258 



The Review of Reviews. 



Sei>fember I. 1906. 



was the great sensation of the last General Election. 

 In the first number Mr. Davitt defined the salient 

 features of the new departure in politics. He 

 wrote : — 



Now what is it tliat we want.' What does the progres- 

 sive labour movement demand? It.s claim may perhaps be 

 snmmed up under three heads; iH It asks tor the better 

 and mofe democratic organisation of iaboiir; '2) It demands 

 that to the community, not to the landlord, shall accrue 

 that immense annual increment which is due to general 

 inditstry and enterprise, and '5) it calls for Tio extension 

 of State and municipal control and ownership of such 

 motiopolies as can be managed by public bodies in the 

 public interest. 



He went on in subsequent numbers to elaborate a 

 scheme for labour representatives similar to that 

 which has subsequently been adopted. '" If the 

 working men of Great Britain and Ireland," he 

 WTote October 19th, 1890, " are to be adequately re- 

 presented alike in Parliament and local bodies, two 

 conditions are imperatively necessary — they must 

 abandon their present jealousies and suspicions, and 

 they must be prepared to take trouble and to make 

 sacrifices.' 



The last letter which I recei\ed from Davitt was 

 when he was beginning the electioneering campaign 

 in England last February, which resulted so trium- 

 phantlv for Labour, so fatally for him. He was full 

 of exultation over the realisation of his great idea 

 — the wcrking alliance between the Irish and Labour 

 Parties. He had seen it afar off in his early man- 

 hood, and the last year of his life he saw his ideal 

 translated into fact. If Davitt had lived he would 

 certainly have endeavoured to make practical use 

 of the alliance for the pur])ose of securing the early 

 concession of Home Rule. He hoped great things 

 from a pilgrimage of passion to be undertaken 

 through all parts of the country by a powerful com- 

 bination company of Irish and Labour Ms, P. de- 

 manding Home Rule for Ireland. For ever to Ire- 

 land his heart turned as the needle to the Pole; and 

 when he was laid to rest at Straide, in Co. Mayo, 

 his Mother Country ne\^r gathered to her breast a 

 truer-hearted son. 



Yet, although he loved his country, he was always 

 leaving it. He was an insatiable traveller. T. P. 

 O'Connor attributes this restlessness as of the Wan- 

 dering Jew to the recoil from his long imprisonment. 

 Nine years in a prison cell impelled him to spend 

 twenty-nine on steaniers and railway trains, racing 

 against time to the uttermost ends of the earth. It 

 may be so; but whatever the cause, Davitt seldom 

 passed a year w ithout a foreign tour. Sometimes he 

 travelled on political business, at other times he went 

 as special corresi)ondent. But wherever he went, 

 he carried with him a bright cheeriness and a ready 

 sympathv which made liim everywhere a welcome 

 guest. 



And as he was a weariless traveller so he was an 

 untiring worker. That poor left hand of his seemed 

 ne\-er at rest. He wrote better with his left hand 

 than most of us do with our right, and whatever he 



wrote bore the impress of his strong character and 

 his intense connction. His style was admirably 

 lucid, and although his expressions were sometimes 

 a little harsh, he often displayed the greatest mode- 

 ration and restraint. 



Notably was this the case in the tragic episode of 

 Mr. Parnell's downfall. Davitt had been most 

 cruelly and cynically deceived by Mr. Parnell, who 

 had traded upon Davitt's open and unsuspecting na- 

 ture in order to use him as a catspaw to deceive all 

 his friends and supporters. Parnell's treachery to 

 Davitt was the culminating proof of the impossi- 

 liilitv of trusting him. and it weighed more with 

 most of us than his liaison with the wife of O'Shea. 

 But on reading over Davitt's utterances on the sub- 

 ject in the fateful week when Parnell had to choose 

 whether to betray the cause of Ireland or to bow for 

 a season to the storm which his weakness had pro- 

 voked, it is impossible not to be impressed by the 

 tenderness and affection with which Da\itt spoke. 

 He loved Parnell well, but he loved Ireland better 

 still, and he never faltered in his choice. I was 

 much with him during all that trying time, and it 

 is difficult to say whether Davitt was more admir- 

 able for the fine human affection which he displayed 

 to his former colleague, or for the Spartan self- 

 sacrificing intrepidity with which he insisted upon 

 the deliverance of the cause of Home Rule from 

 the comjiroinising associations of the Divorce Court. 



Another subject which brought me into close touch 

 with Davitt was that of prison reform. At one time 

 we projected a prison reform association, of which 

 he was to lie president, while I was tc> have acted 

 as secretary. An Ex-Gaolbirds" Prison Reform As- 

 sociation was to have been its title, but it never was 

 incorporated. Now. however, in the days of pas- 

 sive resistance, there is a wider field fc>r recruiting 

 members, and the old project might be revived. 

 Davitt was ever zealous in the cause of prison re- 

 form. He knew the subject well, and if he would 

 but have waived his unconquerable objection to tak- 

 ing service under the British Government, he w^ould 

 have been an admirable inspector-general of the 

 prisons. 



But what subject of human interest was there 

 in the whole world which appealed to him in 

 vain? — India, Australia, South Africa, the Soudan, 

 Russia ; he was at home everywhere, and always 

 the champion of the under dog. He was faithful 

 even to slaying, nor did he spare his best friends. 

 I close these brief and most imperfect and inade- 

 quate reminiscences of the hero and patriot who has 

 been snatched from our midst by recalling the 

 fashion in which he handled the British Peace Cru- 

 saders in 1899. His words are worth reprinting 

 now when manv good folk in this country seem tn 

 imagine that the British Government is leading the 

 world in the cause of peace and disarmament be- 

 cause of Sir Edward Grey's speech on Mr. Vivian's 

 motion. Davitt exposed the hollowness of this no- 



