257 



Btinct of freedom was too powerful to be resisted, thougrh 

 I had indulged the fond hojie that he would have re- 

 mained with me. But he taught me the lesson, which can 

 never be unlearned by either country, prisoner, or bird, 

 that. Nature will not be denied, and that Liberty is more 

 to be desired than fetters of gold. 



Davitt was released in May, 1882. He had been 

 elected Meml>er for Meath when in gaol, but the 

 election was null and void. Next year he was ar- 

 rested again, and sent to prison for three months for 

 .seditious speech, thereby secm-ing leisure in which 

 to complete his " Prison Diary." 



He spoke five days before the Times Parnell 

 Commission. It was a great speech, worthy of a 

 great occasion — the Father of the Land League jus- 

 tifying his offspring before the tribunal of the op- 

 pressor. 



His parliamentary experience was singularly 

 \aried. He was admirably fitted to be a member. 

 He was an excellent speaker, with the House of 

 Commons manner, and in the lobbies and in the 

 precincts of the House no one was more popular. 

 But he was never at home at St. Stephen's. 



After making many unsuccessful efforts to gain 

 admission he was at last elected in his absence, and 

 resigned his seat as a protest against the Boer War. 

 His first election was in 1882, when he was disquali- 

 fied by special vote of the House of Commons for 

 non-expiry of sentence for treason felony. He con- 

 tested Waterford City unsuccessfully in 1891, be- 

 came M.P. for North Meath in 1892, only to be 

 unseated on petition. He wrote me: — 



Tlie successful petition in Nortli Meatli leaves me in my 

 usual 'plight of l)eing punislied witliout the comfort of 

 having merited my fate. Tlie judges declared that nothing 

 wliatever was proved against me. They tire not to report 

 anybody to Mr. Speaker. Therefore am I unsealed, cast 

 in costs which ai^ell ruin, and doomed to meet about the 

 ■nly misfortune that has not yet overtaken me^bank- 

 ruptcy. 



Bankruptcy it was, and hence, when he was re- 

 turned unopposed the same year for North-East 

 (>>rk, he resigned in the following year. In 1895, 

 when he was travelling in Australia, he was returned 

 unopposed by East Kerry and South Mayo. He re- 

 lained his seat in the House till 1899, when he re- 

 signed and did not return to Westminster. Five 

 \ ears later, when he was on the eve of starting for 

 Russia, he wrote me for a,n introduction to Count 

 Tolstoy. His note is a brief autobiography: — 



Mention the facts that you Englisli put me in prison 

 tliree times for a total period of nine ,^■ears, that I founded 

 the Land League, was a close ])ersonal friend of Henry 

 George's, and resigned a seat in tlie House of Commons as 

 a protest against England's crime in .South Africa- 

 Michael Davitt no sooner resigned his seat in the 

 House than he conceived a most kindly and enthu- 

 siastic desire to force me into it. Over and over 

 .igain he came to Mowbray House, to impress upon 

 me that it was little short of a sin against the 

 country and the cause for me to remain outside the 

 House of Comm.ons. I used to ask him why, as 

 practice was better than precept, he should have set 

 me so bad an example. He replied quite reason- 

 ably that he was and must be an outsider, whereas 

 I was an insider, and an insider who, he persisted. 



was wickedly sacrificing three-quarters of the influ- 

 ence he ought to exercise on the nation by refusing 

 to enter the legislature. When I replied that I had 

 never been tempted by the ambition to sit in the 

 House, he waxed still more earnest, and really 

 amazed me by the strenuousness of his entreaties. 

 It was \-ery flattering to my vanity to find that so 

 good a man and so earnest a patriot could think so 

 highly of my latent potentialities of usefulness if I 

 entered Parliament, and all the more so because I 

 knew Davitt at one time had suspected me, entirely 

 without cause, of weakening on the question of Home 

 Rule. Writing to me in 1893 he attributed to me 

 " a general tendency to knife the Home Rule Bill as 

 soon as it should appear." He wrote: — 



Surely Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Morley never engaged in a 

 greater or holier work than the one in which they aim at 

 ending once and for ever the international feud between 

 the Irisli and Englisli races— an aim which wlien once 

 accomplislied will remove the greatest obstacle tliat bars 

 the way to your federated Empire. Strange that you from 

 ultra-Imperialist convictions should be drifting into the 

 narrow political knownothingism of the Unionists, while I, 

 ultra-Nationalist and non-Imijerialist, am finding myself 

 driven into a position wliich is tlie logical and inevitable 

 outcome of Home Rule for Ireland — in favour of a- Fede- 

 rated Empire. 



Da\'itt was soon convinced that his suspicions 

 were unjust, a.nd among the many plans we formed, 

 now, alas ! never to be carried out, was one in which 

 he and I were to go on a lecturing tour round the 

 world iiroclaiming the reconciliation of the English 

 and Irish races on the basis of Home Rule. 



The bond between Michael Davitt and myself was 

 four-fold. First, we belonged to the great brother- 

 hood of gaol-birds ; secondly, we were both Home 

 Rule Nationalists, believing in the divine right of 

 insurrection : thirdly, we were passionate pro- Boers; 

 and fourthly, we were both good Russians. On the 

 subject of the Boer War he wrote to me from Pre- 

 toria, April 8th, 1900: — 



I was against this war. as you know, from the begin- 

 ning. I am a hundred times more against it now alter 

 mixing with tliese simple, honest, heroic people, who are 

 making the noblest stand ever made in human hislorj' for 

 their independence. 



When I returned from South .\frica in 1904, he 

 sent ir.e the following chaffing epistle: — 



What a chance you had in South Africa! You might 

 have raised the standard of insurrection among your own 

 disloyal Anglo-Saxons, and after the manner of Washington 

 gone in for the United States of South Africa. You would 

 have succeeded or failed. If success crowned your efforts 

 you would be the first President of tlieir Republic. It you 

 failed you nii'.rht have been hanged iiv your friend and one- 

 time jiurtil. Milner. In either case %'ou would liavc achieved 

 undying fame. Whereas here you are liack again in the 

 dominion.'^ of Mr. Chamberlain a mere item of discontent 

 among a people morally and politicall.\' mortgaged t.o the 

 puhlic-hnnse. tlie lietting evil and the Devil. 



I am gl.id you are in good health and that you dropped 

 the naily Paper. It would have sent you to your grave in 

 a year, and that would have been a tar more inglorious 

 ending to your career than had you been hanged in Pre- 

 toria. 



Davitt spoke feelingly on the subject of jour- 

 nalism. He founded and edited the Labour World, 

 the first number of which appeared on Septemlver 

 2ist, 1890, and the last on May 30th, 1891. The 

 Labour World was a pioneer paper. It was the 

 herald of the Labour Party, whose advent to power 



