Columbia (Hmtersitp mtl)f(£ttp0fjtoj>0rk LIBRARY SIDELIGHTS ON THE HOME RULE MOVEMENT First Edition .... May, 1906. Reprinted June, 1906. SIDELIGHTS ON THE HOME RULE MOVEMENT BY SIR ROBERT ANDERSON, K.C.B., LL.D. NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 1906 Printed in Great Britain hRIN'TBD BY WILLIAM CLOUT* AND SON'S, I.IMITFIi, Lo:-'L"'''' MS III ' LK9. PREFACE It is often difficult to find a suitable name for a child. Far more difficult is it to find a suit- able title for a book. For while a name may be chosen just because it is borne by some one else, a book must have a title peculiar to itself. The title of the present work satisfies at least that condition. It has the further merit indeed of indicating that the scope of these pages is limited. For, apart from the personal element which per- vades them, they contain but little save what is either not generally known, or generally mis- understood. " Party politics " are rigidly ex- cluded, as is everything that would savour of appeals to prejudice or passion. And though the author is an Irishman, con- siderations of a kind that concern only the Irish themselves are here ignored. The Home Rule which the Revolutionists demand might be com- pared to a divorce ; while the D evolutionists of various grades would be content with something akin to a judicial separation. But it often vi PREFACE happens that a woman who is eager for that sort of limited independence fails to realise until too late that it involves loss of social position, and deprives her of access to her husband's cheque book. This parable does not need to be interpreted. With very many Irishmen who love their country quite as much as the Home Rulers do, England's share in governing Ireland weighs but little in comparison with Ireland's share in governing not only England but the Empire. And mere sentiment does not blind them to an intelligent appreciation of the substantial benefits of the Union. But in Ireland Provincialism is apt to be mistaken for Patriotism. Some readers may think that the author's acquaintance with the matters of which he treats is unduly limited. Others may conjecture, pos- sibly, that he has been deliberately economical in using the knowledge he possesses ; but it is hoped that readers of both classes may derive some interest and information from the volume. K. A CONTENTS CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY: THE AFFAIRE LE CARON PAGE How this book originated— Mr. Morley's " Life of Gladstone " — The affaire Le Caron — Origin of the Times-ParneU Special Commission — Le Caron and his evidence — I return his letters to him— Sir William Harcourt's attack on me for doing so— My defence— My letter to the Times 1 CHAPTER II MY RELATIONS WITH SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT The purpose and effect of my Times letter — A letter from Sir William Harcourt — Mr. Labouchere and Mr. John Morley attack me — Mr. Matthew's defence of me — My relations with Sir William Harcourt : personal incidents — A Home Office wrangle — A dinner party at Lord Rosebery's — Henri Le Caron and my dealings with him ... 18 CHAPTER III LOCAL AND PERSONAL I, introduce myself to the reader — My claim to be Irish — My College days — Reminiscences of Trinity College, Dublin — Absence of religious intolerance — Attitude of the Roman Catholic Bishops — Evil influenceof Maynooth — Theological Colleges — Parallel of the Dutch Protestant ministers in South Africa : letter from an " old Free State burgher " — The demand for a Roman Catholic University ... 27 b viii CONTENTS CHAPTER IV ANCIENT HISTORY PAGE My knowledge of the Fenian movement — The State, trials of 1865 — My work for Lord Mayo — Mr. Morley on ignorance of Irish history — His book deepens it — Ancient history : Noah's niece — Strongbow's invasion under Pope Adrian's hull, instigated by Dermod, King of Leinster — Henry II. lands — Cromwell's cruelties — Hume' on the rebellion of 1641 — The Penal Laws — The state of Ireland under Grattan's Parliament — The "Coercion Acts" of that period — Lord Clare on the state of Ireland in 1800 . . 36 CHAPTER V THE FENIAN MOVEMENT The condition of Ireland before and during the Famine — Repeal of the Arms Act — Sir George Grey's Crime and Outrage Act — The Rebellion of 1848 — A decade of pros- perity, 18.50-1860— Misgovernment of 1860-1865 : Lord Carlisle and Sir Robert Peel — " Larcom and the Police " — The origin of Feuianism : James Stephens and John O'Mahony — The McManus funeral — The Irish People newspaper — The personnel at Dublin Castle : Lord Wode- house's Viceroyalty — The newspaper seized and its staff 4 convicted and sentenced ....... 46 CHAPTER VI THE "F.B." AND THE "RISING" OF 1867 The American Fenian Brotherhood — Three Annual Conventions — John Mitchell released by President Johnson~at the request of the Fenians — Stephens' plans for the " Rising " — Fenian activity : the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, 1866— The first Fenian raid on Canada The Campohello expedition Stephens' arrival in America : assumes the control and announces that an Irish insurrection IS imminent — The effect of the agitation in Ireland — Stephens' overtures to Cluseret and others Stephens dcposeil — Kelly's leadership— Godfrey Massey'E mie ion — The " Rising" of March 5, L867 tecounl of the skir- mishes at Tallaght and Kilmallock — John Mitchell's e Innate .......... 56 CONTENTS ix CHAPTER VII THE CLERKENWELL EXPLOSION PAGE The prisoners of the " Rising " — The selection of cases for trial: mode of procedure — Finding " Queen's evidence" — Selection of Godfrey Massey— The Special Commission — Death sentences for High Treason — The Manchester outrage — Dublin Castle en vacanee — Neglect of the warn- ing — The Clerkenwell explosion — The warning from Dublin neglected — The plot carried out, but its purpose thwarted — The police action — Panic in London — Enrol- ment of special constables— A wild scare — Effects of the explosion — Mr. Gladstone's speeches .... 69 CHAPTER VIII FROM 1867 TO 1880 I come to London — Effects of the Fenian scare — Michael Barrett convicted and executed — Michael Davitt becomes Fenian arms agent — The Fenians steal volunteer rifles — A " find " in Soho— A Home Office Conference— Sir J. D. Coleridge — The proceedings of the American Fenians — The Canada raid of 1870— From 1870 to 1878— John Devoy and the "New Departure" — Espoused by Michael Davitt — The Land League — Parnell visits America, and accepts the Fenian platform ...... 80 CHAPTER IX FROM 1880 TO THE KILMAINHAM TREATY Dislike to Secret Service work — Sir William Harcourt sends for me — His resentment at my reserve — The safety of informants — An illustrative incident— How a leading Fenian was secured — Boycotting in Ireland — Forster's "Suspects Act, 1881" — The Ladies' Land League — Mr. Gladstone's Leeds speech, October, 1881 — Paruell's reply — His arrest — A further philippic by Mr.! Gladstone — The Kilmainham Treaty— The negotiations for the treaty — Captain O'Shea and Mr. Chamberlain — An admission by Mr. Gladstone in 1893 — Lord Ashbourne's article on it— Mr. Gladstone and Mrs. O'Shea .... 88 x CONTENTS CHAPTER X THE PHCENIX PARK MURDERS I'm, I-. Murder of Lord F. Cavendish and Mr. Burke -—No memorial of the crime Neglect of precautions — Plots against Sir S. L. Anderson and Mr. Forster — Mr. Morley's comments on the crime — Of less significance than preceding murders —An opportunity to test ParneU and the treaty —Fatal policy of compromise— Gladstone's Coercion Act of 1882 — Other Land League murders Mr. Gladstone's responsi- bility — Action taken hy I'arnell and Davitt Complicity of the Land League officials — My efforts to seize the money supplied to the criminals — An interview with Sir \V. Harcourt -Parnell's knowledge of the Land League crimes — Mr. Morley's silence — His injustice to Mr. Forster L02 CHAPTER XI THE IRISH NATIONAL LEAGUE The Irish National League — Its programme an answer to a challenge of Mr. Gladstone's— The American branch formed hy Fenians and Parnellite M.P.'s — The Phila- delphia Convention of liiii'A : attended hy the refugees of the Dublin murder conspiracy Message from Parnell — Speech hy Alex. Sullivan, who was elected President The dynamite work of the League — The Boston Conven- tion of l»!!l : Patrick Egan president — Speeches hy Mr. Sexton and Mr. W. K. Redmond ll'i CHAPTEB XII THE DYNAMITE CAMPAIGN Col. Rrackenhury's appointment :it I >ulilm < 'astle — My relatione with him The dynamite emissaries: Gallagher, Mackay Lomasney — Plots against the Bouse of Commons — Sir VI Harcourt's Explosives Act— Edward Bell's Case, 1890 — A reference to Lord Salisbury— Application by the prisoner's lawyer— Abandonmenl of the prosecution The Queen's Jubilee plot Revelations of the Cronin murder trial in Chicago I- 1 CONTENTS xi CHAPTER XIII THE SPECIAL COMMISSION Mr. Morley's prejudices — His erroneous estimate of the tribunal — The absence of a jury — The course of procedure— An Irish juryman's story — The Pigott letters: a coup de theatre — The gravity of the charges proved by legal evidence — The Byrne cheque — The Invincibles — The Laud League books spirited away — Mr. Morley's attitude — The expense of the inquiry — The neutrality of the (Government — The conduct of the Times case — Pigott's evidence — The " facsimile " letter — Parnell's character, career and lapse 135 CHAPTER XIV WHY I WAS NOT A WITNESS My connection with the case — Mr. Labouchere's charges, and my action respecting them — Mr. Morley on Le Caron and his evidence — The introduction of my name — I ask to be examined — Sir Henry James objects — Why I did not press my demand— The nature of the evidence offered . . 147 CHAPTER XV LE CARON AND HIS EVIDENCE Le Caron's interview with Parnell — It was Parnell who asked for it — Parnell's overtures — Le Caron's account of the interview — Significance of the interview — Mr. Morley's misrepresentation of it — Parnell's Fenian sympathies — His ignorance of public affairs — His hatred of England — Le Caron's discharge of the mission entrusted to him — The action taken on it by the 1881 Convention — My use of Le Caron's information — My visits to him during his last illness 155 CHAPTER XVI THE CASE FOR HOME RULE The origin of this book — The nature of the present inquiry — The Irish hatred of England : a legacy from the past — The destruction of Irish industries — Mr. Swift MacNeill quoted — Most felt by the Protestants, and especially xii CONTENTS PAGE by the Presbyterians — These classes were England's bitterest opponents — Their present "attitude : united in favour of the Union — But Home Rule not a religious question— The educated classes arc for the Union— The Union a Bignal success — The need for "coercion" dis- cussed — An illustrative case — Criminal apathy followed by extreme measures of repression — Parnell's answer to Davitt — Home Rule would create a new Irish question of the most dangerous kind . . . . . . .100 CHAPTER XVII MR. GLADSTONE AND HIS POLICY Mr. Alorley's presentation of Home Rule — The agitation was a personal triumph for Mr Gladstone — His power over men — Two personal incidents — The grounds on which Home Rule is commended — G rattan's Parliament and Pitt's methods — "The sea forbids the Union " — Inhabiting an island does not constitute a nation — There is no "Irish race" — The demand of the electorate — The real "city" and the real Ireland — Mr. Blight's testimony — The question claims decision on practical lines . . . 182 CHAPTER XVI II CONCLUSION: AN ALTERNATIVE POLICY The " devolution " scheme — Mr. Gladstone's testimony — The Parnellite demand for National self-government — Parnell's refu-al to accept anything else as final — Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Morley on a "divided Ireland " — They both con- temptuously ignore the real Ireland— Mr. Bright's letter of May 13, 1880— Impossibility of separating between local and Imperial affairs- Mr. Motley's statement — The latest demand by Mr. J. E. Redmond — Mr. Gladstone's former answer -Home Rule administration : governing according to Irish ideas — Sir W. Harcourt's refutation of this — Governing according to Imperial ideas the real need And yet the Union has won it- way — The great Unioni t Conventions of 1892 194 APPENDIX 209 INDEX 223 1 CM 3 S to oo "3 Pi 13 "3 03 EC C. P. Fortescue. Lord Naas (Earl of Mayo, 1867). Col. Wilson Pattcu. C. P. Fortescue. Marquis of Hartingtou (1870). Sir M. Hicks-Beach. James Lowther (1878,). W. E. Forster. Lord F. Cavendish (assassi- nated Mav-6, 1882). G. 0. Trevelyan (1882). H. Campbell-Banuerman (1884). Sir W. Hart-Dyke. John Morley. Sir M. Hicks-Beach. A. J. Balfour (Mar. 9, 1887). W. L. Jackson (1891). John Morley. G. W. Balfour. George Wyndham. "S a a O Earl of Carlisle. Lord Wodehouse (Nov. 1864). (Crea. Earl of Kimberley, Marquis of Abercom. Earl Spencer. Duke of Abercom. Duke of Marlborough (1876). Earl Cowper. Earl Spencer (May, 1882). Earl of Carnarvon. Earl of Aberdeen. Marquis of Londonderry. Earl of Zetland (Oct. 5, 1889). Lord Houghton. Earl Cadogan. O OQ a o w to oo «> fcn o S '■7i Spencer Walpole. Gathome Hardy (1867). H. A. Bruce. Robert Lowe (1873). R. A. Cross. Sir W. V. Harcourt. Sir R. Cross. H. E. Childers. Henry Matthews. H. H. Asquith. Sir M. H. Ridley. a 3 a a M o> "3 c rt 3 o o r- Earl Russell. Earl of Derby. B. Disraeli. W. E. Gladstone. B. Disraeli (Earl of Beacons- field, 1876). W. E. Gladstone. Marquis of Salisbury. W. E. Gladstone. Marquis of Salisbury. W. E. Gladstone. Earl of Rosebery. Marquis of Salisbury. oi 00 1865, Nov. 6. 1866, July 6. 1868, Feb. 27. 1868, Dec. 9. 1874, Feb. 21. 1880, April 28. 1885, June 24. 1886, Feb. 16. 1886, Aug. 3. 1892, Aug. 16. 1894, May 13. 1895, July 2. Ow Is Q a- a. a 02.2,2} «h .a * o -^ -^ ^ rt a cl a o "2 o> CO «<-! „. rt "O 2" * 5 O «!d •- m-f 3 °C to in o a> J2 «co a e«2 23^ ° a o ij a ■a « -2 OQ J O) , Mr. Matthews, the Home Secretary, informed him that in this matter " I had acted without his knowledge or sanction." And he thereupon gave notice — i] SIR W. HARCOURT ATTACKS ME 7 " That on the Vote on Account relating to the Metropolitan Police he would call attention to the conduct of Mr. Anderson in handing over confidential documents without leave from the Secretary of State, and its bearing upon his position as Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of the Criminal Investigation Department." A fortnight later, speaking on a political platform in Lambeth, he used these words — " The confidential agent, the Commissioner of Police, the head of the Criminal Investigation Department, goes and hands over to an in- former and to the agent of the Times, the secret papers of the Home Office without the consent of the Home Secretary. I should have liked to see a man in that position do such a thing under any of the predecessors of the Home Secretary. I know where he would have been to-day. It would not have been at Scotland Yard." This appeared in the newspapers of Wed- nesday, March 20. At five o'clock that day I had a visit at my office from a friend, who came straight from the House of Commons to tell me " that the whole business of the empire had been put aside in order to discuss my evil deeds," and that Sir William Harcourt, in particular, had attacked me fiercely. His object in calling was to warn me that my 8 THE AFFAIRE LE CARON [chap. position was critical, and to urge me to move at once in my own defence. " A letter to the Times" I remarked, " might roll back the tide of war. But would it embarrass the Secretary of State ? " "It would only help the Secretary of State," he assured me ; and as he was a personal, as well as a political, friend of Mr. Matthews, I accepted his assurance. I should here say, however, that, as I afterwards ascertained, he had had no communication as hatever with Mr. Matthews on the subject. My first requirement, of course, was to know exactly what had been said in the House. So after dinner that evening 1 made for the Times office, and appealed to the editor to let me see a proof of the report of the debate — a request to which he at once acceded. Sir William Harcourt's platform denuncia- tions had not alarmed me. In the same con- nection he branded Sir Richard Webster as " a disgrace to the English Bar ; " and nothing he said of me was quite as bad as that. That was " his way." But his words as leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons could not be treated lightly. And he had charged me, I learned, with "acting as a tout for the Times" and " betraying the secrets of my Department," thus proving that I was " utterly useless in the office I held." Had he been j] I DEFEND MYSELF 9 Home Secretary, he declared, " a man in Mr. Anderson's position would not have remained twenty-four hours in Scotland Yard." Though 1 am a man of peace I never shirk a fight, and this sort of thing was just what was best fitted to put me on my mettle. So I took up my pen at once, and a couple of hours later I handed my apologia to the editor. Mr. Buckle was most sympathetic, and set himself to impress on me the gravity of the course I was taking. He urged me to hold back my letter till I had "slept over it." "And give the lie twenty-four hours start ? " said I. " No ; I know what I'm doing, and I fear nothing but delay." The first leading article in the Times of next morning (March 21, 1889) began as follows : — " We have too much respect for the Special Commission Court and for the purity and inde- pendence of public justice to attempt to discuss in any detail the questions raised by Sir William Harcourt in the House of Commons yesterday ; and, in spite of all provocations, we intend to maintain the reserve we have hitherto shown till the time comes when it will be permissible to speak. For the same reasons we can hardly comment upon the substance of Mr. Anderson's letter, which we publish to-day, and will only say that it seems to stand out in striking c 10 THE AFFAIRE LE CARON [chap. contrast, for dignity of tone and straightforward statement, with the combination of recklessness and shiftiness displayed by his unscrupulous accusers." And on the opposite page the following letter appeared, with all the prominence which the best position and the largest type could give to it : — " Sir W. Harcourt and Mr. Anderson. " To the Editor of the ' Times: " Sir, "It is an excellent rule that Civil servants of the Crown, when publicly attacked, should leave their defence in the hands of their Parliamentary chiefs. I have always observed that rule, and I have no intention of departing from it. But when acts done by me wholly outside the sphere of my official position are assigned as proof that I am unworthy of the office I have the honour to hold under Her Majesty's warrant, I must not shelter myself behind the Secretary of State, for whose generous defence of me in Parliament to-day I am most deeply grateful. It is my privilege, as it is clearly my duty, to put myself right with the public immediately. " The proper method of doing so is, I admit, by appearing in the witness-box of the Com- mission Court, and I feel seriously aggrieved i] MY TIMES LETTER 11 that this has been hitherto denied me. As soon as my name was mentioned in the ease I asked to be called. For that purpose I saw the Attorney- General on three different occasions, and pressed my wishes upon him and Sir Henry James with a good deal of warmth and perti- nacity. And when Sir R. Webster announced what has been called ' the closing of the Times' case,' I communicated with him again and received a renewed assurance that my position as a witness was entirely unchanged. " If I am right in thinking that this whole discussion is grossly disrespectful to the Court over which Sir James Hannen presides, I must plead that I am forced against my will to make myself a party to the ' contempt.' " I have already intimated that my action in relation to Major Le Caron's evidence was wholly apart from my official position as Assis- tant Commissioner of Police. It arose from the fact that in former years, in an entirely unofficial position, I rendered advice and assist- ance to the 1880 Government in matters relating to political crime. A complete ex- planation of my conduct would involve such an appeal to documents and details as would amount to a disclosure of the secret service arrangements of that period. To me, personally, the disclosure would be intensely gratifying. It would, moreover, supply a missing chapter of uncommon interest in the political history of recent years. But Sir W. Harcourt knows me well enough to feel assured that I would 12 THE AFFAIRE LE CARON [chap. not, except under compulsion, say anything to embarrass ex-Ministers of the Crown who admitted me in any measure to their confidence. Whether it is generous of him to take advantage of this in attacking me as he has done I will not discuss. It is not in keeping with the kindness I have hitherto experienced at his hands. " For the present, at least, I will confine myself to a bare statement of the facts. I think it will suffice to satisfy even Sir W. Harcourt himself that he has wronged me. This statement, be it remembered, I expect to repeat on oath at the Commission Court. " When Major Le Caron called on me in December, having been summoned to England by his lather's death, he repeated the expression of his desire to give evidence before the Com- mission. He had written to me several times about this, and I had already tried to dissuade him from it. I found he was under the im- pression that the ' prosecution,' as he called it, was a Government matter, and that 1 was personally interested in it. I set him right on both these points. I assured him that ' Scotland Yard ' had no part whatever in the conduct of the case — had it been otherwise, the presentation of it woidd possibly be very different ; but that, in fact, I had never received even a hint that Government wished me to assist the Times, and I had never been as much as asked a question as to what I knew of the matters involved in the inquiry. 1 went on to r] MY TIMES LETTER, CONTINUED 18 speak of the terrible risks and penalties he would incur by coming forward, and I urged him strongly to reconsider his decision. " The following week he came back to say his mind was made up. He could not forget, said he, that he was an Englishman ; he had gone into the conspiracy solely to serve his country, and now he would see the matter through, and face the consequences. He ended by asking me to communicate with the Times on his behalf. This I point-blank refused to do. I told him again that I had had no communications with the Times relative to the conduct of the case before the Commission, and that I would not volunteer ; all I would promise was to bear his request in mind if 1 should be applied to. " This was in December. Next month Mr. Mac Donald appealed to me to help him in finding a witness to prove what he called ' the American part of the case.' I believe he has been generous enough to forgive me for the way I received him. If he had come to me in my official capacity, it would, according to the usual and well-established practice of my office, have been my duty to assist him. But he applied to me only as an amicus and an expert, and I sought to put him off by raising all kinds of difficulties, and insisting on unreasonable conditions. I need not give details. I mention the matter merely to mark my anxiety to keep Major le Caron out of Court, and to explain how it was that Mr. Houston came upon the scene. After much discussion I consented to 14 THE AFFAIRE LE CARON [chap. put the witness in communication with some trustworthy person to be nominated by Mr. MacDonald, under certain stringent conditions of secrecy. Next day he came back to tell me he had asked Mr. Houston to undertake the task. The much talked of ' letter of introduc- tion ' was simply three lines to say that the bearer was the person I had promised to send. "And now as to the letters. Major Le Caron's satisfaction with these arrangements was entirely destroyed by my refusal to help him in preparing his statement. He was crest- fallen when I told him I could not see him again until the close of the case. He referred to my often-repeated assurance that I treated his letters as unofficial papers, and declared that he was counting on being allowed to see them, and that if this were denied him he could not ' testify ' before the Commission. AY r hat was I to do ? The strictly regular course was, as Sir AY. Harcourt says, to refuse to produce them until I received the inevitable subpoena. To me this was a matter of perfect indifference. But the production of these letters would have been a cause of serious embarrassment to ex-Ministers, and it was solely due to my sense of honourable obligations to them — legal obligation there was none — that I adopted the only alternative open to me. Twenty-one years' acquaintance with Major Le Caron had convinced me that he was a man of scrupulous truthfulness and integrity, and I determined to place his documents at his disposal. I shall be blamed by many lor my i] MY TIMES LETTER. CONTINUED 15 efforts to prevent him from giving evidence, though I had several good and weighty reasons for doing so. But once he decided to go into the witness-box, my duty seemed clear. The question was not whether I should assist the Times, but whether I should set myself to thwart the Court. I may here remark that it is not true that I gave these documents either to the Times or to Mr. Houston. Neither the Times nor Mr. Houston has access to them. Those which were ' handed in ' to the Court were merely manuscript copies of American Fenian circulars. Not a single one of the em- barrassing letters has been produced, and if their production be now called for, as I presume it will, Sir W. Harcourt has only himself and Sir Charles Russell to blame for it. It was my anxiety to prevent it which led me to the action now complained of. " The suggestion that I should have pleaded privilege for these manuscripts as being official documents claims notice. I might, of course, have set up such a plea, but the following facts will make it clear that I could not have sus- tained it without prevaricating to the verge of falsehood. The letters in question do not come within the definition contained in the Official Secrets Bill now before Parliament. They never were on record in a Government office. They were never ' filed ' in a public department. I kept them at my private residence. When Sir William Harcourt once took me to task for acting in this way with reference to my 16 THE AFFAIRE LE CAKON [chap. informants, I immediately asked him to relieve me of my share in the secret service work of the Home Office. His reply, which now lies before me, reads strangely when compared with his present utterances. " Nor had I personally, in relation to such matters, any official position of a kind to lend an official character to the documents in question. If sometimes, through over-zeal, T placed myself ' in evidence ' in any way, I Avas reminded that I had ' no official position whatever.' When I asked for a salary from public funds, I was told it was impossible because I had ' no official position.' So entirely unofficial were my re- lations with the Secretary of State and the Irish Government that no intimation of them was ever given to the head of the department in which I had then recently become a ' Civil servant,' and the most sustained and scrupulous care was taken to conceal from Her Majesty's Treasury the fact that I had any engagements outside that department. But now, because I happen to be in the line of fire between the two front benches in Parliament, it is contended that I had an official position all the time ! " But, it is urged, these letters were paid for by the Government. This is an ad captandum argument to which I could give a complete reply if I were relieved from the honourable obligations to reticence which now restrain me. 1 will only remark that giving back letters to informants is not an uncommon practice. And this discussion may do good if certain parties on i] MY TIMES LETTER, CONTINUED 17 both sides of the Atlantic should learn from it that they may give information to Her Majesty's Government, and receive remuneration for doing so, with the certainty that their secret will be as well kept as Le Caron's was, and that, if they like to make the condition, their communications shall be treated as strictly unofficial documents and be returned to them at any time they wish to claim them. " As regards Sir W. Harcourt's criticisms upon the discharge of my official duties my mouth is closed. But I want to emphasize, and I am prepared to substantiate on oath, the fact asserted by Mr. Matthews that neither the * Assistant Commissioner of Police ' nor the department which he controls has given help to the Times in the presentation of their case before the Commission. " I am, etc., " R. Anderson. " March 20." 1) CHAPTER II RfY RELATIONS WITH SIR W. HARCOURT The success of my Times letter was complete. In writing it I had a double purpose in view. I knew the importance of putting myself right with the public ; but I wished also to make a covert appeal to Sir William Harcourt. For I had confidence in his fairness and generosity, and I wanted to recall to his memory matters which I felt sure he had forgotten. Here is his letter to me, to which I referred ; * and the only comment I need make upon it is to repeat that among the " modes of procedure " about which we differed, my arrangements with informants held a prominent place : — " Private. "My dear Anderson, " I am sorry to find from your letter that you think I have not duly appreciated your indefatigable exertions in the disagreeable duty which has fallen to you. " I assure you that is altogether a mistake, and I pray you to dismiss it from your mind. * See p. 10, ante. chap, n] A FRESH ATTACK ON ME 19 "If we differ sometimes as to modes of pro- cedure, that is a thing which must be looked for. " Pray go on as you have done in your useful work, and you may rely on entire sympathy and support from me. I am always most grateful for your reports and advice. " Yours truly, "W. V. Harcourt." But though my letter killed the " Affaire Le Caron " so far as I was concerned, it was made the ground of a fresh attack upon me. The doctrinaire Radical has peculiar ideas about liberty and fair play, and Mr. Labouchere's indignation was great at my daring to defend myself against charges that were both false and scandalous. He brought up the matter twice at question time ; and when the House reassembled after the Easter recess, it was made the subject of a set debate. It is germane to my present purpose to notice that on this occasion Mr. Matthews' vigorous defence of me was based on the fact, not only that Sir William Harcourt 's charges were unjust, but that, having regard to the terms " of violent abuse " in which they were launched, I was fully justified in writing to the Press to refute them. This in turn elicited a venomous attack upon me from Mr. John Morley, who described my letter as " one of 20 SIR WILLIAM, HARCOURT [chap. the meanest, as well as one of the most insolent documents ever written." The reader can judge whether these offensive epithets are not more applicable to Mr. Morley's words than to mine.* Though 1 had no communication whatever with the Secretary of State during all this period, I was not ignorant of what had tran- spired at the Home Office. Influenced by a sinister adviser, Mr. Matthews' first intention was to throw me over. But the Whips gave warning that " the members below the gang- way " would not tolerate this. They held that by my letter I had rendered a definite service to the Government, and that I ought to be supported. Hence Mr. Matthews' vigorous defence of me on March 22, and again on April 20. And my reason for emphasising all this is to show that no element was wanting to make a smaller man than Sir William Harcourt more determined than ever to have my "scalp." And yet from the day my letter was published, he never uttered a single word to my prejudice, but on the contrary, he went out of his way to prove to me that I still enjoyed his friendship. * If, even at the time, I could afford to ignore Mr. Morley's attack ou me, I can certainly afford to forget it now. I sometimes forgive a wrong, but 1 never forget a kindness ; and the maimer in which he received me on the only Occasion on which 1 ever afiked B favour of him— it was on behalf of my brother, the. late Sir Samuel Lee Anderson, during his last illness— is to me a pleasant and permanent memory. ii] SIR W. HARCOURT GREETS ME 21 One afternoon shortly after this Supply debate, I was in the Members' lobby, and seeing him come out of the House, I went forward to speak to him. He failed to recognize me, how- ever, and brushed me aside as he passed. An hour later the incident was recorded, with a sensational headline, in the " Special Editions." A few days afterwards I met him again as I was leaving the House by the Members' staircase. He was engaged in close conversation with M r. Childers, and leaning on his arm. I saluted him in passing, but again he failed to notice me. Before I reached the bottom of the flight, however, I heard him calling after me, and on my retracing my steps he greeted me with all the old cordiality. He shook me warmly by the hand, said he was glad to see me, and that " he hoped I ivas getting on well at Scotland Yard." When Sir William Harcourt's biography comes to be written, I question whether it will contain anything better fitted than this simple incident to illustrate the signal generosity of his character. The suggestion that if he thought he had wronged me he ought to have said so publicly, does not weigh with me. For he knew that I had put myself right with the public, and that in doing so I had " scored heavily " at his expense. The effect this had on smaller men, I have already shown. But with him not a 22 SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT [chap. spark of anger or ill-will resulted from it. In moments of temper he sometimes said out- rageous things, but he never bore malice. In that respect, indeed, he was more like a warm- hearted schoolboy than the cynic he was sup- posed to be. On the only occasion on which he ever spoke to me in a manner to hurt my self-respect, my rejoinder was, " Well, sir, of course my mouth is closed ; for you are the Secretary of State, and I am only a mere subordinate." We were standing on the hearthrug in his room in Grafton Street, and glaring at me in a passion, he demanded what right I had to say that : had he ever treated me in that way ? " Sir William, I apologise," I replied ; " I'm sorry I said what 1 did." The storm passed instantly, and sitting down in one of his fireside armchairs he motioned me to the other. Who could help liking such a man ! I could cite many incidents to point the same moral, but I will content myself by giving only the following two. Arriving late at the Home Office one day, I heard that I had been asked for repeatedly ; and on going up to the Secretary of State's room, 1 found him and Sir Adolphus Liddell wrangling over an important matter relating to the Secret Service. I took sides with the Under Secretary, and we had a warm discussion which lasted till the Chief left for the House. When I got back n] A HOME OFFICE WRANGLE 23 to my room, and went into the matter quietly, I became quite certain that Sir William was wrong; and I told Sir Adolphus so, giving my reasons. Our afternoon seance had made him both angry and sore, for the Chief had said some unpleasant things. So he sat down at once and wrote to Sir William, telling him what I had said. An hour later, as I was about to leave the Office, he sent for me again. " Read that," said he, pointing to a letter lying on his desk in Sir William's big spider-like handwriting. It was a perfectly charming letter, making a frank and full amende. Those who knew Sir Adolphus Liddell can realise the scene. Not another word could I get out of him, and I sat down and waited for the oracle to speak. I believe he was repenting of all the hard things he had intended to say and do in consequence of the afternoon's wrangle. Then at last, his face lighting up like that of a schoolboy who gets a cake when he expects a kick, he blurted out, " Well, he can be nasty when he likes, but / couldn't have written that letter. Come along, let us go home." And as we walked together he talked of nothing else, and frankly owned that he was " only beginning to under- stand Harcourt." When Lord Rosebery was at the Home Office, his relations with Sir William Harcourt 24 SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT [chap. became at one time somewhat strained. And when he held out the olive branch by inviting Sir William to dinner, the invitation was re- fused ; and I happened to know that the refusal was due altogether to "sulk." In the days when people dined at a reasonable hour, a pet child often came in to dessert, and got a seat at the head of the table. And at that stage of the dinner in question, Sir William Harcourt ap- peared, and a place was made for him beside the host. He had " got free sooner than he expected," he said, in his most genial manner, and " he could not lose the pleasure, etc., etc." I believe there were only two other guests at the table who knew that this was a charming " fib," intended to cover a frank acknowledgment that he had acted churlishly in refusing the invitation. Who but Sir William Harcourt would have had both the courage and the generosity to act thus ? Though the subject will come up again later, I may say here that the debates in Parliament bore no relation to the facts of Le Caron's position and work. My Times letter was designed to bring some of them to Sir AVilliam Harcourt 's recollection. As for the Secretary of State, he knew nothing about them ; for he never even sent across the street for me, to hear what I had to say on the subject. The only foundation for the pleasing fiction by which he amused the House — that Le Caron was a personal friend of ii] LE CARON'S POSITION 25 mine — was that, during all my official life, every man who served me faithfully learned to regard me as his friend. And of Le Caron I formed a very high opinion indeed. He was a man of sterling integrity and honour. Many people are truthful, and some are accurate, but I have seldom met any one who excelled him in these respects. He was not an " informer." It was an almost quixotic desire to serve his country that led him to enter on the task of thwarting the Fenian conspiracy. I regarded him and his work in the same light in which I regarded police duty at Scotland Yard, and the able and estimable men who were my subordinates there in dealing with other branches of crime. In his " Life of Gladstone," Mr. Morley says that Le Caron " had been for twenty-eight years in the United States, and for more than twenty of them he had been in the pay of Scotland Yard." The fact is that, until he appeared as a witness at the Special Commission, " Scotland Yard " was not aware of his existence. And during five, at least, of the eventful years in which he kept me informed of the doings of the Fenian leaders, his letters did not cost the Government even the price of the postage stamps he used in sending them to me. Though the reward given him for thwarting the second Fenian raid on Canada was petty in comparison with the value of his services, it was, at least, substantial ; but E 26 SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT [chap, ii the amount of money he received in other years was seldom much more than sufficed to com- pensate him for constant interruption of his work as a practising doctor. Two remarks in closing this chapter. The sequel will show that a full and complete defence of my action in regard to Le Caron's letters might have been embarrassing to the Govern- ment, and still more embarrassing to the ex- Ministers. And it will show also how well founded was the complaint of the Times in the leading article of which the opening sentences have been quoted here,* that the Government gave no assistance in the presentation of the case submitted to the Special Commission. I unreservedly endorse that complaint. I have always felt that in this respect the Government failed in its duty, not only to the Commission Court but to the public. * See p. 9, ante. CHAPTER III LOCAL AND PERSONAL " Whom have I the honour of addressing ? " is a formula with which we are familiar. " Who is this who claims the honour of addressing us ? " is an inquiry the public may reasonably make upon the appearance of a book of this character. To eliminate the personal element from these pages, therefore, would be to exclude the grounds on which I venture to claim a hearing on the subjects of which they treat. But the personal element shall be made entirely subordinate to their main purpose. I hope, without waiting for the salmon-fishing and " anecdotage " stage of life, to write a book in another vein, giving something of my experi- ences in the Secret Service and at Scotland Yard. But a few more years must pass, and men too, perhaps, before I can throw off all restraint in writing on such subjects. What I have to say here and now, however, may be said without impropriety or breach of faith. I was born and brought up — well, as the 28 LOCAL AND PERSONAL [chap. French phrase has it, " that goes without say- ing ; " and I am not vain enough to suppose that the particulars are of interest to any one. This much, however, may be opportune : When an alien is naturalised in England he becomes an English citizen ; and as a good many generations have passed since my Scottish "forebears" settled in Ireland, and that country was my home during the first twenty-seven years of my life, I always supposed I was Irish, until the Home Rule movement enlightened me. For no one is Irish nowadays who has not " national aspirations " verging on sedition ; or in other words, who refuses to join in an agitation designed to reduce Ireland to the level of a dependent province, and to rob her of the proud place she shares with Great Britain in the government of the Empire. At all events, I was an Irish barrister until the events of which I have to speak drew me away from the practice of the profession of my choice. If 1 make a passing reference to my college days, it is because of experiences which have some bearing on a pending controversy of great public interest. AVhen I entered Trinity College, Dublin, as a Presbyterian, every member of the governing body, and all the Fellows and Professors, belonged to the Estab- lished Church. And at that time a narrowness and bigotry little known on this side of the Channel, marked the Evangelicals of the Irish in] TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN 29 Church. But though this spirit was rife outside the walls of Trinity College, within them it was unknown. Whether in regard to my dealings with the " Dons " or with my fellow students, I cannot recall a single occasion or incident to lead me to qualify this statement. And during my years of office in the College Historical Society — full sister of the Union Societies of Oxford and Cambridge — I was brought a good deal into touch with the " Dons." During my term as Auditor (or President) of the Society I personally canvassed the members of the governing body of the University, to obtain their consent to a scheme of life member- ship, which they had till then refused to sanction. But neither in my communications with them, nor with my fellow members of the Historical Society, was the question of my religion of more account than whether I drank tea or coffee for breakfast. Among the undergraduates, of course, religious questions were sometimes dis- cussed as freely as the political and social problems to which the history of Ireland gives prominence. But we met on perfectly even terms, and learned not only to hear, but to respect, opinions and convictions which we did not share. Thought was free and sympathies were generous. This, however, is precisely the element of college life which the Irish Roman Catholic 30 LOCAL AND PERSONAL [chap. bishops refuse to tolerate. There is not, I understand, so much as one of their number who was ever at a university, and therefore they do not see the grotesque absurdity of supposing that if this element be eliminated, " the benefits of a university education " can be enjoyed Apart from the " hall mark " of its degrees, the only distinctive " benefits " which a university can confer, fall under either of two heads. Pro- vided it has prestige and wealth, it can secure teachers of the highest eminence in every depart- ment of science and learning. 13 ut this is of practical importance only to a minority. The ordinary pass-men, who always constitute the great majority of students, are incapable of benefiting by such high-class teaching. And for them the " benefits of a university educa- tion " are chiefly of another kind. For education, in the best sense of the word, is not mere acquaintance with facts and the contents of books ; it involves that sort of habit of mind, and that moulding of character, which can only be acquired by contact with men. And if this essential element in education be left out of account, five men out of every six who graduate at our universities might receive as good an " education" from private tutors, or, indeed, from competent governesses. In the moral government of the world, men reap what they sow. And it is owing to the in] INFLUENCE OF MAYNOOTH 31 influence of Maynooth, as endowed by England in the teeth of both principle and policy,* that the Irish question of to-day seems insoluble. The historian will hereafter point to the rise and growth of theological colleges as the cause of the bitterness which to-day inflames the education controversy between the Protestant Churches in England. But we do not need to wait for historians to tell us of the mischief that Maynooth has caused in Ireland. By none is its influence more deplored than by the Roman Catholic gentry. Before Maynooth was founded, most of the higher clergy of the Irish Roman Catholic Church were educated in England or France. They were, in the good sense of the term, " men of the world." In my boyhood, for example, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin was a near neighbour of ours, and though my father was a red-hot Protestant of the Ulster type, he counted Dr. Murray among his friends, and I never heard him speak of him save in terms of respect and regard, as being a cultured Christian gentleman. But nowadays — well, there are some things better left unsaid. I am always on the alert to obtain information * The Roman Catholic College of Maynooth was established by the Irish Parliament in 1795. In the year 1846, Sir Robert Peel obtained an Act of Parliament under which it received a grant of £30,000 for building purposes, and a permanent endowment of £26,000 a year. This annual subsidy was commuted when the Irish Church was disestablished. 8-2 LOCAL AND PERSONAL [chap. about theological colleges. Their special function seems to be to train men to study not only the Bible, but all ecclesiastical and religious questions, through coloured spectacles. They thus tend to counteract " the benefits of a uni- versity education," which, here in England, the students of very many of them have already enjoyed. But in Maynooth everything in heaven and earth is viewed through coloured spectacles. What can be expected of men who have been placed in seclusion at an age when boys usually go to a public school, and who, for six, seven, or eight years, have been deprived of almost every influence that fits a man for life in the world — the very years, moreover, in which character is formed, and the mind is either developed or permanently narrowed and warped. These wretched victims of priestly training are never allowed to see even the ordinary newspapers or periodicals ; and if, during their brief summer holiday at home, they read any but a priest- approved book of history or philosophy, their sin is brought to light in the confessional and severely punished. Not only at meals, but even in the playfields they are generally required to talk in Latin.* And at the last, with minds thus dwarfed and hearts cramped, and too often * "Do you mean," I remember asking one of them, "that you have Latin for losing your It;.' stump al cricket?" "Ye he replied with a laugh; "hut T don't think Cicero would under- stand it." in] NOT A QUESTION OF CREED 33 also crippled in health — for the fasts imposed on these growing lads are in part responsible for the rapidity with which the college cemetery is filling up — they are turned out as priests, to impose their will upon the unfortunate laity of Ireland. A Roman Catholic College for the training of priests has been established in Cambridge, and its students are required to attend University lectures, and encouraged to mix with other men in the colleges and clubs ; for English Roman Catholics know the value of such advantages. And if the Maynooth-trained bishops will not tolerate a similar arrangement in Ireland, even for the laity, it is because the whole spirit of Romanism in that country is ultramontane and retrograde. And their aim in demanding a Roman Catholic University is to bring under priestly rule the only class of their co-religionists that still maintains a moderate share of inde- pendence.* With me, at least, this is not a question of Protestantism versus Romanism. While in Trinity College my personal friends among the Roman Catholic students were more numerous than among men of my own Church. I have learned to live at peace with my neighbours, and I can respect a sincere Roman Catholic. My Protestantism has to do with principles rather than with men. But my experience of * On this subject see further at p. 189, post. F 34 LOCAL AND PERSONAL [chap. Ireland confirms the teaching of history, that priest-rule is incompatible with the peace of a home or the prosperity of a nation. I was much struck by a statement which appeared some time since in the newspapers about the influence of the Dutch Reformed pastors in South Africa. The writer, " An old Free State Burgher," tells how, before the war, these men were supreme. " Social life was formed and ruled by them," and "no book or paper was allowed in the house until ' Mynheer* was consulted," and so on. And he adds — " More than half our troubles in political, social, and commercial life have been caused, and are now more than ever caused, by these men fighting to regain their lost power and using any weapon to hand. Of course, the minister says he represents expressed public- feeling. So he does ; but it is the expression of a muzzled public, the individuals of which know from experience that to differ from 'Mynheer' causes certain household quarrels, and probably a boycott, and so what ' Mynheer ' says is 'Ja and Amen.' Knowing the great power they had in my own youth, and seeing how that power has waned, I do not wonder at their attempt to regain it ; but I do wonder, and am disgusted that they should make the attempt under the guise of patriotism." And the writer concludes by speaking of "the ex-Boer officer class," which, having tasted in] A SOUTH AFRICAN PARALLEL 35 the sweets of power and of flattery, " now find it impossible to return to the drudgery of their former life as tillers of the soil, and so lend themselves to anything that will ensure for a time an easy, lazy, vagabond life among strangers." Change the terms, and this describes exactly the Irish problem. For " South Africa " read " Ireland," for the " Protestant preachers " read the " Roman Catholic priests," and for the " Boer ex-officer " read the " Nationalist agitator," and the parallel is perfect. The South African autho- rities will not truckle to this baneful influence ; but no one may venture to gauge the depths of folly to which an English Government may sink in the case of Ireland. Every educated Irishman, whether he be Roman Catholic or Protestant, knows well that all hope of peace and prosperit) in that country depends on promoting a spirit of mutual respect and forbearance among members of the different creeds. Trinity College exercises a most useful influence in this regard, and the demand for a Roman Catholic Uni- versity has its origin in the desire of the priests to counteract that influence. In the judgment of Irish priests, every institution and every indi- vidual is Protestant that does not own allegiance to the Pope and his Church — in other words, that is not Roman Catholic. In this sense alone it is that the University of Dublin is Protestant. CHAPTER TV ANCIENT HISTORY My special knowledge of the Fenian move- ment dates from the State Trials of 18G.5. Not that I was professionally engaged to those prosecutions ; my standing at the Bar was too junior to make that possible. But my father, the Crown Solicitor, with the approval of the Law Officers, deputed the duties of his office to my brother, the late Sir Samuel Lee Anderson ; and never was there between brothers a closer friendship, or more unrestricted confidence, than between him and me. And thus it came about that not only were the Crown briefs at my disposal, but also the confidential reports and secret information which had led the Govern- ment to arrest the leaders of the conspiracy. This was known to Sir Thomas Larcom, the permanent Under Secretary at the Castle ; and so, when, after the change of Government in 18G(J, Lord Mayo* sought for some one to * Then Lord Naas, but I here use the title to which he succeeded iu August, 1807, and by which he is now generally known. chap, iv ] MY WORK FOR LORD MAYO 37 whom he might entrust a task of an exception- ally confidential kind, my name was put before him. Though dangerous conspiracies had been rife in Ireland for years, there existed no Secret Service organization or Intelligence Department of any kind at Dublin Castle. Our minister at Washington, and some of our consuls in the United States, obtained much valuable informa- tion about the rise and progress of Fenianism ; and their despatches were communicated to the Irish Government. But these despatches were deemed so secret that they were put away without even being " registered " in the Chief Secretary's Office. And specially confidential reports from the Irish magistracy and police were treated in the same manner. When, therefore, the new Chief Secretary sought information respecting the history of the conspiracy, the task which confronted him was to master the contents of a cupboard in which all these documents lay heaped in an undigested mass. The duty he entrusted to me was to prepare a, precis of these secret papers, and of the other official archives relating to Fenianism. This work was most interesting ; and after completing the precis, I used it as material for a historical narrative of the origin and proceedings of the conspiracy. It is all ancient history now. But if what 1 have to say is to be of value, history still more 38 ANCIENT HISTORY [chap ancient must be put right before I proceed. For the densest ignorance prevails with regard to Ireland. " The English and Scotch people are as ignorant of Irish history as the Chief Secretary himself," Mr. Morlcy exclaimed in one of his political speeches during Mr. Balfour's reign at Dublin Castle. And with regard to matters of principal importance in relation to the Home Rule agitation, the Irish chapters in Mr. Morley's "Life of Gladstone" will give them no enlightenment. His pages, indeed, will only serve to deepen the delusion which prevails among the educated classes, that it was the Union that created the need of a policy of " coercion." Never was belief more utterly false. From the time when the patriarch Noah's adventurous niece sought on the virgin soil of Ireland a refuge from the judgment of the Flood, down through all the ages of its legendary and its actual history, the story is a wearisome record of trouble, disaster, and bloodshed. Not but that there were brilliant epochs connected with the career of one and another of the genuine heroes whom that country has produced. Rut peace never made her home there, and capacity for government was never developed. Even Strong- bow's invasion was instigated by an Irish king, who, after a long and bloody feud, sought thus to avenge himself upon his successful rival. iv] STRONGBOWS INVASION 39 " Strong-bow's invasion," I say ; for the figment that it was an English conquest of Ireland is one of the bHisesoi what passes for Irish history. The raiders were the soldiers of a French King of England, who, by the suppression of the power of the barons, had just completed the conquest of the English, which his ancestor, William of Normandy, had begun. The main English element in the business was that Pope Adrian IV., who issued the Bull directing and blessing the invasion, was an Englishman. The language of that Papal Bull may well give thought to those who believe that "the most Holy Roman Church " can never err. Here is an extract from it — " There is no doubt, and your nobility ac- knowledges, that Ireland and all islands upon which Christ, the Sun of righteousness, has shone, and which have received the teaching of the Christian faith, rightly belong to the blessed Peter and the most Holy Roman Church." The facts are accessible to all in the pages of a work at once so popular and so erudite as the " Encyclopaedia Britannica." And so dense is the ignorance that prevails respecting them, that the following further extract from those same pages may not be inappropriate : — "In 1156 Dermod MacMurrough, deposed for his tyranny from the Kingdom of Leinster, 40 ANCIENT HISTORY [chap. repaired to Henry in Aquitaine. The king was busy with the French, but gladly seized the opportunity of asserting his claim, and gave Dermod a letter authorizing him to raise forces in England. Thus armed and provided with gold extorted from his former subjects in Leinster, Dermod went to Bristol and sought the acquaintance of Richard de Clare, a Norman noble of great ability but broken fortunes. Earl Richard, whom late usage has named Strong- bow, agreed to reconquer Dermod's kingdom for him." Thus it came to pass that Strongbow invaded the " distressful country." Henry himself landed in 1172, having had Adrian's grant confirmed to him by his successor Alexander III., the Pope by whom Thomas-a-Becket was canonised. The so-called " English conquest of Ireland " was thus a conquest by a French king and his retainers — the sequel and completion of the Norman conquest of England — carried out with the sanction and blessing of two successive occupants of the Papal throne. Next in historic order, the cruelties of Crom- well's reeonquest of Ireland, and the Penal Laws of the Protestant Parliament of William III., are the stock-in-trade of the Nationalist agitators. They ignore the fact that Cromwell's mission was to punish a rebellion marked by atrocities and horrors of which the Indian mutin) affords iv] THE PENAL LAWS 41 the only parallel in our national story. The following is taken from Hume's aecount of the massacre of the Irish Protestants in 1G41 — " Death was the lightest punishment in- flicted by the rebels. All the tortures which wanton cruelty could devise, all the lingering pains of body, the anguish of mind, the agonies of despair, could not satiate revenge excited without injury, and cruelty derived from no cause. To enter into particulars would shock the least delicate humanity." And as for the Penal Laws, it must not be forgotten that they, too, were the sequel and consequence of infamous plots to give up the Protestants of Ireland again to destruction.* Without posing as apologists for any of these measures, we ought to be able in this twentieth century to consider them dispassionately. I shall have something to say later on about the far more wanton measures by which Irish * And once their purpose was achieved, the Penal Laws were administered in such an easy-going Irish fashion as largely to mitigate their severity. My friend, R. J. Mahony, of Dromore Castle, used to narrate a characteristic instance of this. Any Pro- testant — a near relative always preferred — could roh a Roman Catholic of his landed property hy filing a "Bill of Discovery" against him. His Roman Catholic ancestor filed such a Bill of Discovery against himself, and the Dromore estate was hy law trans- ferred from D. Mahony, a Papist, to D. Mahony, a Protestant. He then filed Bills of Discovery against his friends throughout the county, O'Donoghue, O'Connell, etc., etc., and held their properties for them till the Penal Laws were repealed. The trick was a transparent one, but it was connived at. G 42 ANCIENT HISTORY [chap. industries were systematically ruined, and the country kept in a condition of chronic pauperism. But to come back to later times, the vast majority of British electors who vote for Home Rule candidates for Parliament believe that when Ireland actually possessed Home Rule the country was peaceful and prosperous and happy. What are the facts ? It is said that during the eighteen years of " Grattan's Parlia- ment," fifty-four " Coercion Acts " were placed upon the College Green Statute-book. The country was going from bad to worse. Its condition was not only a national scandal, but a national danger to England. In the summer of 1795 a rebellion as terrible as that of 1G41 appeared to be imminent. Half a million of the population were believed to have been enrolled in the secret societies, and an outbreak on August 29 was averted only by treason in the rebel camp. The insurrection was thus prevented, but the energies which had gathered for it spent themselves in outrages upon all who sought to enforce the law or to preserve the peace. " A reign of terror " prevailed throughout the winter months. The first duty of the Irish Parliament, therefore, in the session of 179G, was to pass an Insurrection Act. Here are some of its provisions. Administering unlawful oaths was made a capital offence. Strangers in any iv] THE IRISH PARLIAMENT 43 district might be arrested, examined on oath, and committed to gaol in default of finding sureties. In districts proclaimed by the Lord Lieutenant under the Act, any person out of doors between an hour after sunset and sun- rise was liable to be arrested and sent to serve in the navy. And justices had power to enter any house to ascertain whether the inhabitants were absent. Any one proved to be without employment or means of subsistence, and any one obstructing the execution of the Act, might be dealt with as a disorderly person and sent to the navy.* But this measure, so drastic in its severity, and further strengthened by a rigorous Arms Act, did not suffice to prevent the outbreak of two years later. The historic "Rebellion of '98 " called for coercive legislation still more stringent. The writ of Habeas Corpus was suspended, and the " Rebellion Act, 1799," prac- tically gave power to the Executive to put the country under martial law. In addition to all this, the " Whiteboy Act," till then a temporary measure, was made perpetual. Such was the code of coercion laws which the Irish Parliament bequeathed to West- minster. If the success or failure of govern- ment is to be judged by the necessity for such * By a later Act (39 Geo. III. c. 36, s. 55) such persons mi#ht be transferred to the army or navy of any friendly European power. 44 ANCIENT HISTORY [chap. legislation, the Imperial Parliament need not shrink from the test of comparison. In concluding this "ancient history " chapter, I commend to the attention of the British electorate the following extract from a speech delivered by the Irish Chancellor, Lord Clare, on February 10, 1S00, descriptive of the state of Ireland at the time of the Union : — " I will now appeal to every dispassionate man who hears me, whether I have in anything misstated or exaggerated the calamitous situa- tion of my country, or the coalition of vice and folly which has long undermined her happi- ness, and at this hour loudly threatens her existence. It is gravely inculcated, I know, ' Let the British Minister leave us to ourselves, and we are very well as we are.' ' We are very well as we are.' Gracious God ! of what materials must the heart of that man be com- posed, who knows the state of the country and will coldly tell us ' we are very well as we are ' ? ' AVe are very well as we are ! ' We have not three years' redemption from bankruptcy or intolerable taxation, nor one hour's security against the renewal of extermi- nating civil war. ' We are very well as we are.' Look to your statute-book — session after session have you been compelled to enact laws of unexampled rigour and novelty to repress the horrible excesses of the mass of your people ; and the fury of murder and pillage and desola- tion have so outrun all legislative exertion, iv] STATE OF IRELAND IN 1800 45 that you have been at length driven to the necessity of breaking down the pale of municipal law, and putting your country under the ban of military government ; and in every little circle of dignity and inde- pendence we hear whispers of discontent at the temperate discretion with which it is ad- ministered. ' We are very well as we are.' Look at the old revolutionary Government of the Irish Union, and the modern revolutionary Government of the Irish consulate, canvassing the dregs of the rebel democracy for a renewal of popular ferment and outrage to overcome the deliberations of Parliament. ' We are very well as we are.' Look to your civil and religious dissensions — look to the fury of political faction, and the torrents of human blood that stain the face of your country. And of what material is the man composed who will not listen with patience and goodwill to any proposition that can be made to him for com- posing the distractions and healing the wounds, and alleviating the miseries of this devoted nation ? ' We are very well as we are.' Look to your finances, and, I repeat, you have not redemption for three years from public bank- ruptcy, or a burthen of taxation which will sink every gentleman of property in the country." CHAPTER V THE FENIAN MOVEMENT During the half-century preceding the famine the state of Ireland made prosperity impossible. No Government that the world has ever known could have averted disaster. The population doubled ; and, the potato being as prolific as the people, a couple of acres of land sufficed to enable a cottier to support his family in idleness. Such a state of things was quite millennial, according to the Irish ideal ; but the " Millennium " was brief, and the potato blight brought a terrible Nemesis. In 1847 nearly three millions of the population were in receipt of aid from the public treasury. And yet, notwithstanding the appalling con- dition of the peasantry, the greater part of the country was peaceful, and life and property were safe. But with that blind stupidity, that almost criminal folly, which so often charac- terises the acts of English Ministers toward Ireland, this was the epoch chosen by Lord John Russell's Government to part with the Anns Act, which had been in force ever since chap, v] 1847 AND 1848 47 the Revolution. The consequences were dis- astrous. " In the midst of the most horrible starvation, a universal mania arose for the possession of firearms." So great was the demand, that it was said to have revived the gun trade in Birmingham. In many cases arms were paid for with money received from the public relief works. It is needless to say that there was a serious outbreak of crime. Special legislation followed, of course. Tem- porary repressive laws of much severity, framed on the model of the Irish Statutes, had been passed in 1814, 1822, 1833 ; but Sir George Grey's " Crime and Outrage Act " of 1847 was so mild in comparison that it scarcely deserved the name of a Coercion Act. To its operation, however, was largely due the failure of the "rebellion" of 1848. Though that movement was a fiasco, it called for another Habeas Corpus Suspension Act. And in order to check the pestilent activity of the Ribbon Lodges, the provisions of the Crime and Outrage Act were renewed from time to time. But with the collapse of Smith O'Brien's conspiracy, the country soon became settled, and the year 1850 introduced a decade of tranquillity and prosperity unprecedented in the history of Ireland. As Mr. Gladstone said in his great Leeds speech of October, 1881, no labouring population in Europe made such progress as 48 THE FENIAN MOVEMENT [chap. the Irish during that period. If during those halcyon days a liberal Land Act, and (as Isaac Butt afterwards suggested) a permanent Peace Preservation Act, had been added to the statute- book, the " Irish Question " might have been settled for ever. The Penal Laws and the mis-government of bygone generations are generally supposed to account for the present condition of Ireland. Sunspots and weather have vastly more to do with it. It is to the mis-government of our own times that we must look to account for the problem. What I have said about May- nooth may be disputed by many. But what I am about to say here will be endorsed by every Irishman who has passed middle age. I have spoken of the sham " millennium " of the period preceding the famine, and of the real prosperity of the decade which followed. But then, as I have said, another evil era began. In the five years ending with 18G5 mischief was done which has never been repaired ; mischief which might have been averted by any government worthy of the name. During that eventful period, " Dublin Castle " was a government pour rire. The Viceroy was the Earl of Carlisle, a kind-hearted and cultured man, of a somewhat grotesquely striking presence, but with no other qualification for his high position. He was much in evidence v] THE RISE OF FENIANISM 49 on festive occasions, made elegant little speeches at public functions, and ogled the pretty women. Not that he was a roue; he was only a fop. Sir Robert Peel, the Chief Secretary, though a man of ability, was a sort of political Bo- hemian, who regarded his sojourn in Ireland as a picnic, and meddled but little with the work of his office. And the Attorney-General was Mr. (afterwards Lord) O'Hagan, a man of much charm and culture, but with no capacity for affairs. " Who governs Ireland ? Larcom and the Police," was one of the popular witticisms of the time. Sir Thomas Larcom was a man of judgment and capacity; but the Under-Secre- tary to the Lord Lieutenant is not competent to institute or carry out a policy. And while his chiefs were amusing themselves, or playing the fool, the unfortunate country drifted into a conspiracy which, as Lord Kimberley afterwards declared in Parliament, " after much considera- tion and reflection," was more formidable than any Irish movement since 1798 ; a high-sounding phrase which really meant very little. " That enormous sack of gas called Fenianism " was John Mitchell's description of it. The secret history of the conspiracy lies before me, but I will deal with it only in so far as it is necessary to my narrative. Its chief founders were the notorious James Stephens — H 50 THE FENIAN MOVEMENT [chap. a clerk in a small business house in Kilkenny, — and a Tipperary farmer named John O'Mahony. Involved in the revolutionary fiasco of 1848, they were among the fugitives from justice who found an asylum in Paris. And there it was that the new scheme was hatched. Pro- fiting by the experience of past failures, they decided that the new movement should be secret and oath-bound, and that " the Irish race " in America should be organized to provide the sinews of war. After some years Stephens returned to Ireland, and O'Mahony crossed the Atlantic to carry out his part of the scheme. O'Mahony, I believe, was honest ; just the sort of man who might have been won by concilia- tory and just measures. But Stephens was a vain, self-seeking impostor, whom any com- petent government would have either bought or suppressed. The Phoenix movement in Minister, which was the first outcome of Stephens' work, had but little vitality, and it was crushed by the arrest of some of its leaders in 1859. Fenianism proper dates from 1860, when the scattered fragments of the Phoenix Society were re- organized under the high-sounding title of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, known in all Fenian documents as the " I.R.B." It made little or no headway, however. The farmers were thinking about the land, and the priests v] THE McMANUS' FUNERAL 51 about the Church ; and even among the lower classes in the towns it neither excited enthusiasm nor inspired confidence. A public display was evidently needed, and opportunity for this was found in the autumn of 1861. Upon the death of Terence Bellew McManus, one of the high treason convicts of the Rebel- lion, an American deputation conveyed his body to Dublin, and a great public funeral was accorded him. The event is important, not merely because it made Fenianisin popular, but because it led to a breach between the conspirators and the Roman Catholic Church. On account of the element of secrecy which marked the movement, Cardinal Cullen refused the use of the cathedral for the obsequies, and prohibited' his clergy from taking- part in them. But this seemed in no way to damp the popular enthusiasm, and after a week's " lying-in-state " in the Mechanics' Institute, the remains were followed to the grave by a pro- cession of huge proportions (November 10, 1861). From that day Fenian ism began to flourish. Members were enrolled and secretly drilled, arms were smuggled into the country for their use, and efforts were made to corrupt the military in various garrison towns. For three years and a half, in fact, the agents and emissaries of the conspiracy were allowed to carry on their work almost unchecked. Though there was no want of seditious 52 THE FENIAN MOVEMENT [chap. journalism in Ireland, Stephens decided to found a weekly newspaper as " the avowed and accredited organ of the Brotherhood," and on November 28, 18G3, the first number of the Irish People appeared. The following extracts, culled from some of its brilliantly written articles, are fair samples of the teaching by which, week by week, the people were incited to revolution. " By force of arms Ireland was wrested from her rightful owners, the Irish people. By no other means will she ever be restored. And is she not ' a land worth fighting for ' ? The sentence is an admirable one. It indicates at once the means and the end, the only means that can ever prove effectual, the only end that is worth the work. Those means are simply the riHe, the sword, and the cannon in the hands of those who know how to use them." " The overthrow of tyranny has always been the work of the people. It is by their combined and determined efforts that rulers are made and unmade. America and France have fur- nished us with glorious examples of this. But in the streets of Paris, and upon the rich soil of America, blood was shed before , freedom came; and so it must be in Ireland. To win for our- selves an independence, to raise Ireland to her proper rank amongst the nations, we must not, when the time comes, be chary of our own or the enemy's blood." v] LORD WODEHOUSE 53 " Something more than even a successful insurrection is demanded. And what is that ? An entire revolution which will restore the country to its rightful owners. And who are these ? The people." " We saw clearly that the people should be taught to distinguish between the priest as a minister of religion and the priest as a politician, before they could be got to advance one step on the road to independence." " Our only hope is in revolution. But most of the bishops and many of the clergy are opposed to revolution. Is it not then the duty of the Irish patriot to teach the people that they have a right to judge for themselves in temporal matters ? This is what we have done. We have over and over again declared that it was our wish that the people should respect and be guided by their clergy in spiritual matters. But when priests turn the altar into a platform, . . . we believe it is our duty to tell the people that bishops and priests may be bad politicians and worse Irishmen." AVhat would have happened in Ireland had the personnel at the Castle remained much longer unchanged, it is idle to conjecture. But in November, 1864, Lord Wodehouse (the late Earl of Kimberley) succeeded Lord Carlisle as Viceroy. Though there was no recent pre- cedent for such a course, the new Lord-Lieutenant took to reading official papers, and interested 54 THE FENIAN MOVEMENT [chap. himself generally in the state of the country. I recall a mot by which one of the clerks in the Chief Secretary's office — a man who posed as a wit *— gave expression to the surprise of the staff at such proceedings, and to their sense of the want of dignity they betokened. On my asking their opinion about the new Viceroy, he promptly replied, " He's the best clerk in the office." But though Lord Wodehouse entered on his duties in the winter of 1864, it was not until the following autumn, when Mr. Lawson had succeeded Mr. O'Hagan as Attorney-General, that any action was taken to suppress the con- spiracy. On September 16, 1865, the office of the Irish People was raided, and the staff of the paper arrested. And at the Special Commission which followed, T. C. Luby, the nominal pro- prietor ; John O'Leary, the editor ; O'Donovan Rossa, the publisher ; and C. J. Kickham, a leading member of the staff, were, with others of less note, convicted of treason felony and sentenced to penal servitude. No one, surely, who knows the facts, and can realise how these men were entrapped into treason by the shameful incompetence and criminal apathy of the Government of the day, * Lowry lialfour, well known in Dublin society, lie was also a "gentleman at large" in tlie Viceregal household — an official designation which aptly described his role in life. v] STEPHENS' ARREST AND ESCAPE 55 can fail to sympathise with them and to deplore their fate. With one notorious exception,* they were, both in ability and character, much above the average M.P. of the Parnellite era. After evading the police for several weeks, Stephens was arrested on November 11. But aided by the treachery of a warder, he broke prison before the trials and succeeded in escaping to America. * I allude, of course, to Rossa. CHAPTER VI THE " F.B." AND THE "RISING" OF 1867 According to the design of its founder, the " F.B.," or Fenian Brotherhood — a title which properly belongs only to the American brunch of the conspiracy — was organized to aid the " I.R.B." at home in the struggle " for the liberation of Ireland from the yoke of England." Established in 1858 with a nucleus of forty members, forty regiments were enumerated in the Phoenix newspaper of November 19, 1850, as then connected with it in the different states. But its strength was only on paper. It made but little progress until four years later, when the " First National Convention " was held in Chicago, under the presidency of John OMahony. This was in November, 18G3. At the second convention in Cincinnati, fifteen months later, OMahony announced that the effect of the Chicago meeting had been " to extend the or- ganization nearly five-fold," and to bring in more money than was represented by the total receipts of all the preceding years. chap, vi] "F.B." CONVENTION OF 18G5 57 At the third annual convention of the "F.B.," which met at Philadelphia on October 1G, 18G.5, " an envoy " from Ireland reported himself with letters from Stephens, demanding instant help for the outbreak which was declared to be immi- nent in spite of recent reverses. This news excited enthusiasm. To give effect to the policy thus indicated, the presence of a " financial agent " in Paris was deemed essential ; for bills for ,£3000, which had been posted to the leaders in Dublin before the tidings of their arrest reached New York, had fallen into the hands of the Irish police. But John Mitchell, of 1848 fame, was the only man who could be trusted in such a position, and he was in prison for offences due to his zeal for the Confederate cause during the war. A deputation from the congress was accordingly despatched to Washington to treat for his release. The delegates soon returned to announce the success of their mission ; and they further claimed to have received from President Johnson and Mr. Seward a favourable hearing for proposals they had laid before them, to attempt a seizure of British territory in America — a statement the truth of which depends on the character of the men who made it, and this, after all, is not saying much for it. It may be re- marked, however, in passing, that the Irish vote, which affects so seriously even our English statesmanship at home, seems to have been i 58 THE "RISING" OF 1867 [chap. utterly demoralising in its influence on American politicians. A month later a further despatch was re- ceived from Stephens, announcing that his " military council " had definitely fixed the last week of Decemher for the outbreak. O'Mahony summoned his colleagues, and urged the issue of Fenian bonds,* to be repaid by the " Irish Re- public " six months after the "acknowledgment of the independence of the Irish nation." But " General " Sweeny, the Fenian " Secretary of War," had a raid on Canada on the brain, and divided counsels paralysed the conspirators. The news of Stephens' arrest was quickly followed by tidings of his escape ; and late in December the notorious F. F. Milieu, the president of Stephens' " military council" in Dublin, arrived to take command of the promised expedition for the liberation of Ireland. It was not till December 20 that this " mili- tary council " decided by a majority of one to defer action for a time. During the next few weeks many Fenian agents arrived from America, and a number of Fenians from across the Channel * These honds were printed in the style of hanknotes, and were in the following form: " It is hereby certified that the Irish Republic is indebted unto . . . or hearer, in the sum of one hundred dollars, redeemable six months after the acknowledgment of the independence of the Irish nation, with interest from the vi] THE BATTLE OF TALLAGHT 65 arrived. Cluseret was in Paris, and Kelly was safe in his Chenies Street lodgings in London. An account of the incidents which marked the "rising" would add unduly to the length of these pages, but two of the most important skirmishes may be worth recording. It should be premised that Dublin, Cork, Tipperary, Limerick, Clare, the Queen's County, and Louth were the only counties in which the public peace was seriously disturbed. The Connaught Fenians refused to move, because of the absence of the French officer who had been promised them ; and a " rising " in Ulster was never seriously contemplated. The hill of Tallaght seems to have been designed as the principal rallying-point for the Dublin Fenians. The force in charge of the barrack at that place consisted of eleven men ; and these were reinforced before midnight by the arrival of a sub -inspector from Rathfarnham, who volunteered for the duty. None of the insurgents had yet reached the hill ; but before long there was heard the tramp of armed men approaching by the Greenhills Road. Doubtless a fierce attack was looked for, but no sooner did the officer challenge the advancing party, than they turned and fled, without a single shot being fired. After an interval, another party was heard approaching the hill on the Roundtown side. The order to halt and disperse was met by a K 66 THE "RISING" OF 1867 [chap. volley from the Fenians ; but the moment the police returned the fire, the rebels beat a precipi- tate retreat, many of them flinging away their arms to facilitate their flight. The police started in pursuit, and succeeded in making- numerous arrests. Among the prisoners were five wounded men, who fell under the single volley from the rifles of the constabulary. In the south, the town of Kilmalloek was the scene of the most serious encounter that took place in connection with the "rising.'' The police barrack, though strongly built of stone, was ill-fitted for defence, as it had no fewer than twenty-six doors and windows, and was almost entirely surrounded by walls, which afforded shelter to an attacking party. A head constable was in charge of the station, with fourteen men under his command. Late in the evening a body of Fenians assembled under the leader- ship of an Irish American, named Dunne, and (ailed at several houses, making demands for arms. During one of their visits, a gentleman, the manager of a bank in the town, was fired at and seriously wounded for refusing compliance uilh Dunne's requirements ; and the doctor who was sent for to attend him was shot dead on returning from the patient's house. Warned by these outrages, the entire force of police remained under arms during the night. Shortly before six o'clock in the morning the vi] THE ATTACK ON KILMALLOCK G7 Fenians, then about two hundred strong, sur- rounded the barrack and commenced an attack. For three hours the fighting lasted, a well- sustained fire being kept up on both sides. The rebels held their ground with the greatest deter- mination, and gave way at last only because of the arrival of a reinforcement of police. The sub-inspector * in command of the district had started for Kilmallock on hearing of the first disturbance the night before. Reaching the town too late to join his men, he hurried back to Kilfenane, and returned with a party of eleven to relieve their beleaguered comrades. Approach- ing the barrack at the rear, the ring of their rifles was the first notice the rebels had of their pre- sence ; and a single volley from so unexpected a quarter created a panic in their ranks. Taking advantage of the confusion, the police combined their forces, and a bold attack on their assailants ended the fray. The Fenian leader seized a horse from a stable hard by, and was the first to escape. The foregoing will serve to give a general view of the outbreak of 1867. The result of divided counsels, at a time when the conspiracy was in a great measure disorganized, it is not surprising that the movement proved so com- pletely a fiasco. John Mitchell's estimate of the * In the Irish Constabulary a sub-inspector is a commissioned officer, and head constable is a subordinate rank. 68 THE "RISING" OF 18G7 [chap, vi business was that " the project was in itself wild, and could only be made to appear feasible by systematic delusion and imposture." And yet, wild though the project was, and seemingly contemptible, it is an important link in the chain of Irish agitation. For the Fenian demands of 18G7 are the " Nationalist " demands of the present day.* * See p. 180, post. CHAPTER VII THE CLER KEN WELL EXPLOSION When the " Fenian Rising " occurred I was paying an after-circuit visit in the country, and a summons from the Attorney- General recalled me to Dublin. Some hundreds of the " in- surgents " had been marched into the city in custody, and, after a very summary magisterial hearing, committed for trial for high treason. The duty entrusted to me was to select the cases which were worth a prosecution. The task was interesting ; and the method of procedure was simple. All the " natives " among the prisoners petitioned for release, and their petitions were backed by clamorous appeals from their relatives. Now the Irish Attorney- General is, in the fullest sense, a member of the Government. And, moreover, he is Public Pro- secutor ; for in this respect both Ireland and Scotland have long since reached a stage of civilisation that England has not yet attained.* * In England there is no Public Prosecutor. The "Director of Public Prosecutions " deals only with a limited number of cases falling within certain definite categories. 70 CLER.KENWELL EXPLOSION [chap. The proper official reply to the petitions, there- fore, was that, as the accused were committed for trial, the matter was in the hands of the Attorney-General, and the Lord Lieutenant could not interfere. And in the important cases this reply was sent. But the rank and file of the Irish Republican army consisted of " corner boys," as street loafers are termed in Ireland; and to arraign such men by the score on a charge of high treason was out of the question. The law has not majesty enough to bear such a strain. So I posed as an amicus who wanted to help them. " But how could I know that the boys would not disgrace me? Could I be sure that they wouldn't take to Fenianism worse than ever ? " With extraordinary unanimity they all declared that they had been tricked into the business, and would never handle a gun again as long as they lived. I promised to do my best for them. A promise which I fulfilled by entering their names in a list of prisoners to be released on their own recognisances. If the prayers and benedictions of the mothers and sisters of the rascals failed to help me, the failure was not due to want of earnestness on their part. They gave proof of their sincerity by telling me all they knew about the Fenians and the " Rising;" and in matters of this kind every trifling detail of information is useful. vn] "QUEEN'S EVIDENCE" 71 This task led to my being asked to under- take another, of a much more delicate and difficult kind, namely, to secure one of the more important prisoners as " Queen's evi- dence " at the approaching trials. It was rather a strain upon professional etiquette, but a barrister may discharge any duty sanctioned by the leader of the Bar, and it was for the Attorney- General I was acting. Armed with plenary powers, I visited the gaol. It did not take long to discover that Godfrey Massey was incomparably the ablest and best informed of the prisoners. And I found, moreover, that his indignation was deep at the deceit and cowardice of Stephens, Kelly, and the other American leaders. I then took the Governor of the Prison into my confidence, and asked him to smuggle me into Massey's cell, and to get me out again unobserved. It was possible, he said, only if I consented to go in during the warders' dinner-hour, and to remain till after locking-up time. This was an ordeal at best, and not without risk, for Massey was a powerful man, of a pas- sionate temper, and in no amiable frame of mind just then. But I faced it ; and, after half a dozen hours in his cell, I left Kilmainham Gaol in possession of the whole story of the " In- surrection plot." A special Commission was appointed for the 72 CLERKEXW ELL EXPLOSION [chap. trial of the prisoners ; and the most prominent of their number received sentence of death for high treason in the blood-curdling formula prescribed by the law — a survival of a bar- barous age.* Here, for example, is the official report of the sentence pronounced upon one of the leaders — " That you, John McCafferty, be taken back from hence to the gaol from which you came, and that you be thence, on Wednesday, the 12th of June next, drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution ; that you be there hanged by the neck until you are dead, and that after- wards your head shall be severed from your body, and your body divided into four parts, which shall be disposed of as Her Majesty or her successors shall think fit ; and I have only to add, may the Al mighty God have mercy on your soul." The Commission finished its labours before the end of May. The excitement soon died out. And, when September came, the sky was clear again, and the barometer was high. Peace reigned in Ireland. It was England's turn, now, to experience a Fenian scare. On September 11, two men, "supposed to be Irish Americans," were arrested in Manchester under the Vagrant Act. On the * All the capital sentences were commuted. vii] THE MANCHESTER OUTRAGE 73 following Tuesday a police report was received in Dublin, that the informer Corydon had identified the prisoners as being the notorious " Colonel " Kelly, and a " Captain " Deasy, who had held a command in " the Rising." " Dublin Castle " was en vacance at this time. All the principal officials were enjoying a holiday, well earned by many months of unusual strain. The Chief Secretary, though nominally at his office, was really at his home in Co. Kildare, some fifteen miles away. The only representative of the Irish Government actually in town was a recently appointed Solicitor- General. For, though I was installed at the Castle, and attended daily at a professional fee, I held no Government appoint- ment, and had no executive powers whatever. The Solicitor-General left town early that day, and I had no opportunity of seeing him in this Manchester business. But we met in the evening. We were both staying at Bray, Co. Wicklow ; and in conversation on the sea front after dinner, I delivered my soul on " the situation." Knowing the character of the con- spiracy, and the importance of the man Kelly, I believed there was serious danger of a rescue, on the prisoners being brought up on remand next day. But my friend was in a serene, after- dinner frame of mind, and my efforts to alarm him were futile. But when we met at the Castle next morning L 74 CLERKENWELL EXPLOSION [chap. the Solicitor-General told me that my words had robbed him of his sleep, and that he was going to Palmerstown to lay the matter before Lord Mayo. I remonstrated that time was precious, and that the Chief Secretary could do no more than I could do in his name, if I had authority to use it. He gave the word, and I despatched the telegrams which the disaster of the day rendered famous, warning both the Home Office and the Manchester authorities that special pre- cautions were necessary in the case of the Fenian prisoners. The warning was neglected, and the prisoners were rescued at the cost of a police officer's life. Lord Mayo's keen and generous appreciation of my action in this matter drew me still further into Government work, and the " Clerkenwell explosion" of the following December expedited my fall.* Two years before, an American Fenian named Ricard Burke settled in Birmingham as " arms agent " to the conspiracy. He was a * That a man of my age was accorded a position of such responsi- bility and trust as that which I held in Dublin Castle at this time can he accounted for only in one way— that being my brother's brother 1 was credited with the qualities which made him the trusted adviser of the Irish Government in all matters of administration. An exceptional capacity for affairs i- rarely combined witb imper- turbable amiability of temper, and I never Knew a man in whom they were more conspicuously united Though not many years my senior he was already repu ted a Ne.-tor in the councils of Dublin ( astle. vii] THE EXPLOSION REHEARSED 75 man of such mark in the brotherhood that, if Kelly's arrest had resulted in a conviction, he would have succeeded him as " CO." This man fell into the hands of the police on November 28, and was committed to the House of Detention at Clerkenwell. He himself was the author of the plot for his rescue. In this instance, the warning we sent to London was based upon information of the fullest and most explicit kind. The following is a copy of it : — " The rescue of Ricard Burke from prison in London is contemplated. The plan is to blow up the exercise walls by means of gun- powder ; the hour between 3 and 4 p.m. ; and the signal for ' all right ' a white ball thrown up outside when he is at exercise." So accurately does this describe the event, that a change of the tenses would make it read as a record of what actually took place. But the amazing part of the story is that there was a "full dress rehearsal" of the plot the day before the actual explosion. On the afternoon of December 12 the barrel of gunpowder was brought to the place on a barrow. The white ball was thrown over the wall of the prison yard, as arranged. Burke " fell out " on the pretence of having a stone in his shoe, and retired to a corner of the yard, which, as was 76 CLEUKENWELL EXPLOSION [chap. proved next day, was a perfectly safe retreat. But, for some unaccountable reason, the fuse when lighted foiled to explode the powder, and the execution of the plot had to he deferred. On the following day the conspirators re- peated their performance. Once again the cask of powder was rolled to the place agreed upon ; the white ball signal was given as before ; and the explosion followed. The prison authorities, however, had taken the precaution of exercising the prisoners in a different yard ; and thus the purpose of the plot was thwarted. But what about the police? it may well be asked. The police were at hand, with elaborate instructions which they carried out to the letter. They were misled, however, by a glaring in- accuracy in the warning notice. They were definitely told that the wall of the gaol was to be blown up, whereas in fact it was blown down. This is not a clumsy joke ; it is the official explanation of the matter as given by the Secretary of State in Parliament with prosaic solemnity.* * In answer to a question in the House of Commons on March 9, 1868, Mr. Gathorne Manly, the Home Secretary, gave, in extenso, I he warning report, as set oul supra, and narrated what was done in pursuance of it. Ilk closing word-, were as Follows : — " Although tlic information that bad been received was commu- nicated to the officers on the spot, the cass was placed close to the wall without anybody supposing that there was any cause to appre- hend mischief from it. It appeared that the mode of carrying out the design of which they had received information did not strike vii] SPECIAL CONSTABLES 77 The explosion and its consequences are now matters of history. The Metropolis was thrown into a state of panic. " Terror took possession of society." * Three days after the outrage the Home Office issued a circular calling for the enrolment of special constables, "as it was pos- sible that, owing to the designs of wicked and evil-disposed persons, the ordinary police force might be found insufficient to perform the duties required of them." Within a month over fifty thousand " specials " were thus enrolled in the Metropolis, and more than twice that number throughout the kingdom, f for the panic spread to the provinces. In various towns, where the Irish were numerous, arms were supplied to the local police. " Fenian scares " abounded on every side. At Lord Mayo's request I met him in London that week, and placed myself at the disposal of those who were set to watch the outside of the prison ; for the policeman Moriarty walked along by the side of the wall when the cask was there, and nearly all his clothes were blown off in con- sequence of the explosion. What their attention was apparently directed to was the undermining of the wall ; they thought it would probably be blown up from underneath, and had no conception that it would be blown down in the way it really was done." * These were Lord Campbell's words in the House of Lords on March 19, 1868. f The exact numbers, as given in books of public reference, were 52,974 in the Metropolis, and 113,674 throughout the kingdom. Lord Campbell moved for the return on March 19, 1868, but, though laid on the table of the House of Lords, it wa9 not printed. The special constables were dismissed by an order issued on March 31, 1868. CLERKENWELL EXrLOSION [chap. tlie Government. Amusement alternated with amazement in my mind at the state of things I found here. The teetotalers, their enemies say, throw off all restraint when they give way to a debauch ; and the same remark seems to apply to Englishmen when they give way to a scare. Even the Private Secretaries at Whitehall carried revolvers. And staid and sensible men gave up their evening engagements, and their sleep at night, to take their turn at " sentry-go " as special constables. The lives of many of them were seriously imperilled, but it was by London fogs and not by Fenian plots. In Ireland we kept our heads in presence of real dangei from the machinations of the Fenian organization. Hut the " Clerkenwell explosion " was not the work of the organization at all, but of a sel of London Irish Fenians, whose calibre as conspirators may be gauged by the fact that tiny could not even keep their own counsel. I heir plot was known in Dublin, even to persons who were not Fenians at all.* It may be further gauged by their own astonishment at the effects of the explosion. They meant to make a breach in the prison wall : hut 1 1 icy no more intended to wreck the opposite ♦ In tlii> clam was our Lnformanl a person whose only connec- tion with Fenianiam was help given, 1 1 > r » > u-_> n kindness of heart, to some "i i In- '• boys" whom tin- police were searching lor. In latei years I occasionally received information from the same individual, and it was always designed to prevenl tin' commission of crime. vii] MR. GLADSTONE'S SPEECHES 79 houses than to disestablish the Irish Church. The result of their work in the one direction was all too manifest. As regards the other, it needed Mr. Gladstone to enlighten them. It was their crime, he proclaimed in Midlothian, that brought that question within the sphere of practical politics. Even if his estimate of the business had been just, his words respecting it would have been none the less unjustifiable. For they could not fail to encourage the Fenians to com- mit further crimes of the same character. And I can testily that on every Fenian platform they have been used to that end. But in view of the actual facts of the explosion, his words were no less unwarrantable on other grounds. In plain truth, they were egregiously foolish, for, viewed apart from its deplorable consequences, the whole plot was utterly contemptible, and might have been dismissed as a screaming farce. CHAPTER VIM from 1867 TO 1880 The secret history of the Fenian movement would, in every part of it, afford useful lessons for the present time. But, unfortunately, people have no love for lessons, and the story would be neglected by those who need it most. The events of the next dozen years must, therefore, be dismissed with no further notice than is necessary to preserve the sequence of the narrative. Before Christmas, 1807, I found myself installed in the Irish Office in London. And in the following April I moved to the Home Office as adviser to the Secretary of State in matters relating to Fenian and Irish business. This was oik- result of the * k Clerkenwell explosion." There is no doubt, I may here remark, that the scare produced by that crime operated as an en- couragement to the conspirators; and the failure to convict, the perpetrators of it further tended to cause a revival of the Fenian activity in chap, viii] EXECUTION OF BARRETT 81 London.* Offers of information were received from all the prisoners ; and I was willing to interview them on the conditions on which 1 had undertaken a similar duty in Dublin. But red tape was supreme in such matters here, and I refused to intervene. The most worthless and shifty of the lot was accepted as a witness, because he " squealed " the loudest and promised the most ; and with one exception the whole gang escaped. Michael Barretts name will go down to history, not because he was hanged for the Clerkenwell explosion, but because his was the last public execution in England. Meanwhile the conspirators continued to dream of an armed insurrection in Ireland. Michael Davitt was appointed to succeed Ricard Burke as " arms agent," and he dis- charged the duties of the office so zealously and well as to earn a conviction for treason felony and a fifteen years' sentence. Information of his doings was not lacking, but it was not till February, 1870, that we obtained evidence to justify his arrest. * Various incidents occurred at this time to foster the Fenian scare, such, e.g., as the attempt to assassinate the Duke of Edinhurgh in Australia. In his " Life of Lord Beaconsfield " (15th thousand, p. 210), Mr. Lewis Apjohn narrates that "on March 12, 1808, the Duke of Edinhurgh was shot in the back by an avowed Fenian in Australia, and was hung for the oifence." Having enjoyed the honour of H.R.HVs acquaintance, I can assert that this is a mistake. The Duke of Edinburgh was not hung for that offence . M 82 FROM 1867 TO 1880 [chap. The London Fenians afterwards adopted a less costly method of obtaining rifles — they stole them. After the Saturday parades, hundreds of volunteers repaired to various public houses for refreshments, and while they stood drinking at the bar, their rifles were " sneaked." The War Office became as much concerned at these pro- ceedings as the Irish Government, and I was asked to make special efforts to check them. For the sake of those who may read these pages only for amusement, I may record the following incident as illustrating the manner in which affairs of State are sometimes decided. I got word one afternoon that several cases of the stolen rifles were stored in a certain private house in Soho. Sir Adolphus Liddell,* the Under-Secretary at the Home Office, brought me to the House of Commons to submit the matter to the Secretary of State. Mr. Bruce f called in the Attorney-General, Sir J. D. Cole- ridge, and we had a conference in the Whips' room (now occupied by the post-office) in the corner of the members' lobby. Practising lawyers are generally practical men, but Coleridge was a philosopher and a doctrinaire. Sitting on a window-sill, with his legs dangling, and with uplifted finger, he discoursed on the British * At thai date he was Mr. Liddell, but I will Bpeak of him throu lioui by the name by which he is now remembered. t Afterwards Lord Aherdarc. vin] ABOUT STOLEN RIFLES 83 Constitution and the law applicable to the busi- ness, and argued against the practical view I took of it. Finally, I was made to write out at his dic- tation a set of directions for the police, as to what they might do, and might not do in the circumstances. When Mr. Bruce and the Attorney left us, I told Sir Adolphus Liddell what I thought of adopting Blackstone's Com- mentaries as our guide in dealing with a set of sweeps engaged in criminal conspiracies. He sent in again for the Chief, and greeted him on his return with, " Anderson says this is all d d rot." Mr. Brace's face was a study. I assured him that, though the language was not mine, it expressed what I felt. " What would you propose to do ? " he inquired. To which I gave the answer I have often made to Secretaries of State, " I will tell you, of course, if you ask me. But is it wise ? " He took the paper out of my hand, tore it up, and with a kindly nod he left us again. Two hours later I sent down a note to say that the stolen rifles were safe at Scotland Yard. But how was it managed ? That is just what the public would like to know ; but just what it is better they should not know. For " the public " includes " our friends the enemy," to whom information of this kind would be welcome. But to resume. To understand the subsequent 84 FROM 1867 TO 1880 [chap. development of the " Irish Question,'" it is neces- sary to glance at the course of events in the American organization. Taking advantage of the discredit which the fiasco of 1807 brought on the Stephens wing, the Canada party de- spatched their "Secretary for Civil Affairs" to negotiate an alliance with the leaders at home. They provided hi in with an able colleague, a man whose name I suppress, as he has since risen to fame as a Nationalist M.P. And as the outcome of their joint mission, a "Supreme Council " was appointed to co-operate with the brotherhood in America. But having got all they could out of the Americans, the Council repudiated them and their projects. Thus foiled, the Americans devoted their attention to their favourite scheme, and the result was the 1870 raid on Canada; a really formidable movement in its way, which Le Caron's services turned into a fiasco. To watch a frontier of a thousand miles was an impossible task. But Le Caron enabled me to supply the Dominion Government with the " plan of cam- paign/ 9 and to indicate the precise spot at which the raiders would cross into Canadian territory. He took care, I may add, that the Fenian " artillery " was rendered unserviceable. The interval between 1870 and 1878 was marked by a series of characteristic quarrels and plots. But in 1878 the different sections of the vm] THE "NEW DEPARTURE'' 85 organization became at last united, and it was decided to re-establish co-operation with the conspirators at home. John Devoy, of much fame in Fenian story, was the emissary selected for that purpose. Devoy soon found proof that the farming classes of Ireland could not be drawn into a purely political conspiracy ; and his report was to the effect that it was only by taking up the land question that Fenianism could secure their support. His views prevailed in New York, and in due time " the New Departure," as it was called, became the policy of the organi- zation. This movement found its prophet in Mr. Michael Davitt, than whom the Fenian con- spiracy can boast of no more interesting per- sonality. By an accident in a Lancashire cotton mill, he lost an arm in early life. He afterwards found employment as newsboy in a stationer's shop in Haslingden, where he remained until called upon to take up his work as arms agent, When released on licence in 1878, he gave proof that even in a convict prison a man of principle and energy can find opportunities to educate himself and develop his character. He came to the front at once, and soon was recognised as the foremost champion of the Irish peasantry in their land war. In a speech at Limerick in August, 1879, Parnell proclaimed the gospel of refusing to pay any rent at all if the amount which the 86 FROM 1867 TO 1880 [chap. farmers chose to offer was refused. And to give effect to this policy, the Land League was established a couple of months afterwards. The principle upon which the League was founded shall be stated in Davitt's own words. " It was the complete destruction of Irish landlordism, first, as the system which was responsible for the poverty and periodical famines which have decimated Ireland; and secondly. because landlordism was a British garrison which haired the way to national independence." Lei the reader keep these words in mind as lie reads the sequel. Parnell crossed the Atlantic as the herald of the new movement, and in January, 1880, he entered on a campaign arranged and controlled by the most advanced of the Fenian leaders. The projects and aims of these men were now known to all the world. They had been brought to light by the Irish State Trials. The Fenian " 1 1 la t form " was the realisation of Emmet's dream, that Ireland should "take her place among the nations of the earth." And this, not on the basis on which Norway was a kingdom, for an Irish republic was to be established. \\ "ith full knowledge of these projects, and in a meeting convened by the men who Mere pledged to the attainment of them. Mr. Parnell used these words: "When we have undermined English misgovernment, we have paved the way viii] PARNELLS SPEECH 87 for Ireland to take her place among the nations of the earth. And let us not forget that this is the ultimate goal at which all we Irishmen aim. None of us, whether we are in America or in Ireland, or wherever we may be, will be satisfied until we have destroyed the last link which keeps Ireland bound to England." This was the famous Cincinnati speech of February 23, 1880. In "the new departure" Fenianism made no surrender to the Land League ; it merely assumed its name. CHAPTER IX FBOAJ 1880 TO THE KILMAINHAM TREATY Though Secret Service work seems to have such a strange fascination for many people, I have always felt a decided aversion to it. I was drawn into it reluctantly at first, and once and again I tried to shake free from it. In the beginning of 1880 that mood was strong upon me. When, in April, the change of Govern- ment occurred, and Mr. Gladstone succeeded Lord Beaconsfield as Prime Minister, I had re- ceived some tempting offers of both professional and literary work, and I was contemplating taking chambers at the Temple. I refused, therefore, to allow the Under-Secretary to in- troduce me in the usual way to the new Secretary of State. But, "the best laid schemes," etc. Not tnany weeks passed before Sir William liar eourl sent for me. He was aware, he said, of my services to ( .o\ ei ninenl in the past, and he hoped I would give him the same assistance I had rendered to his predecessors. I am bound chap, ix] ABOUT INFORMANTS 89 to say that working for him was, on the whole, a pleasant experience. He was the " biggest " man with whom T have ever had close personal dealings in the public service, and notwithstand- ing his sharp and unruly tongue, he was at heart a thorough gentleman. He was always the same, moreover, whether sitting in his office chair at Whitehall, or in his armchair at Grafton Street ; and if I got on better with him than others seemed to do, it was because I always accepted freely the place he gave me, and met disagreeable words by some pleasantry, or boldly hit back at him. Once, and only once, as mentioned on a preceding page, did he go further than I could tolerate. The incident re- ferred to in my Times letter related to my methods of dealing with informants. This was always a sore point with Sir William Harcourt. " Anderson's idea of secrecy is not to tell the Secretary of State," he once said to one of his colleagues, fixing his eyes on me as he spoke. And it was quite true. The first Fenian who ever gave me information was murdered on his arrival in New York. I had given his name to no one but Lord Mayo ; and he assured me that he had mentioned it only to the Lord Lieutenant, when sitting alone with him after dinner at the Viceregal Lodge. But there happened to be a servant behind the screen, and through him it was, as the Dublin police N 90 THE KILMAINHAM TREATY [chap. ascertained, that the information reached the Fenians. Never again would I give an in- formant's name to any one, and no man who afterwards gave me information was ever betrayed. It was easy to keep ones own counsel on such matters when dealing with a Secretary of Slate on purely official terms. But Sir William Harcourt's treatment of me made it often most difficult. For when he received me as a friend, and kept me chatting with him, it might be for an hour at a time, he felt hurt at my re- ticence, and sometimes showed that he resented it. liut when the life of an informant is in- volved, no amount of caution is excessive. And Sir William's impulsiveness made caution doubly necessary; for an informant may be betrayed even by an imprudent use of his information. An instance of this recurs to me. At the time when it occurred, the Fenian organization in London was governed by a triumvirate, and one of the three was in my pay. It fell upon ;i day that I communicated the result of one of their secret meetings, held the night before, to Sir William I Iarcourt and Sir Adolplius LiddelL The same afternoon the information appeared in an evening paper, and when I tackled the Secre- tary of State about it, he replied in the most matter-of-course way, that "he had given it to , as he wanted to take a rise out of him ;" ix] FINDING AN INFORMANT 91 naming one of the Irish M.P.'s, who was supposed to be in the secrets of the conspiracy. The manner in which I got hold of that informant may be worth telling. When in 1880 Sir William Harcourt sought my help I told him plainly that the attitude of th Government to political crime had always alternated between panic and indifference. In troublous times informants were eagerly sought for ; but when the danger was over, I was looked upon as a k " crank " for urging that they should be kept in pay. At that moment I was out of touch with Fenianism at home, and should need to begin again to angle for information. It is never very difficult to get inside an Irish con- spiracy, and I was not long in finding men who could tell me a good deal of what was doing. But my aim was to get at the head-quarters of the organization, and this is not so easily accomplished. My chance came, however. The Fenians knew that knowledge of their proceed- ings was reaching Government, and one of the leading men determined to discover the leak. So with this end in view he wrote offering in- formation, but stipulating expressly that he would deal only with the head of the department. The night I met the fellow, he fenced with me, and lied to me, for an hour, and ended by asking for his " expenses." I have always held that a man who carries gold loose in his pocket 92 THE KILMAINHAM TREATY [chap. must be either a millionaire or a spendthrift. But I was playing a part that evening, and 1 had my pockel lull of sovereigns. I pulled out a handful, and threw half a dozen of them on the table. And then, cheeking myself, I picked them up again, saying, "No, you haven't earned them: you don't seem to know half as much about Fenianism as I do myself." His greedy look as the gold went back into my pocket showed me that 1 had him. So I gave him a couple of pounds, and told him not to come back till he had something worth telling. A month later he was definitely in my pay. My first care was to make him procure the passing of a resolution that no " active work" should be done without the approval of the whole trium- virate; and from that time I was able to control the organization. The year 1880 was made memorable by the inauguration of "boycotting" that dreadful system of oppression which made the League a terror to the law-abiding classes in so many parts of Ireland. In its inception it might have been easily checked; but, as Mr. Morleys book tells us, Mr. Gladstone's objection to coercing those who were thus coercing their honest and peace- ful neighbours, w;is a bar to action. It was not until -the ordinary law" had been found in- adequate, by the failure of the conspiracy trial <>!' the Leaders, that Air. Gladstone was overruled ix] GLADSTONE'S LEEDS SPEECH 93 by the Cabinet ; and when Parliament met in January, 1881, Mr. Forster's " Suspects Act " was at once introduced by the aid of the Speaker's memorable coup (Trial * Davitt was arrested on the forfeiture of his licence, and the local leaders of the League were committed to gaol under the Act. This brought Miss Anna Par- nell into the field ; and the formation of the Ladies' Land League outmanoeuvred the Govern- ment. What the issue would have been it is hard to say, had not the course of events been decided by the historic duel between Parnell and the Premier. On October 7, at Leeds, Mr. Gladstone delivered a fierce philippic against the Irish leader. " The condition of Ireland was hopeful," he declared. " No labouring population in Europe had made such progress as the Irish in the twenty years preceding, but Mr. Parnell and his agitation stood between them and the pros- perity which the Land Act would certainly produce. Mr. Parnell was a living proof that the state of things in Ireland was coming to be * The attempt to introduce the Bill was met by organized obstruction. After the debate had lasted several days, Mr. Glad- stone decided to force it through by a continuous sitting. The debate was thus sustained during the night of Tuesday, February 1, but there appeared to be no sign of its ending when the Speaker resumed the chair next morning at nine o'clock. Acting on his own initiative, therefore, he interrupted Mr. liiggar, who was then addressing the House., and at once put the question. 94 THE KILMAINHAM TREATY [chap. a question between law on the one side, and sheer lawlessness on the other. Mr. Parnell had dared to proclaim that if the crown of England was lo be the link between the two countries, it must be the only link. But he warned him that the 'resources of civilization' were not yet exhausted."* "Will Mr. Parnell quail before the colossal force of the Prime Minister's invective?" So asked the Times. But Mr. Parnell was not the man to quail. His answer was given within eight and forty hours. In a speech at Wexford he branded the Premier's " harangue " as " un- scrupulous and dishonest," and poured contempt and ridicule on his " brave words." He com- pared them to the whistling of a schoolboy on his way through a churchyard at night to keep his courage up. This was on October 9. The Cabinet met on the 12th, and as the result of a decision arrived at after a five hours' discussion, the Irish leader was arrested next morning, and lodged in Kilmainham gaol under Forster's Act. Post hoc, was the comment of the Liberals; propter hoc, the taunt of the Leaguers. And the Leaguer's reply was to issue the "No rent" manifesto. The rejoinder of the Government * It is noteworthy that, in citing this speech, Mr. Morley makes no reference to tin- exceptional and advancing prosperity of the li i-.li people under the Union. ix] A PHILIPPIC BY GLADSTONE 95 was to suppress the League. This was done on the 18th. A speech by Mr. James Lowther supplied Mr. Gladstone with a text for another philippic against^ Parnell. The ex-Chief Secretary had declared that " the party headed by Mr. Parnell commanded the support of the majority of the people of Ireland." With what enthusiasm would Mr. Gladstone have hailed these words a few years later ! But the statement was in- tolerable at the moment when Mr. Parnell was caged in Kilmainham gaol as a pestilent agitator, who was standing between the Irish people and their heaven-sent benefactor. " I utterly protest against it ! " Mr. Glad- stone exclaimed. " I believe a greater calumny, a more gross and injurious statement could not possibly be made against the Irish nation. We believe we are at issue with an organized attempt to override the freewill and judgment of the Irish nation. ... It is a great issue ; it is a conflict for the very first and elementary principles on which civil society is constituted. It is idle to talk of either law, or order, or religion, or civili- zation, if these gentlemen are to carry through the reckless and chaotic schemes that they have devised. Rapine is the first object, but rapine is not the only object. It is perfectly true that these gentlemen wish to march through rapine to disintegration and dismemberment of the empire." 96 THE KILMAINHAM TREATY [chap. " Brave words/' truly ! But as the cynical Mr. Parnell must have thought, the whistling was becoming louder because the ghosts seemed to be drawing nearer. That day six months Lord Cowper was dismissed to make room for a Viceroy commissioned to govern Ireland on the lines of the Kilmainham Treaty.* Mr. Parnell was released from prison, pledged to call off the |>aek who were committing outrages throughout the country, and to support Mr. Gladstone in Parliament in " forwarding Liberal principles ; " and Mr. Gladstone on his part undertook to adopt the programme of the Land League, by promoting what the League would "regard as a practical settlement of the land question." What account can be given of a transforma- tion scene so extraordinary? Mr. Morley's book gives a part of the story. After describing the deplorable condition of Ireland in April, 1882, he adds : " \\ nile the Cabinet was face to line willi this ugly prospect, Mr. Gladstone received a communication, volunteered by an Irish member, as to the new attitude of Mr. Parnell, and the possibility of turning it to good account. Mr. Gladstone sent the letter on to Forster, replying meanwhile 'in the sense of not shutting the door." Mr. Chamberlain, he goes on to narrate, undertook to deal with "the Earl Spencer succeeded Lord Cowper as Lord Lieutenant, in May, 1882. ix] GLADSTONES SOMERSAULT 97 emissary ; " and, as the result, he reported to the Cabinet on the 25th, " that Mr. Parnell was desirous to use his influence on behalf of peace." " Events then moved rapidly," and on May 2 the Cabinet accepted a proposal of Mr. Gladstone's to release the suspects and to allow Forster's Act to lapse. But is this an adequate explanation of Mr. Gladstone's amazing somersault ? Wise men, when beaten in fair fight, accept the situation ; but they do so as of necessity and with a sense of depression. The Cabinet consented to the Kilmainham treaty ; but they did so with re- luctance ; for it was not with a light heart that they allowed Mr. Forster to leave them. Mr. Gladstone, on the other hand, as Mr. Morley's narrative indicates, shared none of their mis- givings or regrets. For their joint decision he must have had grounds of his own. He must have come under some influence to which his colleagues were strangers. What can it have been ? No hint of it is given in Mr. Morley's pages. But the secret escaped from Mr. Gladstone's own lips eleven years afterwards. Provoked by a taunt, in the course of the Home Rule debates of April, 1893, he interjected the following remark with reference to Mr. Parnell and his release from prison in 1882 : — " From that date forward no hard word and no o 98 THE KILMAINHAM TREATY [chap. word of censure in any speech of mine respecting Mr. Parnell is to be found. On the contrary, I made a communication to Mr. Parnell through a friend of his, that from me he would receive no difficulty in pursuing the purposes he had in view, which from that period I believed to be purposes beneficial to the people of Ireland." This extraordinary statement becomes still more extraordinary in the light of Mr. Morley's story. For he clearly implies that the M.P. "emissary" of April, 1882, tried in vain to elicit some response from Mr. Gladstone. His ponderous joke about Mr. Chamberlain " taking his life in his hand" in dealing with this " emissary," suggests that he was some wild Irishman with a shillelagh. But the M.P. in question was Captain O'Shea, whom any one «>t I lie Ministers might have met on the ground of social equality. And this adds great signifi- cance to the fact that the Premier refused to be " drawn " by him in any way. "One of the strangest incidents in the Home Rule debates," Lord Ashbourne called it in a • I icaded article" which he contributed to a London newspaper at the time. In that article he appealed to the acts and speeches of Mr. Gladstone's colleagues in proof that they were ignorant of his private bargain with the Irish leader. If it had not been a profound secret, Sir William Harcourt would certainly have ix] ASHBOURNE'S QUESTIONS 99 known of it. But that he did not know of it is rendered certain by his speech of December 7, 1885, when he declared that he would let the Tories "stew in their own Parnellite juice," adding the words, " and when they stink in the nostrils of the country, then the country will fling them, discredited and disgraced, to the con- stituencies." There can be no doubt that the bargain was a secret. And for eleven years it remained a secret. " Let the facts be realised," Lord Ashbourne urged. " Mr. Gladstone, the Prime Minister of England, sends a ' communication ' to the leader of the Nationalist party in Ireland, whom but a short time before he imprisoned, and accused of ' marching through rapine to the disintegration of the Empire.' It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the positions held by the sender and the receiver. The 'communication' itself was of the highest significance, and of the greatest public moment. Why was it never made public until April, 1893 ? Did Mr. Gladstone tell his colleagues at the time of the message ? If not, why not ? If he did, why was no public announcement made on this important subject ? " The significance of Mr. Gladstone's announce- ment is, indeed, immensely increased, first, by the fact that what elicited it was a speech by Mr. Chamberlain, who had conducted the open 100 THE KILMAINHAM TREATY [chap. negotiations with Captain O'Shea ; and secondly, by Mi-. Morley's statement, already noticed, that throughout those negotiations " Mr. Gladstone was always impatient of any reference to ' reciprocal assurances ' or ' tacit understanding in respect of the dealings with the prisoner in Kilmainham." But here is evidence from the lips of Mr. Gladstone himself that there were " reciprocal assurances " of the most definite kind, and an " understanding " that was by no means " tacit." For no words could have been more explicit. Lord Ashbourne might well demand, " Who was the friend selected for this communication ? " It must have been some one who was unreservedly in ParnelTs confidence, and some one with whom the Premier had immediate personal dealings. The mystery must remain unsolved, unless my private information of other days may afford a solution of it. Mr. Morley's narrative brings me fresh proof that my informant was behind the scenes, and that his story was in the main correct. But there was one part of it which, at the time, I dismissed as a romance, albeit it was given me with definite details of place and circumstances. The real Kilmainham treaty, I was assured, was not the work of Mr. Chamberlain and "the M.P. emissary": the parties to it were the Prime Minister himself and Mrs. O'Shea.* * Mr. Morley ignores Mr. 'Justin McCarthy's share in the treaty, xi] GLADSTONE AND MRS. O'SHEA 101 The story may at first seem improbable, but no one who knew Mr. Gladstone will scout it. For one of his most striking characteristics was his readiness to give a patient and earnest hearing to any one who succeeded in interesting him. And when I read Mr. Gladstone's words in the Home Rule debate of 1893 — so definite in the main, so strangely vague on one important point — I recalled my informant's story. And I recalled also some written words of Parnell's of two years before. When reproached with having used Mrs. O'Shea as an intermediary in taking a house for him at Eastbourne, his answer was, " I asked Mrs. O'Shea to conduct the negotia- tions, for the same reasons that I have charged her with the conduct of vastly more important matter's and negotiations." '* though it has prominent notice in Sir T. W. Reid's " Life of Forster," and Mr. Barry O'Brien's "Life of Parnell." But Mr. McCarthy was not the " friend '' of Mr. Gladstone's statement. * This matter arose in connection with a libel action against the Cork Hera/din 1891, and the letter above quoted was published at the time. The above pages were written before I read Mr. Barry O'Brien's book. His account of Mrs. O'Shea's share in the treaty is clearly inconsistent with Mr. Morley's narrative ; and I have good reason for adhering to what I have written. In view of Mr. Gladstone's own admissions, I might, of course, rewrite these closing paragraphs. But I prefer to leave them unaltered. CHAPTER X THE PHCENIX PARK MURDERS The treaty was still a secret when the tragedy of May 6, 1 882, changed once more the policy of this vacillating Government. On the morning of that day, Lord Spencer, the new Viceroy, and Lord Frederick Cavendish, the new Chief Secretary, arrived in Ireland, commissioned to hold out the olive branch to the miscreants of the League. That same evening Lord Frederick and Mr. Thomas Henry Burke, the permanent Under-Secretary, were murdered in the Phoenix Park, when making their way together on foot to their official residences. On my next visit to the Viceregal Lodge, Lord Spencer called my attention to the fact that the scene of their murder was the only part of the main drive of the park which was within view of the windows of his private sitting-room. In other lands, some memorial of a tragedy of this kind would mark the scene where it was enacted; and for a time a roughly drawn cross, scored upon the ground, served to indicate to chap x] MURDER PLOTS 103 visitors the spot where Burke and Cavendish were murdered. But even this will now be sought in vain. Every trace of it has been deliberately obliterated. The temper of the people would not suffer it. The men who were hanged at Manchester for the murder of Sergeant Brett are reckoned among the martyrs of the Irish struggle for liberty. But though the Government officials who fell in the Phoenix Park came by their death in that same struggle, they fell upon the wrong side. The lapse of years has not lessened my wonder at the lack of ordinary precautions, by which this crime was made possible. For the authorities at Dublin Castle had ample warnings that murder plots were rife. Prominent officials were marked out for assassination, and once and again attempts to waylay them had been made by the very men who committed the murder of May 6.* My brother's life was saved by what is popularly called " a chance." As appears from the evidence before the Special Commission, * Lord Spencer escaped the assassin's knife. But his reception by the men into'.jwhose arms he wished to throw himself, may be judged by the following extract from a speech by Mr. T. M. Healy, M.P., reported in United Ireland, August 30, 1884 : " Lord Spencer had come to govern Ireland with impartial justice, but no more unfor- tunate and one-sided Lord-Lieutenant had ever afflicted the country. His conduct had embittered the people. He had shielded criminals, rewarded scoundrels, and hung innocent men. He had served the English so well in Ireland, that ho suggested he should be raised a step in the peerage with the appropriate title of the Duke of Sodom and Gomorrah." 104. PHCENIX PARK MURDERS [chap. Egan, the treasurer of the Land League, wished to have him " put out of the way." He was methodical in his habits, and his habitual route from Green Street Court House to his office at the Castle was known to any one who cared to watch him. But on a certain day, when within a stone's throw of where the murder gang were waiting for him, he stopped and, retracing his steps, went round by the north side of Dublin. He had suddenly remembered some commissions which he had promised to execute for his wife. It was by a like " chance " that Mr. Forster escaped death at their hands. The gang actually stopped his carriage on the way to Westland Row Railway Station, but they found that two ladies were its only occupants. When the details of the plot reached me, I asked Mr. Forster about his movements on the day in question. He told me he had driven to West- land Row with his wife and daughter to return to London by the Irish Mail. He wanted to know why I made the inquiry, but I parried the question. I received a note next day asking me to call ; and when I saw him he showed me an extract from his diary which reminded him that on the evening in question he had travelled to Kingstown by an earlier train, dined at the St. George's Yacht Club, and joined his wife and daughter on the steamer. I then x] MR. MORLEY'S COMMENT 105 gave him the full details of my informant's statement. His reference to it, when I met him the morning after the murder of his successor, I am not likely to forget. Mr. Burke thus fell a victim to one of the many murder plots hatched before the Kilmain- ham treaty was negotiated ; and, as Mr. Morley tells us, " the assassins did not know Lord Frederick Cavendish." His death was altogether an accident. " Well has it been said that Ireland seems the sport of a destiny that is aimless." This is Mr. Morley 's comment on the crime. In this brief sentence he frames with a master's hand a most grave indictment of Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy. To him the chance events of the passing day were what the throw of the dice is to a gambler. Mr. Morley treats that crime as though it was an incident which could not have been foreseen, and which necessarily turned Mr. Gladstone from the path which he had so lately entered. But it was only the last of a series — one more added to the terrible list of the Land League murders. And from the point of view of statesmanship it was of far less significance than many of the murders which had preceded it. For the assassination of Government officials could give no such indication of the state of Ireland as did the murder of a lady while returning home p 106 PH(ENIX PARK MURDERS [chap. from church, or of humble peasants whose only offence was obedience to the law. The element which alone distinguished it from the earlier crimes was that the chief victim was a colleague and a friend. The existence of this particular murder gang and of their plots was already known to the Government. The assassination of Mr. Forster and Mr. Burke had been planned before the treaty was arranged, and Lord Frederick Cavendish's death was the merest accident. If, therefore, there had been any real statesmanship in Mr. Gladstone's administra- tion, the Park murder would have been regarded either as proof that the Kilmainham treaty policy was a blunder, or else as a further reason for pursuing it. There was much to be said for that policy before; there was more to be said for it now. Mere was a wholly unlooked-for opportunity of putting Parnell to the test. Having regard to his denunciation of the Park murderers in Parliament on May 8, if he had opposed the passing of a Bill limited to provisions adequate to bring them to justice, he would at once have proved his insincerity. But there is no reason to assume that he was insincere. On the contrary, we should assume that he would have fulfilled his bargain, by setting himself to put down the outrage mongers of the League. The result might have been, perhaps, that he x] A POLICY OF DRIFT 107 would have fallen a victim to the vengeance of his quondam followers. Hut on the other hand, he might have proved himself master, and have restored peace to the country. The moment was opportune. Before May G, life and property were insecure throughout the Ireland of the Land League ; hut after the murder there was a lull, during which the forces of violence and disorder were absolutely still. The account which magistrates and police gave of the change was almost dramatic. Every man, whether a Government official or a boy- cotted farmer, became free to go about his business with perfect safety by day or by nig] it. A peace crusade at such a time, by the President of the body which fomented the outrages, might have proved successful. I do not imply that Parnell was the instigator of them, but no one will dispute that, while he was in Kilmainham, every act of violence and outrage was supposed and intended by the Leaguers to advance his policy. Hence the confidence he felt in his ability to fulfil his share of the treaty. In a word, either Mr. Forster's policy or Mr. Gladstone's might have succeeded, if allowed unhindered scope and given a fair field. But a policy of drift and compromise was bound to fail. An incidental disaster does not lead a general to change his plan of campaign. But while, one day, devotion to academic doctrines 108 PH(ENIX PARK MURDERS [chap. about governing by ordinary law led the Premier to refuse a hearing to Mr. Forster ; the next, a chance reverse led him to fling these doctrines to the winds, and to promote a law so extra- ordinary as to astonish Mr. Forster himself. For Mr. Gladstone's " Coercion Act " of 1882 contained provisions unparalleled since the Union delivered Ireland from the misgovernment and tyranny of a native Parliament. It provided for the trial of crimes of the gravest kind, in- cluding treason and murder, by a tribunal of three judges without a jury. It provided for magisterial inquiries into crimes when no accused person was made amenable — a machinery that availed to bring the Phoenix Park murderers to justice. And in addition to all this, it contained the most elaborate network of statutory pro- visions against combination, as distinct from crime, that the wit of man could devise. Indeed, if the Act had been strictly construed and enforced, the majority of the adult population of Ireland would have been brought within its meshes.* It is no wonder that Mr. Morley *;The lUh section provides that "every person who knowingly (a) is .1 member of an unlawful association as defined by tins Act, or (h) take.- part in the operations of an unlawful association as defined by this Act, or of any meeting thereof, shall be guilty of an offence against 1 1 ■ i — Act." Then section .".» defines " unlawful association" to mean "an association formed (a) for the commission of crimes ; or (6) carrying on operations for or by the commission of crimes ; or (c) for encouraging or aiding persons to commit crimes." And the section goes on to define " crime " as including " any offence against x] THE LAND LEAGUE MURDERS 109 dismisses this amazing piece of " coercion " legisla- tion with the briefest and most casual mention. The Park murder was indeed a hideous crime. But crimes still more hideous had preceded it. The victims, Mr. Morley tells us, were " brutally murdered." But to refer again to the crimes already noticed, not many weeks had passed since an Irish lady had been " brutally murdered " in broad daylight on her way home from church. In the previous May a poor Galway farmer was " brutally murdered " while bringing his children to Mass on a Sunday morning. And many others had been " brutally murdered " while in humble positions discharging their duties to the State as really as were the Chief and Under- Secretaries. The fate of the poor Huddys is not forgotten in the West. Huddy was a peasant bailiff on Lord Ardilaun's estate in Mayo. He had lived there in peace for twenty years. On January 2, 1882 — four months before the murder in the Phoenix Park — he left home with a this Act." To understand the force of this, we must turn back to section 7, which provides that every person who " uses intimidation or incites any other person to use intimidation . . . shall be guilty of an offence against this Act." And, to complete this elaborate network of penal enactments aimed against combination and not against crime, " intimidation'" is defined to include " any word spoken or act done in order to and calculated to put any person in fear of any injury or danger to himself, or to any member of his family, or to any person in his employment, or in fear of any injury to or loss of his property, business or means of living." Owing to the unwillingness of the Irish Judges to undertake the duty, no Special Commission of Judges was appointed under the Act. 110 PHCENIX PARK MURDERS [chap. nephew to serve some processes. The men never returned, and their family could get no tidings of them, though their fate was known to all the neighbours. Three weeks later their battered corpses were discovered. They had been "brutally murdered;" done to death like dogs. But no mere list of these crimes would convey an adequate impression of the horrors of the Land League rule in Ireland. In many districts terror reigned in every cottage home that refused allegiance to what was fitly called " the de facto Government." But so long as the Irish were the only victims, Downing Street was philosophical and calm. -^ It was not, I again repeat, until a friend and colleague was struck down that Mr. Gladstone awoke to a sense of the responsibilities and duties of a Governments This, at least, was the way the Irish read the facts. And the loyalists felt, as they feel to the present hour, that the executions which followed did not satisfy the claims of justice, but that, while the murderers hung upon the gallows, the Prime Minister ought to have been exposed beside them in the pillory.* The Park murders were the work of the officials of the Land League, of which Parnell was the President and Davitt the founder. Rut their hands were clean. For while these plots ■ See Appendix, Note I. ; p. 209, post. x] COMPLICITY OF THE LEAGUE 111 were hatching, Parnell was under lock and key in Kilmainham, and Davitt was buried in a convict prison. And two days after the crime was committed, Parnell denounced it in frank, bold language in the House of Commons ; while to the honour of the founder of the League it ought to be recorded that the first use he made of his liberty on his release from prison was to call at Scotland Yard, to declare his readiness to help in bringing the murderers to justice. But the knives by which Cavendish and Burke were murdered were bought with money provided by the League, through the agency of Frank Byrne, the Secretary of the League. And by Byrne they were kept for a time in the office of the League — one of the rooms rented by the Irish Parliamentary Party in Palace Chambers, Bridge Street, Westminster. Frank Byrne's wife it was who carried them to Ireland. The scoundrel Carey, to whom she handed them, knew her well ; and the one touch of sentiment in his evidence was his refusal to identify her. As soon as the authorities began to unravel the plot, Frank Byrne and the other officials of the League fled to France. The League afterwards supplied money to enable them to cross the Atlantic. It was to Byrne's sister that Egan, the Treasurer — who himself became a fugitive from justice — entrusted the £200 paid for this purpose. 112 PHCENIX PARK MURDERS [chap. I have good cause to remember the night that the money reached London. A bitter winter night it was, in February, 1883. 1 was going to bed, when one of my satellites came to report the matter to me. I drove at once to Grosvenor Square, to place the business in the hands of my friend who then ruled at Scotland Yard. He left his bed to see me. " I was far more competent to, etc., etc., than he ; he'd send orders to the Office delegating his powers to me for the occasion. Wouldn't I, etc., etc." To use an Irish phrase, Howard Vincent could talk a bird off a bush. No one could refuse him anything. In a weak moment I consented. And so keen was I that I went out with the officers whom I "put on the job." If I had possessed official authority, I might have got that money. But many of the Scotland Yard officers know more law than some men who live by the practice of it; and a knowledge of law is apt to make people timid. Their desire to help me was as great as when I afterwards became their official chief. But I was not their chief, and that made all the difference. So when I got back home, at three o'clock in the morning, I had taken nothing but the worst cold I ever had in my life, a cold from the effects of which I am still suffering. My knowledge of Sir William Harcourt led me to keep out of his way next day. But I x] AT LADY HARCOURT'S 113 had to face him in the evening, for I was invited to a party at 7, Grafton Street. I went late, thinking that the presence of Lady Harconrt's guests would bar an opportunity for "talking shop." Vain hope ! He tackled me the moment I appeared in the drawing-room, without even taking me aside. " Why had I not seized that money ? " I pleaded that the law was against me. The " Bah ! " with which he turned away from me made me feel that I had fallen grievously in his esteem. But to resume. The Phcenix Park murder was instigated by officials of the Land League.* Of this I obtained clear and cogent proof. Was it known to Farnell ? I can only say that he was one of many whose opportunities of knowing everything were vastly better than mine. The charge against him is " not that he himself either directly planned or perpetrated outrages and murders, but that he either con- nived at them, or that, warned by facts and state- ments, he determined to remain in ignorance." * Working behind the scenes, I promoted an agitation for an audit of the Land League funds, but no audit was ever obtained. There was a nominal audit, indeed, by Mr. John Dillon, M.P., Mr. Matthew Harris, M.P., and Father Sheehy, a priest. But it was a transparent sham. No attempt was made to test the genuineness of vouchers, or the application of the money covered by them. During the three years ending October, 1882, the receipts acknowledged by Egan amounted to nearly a quarter of a million sterling — the exact amount was £244,820 — of which four r fifths came from America. And of this total over £100,000 has never been accounted for (see p. 141, post). Q 114 PHCENIX PARK MURDERS [chap. These words, spoken by Mr. Forster in February, 1883, might be written across the cheque which, in that very month, Mr. Parnell sent to Frank Byrne at Westminster— -a remit- tal ice which enabled him to leave the country, and escape the gallows. Conclusive proof of their truth was afterwards supplied, when the documents of the Kilmainham treaty were dragged to light at the Special Commission. How could Parnell promise to stop the com- mission of crime ? It was because, as Mr. Glad- stone declared in memorable words, "Crime dogged the steps of the Land League." Being well aware that the crimes were the work of the paid officials of the League, Parnell believed that he could influence and control these men. These documents are damning evidence not only against Parnell, but against the Premier. It was no wonder that Mr. Gladstone feared the production of them, and commissioned Sir William Harcourt to negotiate their destruction.* What may have been the contents of those which were actually destroyed in compliance with his request is a matter of conjecture ; it was by accident that any of them escaped. No reference to these matters will be found in Mr. Morley's book. It was for him a personal triumph when Mr. Gladstone became a convert to the views he has always held about Ireland, * See Captain O'Shca's evidence at the Sj>e< ial Commission. x] A TRIBUTE TO MB. FORSTER 115 and he is silent respecting everything that dis- credits them. This, moreover, leads him to do injustice to one than whom I have known few abler men in public life, and none more upright. Having enjoyed Mr. Forster's confidence in an exceptional degree, I can aver, from personal knowledge, that his work in Ireland was em- barrassed by that want of the Premier's sympathy and support, to which Mr. Morley's narrative bears testimony. And my surprise was not that he resigned when he did, but that he remained in office so long. He generally got his way, but it was after a struggle ; and action which might have succeeded if taken promptly often came too late.* * And though Sir William Harcourt was no enemy to strong measures, yet, for some reason or other, he and Mr. Forster did not get on well together. " I'd rather you didn't mention this to Forster," " It might, perhaps, be as well not to say anything of this to Sir William Harcourt." Admonitions of this kind from one or other of them made my position at times a delicate and difficult one. As regards the connection between the Invincibles and the Land League, see App. Note II., p. 210, post. CHAPTER XI THE IRISH NATIONAL LEAGUE The Irish National League was established at a conference in Dublin on October 17, 1882 — the anniversary of the suppression of the Land League. An altercation which occurred at the meeting seemed to indicate that while certain leading Parnellites wished to give prominence to the Fenian " platform," Davitt was being drawn away from it by his desire to help the peasantry. As the result, however, the Fenian influence prevailed, and " Land Law Reform " was relegated to the second place, " National Self-Government " being forced to the front. Not local self-government : that was ex- pressly included in the programme, but it was made altogether subordinate. And the signifi- cance of the prominence thus given to the demand for self-government in the fullest sense, depended on Mr. Gladstone's reference to the subject in his speech upon the Address on February 9. " Of one thing 1 am well con- \inced," he declared, "that neither this House chap, xi] MR. GLADSTONE 117 of Commons, nor any House which may succeed it, will at any time assent to any measure by which the one paramount central authority necessary for holding together in perfect union and compactness this great Empire, can possibly be in the slightest degree impaired." And the plain meaning of this statement was made still plainer by the concluding sentence of his speech, which was as follows : — " We are most favourable to the introduction, rightly understood, of principles of local govern- ment into Ireland ; but as to the purpose lion, members have in view, they cannot take the first step — they cannot establish one foot of ground upon which to address their argument to the House of Commons — until they have produced a plan by which it is distinctly set forth by what authority and machinery they mean to divide between Imperial and local questions, so as to give satisfaction to members of this House upon its first and most prominent duty, namely, that of maintaining the supremacy of the Imperial authority for every practical object relating to the interests and purposes of this great country." The daring programme of the League was the answer to this challenge. The proceedings of the Convention were public, and prudence was studiously observed. It is to America that we must look, therefore, for a fuller insight into the real character of the movement. 118 IRISH NATIONAL LEAGUE [chap. And here a brief retrospect is necessary. " The new departure " had been adopted in August, 1881, at an unusually secret meeting of the secret Fenian organization, held in Chicago. In pursuance of the scheme then adopted, a public " Irish National Convention " was summoned for the following November. The first signature to the circular issued for that purpose was that of Patrick Ford of the Irish World newspaper, the founder of the infamous "skirmishing fund" of which so much was heard in those years. Early in 1881, more- over, this man had, in the columns of his paper, proclaimed the object of that fund to be the promotion of incendiary fires and dynamite outrages in this country. According to the newspapers, the other signatories were a number of prominent American Fenians, and Mr. T. P. O'Connor, M.P., and Mr. T. M. Healy, M.P., who were in the United States at the time, and who attended the Convention. It appears, how- ever, from their evidence at the Special Com- mission, that these gentlemen were the dupes of a plot to identify them with the proceedings of the American Fenian movement. In other words, they sought to explain away their action. At this Convention it was that the Irish Land League of America was established. Of the second 'annual Convention," held in the xi] CLAN-NA-GAEL CONVENTION 119 following year, I need not speak. But to the third annual Convention, held in Philadelphia in April, 1883, I wish to call special attention. For at this meeting the fugitives of the Dublin murder conspiracy were present, and the League was reconstituted on the lines laid down at the Dublin Convention of the preceding year. Adequate steps were taken, I may add, to keep the new movement entirely under the control of the " Clan-na-Gael," as the secret Fenian organization was then called. As Brennan, the quondam secretary of the suppressed Irish Land League, expressed it, "They must continue on the lines in which they had started, till the last vestige of landlordism and foreign rule — the twin gaolers of the Irish race — are swept out of the country." The "call" for the Convention, which was signed by Egan and two of the Clan-na-Gael leaders, declared the main object of the congress to be, to make "efforts to recover for our mother- land the God-given and inalienable right of national independence," and with this view "to blend into one organization all the Irish societies of the United States and Canada, the new organization to be affiliated with the Irish National League of Ireland, of which Charles Stewart Parnell is the President." The men of this Convention were the same Clan-na-Gael leaders who had arranged and L20 IRISH NATIONAL LEAGUE [chap. financed ParnelTs campaign three years before, and by whom his famous "last link" Cincinnati speech was treasured as a watchword. But every Clan-na-Gael lodge was ostensibly a " mutual benefit society," with a public name ; and in compliance with secret instructions, every delegate was thus accredited as the representative of a recognised society. The leaders thus secured the control of the Convention, while keeping their secret organization entirely out of right. The chair was taken by the notorious Alex- ander Sullivan of Chicago, the Fenian " boss." According to the " official report," he read a message from Parnell, advising moderation, as he said, " to enable us to continue to accept help from America." The message added, " I have perfect confidence that by prudence, moderation, and firmness the cause of Ireland will continue to advance, and though persecution rests heavily upon us at present, before many years have passed we shall have achieved the great objects for which through many centuries our race has struggled." Now the struggle of " many centuries " does not point to a repeal of the legislative union with Ireland, neither would it be ended by any scheme of Gladstonian Home Rule. It reaches back to a remoter past, and its aim is the realisation of ParnelTs memorable words at Cincinnati, "None of us will be satisfied until xi] A FENIAN GREETING 121 we have destroyed the last link which keeps Ireland bound to England." And the meaning put upon the language of this message by those who heard it, is made clear by the words in which Sullivan ended his brief opening speech—" In the spirit in which Robert Emmet died, we live. In his words, we are 'determined upon delivering our native country from the yoke of a foreign and unre- lenting tyranny,' and ' to place her independence beyond the reach of any power on earth.' " One of the first acts of the Convention was to send a cablegram to Parnell, greeting him as their " esteemed and honoured leader," and pro- mising "hearty support to his platform and policy." The proceedings throughout were engineered by caucus meetings of the Clan-na- Gael, and all went smoothly, in spite of attempts made by the dynamiters to give trouble. If these men had been allowed a hearing, Parnell would have been unable "to accept help from America." So they were silenced by formal promises, privately given, that " the good work " they had in hand would not be neglected. Londoners can testify how faithfully these promises were kept. Alexander Sullivan, the head of the Clan- na-Gael, whose discreditable antecedents were described by Le Caron at the Special Commission, was appointed President of the new League. R 122 IRISH NATIONAL LEAGUE [chap. His election was a pretty piece of by-play. When his name was proposed, he " obtained the floor, and declined being a candidate." But, in accordance with the game arranged at a secret meeting the night before, the Convention insisted on putting his name on the list. And, of course, he was elected by a large majority. Again, however, he " firmly declined the honour," but yielded at last to the entreaties of Mrs. Parnell, the mother of their " honoured and esteemed leader," who urged him "in elegant language" to accept the post. The promises given to the outrage mongers at this Convention were faithfully kept. A secret circular was issued directing the institution of " schools for the manufacture of explosives." And another followed it, containing the assurance that " most important measures were being organized and put in progress." This referred to the mission of the dynamiter, Gallagher, and his confederates, who were already in this country upon the infamous errand which earned for them life sentences of penal servitude. At the second annual Convention of the Irish National League, which was held in Boston in August, 1884, the Secret Fenian organization was again supreme ; and when Alexander Sullivan, the head of that organization, refused re-election as president, his place was filled by the appointment of Patrick Egan. The M.P.'s who represented xi] THE MR DELEGATES 123 the Irish parliamentary party on this occasion were Mr. Sexton, and Mr. W. E. Redmond, the brother and colleague of the present leader of the Nationalist party in Parliament. And they heard their quondam friend of the Land League described by his proposers as " that patriotic, that heroic exile for the sake of Mother Ireland." The cause of his exile has been explained in these pages. The following extracts from their speeches at the Convention, taken from the "official report," may fitly bring this chapter to a close. After referring to the miscreant Alexander Sullivan as " a man who does honour to the race from which he sprung," and " a man of whom any race might be proud," Mr. Sexton used these words : " We are now approaching the verge of a settlement which . . . will render it impossible for any Government any longer to delay or to defeat our claim for national independence." And here is the concluding sentence of Mr. W. E. Redmond's address : " Come what may, we will work as long as we have life for the consum- mation of that object for which our fathers worked far more bitterly than we may be called upon to work, until we have made Ireland a nation, and given her a harp without a crown." CHAPTER XII THE DYNAMITE CAMPAIGN The spring of 1882 seemed to promise me another opportunity of escaping from Secret Service work. For I was aware of the Premier's attitude toward Mr. Forster and his policy, and of the communications which ended with the Kilmainham treaty. And I began to look forward to a holiday such as I had not enjoyed for years. Hut the Phcenix Park murders changed all that, and when Colonel Brackenbury * was appointed to office at Dublin Castle, as Under- Secretary for Police and Crime, he called on me at Whitehall to claim my help. I refused his appeal, and adhered to my refusal when he returned a second time to press it upon me. Hut I had to give way at last. He convinced Sir William Harcourt that it was essential to have me to represent his department in London ; and to the pressure thus brought to bear upon me I was obliged to yield. * Now (ieneral Sir Henry Brackenbury, 6.C.B. chap, xii] OUTRAGES IN LONDON 125 My official relations with Colonel Bracken- bury were altogether pleasant, unmarred by a hitch of any kind. But his tenure of office was unfortunately brief; and the years that followed brought me a good deal of worry and not a little anxiety. London Fenianism, though more for- midable than in 18G7, was a negligible quantity, for I had the organization practically " in my pocket." But the dynamite plots of that era were cause for grave concern. O 'Donovan Rossa has some events in this line to his credit, though his own estimate of his share is grossly exaggerated. But the dynamite crusade of the great Clan-na-Gael organization of America was formidable — a crusade that dated from the Chicago Convention of 1881, at which the New Departure policy of working in union with the Parnellites was formally adopted. This organi- zation it was which despatched Gallagher and his confederates, who were convicted, and received life sentences, in May, 1883, and Mackay Lomasney, who was blown to pieces in attempt- ing to wreck London Bridge on December 13, 1884 — the anniversary of the Clerkenwell ex- plosion of 1867. Some one may ask, perhaps, why was it, if the designs of a criminal conspiracy can be checked in the manner I have indicated in these pages, that the schemes of the dynamiters were not thwarted ? Many things may be said upon 12<> THE DYNAMITE CAMPAIGN [chap. this. The dynamite outrages are remembered, but it is probably forgotten how many of the criminals were brought to justice. No fewer than thirty-two of these miscreants were con- victed and sentenced to long terms of penal servitude, seventeen of them receiving life sentences. Then, again, the public know nothing of the many plots that were foiled. Two of these I single out for mention because of their peculiar heinousness. A Fenian, who was arrested with bombs in his possession, and who earned a life sentence in 1884, had planned the destruction of the Parliamentary leaders on both sides of the House of Commons. His intention was to fling a bomb upon the table while the House was in session. After his conviction one of his bombs was exploded experimentally, in order to gauge what its probable effect would have been ; and Sir Vivian Majendie assured me that no one sitting near the table could have escaped a terrible death. Another plot, the full history of which I will not at present disclose, was still more horrible. It included another attempt upon the House of Commons, but it was specially aimed at Queen Victorias Jubilee cele- bration in Westminster Abbey in 1887.* * The credit of baffling and entirely preventing the execution of that |>lot belongB t<> Mr. James Monro, C.B., at that time Assistant- < ommissioner of Police at Scotland Yard. xn] THE EXPLOSIVES ACT, 1883 127 I would say plainly, moreover, that it was not until the Government had been roused by the earlier crimes of the dynamite era that measures were adopted adequate to cope with this branch of the conspiracy. The uniformed police upon the streets can deal with ordinary law-breakers, but they are wholly incompetent to grapple with the crime plots of professional criminals. And the attempt to deal with crime of the kind here in view, under " ordinary law " and by ordinary methods, is the merest trifling. Thanks to Sir William Harcourt, however, we are not dependent on ordinary law. We now enjoy the protection of a measure which, to borrow the jargon of the Irish controversy, may ) 2 described as a " Coercion Act " of drastic severity. I refer to the Explosives Act, 1883. This statute has made dynamiting dangerous. And if it be combined with counterplot work of the kind necessary in coping with organized crime of any sort, its operation becomes absolutely deterrent. But in England the spirit of the law is too often sacrificed to its forms. The rules of the prize ring are held to apply to the struggle between the law and those who break the law. Everything must be done openly and above board. A legitimate principle in regard to crimes that are committed openly and above 128 THE DYNAMITE CAMPAIGN [chap. board, but utterly inapplicable to crimes such as these. For a mine can be reached only by a counter-mine. The dynamite case of 1896 will serve to illustrate my words. Fenian emissaries were despatched from New York to carry into effect a formidable outrage plot. Under " ordinary law " and " English methods " the miscreants might have come here with perfect impunity, but the use of proper means brought us a knowledge of their projects, and the " Coercion Act " was adequate to deal with them. Edward Bell, the only member of the gang who crossed the Channel, was arrested, and though his con- viction was assured, the discovery that the " prize ring" rules had not been observed led to an abandonment of the prosecution. Apart from the special question here at issue, the details of the case are not without interest. When I wrote to the Secretary of State, report- ing the arrest of the accused, and informing him of the means by which it had been obtained, he formed the opinion that the fact of a con- federate having given information to Government was a bar to a prosecution. And he remained unmoved by the clear proof I gave him that the informant had done everything in his power to check and thwart the execution of the plot. Uut as I had already applied to foreign police forces to deal with the other members of the gang, and xii] A VISIT TO LORD SALISBURY 129 extradition proceedings were contemplated, he decided to lay the matter before Lord Salis- bury. Sir Matthew Ridley brought me with him to Walmer (September 19), and stated the whole case in full detail to Lord Salisbury, adding that as I entirely dissented from the view he had formed of it, he wished me to have a hearing. Never did a judge of the Supreme Court hear a case with more judicial calmness. I possess a photograph of Lord Salisbury in the precise attitude in which he listened, first to Sir Matthew Ridley and then to me, without indicating even by a gesture the direction of his thoughts. And then he gave his decision, which was unreservedly in my favour. The case accordingly went on, and the accused was committed to the Old Bailey. The evidence was clear and complete, and when the prisoner was brought into court on the second day of the trial, he stood forward to say that he wished to withdraw his plea of not guilty. But the law officers had come to know that the prize-ring rules had been violated, and the Solicitor-General intervened by rising to announce the withdrawal of the prosecution. It was not till some time afterwards that I had an opportunity to tell him that the facts which led him to take that course were well known to the prisoner himself, and that his decision to plead guilty to the charge 130 THE DYNAMITE CAMPAIGN [chap. was the result of a bargain to which I was a party.* When Hells legal adviser discovered that there were traitors in the dynamite camp, he called to warn me that, if the case was pressed, the defence would be that his client was the victim of an agent provocateur. I assured him that I feared no disclosures, and advised him to pump his client before he tried a game of that kind. In the afternoon of the first day of the trial he returned to ask me, in strict confidence, whether I would promise the prisoner a light sentence if he pleaded guilty. But of course I could do nothing unless he allowed me to tell the law officers of his visit, and this he would not hear of. I added, however, that if Bell would accompany his plea of guilty with some expression of regret, I would confidently promise to obtain an early remission of any sentence passed on him. I never violate a confidence, and though an hour after he left me I was summoned to a * In the minute which Sir Matthew Ridley made upon my letter, after our visit to Walmer, he said, " I desire to plan- on record my appreciation of the promptitude and skill displayed in lids matter by the police, and my rail approval of Mr. Anderson's action." 1 must add that, while the case fully deserved this commendation, the chief credit was due, not to me, but to a gentleman whose oame lias not come Ik lure the public in relation to .Secret Service work, hut to whom the public owe much in relation to duties of that character. xn] THE DYNAMITE CASE OF 1896 131 consultation in the case, the law officers had no hint of all this till some time afterwards.* Of course the withdrawal of the charge against Bell put an end to all hope of taking proceedings against his confederates, and they promptly escaped to America. I had traced them to Rotterdam and Amsterdam, and the steamer in which they left was called the Wenkerdam. One characteristic of " the Parisian accent " that is so much cultivated by English people is the vulgarism of accentuating the final syllable of words ; and at times I felt tempted to give vent to my feelings of annoyance at the collapse of this dynamite case by repeating these names aloud in the Parisian fashion. This reference to the Bell case is a digression which breaks the sequence of my story. But a mere chronological narrative would be foreign to the purpose of these pages ; and though the years between the Phoenix Park murders and the Parnell Special Commission were full of incidents that might be worth telling in another connection, they need not be included here. One of the most important events in the Fenian annals of that period was the "Jubilee plot," to which allusion has already been made.f Some details of it were brought to public notice by the Select * And Sir Matthew Ridley knew nothing of it when, in the House of Commons dehate on January 20, he answered Mr. Healy's taunts ahout my "operations.'' t See p. 126, ante. 132 THE DYNAMITE CAMPAIGN [chap. Committee appointed in 1888. with a view to amend the regulations for the admission of strangers to the House of Commons. The evidence in that inquiry disclosed that a leading Fenian named F. F. Millen came to Europe with a number of subordinate agents to carry out a fiendish scheme of dynamite outrages, and that one at least of the Parnellite members was in close touch with these men, though it was not averred that he was privy to their designs. Hut the fullest public disclosure ever made of the infamous character and aims of the American Fenians was supplied by a murder trial in Illinois in the year 188!). An Irish doctor practising in Chicago, Cronin by name, was expelled from the Clan-na-Gael in 188.5 at the instigation of Alexander Sullivan. He thereupon joined a rival organization formed by seceders from the parent body. Three years later a reunion was established at a joint conven- tion held in Chicago. At that meeting Cronin turned the tables on Sullivan by preferring grave charges against him of misappropriating funds, and neglecting the dynamite emissaries who had been sent to this country from time to time. These charges were referred to a " trial com- mittee," of which Cronin was a member. Sullivan secured an acquittal, but the proceedings inten- sified his hostility to Cronin, and he was still further incensed against him by his persistent xti] MURDER OF DR. CRONIN 133 efforts to have the evidence published. As the outcome of the quarrel, an elaborate plot was hatched for the murder of Cronin, and it was carried into execution in May, 1889. A coroner's jury found a verdict of wilful murder against Sullivan and the actual assassins, but the charge against Sullivan was abandoned. The others were brought to trial and convicted. For my present purpose the special impor- tance of the case is due to the fact that among Cronin 's papers were found the records of the evidence given in the Fenian trial inquiry of the year before, and this document was freely used by the prosecution to explain the motive for the murder. The first witness examined in that inquiry was a man who had taken part in three of the London dynamite outrages, and the last was the widow of the man who came by his death in the explosion at London Bridge. This man, Lomasney, had been joint delegate with Sullivan to the Fenian convention of 1884, and was one of his special allies. The widow was nominally in receipt of a pension from the Clan- na-Gael, but the payment of it had been irregular, and she had been left in want. Other witnesses described their fruitless efforts to obtain money for the unfortunate relatives of the dynamite convicts, and for the defence of emissaries of the organization who were still awaiting trial. The evidence, as a whole, was a hideous 134 THE DYNAMITE CAMPAIGN [m. xn disclosure of diabolical wickedness and shameful fraud on the part of the Fenian leaders. And it afforded proof, which could not be challenged, that the miscreants of the principal dynamite outrages in this country were the paid emissaries of the movement which, on its public side, owned Mr. Parnell as its "esteemed and honoured leader." CHAPTER XIII THE SPECIAL COMMISSION On an earlier page I used the word " romance " in describing the Irish sections of Mr. Morley's " Life of Gladstone." But that expression would be inadequate to characterise the chapter on "The Special Commission." No one need quarrel with him for exposing the folly — a much stronger word would not be inapt — of Lord Salisbury's Government in forcing through Parlia- ment the statute under which the Commission was appointed. But when he attributes the action of ministers to unworthy motives, he betrays himself as the party politician undis- guised. And a like remark applies to his strictures upon the conduct of the Times in bringing charges of the gravest kind against the Parnellites. As Mr. Gladstone said, " the making of those charges was either an act of incredible baseness, or it was the performance of a public service ; " * and no fair-minded man will hesitate in choosing between these alternatives. * Speech of May 11, 1887, at Hanipstead. 136 THE SPECIAL COMMISSION [chap. And thoughtful men will not share Mr. Mor- ley's estimate of the tribunal. The suggestion is grotesque that a Parliamentary Committee would have been either as impartial or as competent. Indeed, it would have been a farcical proceeding to refer the issues involved to any committee of the kind. When Mr. Parnell decided not to appeal to a jury, a commission of judges became the only practical alternative. Therefore the decision to make him the offer of such a tribunal was not only fair, but in all respects admirable. Forcing that tribunal upon him was a blunder. Hut this false step was taken, not in furtherance of a base party intrigue, but under a mistaken sense of duty. Sir William Harcourt once refused to let me refer a certain matter to one of his colleagues, because, he said, he was " one of those conscien- tious people that you can't count upon." The sort of people he meant were those who " act on principle " in matters that lie outside the sphere of morals — a phase of folly that leads not only individuals but Governments into trouble. Mr. Morley objects that the accused had no voice in the composition of the tribunal. But accused persons are not generally allowed to select their judges. The objection, moreover, is purely academic, unless, indeed, it is a veiled attack upon Sir James Ilannen and his col- leagues. xiii] MR. MORLEY 'S COMMENTS 137 But, he exclaims, for the first time since the Great Rebellion, judges were to find a verdict upon the facts of crime ; and he repeatedly comments on the absence of a jury. His admi- ration for juries, however, is not shared by those who have practical acquaintance with their ways. And he himself supplies the refutation of his words ; for, in his vindication of Mr. Parnell's refusal to appeal to the ordinary tribunals, he compares a jury trial to " the hazards of a cast of the die."* He forgets, moreover, that Mr. Gladstone's " Coercion Act " of six years before provided similar tribunals for the trial of the wretched men whom Mr. Parnell's agitation inveigled into crime.f Then as to the procedure. Mr. Morley complains that, " Instead of opening with the letters, as the country expected, the accusers began by rearing a prodigious accumulation of material," involving the Parnellites in an inter- minable inquiry and inordinate expense. What " the country expected " was that at the earliest possible moment Mr. Parnell would have come before the judges to denounce the letters, and to traverse the incriminating charges. That is the course which an honest man, strong in the consciousness of his innocence, would adopt. * Vol. iii. p. 393. And the second paragraph of p. 394 in- dicates that it was Mr. Morley himself who prevented Parnell from appealing to a jury. t See p. 108, ante. t 1.38 THE SPECIAL COMMISSION [chap. A guilty man, on the other hand, might hold hack in hope of benefiting hy the chances of a trial. It was neither the Government nor the Times, but Mr. Parnell himself, who was responsible for the order of procedure. We all know the story of the Irish juryman who, on addressing the judge from the public gallery, was told to go to his proper place in the court, and at once made for the dock. If, as Mr. Morley complains, the Parnellites were •• virtually in the dock,' it was by their deliberate choice that they occupied that position. The proprietors of the Times expected to be put upon their defence, as they would have been if the Irishmen had appealed to a jury, or if they had obtained a Parliamentary Committee. So little were they prepared for the action forced upon them, that their leading counsel did not attend the preliminary meeting of the Commis- sion. And it was in their absence, and on the motion of Sir Charles Russell, that the order of proceedings was arranged. What makes the procedure the more signifi- cant is the fact, disclosed when Pigott absconded, that before a single one of the Times witnesses had been heard, the defence had obtained from that wretched man a confession of the forgeries. The inference is natural, that this was purposely kept back until the case for the Times had been disclosed. A dramatic incident in the course xin] A COUP BE THEATRE 139 of a criminal trial sometimes leads the thought- less to acclaim the occupant of the dock as a popular hero ; and the great master of Nisi Pr'ius tactics who conducted Parnell's defence judged, no douht, that a coup de theatre about the letters would divert public attention from the other issues. The success of the coup was indeed pheno- menal. But we can now review the whole matter dispassionately, and Mr. Morley exag- gerates the power of his brilliant pen if he imagines that he can make us regard the Parnell of the Land League as an impersonation of injured innocence. Nor can we forget at his bidding that, save for the iniquity of the forged letters, the Times charges against the Irish leader were entirely in the spirit of Mr. Gladstone's denun- ciations of him prior to the Kilmainham treaty. His glowing periods, moreover, will not avail to make us ignore the gravity of the charges which the judges held to have been established by legal evidence. " By legal evidence " I say advisedly, for the fact that the proceedings took the form of a quasi criminal trial deprives the Commissioners' report of the effect which Mr. Morley claims for it. The judges expressly decided that the letters were forgeries ; but in regard to the other charges which they dismissed, their decision was no more than a legal acquittal. Indeed, the 140 THE SPECIAL COMMISSION [chap. investigation of those charges under the limita- tion^ imposed by the law of evidence in a criminal trial was a mere waste of time. If legal evidence had been available, the police would have taken action long before ; and where the police failed to make out a case, it was not likely that the Times would succeed. Let me illustrate my meaning. The judges say, e.g., " We find that Mr. Parnell did not make any remittance to enable F. Byrne to escape from justice." What the Times averred was that "an opportune remittance from Mr. Parnell in January, 1883, enabled him to escape to France." The allegation of fact here was not in dispute, but the innuendo was incapable of proof. And I will only say that if in January, 1883, Mr. Parnell was ignorant of Byrne's con- nection with the murder plots of the preceding year, his ignorance was wilful. I had knowledge of it myself, and he had means of information vastly superior to mine. These remarks apply equally to other " find- ings" of the Court. Take the following, for in- stance: "We find . . . that the Land League did not pay or organize the Invincibles, nor did the respondents or any of them associate with persons known by them to be employed in the Invincible conspiracy." I can only say that the men who brought me knowledge of the work of the Invincibles, obtained that knowledge in the office xni] ACCOUNTS KEPT BACK 141 of the Lund League ; and I assert as a fact that the money of the Land League was at the dis- posal of the murder gang. That the decision of the judges was no more than a legal verdict of " not guilty" is made clear by their complaint that the books of the Engl is] i secretary to the Land League were not produced, albeit their production was promised ; and that no particulars were afforded them of the expen- diture of not less than £100,000 of the Land League funds. No, the books were not produced, and for excellent reasons. They were in the office of the League in Palace Chambers when the pre- liminary meeting of the Commission was held on September 17, 1885. But before October 22, when the judges opened the actual inquiry, they had been despatched to France. At this distance of time accuracy is of no importance, but as a matter of fact, the actual date at which they were sent across the Channel was the night of October 10. Mr. Morley describes the events in Ireland during the Land League period as a revolution ; and this perhaps may not only afford a clue to Parnell's conduct, but it may explain a strange omission in Mr. Morley 's narrative. Revolu- tionists cannot afford to be fastidious about means and measures, and their apologists are apt to deal lightly with their misdeeds. And yet we 142 THE SPECIAL COMMISSION [chap. might have hoped that the hateful cruelties and hideous crimes of the Land League movement would have drawn from such a moralist as Mr. Morley some expression of indignant censure or of generous distress. But he seems to have ex- hausted his vocabulary of invective in denouncing the Tories and the Times. The expense of the inquiry must indeed have been enormous ; and where the money came from is a secret which has never been revealed. As regards the Times, the facts are not in doubt; but what about the Irishmen ? No one imagines that they personally had either the will or the capacity to find the cash. And the Land League funds had been depleted by the ex- penditure of huge sums on projects which have never been disclosed, and which presumably would not bear the light.* Where, then, did the money come from ? Did the Reform Club contribute ? Or was there a secret subscription among members of the party ?f When the proceedings before the Commission took the turn they did, the Treasury Solicitor might well have been instructed to intervene. Bui the Times was left to make out its case un- aided. There is no foundation for Mr. Morley 's * Bee p. 113, ante. It is not clear from the judges' report whether tin' amount unaccounted for was 8178,000 or only £100,000. t Mr. Morley makes the significanl statemenl that, the day after the report was issued, "Mr. Gladstone liaook< of the class of Mr. Barry ( ►"Brian's '■Lit,- ot Parnell/' Mr. William O'Brien's "Recollections," Mr. T. P. O'Connor's " Parnell Movement/' etc., etc. His pages are not In tory, tint a political romance by a philosopher with a hero and a tad. t P. 156, '/«/' . xv] CLAN-NA-GAEL CONVENTION 163 August 3, 1881, and remained in session for a week. Egan was unable to attend, but he sent, as his representative, one John O'Connor, an active and trusted agent of the conspiracy, whose many aliases embarrassed me at times. The formal approval given to the New Departure at this convention, as mentioned in a previous chapter, was the result of Le Caron's mission. And in furtherance of it the following resolution was adopted : — " It is the sense of this Convention that both branches of the Revolutionary Directory should devote themselves to the work of revolution ; and if such bodies cannot give their approval to public movements that are intended to promote the political and social regeneration of Ireland, when they are supported by a large proportion of the Irish people, they will at least refrain from antagonizing them." This resolution of the Clan-na-Gael in Chicago was the echo of what took place in the Library corridor of the House of Commons on May 23. I cannot close this Le Caron chapter without some further personal references to this most interesting man. In his book, already quoted, he speaks of my unceasing care for his personal safety. To that care his safety was largely due, for he was one of those extraordinary men 164 LE GABON'S EVIDENCE [chap. who seem incapable of fear, and therefore in- different to danger. This sometimes led him to do reckless things. But he knew only of dangers due to his own folly. I had the greatest difficulty at times in using his information without betray- ing him. The matter of the Parnell interview was one of many instances of what I mean. An article from Davitt, in the Nineteenth Century of March, 1890, drew from Le Caron a letter to the Times, in which, referring to that interview, he said, " The written record has been in possession of the Government since the night in question." But the Government did not re- ceive the record as promptly as he supposed ; else he might not have been alive in 1889 to give evidence at the Commission. I have seldom been in a more embarrassing position. For Sir William Harcourt had a hint that some- thing of the kind had occurred, and if I had given him the facts immediately, enough would certainly have leaked out to betray Le Caron. So the course I adopted was to let a month pass, and then to tell the story as "received from my principal American Fenian informant " — a way of putting it which had the merit of bring strictly true. Though I had been in communication with Le Caron for so many years, and had seen him from time to time on his occasional visits to England, I never really knew him until he xv] LE CARON'S PERSONALITY 165 settled in London during the illness which ended fatally on April 1, 1894. With all his cynicism and coldness of manner, he was a remarkably attractive man. The doctor who attended him — a stranger called in by chance — became his devoted friend. He came to see me about him, to urge the importance of having a consultation such as was beyond Le Caron's means. I appealed to an old friend of mine, whose chief pleasure in life, I believe, was doing kindnesses — I mean the late Gilbart Smith, of Harley Street ; and no sooner did he visit Le Caron than he became a warm " Le Caronite." Others in the same way fell under the charm of his personality. I visited him frequently at this time, and thus it was, 1 repeat, that I came to know him. At first we used to talk over his adventures ; and when his illness grew upon him, and he was bed-ridden, we often spoke on subjects of which I will make no mention here. He seemed absolutely unsullied and unspoiled by the strange vicissitudes of his life story. I came to esteem him very highly, and what is more germane to the subject of these pages, I became increasingly impressed by his very remarkable respect for the truth. CHAPTER XVI THE CASE FOR HOME RULE Tin: origin of this book is explained in its open- ing pages. It was intended to be " a story without a moral." The time seemed to have coi ne when the events dealt with in Mr. Morley's Irish chapters might be reviewed as matters of history ; the Home Rule controversy seemed to have passed out of " the sphere of practical politics.' 1 But just as, in nature, the changing skies sometimes belie all meteorological forecasts, so the political atmosphere has recently changed with extraordinary suddenness. The Irish Question is with us once again, and the preceding chapters, which but yesterday would have had a purely academic interest, are now germane to one of the most important of the practical problems of the day. It would be the merest affectation to ignore (liis. And therefore, while I refuse to come down into the arena of party politics,* I have I'uiiiig all my official life I kept clear <»t part] politics, never ch. xvi] HOSTILITY TO THE UNION 167 altered and added here and there, in order to bring the book into line with the events of the day. And in conclusion, I propose to discuss the grounds upon which " Home Rule " is commended as a solution of the Irish contro- versy. I do not impugn the integrity of those who advocate it, nor will I impute to them unworthy motives. The question is not whether they are honest and sincere, but whether they are right ? And it is my wish to deal with this question in the spirit in which thoughtful men will review it a generation hence. And first, it may be well to seek for an explanation of the eagerness — the bitterness, I might say — with which so many Irishmen desire to sever the union with Great Britain. Any attempt to account for this by present-day grievances is futile. Not only do the four and a half million inhabitants of Ireland enjoy the same rights as the thirty-seven millions of Great Britain, but they exercise a wholly dispro- portionate share of political power. And the agricultural classes of that country derive special benefits from the State, to which the peasantry of Great Britain are strangers. In every respect, in fact, the balance of advantage is on the side of the Irish. Why, then, the intense antipathy having even voted at a parliamentary election, until Mr. Gladstone issued his historic appeal for a majority to make him independent of the Parnellites. 168 THE CASE FOR HOME RULE [chap. to England, which alone accounts for the agita- tion for Home Rule ? The answer to this question is not doubtful. The hatred of England, which was the ruling motive in Parnell's political career, which betrays itself in the acts and words of the present parliamentary leaders, and which burns in the breasts of multitudes of the Irish people, is a legacy from evil days long past. There are two sides to most questions, and the philosophical historian has something to say in vindication of Cromwell's policy, and in palliation of the penal laws. But when he comes to review the legisla- tion by which every Irish industry was deliberately and systematically ruined, nothing can be urged either to lessen or to cloak its infamy. Every class was affected by it. And it not only im- poverished the people, it demoralised them. The record of it makes an Irishman's blood boil ; and no language can be extreme in denunciation of it. And in the case of men whose minds are inflamed and embittered by brooding over these evil memories of the past, every proof that Home Rule would prejudice the greatness, and possibly endanger the safety, of England, only serves to supply them with an additional motive for insisting upon the demand. What then should be the attitude of statesmanship toward such a problem ? What the view of that xvi] IRISH HATRED OF ENGLAND 169 broad-minded common sense which is our best guide in all affairs of ordinary life ? A certain man did my great-grandfather a shameful and cruel wrong. Woe I to ask whether I am not justified in hating and seeking to injure his great-grandson, 1 should be regarded as vindictive and evil-minded. I should be told to let the dead past lie, and instead of brooding over the wrong, to dismiss it from my thoughts. Why then should not this same advice be deemed wholesome and wise in the case here in view ? And if history will accord to Mr. Gladstone his full meed of praise for refusing to listen to the tale of the ancient wrongs of Ireland, while lending a willing ear to every demand for the redress of present injustice, will it not condemn with unsparing severity his later policy of inflaming passion and hate by appeals to a past which all good men and all wise men would wish to be forgotten ? But the passion and the hate are real. And do they not give proof that the Legislative Union has been a failure ? Let us test this by the facts. It is a matter of course that those who had most to lose were the greatest sufferers from the infamous laws by which Ireland was impoverished. Therefore, speaking generally, and dealing with classes of the population, as distinguished from individuals, it was the Protestants who were the principal victims. z 170 THE CASE FOR HOME RULE [chap. Naturally, therefore, the Protestants were the most hostile to England. It was the Protestants who gave irresistible force to the agitation that led to the establishment of Grattan's Parliament. And from the Protestants came the most power- ful opposition to the I iiion. With reference to this anti-Irish commercial legislation, 1 quote the following from Mr. Swift MacNeilTs valuable handbook on the subject: — • It afflicted every Irishman, whether at home or abroad, with a sense of intolerable wrong, and created that passionate resentment towards England which has been transmitted to succeed- ing generations. 'One of the most obvious consequences,' says Mr. Uecky, ' was that for the space of about a century Ireland underwent a steady process of depletion, most men of energy, ambition, talent, or character, being driven from her shores.' k If the ambition of an Irishman lay in the paths of manufacture and commerce, he was almost compelled to emigrate, for industrial and commercial enterprise had been deliberately crushed. ' This legislation, it must be remem- bered, fell most severely on the Protestant popu- lation of Ireland, although, of course, it grievously affected every class, and, indeed, every member of the community. Twenty thousand Puritans left Ulster on the destruction of the woollen trade. ' Until the spell of tyranny was broken in 1782, annual shiploads of families poured themselves out from Belfast and Londonderry. xvi] ATTITUDE OF PROTESTANTS 171 The resentment they carried with them continued to burn in their new homes ; and, in the War of Independence, England had no fiercer enemies than the great-grandsons of the Presbyterians who had held Ulster against Tyrconnel.' " * But what is the present attitude of the Protestants of Ireland towards England and the Union? There are a few- Protestant Home Rulers, no doubt ; but in tnis twentieth century they are so few that they might rank as " freaks." Resentment caused by the disestablishment of the Irish Church brought recruits from the Protestant ranks to the standard raised by Isaac Butt, himself a Protestant. Parnell was a Protestant ; and some half dozen of Mr. Redmond's lieutenants are Protestants. But Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill evoked hostile petitions, signed corporately and with practical unanimity, from every Protestant community in Ireland. Nor is this all. As Mr. MacNeill indicates, no section of the Protestants suffered more from English tyranny than the Presbyterians. And moreover, in respect of some of the features of the Penal Laws, Presbyterian sympathy was with the Roman Catholics and against the Anglicans. It is not strange, therefore, that * " English Interference with Irish Industries," pp. 56,57. The sentences marked as quotations are from Lecky and Froude, the exact references being given by Mr. MacNeill. 172 THE CASE FOR HOME RULE [chap. the Irish Presbyterians were the most stalwart and bitter of England's enemies. And yet, while in 188G the vast majority of the Irish Presbyterian ministers were politically Glad- stonian Liberals — the exceptions were perhaps about a score — there were but three dissentients to their Church's protest and appeal against Mr. Gladstone's policy. The question came up again in 1893, when Mr. Gladstone's second Home Rule Bill was before the country. In the General Assembly of that communion, as we all know, the elders sit and vote with the ministers ; and the elders, like the ministers, were almost all political followers of Mr. Gladstone. And yet in the Assembly which met in March of that year — one of the largest ever convened — Mr. Glad- stone's Home Rule Bill found only four supporters ; and, after debate, a resolution condemning it was carried by a unanimous vote. How, then, can it be said, in face of such facts as these, that the Union is a failure ? Here we have large, prosperous, and powerful classes of the population — the very classes, more- over, that were the greatest opponents of the I j i ion — now united, thoroughly and enthu- siastically united, in favour of the Union. lint I would guard against the inference, as mischievous as it is false, that in regard to this xvi] NOT A QUESTION OF CREED 173 Home Rule question there is a cleavage between the Protestants and the Roman Catholics of Ireland.* The Home Rule vote depends en- tirely upon the lower strata of the electorate, of whom, in three of the four Provinces, the vast majority are Roman Catholics. If the franchise were raised to a level which would exclude the ignorant masses, the Home Rule majority would disappear. It is not a question of creed, but of education and material prosperity. Here again, of course, there are exceptions, and they are more numerous, perhaps, than among the Pro- testants. But exceptions should be disregarded in dealing with a great question of this character ; and taking Ireland as a whole, it is indisputable that all that is most intelligent and prosperous in the community is in favour of the Union, and opposed to Home Rule.f And this fact warrants the belief that other classes, now hostile, will yet be won over to the * See Appendix, Note VI., p. 218, post. t I met my friend Lord Morris one afternoon while the last Home Rule Bill was before Parliament, and he carried me off with him to the lobby of the House of Commons. There he was at once surrounded by a group of old acquaintances, including some of the Nationalists. To them he put the challenge, "Can you give me the name of any man of eminence in any profession or calling in Ireland who is in favour of Home Rule ? Take the barristers, the doctors, the merchants, the traders, the gentry — name any leading man among them who is a Home Ruler." It was but an exaggerated statement of an incontrovertible fact. With a very few exceptions, even the Home Rule members are the merest "carpet-baggers." Men of weight or substance cannot be found to champion the Nationalist demand. 174 THE CASE FOR HOME RULE [chap. side of the Union. This hope may be entertained with special confidence in the ease of the peasants who have so recently become owners of their farms. Is it not reasonable to expect that, having thus obtained for the first time ''a stake in the country," they will come to share the views of "the propertied classes," to which, in their humble way, they now belong? When, therefore, we consider the present state of Ireland, with an adequate knowledge of its past, are we not justified in maintaining that the policy of Pitt, so far from being a failure, has proved a signal success '{ I have already exposed the falseness of the prevalent belief that the need of what is called "coercion" in Ireland is due in any way to the Union. If a country ought to be governed on the principles on which we manage cricket and football clubs, and rules must be observed, no matter how they operate, then it must be acknow- ledged that our efforts to govern Ireland have failed : and all that can be said is, that the failure did not begin with the nineteenth century ; for, in this matter, Westminster will compare fa vour- ably with College (ireen. Hut upon the general question here involved much remains to be said. Common sense should save us from the absurdity of supposing that a law which is intended to suppress crime is objectionable because it is coercive, for coercion xvi] COERCIVE LEGISLATION 175 is the aim of the entire criminal code. The only practical question, therefore, in such a case is not whether the law is coercive, but whether it is necessary ? And as the most elementary function of a Government is to protect the peaceful and law- abiding, it fails in its primary duty if it does not make the coercion adequate to that end. For a Government that refuses to resort to coercion in dealing with law-breakers forfeits every claim not only to the respect but to the allegiance of the community. Therefore, I repeat, when a Government seeks increased powers to enable it to discharge this primary duty, the only legiti- mate question is, whether the enactment asked for be necessary, and if necessary, whether it be adequate. The question whether it is " ordinary " or " extraordinary " may be left to the philo- sophers. Coercive it must be if it is to be effectual. But what is the meaning of " ordinary law ? " It cannot mean the existing law, for that would imply a veto upon all new legislation against crime. I presume, then, that it must mean a law which is in keeping with the spirit of the existing law. But this is so vague that it can best be dealt with by a test case. Here, for example, is a specially characteristic provision contained in the " coercion " code now actually in force in certain places — 176 THE CASE FOR HOME RULE [chap. " It shall be lawful for any constable to take into custody without a warrant . . . all persons whom he shall find between sunset and the hour of eight in the morning, lying or loitering in any highway, yard, or other place, and not giving a satisfactory account of themselves." Now this clause is not a part of the general law of the land, its operation being limited to certain areas ; and perhaps it may seem to be out of harmony with the spirit of the general law. Any one living in a district to which it applies is apparently liable to be carried off to a police station by any young constable who chooses to think he is loitering. In a word, it is marked by some of the worst features of what is called a " Coercion Act." All this must in fairness be conceded. And yet, if what I have urged be well founded, such a law might legitimately be put in force in any part of Ireland where the community needs such protection. But, some one will indignantly exclaim, " It would not be tolerated in England for a single hour." To which I make answer, that it has been tolerated in the Metropolis of England for at least two generations. It is not quoted from the Irish "Coercion Act" at all ; it is a part of the coercion code known as the Metropolitan Police Acts — a coercion code the operation of which explains in a measure the extraordinary fact that in this, the largest city in the world, life xvi] THE POLICE ACTS 177 and property are safer than in any other of the world's great centres of population. Peculiar circumstances make exceptional laws necessary in the Metropolis ; and a similar remark applies to parts of Ireland. But this does not prove that the British Constitution is a failure ; neither does it prove that the Union is a failure. And we all know that if at any time the forces of disorder should in any measure get the upper hand in London, a more stringent " Coer- cion Act " would be promptly obtained and put in force. Or if, under the influence of philo- sophical theories, or rhetorical clap-trap about " coercion " and " ordinary law," the Government of the day failed of its duty in this respect, it would be sternly called to account. Indeed, if Parliament were in session, such a Government would not survive for a week. But the unfortunate loyalists of Ireland have no political power, and so, when their interests are involved, the theories and the clap-trap prevail. My purpose here is, not to defend any par- ticular " Coercion Act," but to expose the error and folly of the popular outcry against legislation of that character. Under the influence of this outcry an attitude of criminal apathy is apt to be maintained toward outbreaks of violence in Ireland, of a kind that in England would be suppressed promptly, and at any cost. And then, with the swing of the pendulum, there 2 A ITS THE CASE FOB HOME RULE [chap. follows some extreme measure, resort to which is made necessary by the preceding neglect of the ordinary duty of a Government. In the time of the Land League, for example, the Government remained passive, while all law was being defied in Ireland, and the law-abiding were being outraged and terrorised. Then Mr. Forster was allowed to make the attempt, with inadequate means, to grapple with the evil. And when the crisis was over and the danger past, an extraordinary statute, which would have prevented nine- tenths of the appalling crime of the League, was rushed through Parliament in a spirit of passion and panic. And folly reached a climax when this Coercion Act was made a stalking-horse for Home Rule. When the Dutch farmers of the Transvaal gave proof of their sturdincss and bravery on I lie battlefield, it was not strange that even in England there were many who wished them success in their struggle for independence. Hut to hold that a wild, mad orgy of violence and crime, as cowardly as it was hideous, gave proof that the peasantry of Ireland ought to have self-government— this may be statesman- ship, hut to common men it seems worthy of Bedlam. One more word upon this subject. There is not a sane man in Ireland, of any creed or party, who does not know in his heart, whatever xvi] A PARNELL-DAVITT STORY 179 he may profess with his lips, that no Irish Parliament could govern that country without " coercion." Mr. Michael Davitt tells the story that in the course of a conversation with Parnell as to how the Home Rule Parliament would set to work for the reformation of the country, he asked the question, " Suppose you were Prime Minister in the morning, how would you begin ? " " I think, Davitt," was Parnell's reply, " I should begin by locking you up." Many a true word is spoken in jest. And suppose the Irish Parliament began to " coerce " the loyalists ? What, then, would be the attitude of the Imperial Parliament ? For no one need imagine that the grant of Home Rule would relieve the Imperial Parliament of the incubus of Ireland. The Irish question Avould merely assume a new phase. Mr. Morley's narrative makes it plain that if the first Home Rule Bill had become law, and Mr. Parnell had been Prime Minister in Ireland in 1891, the events of that year would have raised an Irish question of a more difficult and dangerous kind than any we have known for a century — a conflict of the kind which menaced the safety of the kingdom in the days of Grattan's Parliament." * See "The Irish Parliament/' by Mr. Swift MacNeill, M.P., chap. iii. 180 THE CASE FOK HOME RULE [chap. And the wit of man could not frame a Home Rule scheme which would avert such a conflict. For what the Nationalists demand is " national self-government." They regard the government of Ireland by the Imperial Parliament as a usurpation. How long, then, would an Irish Parliament submit to the control of the Imperial Parliament ? For " control " is merely a euphe- mism for " government." How long would the craving for a separate and independent Parlia- ment be satisfied by " a legislative body " which would be neither separate nor independent, but thoroughly subordinate to the Imperial Parlia- ment ? * Educated and prosperous Ireland demands the maintenance of the Union. But no sec- tion of the community would be satisfied with any compromise between absolute equality under the Union, and complete independence. The Nationalists are perfectly honest in this matter. For while they avow their readiness to accept such a compromise to-day, they declare as plainly that they cannot bind those who will come after them. Home Rule * When addressing his constituents at Dunfermline on December 29, 1905, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was asked "Whether lie was in favour of granting a separate and independent Parliament for Ireland." And he rejdied, "No; neither the one nor the other. Any legislative body for Ireland that I have ever voted for was to be in subordination to the Imperial Parliament" (the I n„ i- . December '-'A) 1!R)5). xvi] THE CONFIDENCE TRICK 181 is merely " the confidence trick " on a huge scale.* * The Irish Nationalists are no fools, but can the same he said for their British allies, who imagine that the grant of Home Rule would rid them of "The Irish Question "? Under Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule scheme Ireland would probably occupy as much of the time of the Imperial Parliament as at present ; and the danger of a conflict between the two Parliaments would be constant. CHAPTER XVII MR. GLADSTONE AND UtH POLICY Mr. Morley's "Life of Gladstone" is a great monument to the greatest Englishman of his generation. But multitudes will join in de- precating the prominence with which the author's political opinions are obtruded in its pages. The manner in which the Home Rule controversy is presented in the later portion of the book destroys the perspective in which the generation now growing to manhood should be taught to view Mr. Gladstone's career. His sudden change of front upon the Irish Question was so extraordinary that even among his friends there were not a few who whispered that his head was giving way, while it led others to mutter doubts whether lust of power had not corrupted his heart. But the moment the hand of death removed him from the arena of faction, all this was forgotten, and without a dissentient voice, men of every party joined in a tribute of national homage to his memory. While, therefore, the Home Rule campaign could not be ignored in such a biography, it chap, xvii] MR. GLADSTONE 183 might well have been treated in the spirit which ruled during the days of public mourning that ended with his burial in the Abbey. And Mr. Morley has done a grievous wrong to his memory by waving over his grave the labarum of a bitter conflict. His doing so, moreover, seems all the more unpardonable in view of the fact, disclosed in the recent electoral struggle, that the majority, even of Mr. Gladstone's former colleagues, repudiate both the intention and the wish to revive the definite Home Rule scheme, either of 1886 or of 1893. And this fact suggests a tribute to his personal influence, which Mr. Morley \s political bias has obscured. To him Mr. Gladstone's conversion to Home Rule is only a further proof that Home Rule is just and right. But with most of us "the people " is not a synonym for "the mob." And respect for the popular voice is not limited to the contents of the ballot-boxes in which Irish peasants and Land Leaguers and moon- lighters cast their votes. We take account of the opinions of the educated classes in that country, and of the overwhelming majority of the English electorate. And when the question is raised, how it was that Mr. Gladstone won such a large measure of support for his later Irish policy, we find the answer in the fact that he wielded a magician's power over men.* * Mr. Bright's words are worth quoting here : "If Mr. Gladstone's 184 MR. GLADSTONES POLICY [chap. And his power depended, not merely on the qualities which raised him above his fellows, but no less on the intensely human sympathies that bound them to him. The range and grasp of his mind were not more extraordinary than was the readiness with whieh he could instantly turn away from affairs of the highest and most en- grossing nature, to give a hearing to any one who was in earnest about anything. Many incidents which illustrate this appear in his biography. And, egotistical though it may seem, I cannot refrain from adding my own petty quota to the list. When our affairs in Egypt and the Soudan were exciting attention throughout Europe I met him at a country house. He came into the library one morning with a file of Foreign Office papers, which so engrossed him that, as he sat down at the table at which I was writing, he seemed wholly un- conscious of my presence. Having finished his perusal of them, he had just taken up his pen, when another of the guests entered the room and, producing a Homer, brought a certain passage in the " Odyssey " to his notice. Mr. Gladstone discussed that passage as though neither Egypt nor the Foreign Office had any existence. And the moment he was left alone #reat authority were withdrawn from these Hills, I douht if twenty memhers outside the Irish party in the House of Commons would support them " (Letter of May 31, 1886). xvii] MR. GLADSTONE'S POWER 185 again, he resumed his pen, and wrote an official minute of grave importance about Egypt.* Still more egotistical is what I am about to add. I learn from Mr. Gladstone's diary — quoted in the "Life"— that December 18, 1889, was devoted to reviewing and reconsidering the whole Irish Question, with a view to discussing it with Farnell on his historic visit to Hawarden, which began that afternoon. And yet, on that very day, Mr. Gladstone found leisure to read a book of mine, and to write me a sympathetic letter, giving me some valuable criticisms and suggestions.! As has been said a thousand times, but for the spell of that marvellous personality Home Rule for Ireland would never have taken prac- tical shape in English politics. And yet, not- withstanding his unrivalled power of swaying the minds of men, Mr. Gladstone's seven years' campaign failed to win a single convert among the educated classes in that country.^ It behoves * How do I know its purport? His minute was perfectly legible on the blotting-pad he used. Is it any wonder that I refused to trust the lives of my informants to Ministers of State ! But I was no stranger to State secrets, and I kept that secret to myself. t I have on other occasions had proof of Mr. Gladstone's courtesy and kindness in letters about my books. But in this instance there was no reason for his writing to me at all ; for he was aware that the book was sent to him by my publishers without my knowledge. And to me the most extraordinary part of it was that, as in the case of every other communication I ever received from him, both letter and envelope were in his own handwriting. t The Irish petitions against the Home Rule Bill of 1893 had five times more signatures than the petitions against the Bill of 1886. 2 B 186 MR. GLADSTONES POLICY [chap. us, then, to dismiss every personal element from this controversy, and to review dispassionately the grounds on which this most revolutionary measure is commended to us. The following summary of them is hased on Mr. Gladstones speeches and Mr. Morley's book : — (1) That coercion is the only alternative policy to Home Rule. (2) That the Legislative Union has proved a failure. (3) That the Union was forced upon Ireland by corrupt and disgraceful means. (4) That self-government is a right inherent in a nation. (.5) That Ireland demands the enjoyment of that right. Of these theses the two first have been already dealt with. What is called coercion is not a " policy " at all, but merely the discharge in an exceptional way, rendered necessary by excep- tional circumstances, of the primary duty of government. And both the duty and the dis- charge of it would be unaffected by transferring the seat of government to Dublin. The alterna- tive to Home Rule is the policy which has already won over to the side of the Union all that was formerly most hostile to the Union, and all that is most intelligent and prosperous in Ireland to-day. xvii] " SEA FORBIDS THE UNION " 187 And as regards the third point, one of the stupidest blunders of this controversy is that of judging Grattan's Parliament and Pitt's methods in the light, and by the ethics, of the present day. The Union was brought about by the corrupt means usual in a corrupt age. But statesmanship will take sides with common sense in refusing to be swayed by academic questions of this kind, when dealing with the practical problems of the twentieth century. Without a " statute of limitations " civilised society would be impossible, and sensible men may be pardoned for turning with impatience from all this sen- timental nonsense about a past that is now remote.* But, we are told, every nation has an inalien- able right to self-government. This is one of those abstract propositions that delight a debating society. Let us accept it for the sake of argu- ment, and passing on to our last thesis, grapple with the question, In what sense is Ireland a nation ? " The sea forbids the Union," Grattan * In his " Irish Parliament," my friend, Mr. Swift MacNeill, M.P., quotes with approval Mr. Leeky's words, that "the Irish Parliament was in truth a body governed very constantly hy corrupt motives, though probably not more so than the English Parliament in the time of Walpole." Grattan's Parliament, with all its faults, was more representative of all that was best in Irish national life than any Home Rule Parliament would be to-day. In its treatment of the Roman Catholics, it was far more enlightened than the English Parliament. 188 MR. GLADSTONES POLICY [chap. exclaimed, and his words did not lack meaning when he uttered them. For a century ago Dublin was practically further from London than is Xew York or Alexandria to-day. At the end of a long and wearisome stage-coach journey, the traveller found a miserable berth upon a wretched little sixty-ton cutter, which carried him across the channel if the wind happened to be favourable. An ordeal the crossing must have been at its best, and old books describe its dangers and its horrors when the skies happened to be cruel. But nowadays we breakfast in London and dine in Dublin, the channel being bridged by vessels that defy the elements. " Not quite," some one may murmur, " the vessels are admirable, but the sea is still the same." Are we then to hold that a cure for sea- sickness would solve the Irish problem ? If so we ought surely to give the twentieth century a chance before deciding that the problem is in- soluble. A small poundage, moreover, upon the millions sunk in Irish land would give us a railway under the twenty miles of sea between Port Patrick and the Antrim coast. And, apart from railway trains and steamboats, the telegraph and the telephone have destroyed distance alto- gether. To hold that the Irish are a "nation" because they live upon an island is, in these days of electricity and steam, the merest bitise. What, then, is the meaning of this phrase, xvii] THERE IS NO "IRISH NATION'' 189 " the Irish nation " ? Does it mean that the Irish are a distinct and homogeneous race ? If so we may aver that if there be one point on which we shall all agree in a controversy where so much is disputable, it is in the answer we shall give to that question. For one of the most serious difficulties in the Irish problem depends upon the fact that the population of Ireland is not homogeneous, or, in other words, that there is no Irish nation. And racial differences, instead of disappearing as they tend to do in other lands, are maintained and accentuated by religious strife. This is not understood in England, where Protestants and Roman Catholics have learned to live side by side in peace. But in England Roman Catholicism has been tempered and moulded, not only by modern civilisation, but by the genius of the national character ; whereas the Popery of the Irish peasant is the religion of the Dark Ages. And the typical Maynooth priest, who is the son of a peasant home, is the minister of that evil cult.* The educated classes in Ireland live together on terms of social intercourse and private friendship. But mediaeval superstition, and the spirit it engenders, are utterly revolting. Hence the want of sympathy that exists between the educated Irish " Catholic " and his co-reli- gionists, not only of the peasantry, but of the * See Appendix, Note V., p. 215, post. 190 MR. GLADSTONE'S POLICY [chap. lower clergy. Hence the seemingly aggressive character of Irish Protestantism. If, then, we are to consider the Home Rule question apart from ethnical problems and sea- sickness, it resolves itself into this, that Ireland is entitled to legislative independence because the majority of the electorate demand it. But if this principle be accepted in the case of Ireland, it must apply equally to Scotland and Wales, and, indeed, to any of the ancient divisions of the Heptarchy. When addressing a meeting in Aberdeen in the days before his perversion, Mr. Gladstone urged this with striking force. " If," said he, " the doctrines of Home Rule are to be estab- lished in Ireland, I protest, on your behalf, that you will be just as well entitled to it in Scotland. And I protest on behalf of Wales, where there are eight hundred thousand people who — such is their sentiment of nationality — speak hardly any- thing but their own Celtic tongue — a larger number than speak it in Ireland — I protest on behalf of Wales that they are entitled to Home Hide there." What this demand means is, that our present system of popular franchise, revised a generation ago on arbitrary and somewhat fanciful lines, and framed for purposes altogether within the constitution, may be used to destroy the con- stitution. Pass a Redistribution Bill, and the xvii] HOME RULE 191 Home Rule majority would be sensibly reduced. Raise the franchise to the level at which it stood before the last Reform Act, and that majority would disappear. So long as we have an hereditary Second Chamber, the present popular franchise may be admirable for the purposes of party government within the constitution. But if a measure be proposed which thus violates the constitution, society becomes resolved into its elements, and the intelligence and wealth of a community are entitled to a collective voice without reference to the ballot-boxes. And that a Home Rule Bill does violate the constitution may be illustrated by the fact that, if we had a Supreme Court on the American model, such a Bill, though passed by Parliament, would be vetoed by the Court. Suppose, as is very possible, that some future Reform Bill gives manhood suffrage, limited to persons actually residing in the constituency. With such a franchise the M.P.'s for the City of London would no more represent the interests which make the City what it is — in a word the real City — than the Nationalist M.P.'s now represent the real Ireland. But under our constitution the real City could still rely upon Parliament as a whole. And it is certain that the merchant princes of London would never be told that the " carpet-baggers " so elected by the office-keepers and caretakers, and the tradesmen 192 MR. GLADSTONE'S POLICY [chap. of the back streets, were alone entitled to speak for " the City." Yet that is precisely the treat- ment with which the prosperous and educated classes in Ireland are threatened. And the injustice becomes all the more flagrant, because of the very peculiar circumstances of that country. His appreciation of this it was, no doubt, which led Mr. Morley to say some twenty years ago : "I, for one, will never be a party to placing a minority and the property of a minority at the mercy of a majority." * But tempora mutantur, etc. This is precisely what Home Rule would do. Entirely in the same spirit was Mr. Bright's decision to oppose the Home Rule Bill of 1886. " 1 cannot consent," he declared, "to a measure which is so offensive to the whole Protestant population of Ireland, and to the whole sentiment of the province of Ulster, so far as its loyal and Pro- testant people are concerned. I cannot agree to exclude them from the protection of the Imperial Parliament." f Having regard, then, to the nature and cir- cumstances of the Irish minority, which is irreconcilably opposed to Home Rule, to maintain that "Ireland demands Home Rule" * I take this from a letter which appeared in the Times of January 13, 1891. As it is signed " A/' J may add that I was not the writer of it. t Letter to Mr. (ila.lstonc of May 13, 188U. xvn] AN AMERICAN PARALLEL 193 is to mistake theories for facts. And we may now go a step further and assert that, even were it otherwise, the issue would have to be decided, not on academic theories at all, but on thoroughly practical lines. For with nations as with men, when life and safety are in peril, theories count for nothing. Were a united Ireland to speak with united voice upon this subject, the problem would be precisely analogous to that which brought about the American Civil War. If Ireland from sea to sea were hostile to England, England would not dare to accede to " the national demand." It is only because a powerful minority is friendly to England that any Home Rule scheme can be entertained. And to make the friendship of the minority a reason for betraying them would be an act of unutterable infamy. 2 c CHAPTER XVIII CONCLUSION : AN ALTERNATIVE POLICY The preceding chapter, it may perhaps be said, is based on misrepresentation and error. Home Rule, we shall be told, has nothing in common with a demand for separation, such as that by which the Southern States provoked the American Civil War ; it merely claims for Ireland the right of local self-government. It proposes to delegate to a thoroughly subordinate Parliament the power to deal with affairs which are purely Irish, the Imperial Parliament maintaining its control, and supplying a court of appeal in case of any action which is either ultra vires or unjust " Was there ever a device more certain to prolong all the troubles of [the Imperial] Parlia- ment . . . than the proposal to dole out to 1 1 (land . . . that which she does not want, and which if she accepts at all, she will only accept for the purpose of making further demands ? " In these prophetic words, spoken twenty yens ago, Mr. Gladstone scouted the proposal which is commended to us to-day by the men who chap, xviii] DEVOLUTION 195 pretend to be administrators of his policy. It would settle nothing. And what it would un- settle no one can forecast." This sort of Home Rule is not wanted by the " Unionists," and it will not satisfy the " Nation- alists." The Irish are seldom agreed on any great public question, and the unanimity with which both parties have repudiated " Devolution " ought to be an " end of controversy " here. The Irish National League supplies an authoritative statement of the " Nationalist " demand ; and in the " platform " of the League, national self- government holds the first place. Local self- government is included, but it is wholly subordinate, f But, it will be answered, " Ireland " means the voice of the majority of the electorate, expressed in the proper constitutional manner by their Parliamentary representatives. This, of course, reopens the questions dealt with in the preceding chapter. And moreover, down to the present hour, * " Gas and water Home Rule," as it has been contemptuously termed, of course may come. But this I need not discuss. Suffice it to say that, if and when it comes, prosperous and cultured Ireland — the real Ireland— will claim to be treated apart from Mr. Morley's Ireland — the Ireland of the League. If my parable about the City of Loudon (p. 191, ante) should ever be realised, the great commercial interests of the City will not be relegated to the sort of men who will then represent the City in the House of Commons. And to place the material interests of Ireland in the power of the representatives of the ignorant masses of the people would bring about a commercial ruin as complete as that which resulted from the infamous laws of other days (p. 170, ante). t See p. 116, ante. 196 AN ALTERNATIVE POLICY [chap. the " Nationalist " members have declared their aim and goal to be " the restoration of national self-government" for Ireland. Yes, it may be said, but this must be construed in the light of their acceptance of Mr. Gladstones Home Kule Bills of 1886 and 1893. One might suppose that Mr. Morley's graphic account of ParnelTs repu- diation in 1890, of his explicit pledges of 1886, would suffice to show the folly of basing a great revolutionary change on such a foundation as this. Such pledges ought in honour to bind the men who give them. But they cannot bind those who come after them." With perfect honesty, and with his usual clearness, Mr. Parnell himself thus gave expres- sion to this in 1885 — " They could not ask for less than the resti- tution of Grattan's Parliament. They could scarcely, under the constitution, ask for more. But no man had the right to fix the boundary to the march of a nation ; and while they struggled to-day for that which it might seem possible for them to obtain, they might struggle for it with the proud consciousness that they were doing nothing to hinder or prevent better men who * At a meeting of the Nationalist Parliamentary party in Dublin ( ity Hall mi February 10, L906, the following resolution was pro- posed by .Mr. John Redmond, M.P., chairman of the party, seconded by Mr John Dillon, and carried unanimously : "That this party, as its first act, reiterates thedemand of the Irish nation for the restora- tion of National self-government" (Times, February 12). xviii] A 'DIVIDED IRELAND'' 197 may come forward in the future from gaining better things than those for which they were now struggling." * These words still stand. In an earlier chapter I have shown the kind and measure of " coercion" that was needed to suppress the demand for " better things," even in the halcyon days of " Grattan's Parliament." And if " Grattan's Parliament " were restored, not many years would pass before that same demand would be revived by a new " National League," and enforcd by a new " Fenian conspiracy." In connection with this question there is a passage in Mr. Morley's narrative which is worthy of being separated off, and placed in the strongest light. On his way back from Ireland in December, 1890, he broke his journey at Hawarden ; and an extract from his diary describes what passed between him and Mr. Gladstone on this occasion. Here are his words : — " The bare idea that Parnell might rind no inconsiderable following came upon him as if it had been a thunderclap. He listened, and catechised, and knit his brow." Mr. Gladstone asked, "What do you think we should do in case (1) of a divided Ireland, (2) of a Parnellite Ireland ? " * Speech at Cork, January 21, 1885. 198 AN ALTERNATIVE POLICY [chap. To which Mr. Morley replied, " It is too soon to settle what to think. But, looking to Irish interests, I think a Parnellite Ireland infinitely better than a divided Ireland. Anything better than an Ireland divided, so far as she is con- cerned." Let us note what this means. When, as Mr. Morley records on this same page, the Parnellite M.P.'s quarrelled in " Committee Room 15," and broke into two sections, Ireland was " divided ; " and, to quote his words again, he and Mr. Gladstone recognised " the horrors of dissension in Ireland." But so long as the Parnellites stood together, there was no dis- sension in Ireland, no disunion. It mattered nothing that on the other side was arrayed every class and every interest that made Ireland solvent and great — educated Ireland, professional Ireland, mercantile Ireland, Protestant Ireland. All this counted for nothing so long as the Parnellite majority were at one. Were this matter not so serious, were these utterances not so pestilently mischievous, the scene might well excite an Irish sense of humour. We picture to ourselves the greatest statesman of his time, and an eminent political philosopher, sitting together, like a pair of small schoolboys astride their favourite hobby, and imagining it to be a real horse. But all the humour of it is lost in a feeling of burning indignation that the best xvni] MR. BRIGHT'S LETTER 199 interests of Ireland should thus be contemptuously ignored, sacrificed to political theories and fads.* In a conversation with Mr. Morley, before he became a Minister of State, I met his argument that Ireland must be granted self-government, by asking the question, " And what kind of govern- ment will it be ? " To which he promptly re- plied, " The worst government in the world ; but that does not affect the principle." I recalled to mind the case of a friend of my family long ago, who gave cold baths to his children " on prin- ciple." One of the children survived, and if the others would have been at all like him, this generation is the poorer for their fate. To act on principle outside the sphere of morals is the part of — well, it is the part of people who are not philosophers. The common sense and love of justice which mark the English character are displayed in Mr. Bright 's memorable letter to Mr. Gladstone, of May 13, 1886, quoted at length in Mr. Morley 's book. It ends with these pregnant words : — " For thirty years I have preached justice to Ireland. I am as much in her favour now as in past times, but I do not think it justice or wisdom for Great Britain to consign her popu- lation, including Ulster and all her Protestant families, to what there is of justice and wisdom * See Appendix, Note VI., p. 218, post. 200 AN ALTERNATIVE POLICY [chap. in the Irish party now sitting in the Parliament in Westminster." Yet another passage in Mr. Morley *s book claims special prominence here. Unless Ireland is to have absolute independence, a condition precedent to the consideration of any Home Rule measure is, as Mr. Gladstone declared in 1882,* that its advocates shall devise " a plan by which it is distinctly set forth by what authority and machinery they mean to divide between Imperial and local questions." No such scheme lias ever been formulated. Underlying it is " the crucial difficulty," as Mr. Morley calls it, of " the Irish representation at Westminster." It was that difficulty which wrecked the Home Rule Bill of 1886. In the light of the experience gained by that failure, the problem was under anxious consideration during the seven years which preceded the second attempt of 1803. And yet, as Mr. Morley tells us, a Committee, con- sisting of the elite of the Cabinet, to whom the Kill of 1803 was referred, attempted in vain to deal with it. Three courses presented them- selves. Rut, while Mr. Gladstone's proverbial three courses usually led into the open, these three courses all ended in a hopeless maze. And the makeshift scheme, which was the best they could devise, had to be abandoned as soon as * See p. 117, ante. xvni] A HOME RULE PARADOX 201 ever it came to be discussed in the House of Commons. Here are Mr. Morley's words — " Each of the three courses was open to at least one single, but very direct, objection. Exclusion, along with the exaction of revenue from Ireland by the Parliament at Westminster, was taxation without representation. Inclusion for all purposes was to allow the Irish to meddle in our affairs while we were no longer to meddle in theirs. Inclusion for limited purposes still left them invested with the power of turning out a British Government by a vote against it on an imperial question. Each plan, therefore, ended in a paradox."* These words refer, it is true, to the events of 1893 ; but they have been penned to-day, and penned by the greatest living champion of the movement. And the inexorable conclusion to which they lead is, that the wit of man can- not devise a Home Rule scheme under which Ireland will not be either entirely subordinate to England, or entirely independent. Subordi- nation Ireland would refuse with united voice ; independence England will never grant. Never, at least, save during some period of temporary lunacy. For nations, like men, seem to be liable to fits of madness. If reason ruled in * Vol. iii., p. 498. 2 D 202 AN ALTERNATIVE POLICY [chap. the political sphere, Mr. Morley's book would be a death-blow to the Home Rule craze. Or if any one still clings to the belief that Home Rule may be granted without destroying the integrity and endangering the safety of the Kingdom, that delusion should be dispelled by the latest authoritative statement of the demand. In his place in Parliament, not a year ago, Mr J. E. Redmond, M.P., speaking as the accredited leader of the " Nationalists," used these words— " They regarded the government of their country by this Parliament as a usurpation ; they denied the validity and disputed the moral binding force of the Act of Union. They demanded self-government, not as a favour, but as a right ; they based their demand, not upon grievances, but upon the inherent and inalienable right of the Irish nation to govern itself. They declared plainly that they would rather be governed badly by their own Parliament, than well by that assembly." And he added — " If he believed that there was the smallest reasonable chance of success, he would have no hesitation in advising his fellow countrymen to endeavour to end the present system by armed revolt." * * The Times, April 13, 1905. The character of the speaker tendfi freight to these words. Not only is he tlie leader of the "Nationalist" party, hut personally lie differs from most of his colleagues in two respects, namely : First, he is a gentleman, and xviti] MR. GLADSTONE 203 Home Rule was formerly claimed as a remedy for Irish grievances unredressed. But now, since no grievances remain, national independence is demanded as a right ; and the demand is backed by unveiled threats of an appeal to arms. In this same speech Mr. Redmond declared that they would prefer absolute separation to the present system of government by the Imperial Parliament. The loyalists of Ireland would possibly prefer absolute separation to the sort of government for which he clamours. Rather than be "governed badly by their own Parlia- ment," not a few of them might well claim to retain their British citizenship. For then they would have the right to appeal, through British consuls, to the power of Britain to protect them. What answer shall be given to this most insolent demand ? " Can any sensible man — can any rational man — suppose that at this time of day, in this condition of the world, we are going to disintegrate the great capital institutions of this country, to make ourselves ridiculous in the sight of all mankind ( " These words are Mr. Gladstone's. And their force is immensely in- creased by the fact that the Home Rule he had in view when he uttered them was not a blatant never indulges in coarse or offensive language ; and, secondly, he is a sensible man who avoids the style of oratory which the Americans call " flapdoodle." If all Parnellites were men of the type of Mr. J. E. Redmond, Home Rule might not spell disaster But such men are few, and they would soon be pushed aside. 204 AN ALTERNATIVE POLICY [chap. demand for independence, but merely the mild and modest scheme which was championed by Isaac Butt. The special danger at this moment is not Home Rule legislation, but Home Rule admin- istration ; governing Ireland as it would be governed under an Irish Parliament ; governing, that is, in the interests, and according to the wishes and sentiments, of the political agitators and Maynooth priests, and the ignorant masses whom they control and dupe. " Governing Ireland according to Irish ideas " it is called in the jargon of the controversy. This evil system was never described more aptly than by Sir William Harcourt. " If," said he, " they were to govern Ireland according to Irish ideas, he feared they would find themselves reduced to the consequence of not governing Ireland at all." And yet there is one element omitted here. It is supplied by the letter of an Irish peasant who, on emigrating to America, found himself in the middle of an Irish colony in New York. " This is a real free country," he wrote^ " every- body does what he likes, and if he doesn't, then begorra ! we make him do it." This combination of licence and tyranny was characteristic of the Land League rule, and a Home Rule Parliament would perpetuate it. Sir William Harcourt went on to say — and xvm] SIR W. HARCOURTS VIEWS 205 his words are specially important at the present moment — " He had always regarded Ireland as a part of Her Majesty's dominions — as an integral fraction of a united Empire — and if that be so, Ireland, like all other parts of the dominions of the Queen, must be governed, not according to Irish, but according to Imperial ideas. Imperial ideas were exactly opposite, so far as he could judge, to Irish ideas, for Imperial ideas prescribed the duty to administer equal justice to every class of Her Majesty's subjects." If for a single generation Ireland were governed thus, according to Imperial ideas, " the Irish Question " would disappear. But the new panacea of the doctrinaire politician is government in the interest of those who happen to be in a majority at a Parliamentary election. " There is but one secret in governing Ireland, as in governing any country, and it is to govern for the good of the whole people." * This is the Imperial conception of government. And this is the policy of the Union. But in the past that policy has never had a fair trial. The ascendency of privileged classes has been tried. The far more evil ascendency of the agitator and the mob has had its day. At times disloyal and noisy men have been petted and promoted, * These words are Isaac Butt's ; they were adopted by Mr. Redmond in hisjspeech quoted on p. 202, ante. 206 AN ALTERNATIVE POLICY [chap. and the quiet and law - abiding have been neglected and discouraged. Brief intervals, there have been, of government of the kind which is habitual on this side of the Irish Channel, where good citizens are always helped, and sedition-mongers are suppressed. But a change of ministers has soon led to a change of policy, and there has been no continuity of administration. My special acquaintance with both Dublin Castle and the Home Office has given me exceptional opportunities of appreciating the difference between government on that side of the channel and on this.* In England administration is marked by that healthy kind of favouritism which encourages the well-behaved child, and the obedient and efficient soldier ; whereas in Ireland the evil favouritism which prevails is like that of pamper- ing the tartars of the nursery, and the turbulent and ill-conditioned men of a regiment. As Mr. Froude once wrote to me, Ireland is governed on the principle of handing over the control of the ship to the mutinous portion of the crew. * I was greatly struck by this when I first came to Whitehall. And I was amazed to find that continuity of administration WBB unaffected by a change of' Government. When -Mr. liruce came to the Home Office in December, 18G9, he announced to the heads of departments that all was to go on as before, as he assumed that everything which Mr. Hardy, his Tory predecessor, had done was right. xviii] UNIONIST CONVENTIONS 207 And yet, in spite of all this, the Union has won its way. Its success, indeed, within living memory, has been extraordinary. When I left Ireland, not yet forty years ago, I could not have dreamed that I should live to see such amazing demonstrations of loyalty and friendship to England, as the great Unionist Conventions of 1892.* While the men of Mr. Morley's Ireland — politicians and priests and peasants and paupers — were clamouring for separation, thousands of the elected representatives of every element that is stable and strong in Irish life came together to protest against the creation of a Parliament for Ireland, and to declare un- alterable determination to uphold the Union. Never before in the history of Ireland had there been anything like it. Men of all classes and creeds, and every interest which entitles Ireland to the proud position she now holds in the government of the Empire, stood together in perfect unity, and spoke with one voice. Even sheep are weighed as well as counted ; and the men who, when judged by any test except a poll, are best entitled to speak for Ireland, are all enthusiastically loyal. Is it right and wise to insult or to ignore them ? Is there no risk of forcing them into the rebel camp ? The part of statesmanship is patiently but firmly to carry out the policy which has produced these * See Appendix, Note VI., p. 218, post. 208 ALTERNATIVE POLICY [ch. xviii wonderful results, the policy which formerly claimed Mr. Gladstone as its ablest and most uncompromising champion, the policy which, till Mr. Gladstone abandoned it, had the support of public men of every name and party in Great Britain. APPENDIX Note I. (Page HO, ante). It would not be easy to exaggerate the intensity of feeling: with which Mr. Gladstone's administration of Ireland was regarded by the loyalists. Two illustrative incidents occur to me. The first relates to a valued friend of mine, now dead — a man who held a nigh official position in Ireland, and who was an enthusiastic admirer of Mr. Gladstone. Our long friendship was never ruffled by a single jarring word, save on one occasion. At his dinner-table one evening I made a flippant remark which he considered uncomplimentary to Mr. Gladstone, and he " snubbed " me angrily before his other guests. " The old rascal's base policy " was his reference to Mr. Gladstone in a letter I had from him at a later date. The other friend of whom I shall speak is an English- man, a man not unknown in London society, whose brother was an English M.P. of influence and repute. He had been led to make his home in Ireland. It some- times happens that an English resident gets into closer touch with the peasantry even than the native gentry ; and my friend was full of sympathy for them. As we sat alone after dinner one evening, he spoke feelingly of their sorrows and sufferings under the League rule. Men like himself could obtain police protection, he said, but the poor cottagers were left to the tender mercies of the moonlighters and village ruffians. One of the most amiable and equable of men — a man who never used an expletive or even raised his voice — he 2 E 210 APPENDIX electrified me by saying in his calm way. without a trace of passion, that the minister who was responsible for this state of things deserved to be treated as an outlaw, and that, if he could do it with safety, he would contribute 15 to have Mr. Gladstone shot. Such was the view taken by a cool-blooded English- man of the conduct of a minister who, under the influence of claptrap and theories about " coercion " and " ordinary law," left the unfortunate victims of League rule to their fate. Note II. (Page 115, ante). The following are extracts from " The Irish National Invincibles,' 1 by Patrick J. P. Tynan, the notorious " No. 1 " of that section of the conspiracy : — " It must be distinctly understood that the creation of this new and important Irish organization, or rather the transferring of the braver and more determined members of the Land League into the National Inviucibles, was not the work of subordinates in the Parnellite ranks. It was the action of those who governed the movement, men the very highest intellectually and authoritatively, and to whom were delegated the legitimate control and responsi- bility of meeting every exigency forced on them by the exasperated enemy. In a word, the Invincibles sprang into existence by order of the Parnellite Government of Ireland elected by the Irish nation. ... It was decided by the Parnellite Government — which was also, with two excep- tions, the Executive of the Invincibles— that there was no alternative but to meet the assassin rule of Britain by force. ... It was resolved by the earliest council held by the Executive of the Invincibles, that these ferocious offices (i.e. the Chief and Under Secretary's) should be kept vacant by the continued 'suppression 1 of their holders. . . . The Irishmen who promulgated these orders had the INVINCIBLES AND PARNELLITES 211 legal right to issue them. This authority was conferred upon them by the Irish nation . . . But for the Parnel- lites there would have been no Invincibles ; all the glory of that short-lived struggle rests on the brave men who took the field, all the disgrace and the degradation on the statesmen who deserted and slandered them. "The Invincible organization was militant Ireland, the nation prepared to smite the foe. It held a higher mandate for its existence than any recent Irish movement at its birth. It was created by lawful and organized authority ; its principles and its laws were those given to it by its Parnellite creators, who were the legal govern- ment of the Irish nation. . . . There were, no doubt, many men in the Parnellite ranks in 1881 who would have opposed, if consulted, the formation of any such organization ; but they were not among the active and patriotic section. . . . They may be sincere in their denunciation of the Invincibles in Dublin, as they are sincere slaves and British flunkeys. But this does not remove from their shoulders one iota of the responsibility attending the creation of this active movement; if they had authority at headquarters, they should have been there to give the Provincialist organization their services. But in the face of facts around them, of circumstances that could not have been hidden from the most stupid — if they had not absolute information, -they must have had more than a shrewd suspicion that the Irish Invincibles and their own movement was the Land League in a more active form. If this is not so, these men must have less than the ordinary perception of natural intelligence. " This history cannot be too emphatic in stating that the Parnellism of that epoch and the Invincibles were one and the same in actual fact; the policy of this active movement, its authority, its armament (such as it was) sprang from the organized ranks of 'legal agitation. , ' ,, 212 APPENDIX Note III. (Page 144, ante). The following is the text of the "facsimile" letter, which appeared in the Times of April 18, 1887 : — " 15/5/82 " Dkar Sir, " I am not surprised at your friend's anger, but he and you should know that to denounce the murders was the only course open to us. To do that promptly was plainly our best policy. " But you can tell him and all others concerned that though I regret the accident of Lord F. Cavendish's death, I cannot refuse to admit that Burke got no more than his deserts. " You are at liberty to show him this, and others whom you can trust also, but let not my address be known. He can write to House of Commons. " Yours very truly, "Chas. S. Pabnkll." And the following is Richard Pigotfs principal forgery : — " 9/1/82 " Dear E., " What are these fellows waiting for P This inaction is inexcusable. Our best men are in prison, and nothing is being done. " Let there lie an end of this hesitency. Prompt action is called for. "You undertook to make it hot for old Forster and Co. Let us have some evidence of your power to do so. " My health is good, thanks. " Your's very truly, " Chas. S. PabnELL." THE FACSIMILE' LETTER 213 Sir Charles Russell began his cross-examination of Pigott (on February 21, 1889) by making him write certain words, and among them " hesitancy," which the witness misspelt as in the letter. The whole of the following day (Friday) he was under cross-examination ; but when the Court reassembled on Tuesday, the 16th, he failed to appear. It transpired that he had absconded, and a warrant for his arrest was placed in my hands. The officers whom I deputed to execute it tracked him to Madrid, but on their arriving at the hotel in which he was staying, he shot himself. A full and careful examination of the originals of these letters would satisfy an expert that the forgery dated 9/1/82 was framed upon the " facsimile. 11 The first half of it is an excellent attempt to copy the writing of the " facsimile ; 11 the latter part not so good. The signature is a slavish imitation, but with one significant blunder — just the sort of blunder Pigott would make — namely, the " Your's. 11 The "facsimile 11 letter is written on the first page of the notepaper, and the writing of the last three lines is very cramped, in order to get them into the page. But the " Yours very truly " and the signature are at the top of the opposite page. If this arrangement was not in- tentional, for reasons which it is not difficult to conjecture, the inference is clear that the signature was written before the letter itself. A busy man sometimes gives a secretary or clerk a draft of a letter, and his signatui'e on a blank sheet of paper, to be used in writing it. I have often done so myself. This may be the explanation of the " facsimile. 11 Or a signature given by Parnell for some other purpose may have been thus used dishonestly. But which of these hypotheses is the true one can never now be known. Of the genuineness of the signature I feel no doubt. Pigott, I repeat, had no part in writing the letter, 214 APPENDIX and he believed it to be genuine. The hand that wrote it was that of Arthur CTKeefe, assistant sub-editor of Mr. William O'Brien's paper, United Ireland, who was arrested under Forster's Act, on December 15, 1881, and imprisoned with Parnell in Kilmainham. A good deal of sentimental nonsense has been talked and written about this letter. Parnell's repudiation of it deserves weight : but it must not hv forgotten that some of his denials at the Special Commission were untruthful. If the letter was not genuine, the writer traded on the fact that, such was the bitterness of feeling in Ireland at the time, Parnell might have said, and probably did say, that " Burke got no more than his deserts." Note IV. (Page 146, ante). On November 17, 1890, Captain O'Shea obtained a decree of divorce against his wife, Mr. Parnell being the co-respondent. To both Parnellites and Liberals this was a " bolt from the blue. -1 ' 1 But for a week it looked as though the event would pass without materially affecting either party. Mr. Gladstone made no sign, and even the Irish Roman Catholic Bishops were silent. The Nationalists met in Dublin on the 20th, and decided with enthusiasm to maintain his leadership ; and at their usual meeting at the opening of the Session they re-elected him chairman of the party. But " the Nonconformist conscience " was aroused, and that same evening (25th) a letter from Mr. Gladstone was issued to the Press, an- nouncing that, unless Parnell was shelved, he would withdraw from the leadership of the Liberal party On the 29th, Parnell issued a manifesto in reply, to the effect that his Hawarden visit had satisfied him that Mr. Glad- stone intended to play them false, and claiming to stand between his country and betrayal. Then followed the historic meetings in Committee Room No. 15, which PARNELL'S LAPSE AND DEATH 215 resulted, after a bitter struggle, in ParneH's deposition by the very men who a few days before had elected him to the leadership. Supported by an influential minority of his party, he made a fierce fight to maintain his supremacy in Ireland. But the Roman Catholic clergy followed Mr. Gladstone in repudiating him, and his failure to carry his nominees at various bye-elections gave proof that his power was broken. The struggle proved a cruel exposure of the Nationalists. There were honourable exceptions — men who, through it all, bore themselves with dignity. But for the mass it was a perfect orgy of Bedlam-c^w-Billings- gate ; and if even a little of what they said about one another be true, the Irish loyalists may well pray to be saved from a Parliament which such men would control. Parnell married Mrs. CTShea, and lived with her in Brighton. On October 6, 1891, he died from the effects of a chill contracted the week before in one of his flying visits to Ireland. On the following Saturday his body was conveyed to Ireland ; and his funeral in Dublin on Sunday, the 11th, was a great popular demonstration, unparalleled since the death of O'Connell. He was only forty-six years of age at his death. The great-grandson of Sir John Parnell of Grattan\s Parliament, Parnell was returned as M.P. for Meath in 1875, and at once made his presence felt at Westminster by a policy of organized obstruction. Note V. (Page 189, ante). In his "Recollections of Fenians and Fenianism, v ' John O'Leary quotes the following extracts from one of Charles J. Kickhaufs articles in The Irish People. And he adds much of his own to the same effect. Both these men, be it remembered, wrote as Roman Catholics. " The majority of our priests are the sons of farmers. 216 ArrENDIX They are sent to college at an early age knowing little or nothing of the world. From the day they don the coat of the ecclesiastical student, till they are ordained, thev scarcely give a thought to politics. Pious, moral, full of zeal for religion, and of pride in their order, these young men enter on their priestly duties. The farmer's son, who looked with awe upon the village despot — who put his hand to his hat for his shoneen, and was looked down upon even by respectable Catholics — finds himself suddenly metamorphosed into an object of reverence ; finds those who looked down upon him ready to court and flatter him. It should be a strong head that this could not turn . . . then the altar is turned into a platform . . . a scandal which would not be tolerated in any other country in the world but Ireland.'" The following is an extract from a " headed article " by Mr. Bart Kennedy, which appeared in the Daily Mail of May 16, 1905 :— " Ireland is under the shadow of an insolent and arrogant priest-power. The heel of the priest is on her neck. I have nothing to say against the Roman Catholic Church, for I am a Roman Catholic myself. I am a firm believer in the grand service that the Roman Catholic Church has done for civilisation. I bow before the splendour of her wonderful and awe-inspiring ritual. A beautiful Catholic church is of far more value to mankind, even in a utilitarian sense, than a factory. No one can deny the debt that mankind owes to Catholicism. " But the Holy Roman Catholic Church has suffered before now from its priests. The deadliest enemies it has ever had have been priests. Priests lost for it Italy and Prance. Will they lose for it Ireland ? " My attention was first drawn to the power of priests, and the way they use it, here in Galway — this old, picturesque town that stands in view of the vast Atlantic Ocean. THE IRISH PRIESTS 217 "It is not too much to say that the people here are in positive terror of the priests. They can neither call their lives nor their minds their own. When they speak of the priests they speak in whispers. Even people who are not Catholics are afraid. It is dreadful to be in a place where people are afraid to speak. " The priests rule everything and interfere; in every- thing. The hand of God — as represented by the priests — falls heavily upon Galway. "And these priests stand high above criticism. No one shall dare speak to the hierarchy of Ireland. For the hierarchy cares for nothing that is said. It is serenely above all other judgments save its own. " But all things cost something. This hierarchical serenity has cost Rome Italy. It has cost Rome France. It will cost Rome Ireland. "And I, a Roman Catholic, say that these arrogant Irish priests no more represent the sacred and beautiful Roman Catholic Faith than the priests of Tibet represent Buddhism — the priests who live their lives in holes in rocks. " Are the hierarchical authorities in Rome aware of what the priests are doing in Ireland P Are they aware that they are grinding the lives and the souls out of the people ? Are they aware that the people dare not speak ? Are they aware that even the peasants are secretly revolting against the tyranny of the priests ? " If they are not aware of this, it is time, then, that they sent some alert and observant cleric to look into the question. Rome has been accused of many things, but no one has ever accused Rome of lack of intelligence. " Let the authorities of Rome look to Ireland, and see if the priests are not acting against the interests of the Roman Catholic Church. 11 2 F 218 APPENDIX Note VI. (Page 207, ante). A volume might be filled with authoritative proofs that all the educated ami prosperous classes in Ireland are opposed to Home Rule. But a few must suffice. The notable demonstrations of June, 1892, claim a prominent place in this connection. The great Unionist Convention held in Belfast on the 17th of that month was a meeting of extraordinary interest and importance. A special building had to be erected to contain the delegates. The Duke of Abercorn presided, and every interest which makes Ulster one of the most prosperous portions of the United Kingdom was represented on the platform. The following resolution was carried unanimously and with great enthusiasm : — "That this Convention, consisting of 11,879 delegates, representing the Unionists of every creed, class, and party throughout Ulster, appointed at public meetings held in every electoral division of the province, hereby solemnly resolves and declares — "1. That we express the devoted loyalty of Ulster Unionists to the Crown and Constitution of the United Kingdom ; "2. That we avow our fixed resolve to retain un- changed our present position as an integral portion of the United Kingdom, and protest in the most unequivocal manner against the passage of any measure that would rob us of our inheritance in the Imperial Parliament, under the protection of which our capital has been invested, and our homes and rights safeguarded ; " 3. That we record our determination to have nothing to do with a Parliament certain to be controlled by men responsible for the crime and outrage of the Land League, the dishonesty of the ' Plan of Campaign, 1 and the THE UNIONIST CONVENTIONS 219 cruelties of boycotting, many of whom have shown them- selves the ready instruments of clerical domination ; " 4. That we declare to the people of Great Britain our conviction that the attempt to set up such a Parlia- ment in Ireland will inevitably result in disorder, violence, and bloodshed, such as has not been experienced this century ; and announce our resolve to take no part in the election or proceedings of such a Parliament, the authority of which, should it ever be constituted, we shall be forced to repudiate ; " 5. That we protest against this great question, which involves our lives, property, and civil rights, being treated as a mere side issue in the impending electoral struggle ; " 6. That we appeal to those of our fellow-countrymen who have hitherto been in favour of a separate Parliament, to abandon a demand which hopelessly divides Irishmen, and to unite with us'uinjer the Imperial Legislature in developing the resources an furthering the best interests of our common country." The following week (June 25) a similar convention was held in Dublin, representing ft i Unionists of the three southern provinces. The platform was crowded by " men of light and leading," and the speakers included peers, scholars, professional men, merchants and traders, landowners and farmers — in a word, men representing all classes, all creeds, and all interests. The Earl of Fingall, the head of the Roman Catholic laity of Ireland, presided, and his opening speech contained the following significant sentences : — " I hasten on behalf of loyal Catholics and Liberal Unionists to assure our Protestant and Conservative companions in arms that we will stand by them as long as they stand by us. I am not aware that in the southern province of Ireland there has ever been seen an assembly such as I am addressing. Every creed and class, all 220 APPENDIX professions, trades, and occupations, arc represented here, each county having sent its proper proportion of delegates duly appointed at meetings of electors. . . . "So ,far as Catholics are concerned, I cannot help thinking that if our faith can be said to have any political tendency at all, it is rather towards the main- tenance of the Union than towards Home Rule. This was illustrated a few years ago when Home Rulers called to their aid the most inhuman political agencies, which the head of my Church was constrained to condemn." He then went on to refer to the Papal rescript con- demning the action of the League, and Mr. Gladstone's statement that " the whole of the Irish Roman Catholics, including the clergy and almost every bishop, opposed this rescript." And he added — " But the quotation I have given you contains one remarkable and damning admission on the part of Mr. Gladstone — namely, that in order to bolster up the Home Rule movement, our priests are led in a new crusade against the authority of the Pope by the Irish members of Parliament. It is not for us to inquire whether under Home Rule the priests would dictate to members of Parliament as to their politics, or whether members of Parliament would dictate to priests as to their obedience to the Pope. I prefer to follow the simple instincts of an inherited faith .ither than the guidance of even such an intellectual giant as Mr. Gladstone, and thus I come by the belief that the Catholic religion is better safeguarded under the protection of the Imperial Parliament than it would be under any form of Home Rule Government which Mr. Gladstone can devise." The following "declaration" was passed by the Convention : — " We, Irishmen, belonging to the three southern provinces, being of all creeds and classes, representing many separate interests, and sharing a common desire for THE UNIONIST CONVENTIONS 221 the honour and welfare of our country, hereby declare our unswerving allegiance to the Throne and Constitution, and our unalterable determination to uphold the Legisla- tive Union between Great Britain and Ireland. " We protest against the creation of a Parliament in Ireland whether separate or subordinate. " We protest against the creation of an Irish Executive, dependent for its existence upon the pleasure of an Irish Parliament. " We do so upon the following grounds : — " Because any measure for the creation of a separate Irish Parliament and a separate Irish Executive would produce most dangerous social confusion, involving a disastrous conflict of interests and classes, and a serious risk of civil war. " Because such a measure would imperil personal liberty, freedom of opinion, and the spirit of tolerance in Ireland. " Because such a measure, instead of effecting a settle- ment, would inevitably pave the way for further efforts towards the complete separation of Ireland from Great Britain. " Because no statutory limitations restricting the authority of an Irish Legislative Assembly, or the power of an Irish Executive, could protect the freedom and the rights of minorities in the Provinces of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught. " Because, while in the divided state of Irish society, no party in Ireland can safely be trusted with powers of government over the other sections of the community, such a measure would hand over Ireland to the govern- ment of a party which has proved itself unworthy of the exercise of power by its systematic defiance of the law, and disregard of the elementary principles of honesty, liberty, and justice. •* Because the Imperial Parliament is fully competent 222 APPENDIX and willing to legislate for Ireland, to maintain justice and equality, and to promote, by wise enactments, the welfare of our country. "Finally, regarding the question from a wider point of view than that which concerns alone the internal govern- ment of Ireland, highly prizing as we do the advantages which we derive from our present Imperial position, and being justly proud of the place which Irishmen have long held amongst those to whom the Empire owes its pros- perity and fame, having been faithful in our allegiance to our Sovereign, upholders of the Constitution, and ob- servers of the law, we protest against any change that will deprive us of our constitutional birthright, by which we stand on equal ground with Englishmen and Scotch- men as subjects of our beloved Queen and as citizens of the British Empire." INDEX Adrian IV., Pope, 39 Alexander III., Pope, 40 Alverstone, Lord, 143 America, the conspirators in, 59 American Fenians, the, 84 Amsterdam, the Boers' Committee at, 159 Anderson, Sir Samuel Lee, 20 (note) ; his friendship with the author, 36; how his life was saved, 103 Apjohn, Lewis, his " Life of Lord Beaconsticld," 81 (note) Arms Act, the, 43, 46 Ashbourne, Lord, article by, 98, 99 Attorney -General, the Irish. (39 Balfour. Lowry, 54 (note) Barrett, Michael, the last man publicly executed in England, 81 Belfast, Ihe Unionist. Convention at, 218 Bell, Edward, the arrest of, 128; withdrawal of the prosecution against him, 129 ; his legal ad- viser, 130 : his confederates, 131 Boers, the, helped by the Land League, 159 Boston, the second Annual Conven- tion of the Irish National League at, 122 " Boycotting,'' the inauguration of, 92 ; W. E. Gladstone's attitude towards, ib. Brackenbury, Col., now General Sir Henry, G.C.B., 124; official relations with him, 125 Brennan, secretary to the Irish Land League, 119 Brett, Sergeant, the murderers of, 103 Bright. John, on W. E. Gladstone's influence, 183; his opposition to the Home Rule Bill of 1886 .. 192 ; quotation from his letter of May 13, 1886. to Mr. Gladstone, 199 Bruce, Henry A. (Lord Aberdare), 82, 83, 206 (note) Burke, Kicard, 74 ; committed to the House of Detention at Clerk- enwell, 75 Burke, Thomas Henry, murder of, 4 ; the spot where he was mur- dered, 102 : when his assassination was planned, 106 Butt, Isaac, recruits raised by him, 171 ; the scheme which he cham- pioned, 204 ; words of his on the government of Ireland, 205 Byrne, Frank, his share in the Phoenix Park murders, 111 ; his flight to France, ib. ; the cheque sent to him by Parnell, 114 Cambridge, Roman Catholic College for training priests at, 33 Campbell, Lord, 77 (note) Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry, his views of a legislative body for Ireland, 180 (note) Campobello, the island of, the raid to seize, 60 Canada, the first raid on, 59 ; the raid of 1870 on, 84 Carey, refuses to identify Mrs. Byrne, 111 Carlisle, the Earl of, 48 224 INDEX Cavendish, Lord Frederick, the murder of, 4 ; his arrival in Ire- land, 102 ; spot where he was murdered, ib. ; his murder an accident, 105, 106 Chamberlain, Joseph. 96: his con- nection with the negotiations with Captain O'Shea, 99, 100; his share in the Kilmainham treaty, 100 Chester Castle, abortive raid ou. 64 Chicago, Fenian meeting at, 118; annual meeting of the Clan-na- Gael at, 162, 163 Cincinnati, Parnell's speech at, 87 Clan-na-Gael, the, 119; leaders of, 120; organization and dynamite crusade of, 125; Cronin's expul- sion from, 132 ; the annual meet- ing of, at Chicago, 162 ; resolution passed by it at the Chicago meet- ing, 163 Clare, Lord, speech by, 44 Clare Co., disturbances in, 65 Clerkenwell explosion, the, :■, 69-79 ; brings Fenianism to the front in England, 6 ; the full dress re- hearsal of, 75 ; the purpose of the plot thwarted, 76; consequences of the explosion, 77 Cluseret, makes the acquaintance of Stephens, 63 ; leaves for Europe, 64 ; in Paris, 65 Coercion in Ireland, 42, 43, 174-180; the nature of, 186 "Coercion Act of 1882," the, 108; Mr. Motley's mention of, in his " Life of Gladstone," 109 Coleridge, Sir J. D., a conference with, 82 Commercial legislation, 170 "Committee Room, No. 15," meet- ings in, 214 Connangot Fenians, the, refuse to move, 65 Cork Co. disturbances in, 65 Cork Herald, the, libel action against, 101 (note) Corydon, the informer, 73 Cowper, Lord, succeeded in the Viceroyalty of Ireland by Earl Spencer, 96 - Crime and Outrage Act," the, 47 Cromwell, Oliver, the cruelties of his reconquest of Ireland, 40 ; his policy, 168 Cronin. his murder by the Clan-na- Gael, 132; hij papers, 133 Cullen, Cardinal, refuses the use of the cathedral at Dubliu for McManu '- funeral, 51 Daily Mm'!, the, extract from an article in, by Bart Kennedy, 216 Daily News, the, 144 Davitt, Michael, succeeds EUcard Burke as "arms agent," 81 ; arrest and conviction of, ib. ; iutercsting personality of, S5 ; arrest of, 93 ; declares his readiness to bring the Phoenix Park murderers to justice, 111 ; obtains a statement reflect- ing upon the Opposition leaders, 149 (note); an article by him in the Nineteenth Century, 164 , story of a conversation he had with Parnell, 179 Deasy, Captain, arrest of, 73; lescue of, 71 de Clare, Richard, 40 "Devolution," unanimous repudia- tion of, 195 Devoy, John, 155, 156; his vie* , 85; the appeal made to him through Le Caron, 1 60; an ad vanced type of Fenian, lf>l Dillon, M.P., John, 196 ('ml- | , makes 8 nominal audit of the Land League funds. I L3 Dublin, gathering of Fenians in, 59, 65 ; disturbances in, 65; flighi oi Fenians from, 66; the Unionist Convention at, 219, 220 '•Dublin Castle," 48 Dunne, the Irish American, 66 INDEX 225 Dutch Reformed Pastors in South Africa, the, influence of, 34 Dynamite Campaign, the, 124 Dynamite plot of 1896, the, 128 Dynamiters, the number of those convicted, 126 Edinburgh, The Duke of, at- tempted assassination of, 81 (note) Egan, Patrick, treasurer of the Land League, 104 ; his share in the Phoenix Park murders, 111; amount of the receipts acknow- ledged by him, 113 (note); is appointed President of the Irish National League, 122 ; goes to Paris with Le Caron, 155; is visited by the Chairman of the Boers' Committee, 159; his reason for objecting to an audit of the Land League funds, 160; sends a representative to the Clan-na-Gael meeting at Chicago, 163 Emmet, his dream, 86 ' ; English Interference with Irish Industries," a quotation from, 170, 171 " Explosives Act, 1883," the, 127 " Facsimile Letter," the, Pigott's denial of, 144 ; reason for its concoction, ib. ; text of, 212 ; hypotheses as to the writing of it, 213; the writer of, 214 Fenian Brotherhood, the, strength of, 56 ; first National Convention of, ib. ; second National Con- vention of, ib. ; third National Convention of, 57 Fenian demands of 1867, the, (57 Fenian informer, the murder of a, 89,91 Fenian movement, the, 36; origin of, 2 ; to the front in England, 6 ; reports on the rise and progress of, 37; pr&ois of secret papers dealing with it, ib. ; secret history of, 49 ; date of its origin, 50 ; action to suppress, 54 ; renewal of its activity, 62; lesson to be derived from its secret history, 80 ; revival of its activity in London, ib., 82; its organization in London, 90 Fenian scares, 77, 78 Fenians, prosecution of, 69 Fingall, the Earl of, presides over the Unionist Convention at Dublin, 219 Ford, Patrick, 118, 155 Forster, W. E., how he escaped assassination, 104 ; when his as- sassination was planned, 106 ; his policy, 107 ; his words as to Parnell's knowledge of the Phoenix Park murders, 113 ; his work in Ireland hampered by want of sympathy from Gladstone, 115 ; his attitude to Gladstone, 124 ; his attempt to grapple with the Land League, 178 Franchise, the popular, 190, 191 Froude, J. A., on the government of Ireland, 206 Gallagher, Dr., his mission, 122, 125 ; meets Le Caron, 150 Gladstone, W. E., his Leeds speech, 47 ; his estimate of the Clerken- well explosion, 79 ; his succession to Lord Beaconsrield as Premier, 88; his philippic against Parnell, 93, 95 ; undertakes to adopt the programme of the Land League, 96 ; explanation of his attitude towards the Kilmainham treaty, 97; his private bargain with Parnell, 98, 99 ; his negotiations with Mrs. O'Shea, 100; his words in the Home Rule debate of 1893 . . 101 ; his policy, 107 ; his awaken- ing to a sense of the responsibilities of government, 110; memorable 2 G 226 INDEX words uttered by, 114; commis- sions Sir W. Harcourt to negotiate the destruction of theKilmainham documents, 114; his lack of sym- pathy with Forster's work in Ireland, 115; his reference to "National Self-government,"' 116, 117 ; his attitude to Forster, 124 ; his view of the charges brought by the Timts against the Parni Ili1 135 ; his meeting with the lawyers at the Special Commission, 142 (note) ; his words as to the Clerken- well explosion, 159 ; his later policy, 169 ; his Home Rule Bills, 171, 172 -. his Home Rule scheme, 1S1 (note); his policy, 182-193; his sudden change of front upon the Irish question, 182 ; his pi m > I and influence 183, 184 ; his per- sonality, 184, ISo ; prophetic words uttered by, 194 ; his inter- view at Hawarden with Mr. Morley, 197; his proverbial three courses, 200, 201 ; words uttered by, 203; the feeling with which his administration of Ireland was regarded by loyalists, 209 ; he repudiates Parnell, 214 ; a remark- able admission on his part, 220 Government, continuity of, 206 Government, a, the elementary function of, 175 "Grattan's Parliament," 42, 170 187 ; its restoration, 196, 197 Grey, Sir George, his "Crime and Outrage Act," 47 Habeas Corpus Scsfenbion Acts, the, 13, 17. 59 Hannen, Sir .lames, a veiled attack, on, 136 Barcourt, Sir William, 2, 88; his on mn the bargain with Le ( '.mm, i',; bis attack on the author, 7, 8; his at lack on Sir R. Web ter, 8; letter from him to the author, 18, 19; friendship of, 20, 21; generosity of his character, 21 ; an interview with him, 22 ; gene- rous letter from, 23 ; his relations with Lord Roaebery, 23, 24 ; the pleasure of working for him, 89 ; his impulsiveness, 90; his ignor- ance of Gladstone's bargain with Parnell, 98. 99; a party at his house, 113 ; is commissioned by Gladstone to negotiate the destruc- tion of the Kilmainham docu- ments, 114 ; his relations with W. E. Forster, 115; his " Explosives Act, 1883 "..127; his description of " governing Ireland according to Irish ideas." 204 Hardy, Gathorne, his narrative of what was done in pursuance of the warning of the Clerkenwell Ex- plosion, 75 (note) Harris, M.P., Matthew, his nominal audit of the Land League Funds, 113 Hawarden, Mr. Morley's account of Parnell's visit to, 144 Healy, T. M., extract from one of his speeches, 103 (note); attends the Chicago Convention, 118 Home Rule, Ireland under, 42 ; the case for, 166-181 ; the attitude of statesmanship towards, 168 ; a result of the grant of Home Rule, 179; W. E. Gladstone's scheme of, 181 (note) ; Mr. Morley's pre- •i nfmeiit of the Home Ride con- troversy, 182; attitude of Glad- stone's Former colleagues bn 183; the Bills of L886and L893. . 171, 172, 185 (note) ; the ground on which it is recommended to the public, 186; the alternative to, 186; the allegation thai Home Rule has nothing in common %% • 1 1 1 separation, 194; the dangei of Home Rule adminJ I ral ion, 204 ; opposition of educated and pros- perous classes in Ireland to it, ~18 INDEX 227 Home Rule majority, the, 191 Home Rule Bill, W. E. Gladstone's, 171; its wreck, 200; his second Bill, 172 ; petitions against, 185 (note) Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain, the, starting of, 161 Home Rule Members of Parliament, 173 (note) Home Rule vote, the, 173 Houston, E. C, how he appeared on the scene, 13 ; extent of his access to the Le Carou correspondence, 15 Huddys, murder of the, 109 Hynes, William T., Le Carou de- puted to see him, 157 ; his appeal to him, 160 ; is a bitter advocate of force, 161 Illinois, disclosures at a Fenian murder trial in, 132 Informants, how they were dealt with, 89, 91 Insurrection Act, the, some pro- visions of, 42 Invincibles, the, 140, 210, 211 Ireland, the so-called English con- quest of, 40 ; under Home Rule, 42 ; state of, during the half- century preceding the famine, 46 ; a decade of tranquillity in, 47 ; origin of its present condition, 48 ; abandonment of exceptional legis- lation for, 63; insecurity of life and property in, 107; "brutal murders" in, 109; prosperous and cultured Ireland, 195 (note) Irish affairs, 38 Irish Church, the, evangelicals of, 28 ; the disestablishment of, 171 Irish industries. 168 Irish Land League of America, the founding of the, 118 " Irish Nation," the, meaning of the phrase, 189 Irish National Convention, the, 118 Irish National League, 116-123, 195 Irish National Movement, the, 4 Irish peasant, an, his description of the Irish colony in New York, 204 Irish peasants, their hatred of Eng- land, 168; their attitude towards Home Rule, 174 ; their popery, 189 Irish People, the, founded by Stephens, 52; raid on its office, 54 ; extract from articles in, 215 Irish Presbyterians, 171, 172 Irish priests, their power and nature, 215-217 Irish Protestants, massacre of, in 1641, Hume's account of, 41; their hostility to England, 169. 170 ; their present attitude to- wards England and Home Rule, 171 ; seemingly aggressive cha- racter of, 190 Irish Question, the, how it might have been settled, 48 Irish representation at Westminster, 200 " Irish Republic," the, 64, 70 Irish Republican Brotherhood, 50 Irish Roman Catholic bishops, 29 Irish World, the, declares the policy of founding " the Skirmishing Fund," 118 James, Sir Henry, now Lord James of Hereford, 151-153 Jarvis, Inspector, 148 Johnson, President, his alleged favourable reception of Fenians, 57 Jubilee plot, the, 126, 131 Kelly, " Colonel," recklessness of, 63 ; leaves for Europe, 64 ; in London. 65 ; deceit and cowardice 228 INDEX of, 71 ; arrest of, 73 ; rescue of, 74 Kennedy, Bart, 216 Ktriv, abortive outbreak in. 64 ki< klniiu, C. .T.. 54 ; extract fi one of his articles in the Irish People, 21 5 Kilfenane, 67 Killian, Doran. 59 Kilmainham treaty, the, 90; con- i lit of the Cabinet to it, '.'7 Justin McCarthy's share in, 100 (note); the policy of the treaty, 100; documents of, 114 Kilmullurk. serious encounter in, 06, G7 Labouchere. Henry, 19 ; his state- ments about the "Special Com- mission,'' 147 ; the action brought against him, 148 Labour World, the, a statement published in, 149 (note) Ladies' Laud League, the, in- augurated by Miss Anna Paruell, 93 " Land Law Reform," relegated to second place, 110 Land League, the, establishment of, 80; committal of its local leaders to gaol, 93; suppression of, 95; the horrors of its rule, 110; suggested audit of its funds, 113 (note); the books of the League, 141 ; cruelties of the League, 14 2; Egan's reason for objecting to an audit of the League's funds, 100; the Papal rescript condemning the League, 220 Larcom, Sir Thomas, 30 : " Larcom and the police," 49 Lawson, Mr., 54 Le Caron, Major Henri, 3 ; his appearance in the witness-box, 5 ; his " Twenty-five Years in the Secret Service," 5 (note) ; his career, 5; his evidence, 11 : bis desire to give evidence before the Special Commission, 12; the author's anxiety to keep him out of court, 13; production of the letters to him, 14; his integrity, ib., 25; lie- relationship with the author, 24: Mr. Morley's attack on him, 25; the reward given to him for preventing the second raid on Canada, ib. ; his useful- ness in reference to second raid on Canada, 84 ; his evidence before the Special Commission, 147; his disclosures, 149; his truthfulness, ib. ; warnings given by him of plots, 150; his first meeting with Dr. Gallagher and Lomasney, ib. ; trustworthiness of his information, 151 ; his letters, ib. ; the pitli of his evidence, 153; his interview with Parnell in the library corri- dor of the House of Commons, 153, 155 ; his evidence, 155-105 ; letter from him during his stay in Paris, 155 ; his evidence on his interview with Parnell, 150 ; his account subsequently given of the interview, 157 ; his appeal to John Devoy, 100 ; his Paris letters, 102 ; his personal safety, 103 ; a letter from him to the Times, 164 ; charm of his personality, 165 Lewis and Lewis. Messrs., 148 Liddell, Sir Adolphus, 82, 83, W ; his difference with Sir Win. Harcourt over secret service, 22 Limerick, disturbances in. 65 Lomasney, Mackay, his attempt to wreck London Bridge, 125; his widow, 133; his first meeting with Le Caron, 150 London Bridge, the attempt to wreck. 125 London. Fenians in, 82, 125 Louth, disturbances in, 65 Lowther, James, speech by, 95 Luby,T. C, 51 INDEX 229 McCafferty. John, sentence pro- nounced upon him, 72 MacDonald, Mr., appeals for help to prove " the American part of the ( Pai mil) case," 13 McManns, Terence Bellew, the death and funeral of, 51 MacMurrough, Dermod, 39 MacNeill, Swift, extract from his hand-book on anti-Irish com- mercial legislation, 170; quotation from his "Irish Parliament," 187 Mahuuy. R. J., and the Penal Laws, 41 (note) Majendie, Sir Vivian, 126 Manchester, arrests in, under the Vagrant Act, 72 Manchester outrage, the, 3 Massey, Godfrey, sails for England, ti4 ; turns 'Queen's evidence," 71 Matthews, Mr. Henry, 19, 20 ; notice given by him in the House of Commons. March 1, 1889.. 7 Maynooth priest, the typical, 189.21G Mayuooth Roman Catholic College, the influence of, 31, 32 Mayo, Lord, 36 ; his appreciation of the author's work, 74 ; a meeting with him, 77 Millen, F. F., arrives to take com- mand of the expedition for the liberation of Ireland, 58 ; his mission, 132 Mitchell, John, the release of, 57 ; his estimate of the "rising of 1S67"..67 Monro, C.B., James, baffles a plot, 126 (note) Morley, Rt. Hon. John, the quasi official sanction given in his " Life of Gladstone " to false beliefs now current, 2 ; his attack on the author, 19 ; the Irish chapters in his " Life of Gladstone," 38 ; his account of the Kilmainham treaty, 96 ; his narrative of the negotia- tions with Captain O'Shea, 100 ; his silence respecting everything which discredits his views about Ireland, 114 ; his chapter on " the Special Commission," 135 ; his strictures on the Times, ib. ; his objection that Parnell had do voice in the composition of the Special Commission, 136 ; pre- vents Parnell from appealing to a jury, 137 (note) ; his objection to the procedure of the Commission, 137; his description of events in Ireland during the Land League period, 141 ; his comment on Le Caron's disclosures, 149; his account of the interview between Le Caron and Parnell, 160; the mythical Parnell of his " Life of Gladstone," 161, 162; his narra- tive of Home Rule, 179 ; his pre- sentment of the Home Rule controversy in his " Life of Glad- stone," 182; his political bias, 183 ; quoted in a letter to the Times, 192; his account of ParnelPs repudiation of his pledges of 1886. .196 ; an extract from his diary, 197 ; a conversa- tion with him, 199 Morris, Lord, in the lobby of the House of Commons, 173 (note) Munster, the Phoenix movement in, 50 Murray, Dr., 31 " National Self-government," forced to the front, 116; Mr. Gladstone's reference to, 116, 117 Nationalist Members of Parliament, the aim of. 190' ; resolution passed at a meeting of them held in Dublin, 196 Nationalists, the demands of, 180, 181 (note). 195 " New Departure," the, So : the compact of. 1 GO ; formal approval given to, 163 230 INDEX Nineteenth Century, the, an article from M. Davitt in, 164 " No Rent " manifesto, the, issue of, 94 O'Brien, Barry, his "Life of Paruell," 101 (note); his view of Paruell, 161 O'Brien, Smith, the conspiracy of 47 O'Brien, William, his " Recollec- tions," 1G1 (note) O'Connor, John, sent as a representa- tive by Egan to the Clan-na-Gael meeting at Chicago, 1C3 O'Connor, T. P., attends the Chicago Convention, 118; his "Paruell Movement,'' 1G2 (note) O'Hagan, Lord, 49 O'Keefe, Arthur, 144. 214 O'Kelly, J. J., his explanation of the object of the interview be- tween Paruell and Le Caron, 150 : his evidence before the Special Commission, 158 O'Leary. John, his " Recollectious of Fenians and Feniauism," 215 O'Mahony, John, 50 ; presides at the " First National Convention of the Fenian Brotherhood," 50 ; urges the issue of Fenian bonds, 58 ; is ousted by Stephens, GO O'Neill, General John, 5 ; a baud of men under him invades Canada, 59 O'Shea. Captain, 98 ; his levidence before the Special Commission, 114 ; the result of his obtaining a decree of divorce against his wife, 214 O'She'a. Mrs., 100, 101 Papal rescript condemning the League, the. 220 Paris Fenian movement hatched in. 50 Parliamentary leaders in the House of Commons, the planned destruc- tion of, 12G Parnell, Miss Anna, inaugurates the Land League, 93i Parnell, Charles Stewart, proclaims the " No Rent " gospel, 85 ; crosses the Atlantic as herald of the Land League, 8G ; Glad- stone's philippic agaiust him, 93, 95 ; his reply to the philippic, 94 ; is lodged in Kilniainham gaol.i'fc. ; his release from Kilniainham, 9G; his denunciation of the Phoenix Park murders, 100. Ill; his knowledge of their instigation, 113 ; the cheque which he sent to F. Byrne, 114 ; damning evidence against him, ib. ; his " last link " Cincinnati speech, 120 ; his paid emissaries, 134 ; his refusal to appeal to a jury, 13G, 137; his responsibility for the procedure of the Special Commission, 138; Mr. Morley's account of his visit to Bawarden, 144 ; his superstitions, 145; his tcceutricities and habits, 14G ; his interview with Le Caron in the library corridor of the House of Commons, 153, 15G, 157; he sends help to the Boers, 159; his real character, 10] ; his hatred of lEnglaud, 108; words spoken by him at Cork in 1885.. 190 ; is repudiated by Gladstone, 214 ; is supported by the National- ists after Captain O'Shea's divorce, ib ; repudiated by the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland, 215; marries Mrs. O'Shea. ib. ; his death, ib. Parnell, Mrs. C. S., 122 Parnell Commission. See " Special Commission " " Parnell Movement," the, 102 (note) • Parnellism ami Crime," articles m the Time?, 4 INDEX 231 Parnellite Members of Parliament : their quarrel in " Committee Room 15," 198 Peel, Sir Robert, as Chief Secretary for Ireland, 49 Penal laws, the administration of, 41 (note), 48 Philadelphia, third Annual Conven- tion held in, 119, 121 Phoenix movement, the, 50 Phcenix Park murders, the, 102-115 ; Mr. Morley's comment on, 105 ; their plots known to the Govern- ment. 10t5 ; Parnell's denunciation of them, 106, 111 ; change in the state of Ireland after them, 107; their instigators, 110, 113 Pigott, Richard, his confession of forgery, 138; his denial of the " facsimile " letter, 144 ; accept- ance of him as a witness for the Times, 153 ; his principal forgery, 212 ; his cross-examination, 213 Pitt, the policy of, 174, 187 Potato famine, the, 46 Presbyterians. See " Irish Pres- byterians " Priest rule, 34, 216 Protestants. See " Irish Protestants " Puritans, exodus of, from Ulster, 170 Queen's County, disturbances in, 65 Radicat/Doctrinaire, the, his ideas of fair play, 19 Rebellion of "l 798, the, 43 Rebellion Act, 1799, the, 43 Rebow, M.P., Mr., is informed of reports from Le Caron, 6 " Recollections of Fenians and Fenianism," John O'Learey's, 215 Redmond, John, 196 (note) ; his lieutenants, 171 ; quotation from a speech which he made in Parlia- ment, 202; his character, 202 (note) Redmond, W. E., 123 ; extract from his address to the Nationalist Convention at Boston, ib. Reid, Sir T. Wemyss, his " Life of Forster," 101 (note) •• Revolutionary Directory," the, 159 Ribbon Lodges, the, activity of, 47 Ridley, Sir M. White, 129, 130 (note), 131 (note) •'Rising of 1867,'' the, 56; some incidents of. 67 Roman Catholic University, a, origin of the demands for, 35 Rosebery, Lord, his relations with Sir William Harcourt, 23, 24 Rossa, O'Donovan, 54, 125 Russell, Sir Charles, his responsibility for the order of the proceedings at the Special Commission, 13S ; his conduct at the Commission, 143 ; cross-examination by, 152 ; his cross-examination of Pigott, 213 Russell, Lord John, the Government of, 46 Salisbury, Lord, an interview with, 129 ;' the action of his Govern- ment in forcing through Parlia- ment the statute appointing the Special Commission, 135 Secret service work, 88 Seward, Mr., his alleged favourable reception of the Fenians, 57 Sexton, M.P., Mr., 123; his de- scription of Alexander Sullivan, ib. Sheehy, Father, 1 13 "| Skirmishing Fund, The," the found- ing of, US Smith, Gilbart, visits Le Caron, 165 "Special Commission," the, 135- 146 ; a misleading picture of it, 3 ; appointment of it, 4 ; Captain O'Shca's evidence before it, 111; evidence given at, 118 ; Mr. Morley's chapter on the Com- mission in his " Life of Gladstone," 232 INDEX 135 : the action of Lord Salisbury's Government in forcing through Parliament the Statute appointing the Commission, ib. ; Mr. Morley's objection that Parnell had no voice in the composition of the Commission, 136 ; his objection to the procedure of the Commission, 137 ; its findings, 140, 141 ; ex- penses of the Commission, 142 ; reason why the author was not called as a witness, 147 Special constables, the enrolment of 77 Spencer, Earl. 96 (note) ; his arrival in Ireland, 103 ; escapes the assas- sin's knife, 103 (note) Stephens, James. 49 ; founds a weekly newspaper, 52 ; arrest and escape of, 55 ; lands in New York, 60 ; his success as a demagogue, ib. ; his tour through the New England States, 61 ; his reckless personal extravagance, ib. ; his last public appearance in New York, ib. ; his deceit and cowardice, 71 Strongbow's invasion, 38-40 Sullivan, Alexander, 120; closing words of his opening speech at Philadelphia, 121 ; is appointed President of the new League, ib. ; refuses re-election as President, 1 22 ; Mr. Sexton's description "f him, 123; instigates Cronin's expulsion from the Clan-na-Gael, 132; Le Caron is deputed to see him, 156; the appeal to linn tbrough Le Caron, 160; h< bitter advocate of finer it,i • Suspects Act," Mr. Farster 1 , 93 j tbe Cabinet accepts Mr. Glad- stone's proposal to allow thi ^d to lapse, 97 Swe< ay, " General," 58 Tallaoiit, the 1MI of, the rally- ing point for Dublin Fenians, 65 Times, the, articles in, on " Parnell- ism and Crime," 4 ; leading article in it on Sir William Harcourt, 9 ; the author's letter to it, 10 ; has no access to Le Caron's letters, 15; is not assisted in the pre- sentation of its case by the As- sistant Commissioner of Police, 17; success of the author's letter to it, 18 ; its complaint of lack of support by the Government, 26 ; Mr. Morley's strictures on it for the charges it brought against the Parnellites, 135 ; Mr. Gladstones view of the charges, ib. ; the proprietors unprepared for the action forced upon them, 138; its charges against Parnell, 139, 140 ; letter from the Ch ief Commissioner of Police, 147; acceptance of Pigott as a witness for the Times, 153; a letter to the Times from Le Caron, 164 ; quotation from a letter from Mr. Morley to the Times, 192 Tippcrary. disturbances in, 65 Trinity College, Dublin,! lie Members and Fellows of, 28 ; Historical Society of, 29 '• Twenty-five Years in the Secret Service," 5 (note) Tynan, Patrick, 210 Ulster, no rising in, 65 Union, the, the bitterness felt by so many to it. 166; tbe Protestants once opposed it, 170; ite success in winning over all the intelligent and prosperoui classes, 172-174,207 Unionist Conventions <'f 1892, the, 207, 218-222 University, a, the benefits of, 30 VioTOEi k, Queen, \ be pi I i her jubili e, 126 Vincent, Sir Howard, I I 2 INDEX 233 Walmek, an interview with Lord Salisbury at, 129 Webster, Sir Richard. See aho Alverstone, Lord, 151, 152 Wenkerdam, the S.S., 131 " Whiteboy Act, the," 43 William III., penal laws of the Protestant Parliament of, 40, 41 Wodehou.se, Lord, afterwards Earl of Kimberley, 53 Wontner, Mr., 148 Woollen trade, the, the destruction of, 170 THE END PBINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. 2 H WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR THE FOLLOWING ARE PUBLISHED BY James Nisbet & Co., Ltd., 21, Berners Street, London, W. THE GOSPEL AND ITS MINISTRY: a Handbook of Evangelical Truth. Twelfth Edition, Revised and Enlargod. Cloth, 2s. 6d. " The chapters on ' Grace ' and ' The Cross ' are worth their weight in gold."— The Christian. DANIEL IN THE CRITIC'S DEN: a Reply to Pro- fessor Driver and the late Dean of Canterbury. Second Edition. Cloth, 3s. 6d. net. " His apparently cogent elucidation of the vexed question of the Seventy Weeks."— The Times. " In its cautious, but firm weighing of evidence, the refutation (of the critics) is crushing." — The Record. 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