Devices of Parliamentarians (1883-4)

Chapter XV*

Devices of Parliamentarians *(1883-4)

In 1884, Gladstone’s Bill to extend the franchise included Ireland, despite Forster’s hostility, and Irish members were thereby gladdened. A furious campaign by the Tories in Ulster followed. Sir Stafford Northcote, leader of the Opposition, addressed meetings in Belfast and gave Orangemen the cooling advice, “Don’t fire off your guns in the gaiety of your hearts.” Colonel King-Harman, M.P. (afterwards Tory Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Ireland), told them to “keep the cartridge in the rifle.”

The Orange opposition was headed by Lord Rossmore, who became so vehement that he was deprived of the Commission of the Peace by Lord Spencer, then Viceroy. His backers came to break up a meeting approving the Franchise Bill which I addressed at Rosslea, a village on the borders of Monaghan and Fermanagh. Military and police threw themselves between the rival forces, and a rattle of shots burst out. The crowd looked round to see if we were enfiladed, but a scornful voice broke out, “Ah, go on! Them’s Healy’s men!

Chief Secretary Trevelyan told the House of Commons that “sackfuls of revolvers” dropped by Orangemen were retrieved by the police at another “protest” meeting at Dromore.

T. P. O’Connor came to speak with me for the Bill in Dungannon, Co. Tyrone. A counter-demonstration was organized, and the Rev. R. R. Kane, Grand Master of the Orangemen, left Belfast to address his followers there. They met at the head of a street, while our friends were shepherded 300 yards off. Dragoons were summoned to prevent an injudicious mixture.

When I left Dublin that morning my wife was ill and, wishing to send her a reassuring telegram, I walked to the Dungannon post office close to the Orange meeting. As the faces of the crowd were turned away I thought I could take that risk. The Rev. R. R. Kane, however, was speaking, and fronted me as I strolled up. He shouted to the gathering, “Turn round, there’s Healy! Show him how you can cheer for the Queen!

In a twinkling the Orangemen wheeled about and a forest of sticks was raised. The crowd would have been down on me solidly (without cheering for the Queen) had not Captain McTernan, R.M., signalled to the dragoons, whose horses made a lane through which I gained the post office. There I telegraphed home, “Danger over.”

How we lie to our wives!

A little earlier in his career, Captain McTernan, a Catholic, when stationed in Co. Clare, by his evidence sent a peasant (Francis Hynes) to the gallows. His testimony was given before a Dublin Special Jury in 1881. He swore that he found a dying man, Douloghty, on the roadside, and whispered into his ear, “who shot you?” and got the answer, “Francy Hynes.”

That Douloghty in his agony understood his question was open to doubt, as Hynes was not shown to have had any enmity against him, but the London *Daily Telegraph *published an article (then widely circulated) asserting that” convictions by hook or by crook” must be got.

After the first day of the trial the jurors were locked up in the Imperial Hotel where William O’Brien stayed. Next day O’Brien sent a protest to the *Freeman *alleging unseemly and tipsy behaviour on their part. For this publication B. D. Gray, owner of the *Freeman, *who was High Sheriff, was sent to jail for three months, and fined £500, by Judge Lawson.

No attempt to deny O’Brien’s allegations was made. Public subscription defrayed the fine, and Mr. Gladstone appointed a Select Committee of the House of Commons to inquire into the facts. Little came of this, save that Captain McTernan, after Hynes was hanged, was transferred to Fermanagh for his safety. There the Orange party beset and badgered him despite his services to the Crown. His alertness in Dungannon saved me from harm.

Lord Rossmore abandoned the Orange camp in later years and trended towards Home Rule.

After Sir Stafford Northcote’s anti-franchise propaganda in Belfast, his second in command, W. H. Smith (afterwards leader of the House) came to Dublin to denounce the proposed lowering of Irish voting qualifications.

Smith, a kindly and well-intentioned man, controlled the railway bookstalls in the three kingdoms. He also owned a publishing house in Dublin, and there denounced the “mud hovel suffrage.” He further raised the religious cry, urging that a special objection existed to Catholics getting votes.

Coming from an amiable and good-natured soul, this astounded many. He repeated the speech in the House of Commons as a Protestant evangel. I then remembered that in my locker lay a Catholic prayer-book called *The Key of Heaven, *and hurried from the Chamber to get it. It bore the imprint, “Published by W. H. Smith and Son, Dublin.” Displaying it to the gaze of members, I asked how, if Catholics were the superstitious slaves that he alleged, a high-minded Tory politician could make profit by spreading the religion he denounced. “What is to be thought of the statesman,” said I, “who would stoop to coin money by promoting an alleged ‘superstition,’ while he assailed as idolaters and ‘unfit to vote’ the deluded customers whom he supplied with Catholic prayer-books?

Smith smarted under the thrust and blushed. Forthwith he gave up his Irish trade. He transferred the business to his Dublin manager, Mr. Eason, and the “errors of Rome” ceased to figure as anti-franchise arguments. The speech must have lost him thousands of pounds.

Lord Randolph Churchill spoke and voted for the Franchise Bill being applied to Ireland, despite his leaders’ objections.

Gladstone, when urging it forward, made an appeal to freelances to refrain from “deck loading” by airing schemes to extend the suffrage further. On the “Faggot Vote” clause he was emphatic against amendments. Yet the tiny Scotch Lord-Advocate, McLaren, suddenly rose from the front bench to propose an amendment not on the paper. Gladstone fumed, but finding that he moved merely to forbid “faggots” in *Pro in Diviso Proprietorships *his anger melted into a smile. The Scotch law term delighted him.

We were then busy trying also to extend Irish local franchises.

In February, 1884, I published a pamphlet (price sixpence) called *Loyalty plus Murder, *quoting the text of the incitements to violence by Tory leaders when the extension of the franchise to Ireland was proposed. It included the address by the House of Commons in 1836 to William IV, the King’s reply, and the Treasury Minute condemning the Orange Order because of the conspiracy to set the Duke of Cumberland on the throne instead of Queen Victoria. Subsequent condemnations by the Irish Lord Chancellor and the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, in 1857-8 were also given.

Of it I explained to my brother:

Dublin,

20th *March *1884.

*“Loyalty plus Murder *was circulated to M.P.’s and the public by the League, at whose request I compiled it. Over 1,500 copies were disposed of.

It cost me labour over two months day and night I got £100** **for it By contrast it appears that your works were badly paid for.

Jarnes Duffy and Son have sent me a magnificent copy of the *Spirit Of the Nation ” *because of my attack on W H Smith’s Catholic prayer book. Gill and Son gave me a couple of books also. Both firms were delighted, and Smith has given orders to stop the sale of his “prayer-book.""

The Redmond brothers arrived in London from Australia early in*** ***1884.

The opening years of John’s career were not enterprising. He was of a retiring disposition, and the House for long knew little of his powers.

After Parnell died, Justin MacCarthy, nettled by his assumption of leadership, asked me, “Do you remember, while we were united, that any of us ever dreamed of consulting John Redmond about anything?

I answered, “Never.” Yet in 1891 be fell easily into the role of guerrilla leader, and in 1900 was made chairman of a reunited Party.

William’s boyish eloquence at Westminster offended Labouchere, who described him as a “blausted auss.” His good nature, however, his kindly heart, and an earlier seaman’s experience, endeared him to his colleagues. When we wanted to obstruct we goaded the lad with the cry of “Give them a touch of the marlin-spike.”

In a year or two he became one of the most popular men in the House. He had not been a Nationalist by upbringing, for in 1881, when his brother stood for New Ross, he as an officer in the Wexford Militia telegraphed to John, “Surely you are not going to disgrace our family by joining the Land Leaguers?” Before a year was over he was arrested as a “suspect” by Forster, and spent his twenty-first birthday in Kilmainham Jail. John showed me in the lobby the message he was sending him on attaining twenty-one. It ran, “Get your hair cut!”

William’s flowing locks had become conspicuous, and the phrase was a pantomime cant of the day. Their mother, a loyalist, pestered Forster to release him, without success.

Appointed travelling companion to men like Sexton, he sometimes surpassed then. Sexton received a mission to attend the Boston Convention, but it was William who took it by storm. He had become an effective mob orator.

Parnell, twitted with a speech of his before the Forgery Commission, blurted out, “You cannot put old heads on young shoulders.”

At the Split in December, 1890, William at first sided with the majority, as did his brother-in-law, Dalton. Under John’s influence both ended by supporting the Chief.” In that fray William proved himself a “first-class fighting man,” but remained popular with all sides.

When the Great War broke out, his soldierly instincts banished the demurs of age. Without necessity for sacrifice,

“Tameless, frank and free,

He marched to death with military glee.”

In one of his short “leaves” from the trenches he stirred the House of Commons with a plea for Ireland. A fine gentleman, a fast friend, and at the last, a finished speaker, his soul went out to the thunder of the German guns.

His death hastened the close of his brother’s career. John Redmond said to the priest who consoled his last moments-saddened as they were by the collapse of the Conference with the Orange leaders in T.C.D. in 1918 - “I am dying of a broken heart.”

Here I must return to events much earlier. In 1884 Chief Secretary Trevelyan (who in the ‘seventies first raised the question of the equalization of the County and Borough franchise) helped Ireland to secure an extended suffrage. We were, however, annoyed because he fell under the influence of a Temperance Association, of which T. W. Russell, afterwards M.P. for South Tyrone, was secretary.

Without consulting us Trevelyan succumbed to a plan of Russell’s to extend the “Sunday Closing” of public-houses to the five excluded Irish cities. We resolved to baulk him, as Russell, though very able, was not an Irishman, and we ironically asked why should a law be made for cutting off liquor, but not cutting off evictions.

On 20th June, 1884, Trevelyan gave a morning sitting to Russell’s proposal, though Cardinal McCabe declared himself opposed to it. Theorists may be shocked to know that parliamentarians are not casuists or idealists, but politicians. To discredit Trevelyan’s general Irish policy was our object, and we cared nothing for the loftiness of his motives. Many of us were in favour of Sunday Closing and of temperance measures, but resented the neglect of bigger reforms. To promote obstruction I went to William Redmond and urged that he, a new member, should, as his father was a temperance advocate, speak in support of the measure. Unwitting that “Time was of the essence” of parliamentary life, he consented, and made a powerful speech for the Bill, which helped to kill it.

He upbraided me afterwards for giving him this opportunity for distinguishing himself, when he was reproached for wasting time by the promoters of the measure. I also sought the aid of Biggar, ***a ***more wary victim. He answered that he could not run counter to his constituents, who all supported Sunday Closing. “The Bishop and my Cavan friends,” he protested, “are in its favour.”

“Yes, Joe,” I suggested, “but could you not make a speech in support of it? ” His eyes twinkled, and with glee he shrilled, “I hadn’t thought of that, misther. I’ll talk in its favour.” Biggar and William Redmond then chloroformed the measure with prolonged approval, while O’Brien and I enjoyed what the Rev. Peter Dens, S.J., describes as “morose delectation.”

Biggar’s speeches always began: “Mr. Speaker, sir, perhaps I may be permitted on this occasion to make a few remarks with regard to the subject that is now before the House.”

A hesitation in his delivery would consume a minute with this formula. Talking against time needs practice, and Biggar decorated his observations on Trevelyan’s measure with a temperance moral.

“Once,” he groaned, “I knew a man in Belfast, a sad toper. He used to declare that ‘the third glass of punch only warmed the bottom of the tumbler’! ” Writhing in mental pain, he denounced this treason against temperance. Next he cited other dreadful examples from Belfast.

“Can the House believe,” he asked, “that a fellow-townsman of mine laid down the pernicious doctrine that ‘one is too many, two is too much, and three is not half enough’? ” He next brought in the thirst caused in the Royal Navy by the consumption of salt pork, coupled with the sinfulness of a rum ration on the Sabbath. Denouncing the false nomenclature of pork supplied by the Admiralty and its effect on “my own trade, sir,” he said there were three specifications for salt pork in the Navy: “prime mess pork,” “best mess pork,” and “mess pork.” “Yet, Mr. Speaker, would you believe it, ‘prime’ is the worst, ‘best’ is second, and plain ‘mess pork’ is the best.”

It seemed a Sabbath day’s journey from the Sunday Closing Bill, yet groans from our throats in sorrowful cadence greeted his lamentations. Amidst further by-play he consumed the precious hours at the disposal of Trevelyan (morning sittings then lasted only from 2 till 7 o’clock), and the Bill sank in cold obstruction.

Four or five days later Biggar elbowed his way to me from the Commons “bar” packed to hear Gladstone on the third reading of the Franchise Bill. The House was crammed, but Biggar forced himself to my corner seat.

Tim,” said he, “here’s a letter from my sister in Belfast. Read it.” I did so, and found it worded thus:

Belfast,

*21st June, *1884.

Joseph,-

“When you turned Home Ruler I did not upbraid you.

When you became a Papist I was almost alone in our family in not refusing to speak to you.

Your fall was great in both respects. Yet there was one cause which I thought you would never desert, the sacred cause of temperance. From depth to depth, however, you have sunk, lower and lower, as was to be expected.

I read in the *Freeman’s Journal *to-day of you, the son of a respected father, and member of a family of Presbyterian teetotallers, that you shamelessly confessed to the House of Commons that, “in your opinion the third glass of punch only warmed the bottom of the tumbler”!

Your descent into popery and Home Rule never deceived me. Yet I reserved judgment, despite the views of our family. Henceforth I renounce you.”

Your sister.

I turned to Joe full of sorrow, saying, “‘Twas I brought you into this scrape.” He softened, and consoled me with, “Never mind, misther, she’s all wrong, and I’ll just tell her I was misreported.” I never knew if she forgave him.

On 27th June, 1884, a week after we had “talked out” Trevelyan’s Bill, he gave another morning sitting for its discussion. Gladstone, the night before, caused to be inscribed on the journals of the House that the Franchise Bill passed *Nemine contradicente. *It was a record inscribed centuries earlier on the passing of the Bill of Rights.

Two Tory members, however, Pell and C. S. Reed, next day protested, and declared they cried “No.” This gave us an unlooked for opportunity to lame the march of Trevelyan’s measure. Scientific obstruction includes not merely debating the Bill which is being opposed, but talking on earlier Bills or Motions unrelated to it - and broadening out on them, favourably or unfavourably, to consume the time allotted to what is objected to.

Gladstone, who was courtesy itself, was disposed to yield to Pell’s demand that the record *“Nemine contradicente” *should be erased. At this we feigned an indignation so intense that he hesitated. As our protests grew louder and more prolonged, Gladstone’s ox-eyes gleamed for enlightenment on Trevelyan, who was thinking only of his Sunday Closing Bill.

They conferred for a moment, and, though we could not hear their discourse, it was plain that Gladstone sought an explanation for our enthusiasm. Trevelyan, with a feeble smile, took up the Order Paper and showed it to the Prime Minister. The first Order of the Day was, “Irish Sunday Closing Bill, second reading.” The Grand Old Man laughed and looked playfully across at us with a boyish appreciation of our perversity. We, therefore, nailed more firmly to the mast the glorious formula, *Nemine contradicente, *and this slew the second reading of Trevalyan’s bantling.

I wrote my brother:

House of Commons,**

**18th July, 1884.

“Having got the Poor Law Guardians Bill through the Commons, it was read a first time in the Lords to-day. My amendment as to “qualification” was accepted instead of Trevelyan’s, as we objected to his form. We were unable to fight many amendments owing to the lateness of the hour, and the fear of a “count.” I am going to the Lords now to see whether Lord Waterford succeeds in persuading them to throw out the Dublin Voters Revision Bill.

This is a Bill which would never have been passed, although a Government Bill, only for me, as my dodge got it through all its stages. It would even have lapsed for non-compliance with the Lords’ Standing Orders, only I watched it.

Gladstone made it clear that he has withdrawn the Criminal Evidence Bill, and this is one of the greatest victories I have had.

Parnell is far from being in sound health. He told me yesterday that the late sitting on Monday knocked him completely up, and he was not able to remain in the House last night or Tuesday, and has not come down yet.”

The device by which I got through the Government Bill dealing with voters and jurors in the Co. Dublin gave umbrage to Colonel King-Harman, its Tory member. He had of old been a Nationalist, and stood as such both for Dublin City and Longford. Now he was a Die-hard Unionist. The Recorder of Dublin, Sir F. Faulkiner, one of the most delightful of Tories, was sole judge as to the admission of voters, a task which he detested. Trevelyan’s Bill took the revision of the lists from him and gave it to an assistant barrister.

King-Harman “blocked” the measure (by notice of rejection) and this prevented the Bill being taken after 12.30 a.m. The House afterwards declared that such “blocks” only held good for a fortnight, unless renewed. One night, therefore, I set down “blocks” in the names of 20 Nationalists to the Dublin Revision Bill. King-Harman was delighted at this, and late on a Friday night I watched him going to the Clerk of the Table to ask if our “blocks” were effectual.

Being assured that they were, he left the House without renewing his “block.” When he departed I went to the Clerk and withdrew all Nationalist “blocks.” This left the Bill unopposed for the next sitting, after midnight. Trevelyan then on the Monday following moved the second reading of the Bill, which became law.

The device became known as the “collusive block.” Yet the measure would not have been allowed to pass the Lords, had not our Poor Law Reform Bill been down for slaughter there. The latter alone was thrown out.

In August, 1884, I attended the Dungarvan Convention, to select a member in the room of Blake. There I drew up what became known as the “Party Pledge.” P. J. Power accepted it and was chosen. In 1885 I improved its wording, and it became the standard test for Nationalists at all elections.

Parnell said he would sign it when he had the signatures of the whole of his colleagues in his pocket. He ultimately did so last of all!

The Pledge embodied a declaration to sit, act and vote with the Irish Party, and to resign if the Party declared that the signatory had broken the pledge. At every election from 1885 until the Split of 1890 it was insisted on, save in the case of Captain O’Shea in Galway in 1886.

The House of Lords threw out the Franchise Bill of 1884, and Liberal protests rent the air. The Prince of Wales (afterwards Edward VII) came to a window to watch a procession filing into Hyde Park to demonstrate against the peers. Queen Victoria wisely intervened to abate the agitation and effect a compromise.

The Tories rightly demanded that a Redistribution scheme which they could accept should be passed side by side with the Franchise Bill. Lord Salisbury, their leader, claimed the right to be consulted as to the constituencies which were to be disfranchised or created. Gladstone assented to this at the instance of the Queen, and Sir Charles Dilke was appointed to meet Salisbury. Between them they arranged a scheme which took shape in the Redistribution and Franchise Acts of 1885.

Unfortunately, Salisbury thus secured a domination over legislation affecting Irish constituencies most prejudicial to Nationalists. Coached by a Belfast solicitor - the late Shirley Finegan - he insisted that an enlarged boundary should be created for Belfast entitling it to four members instead of two, while refusing Dublin a similar extension.

A Royal Commission under Exham, Q.C., had 20 years before recommended enlargements of all Irish municipalities, but its report was not made law, yet Salisbury availed himself of the Exham Report to have it applied to Belfast while refusing to allow its application elsewhere.

Dublin, if enlarged on the same basis, would have been entitled to six or seven members, but the Tory leader scouted the analogy.

This unfairness was acquiesced in by the Liberals. They could not be pestered with “parochial” politics.

Officers of the Ordnance Survey were appointed to applot the new constituencies in Ireland, instead of Commissioners, as in Britain. Some of their schemes were fair, others absurd. We protested, and three gentlemen, two being Tories, were named to revise them. Salisbury was consulted as to their appointment, but we were not. His Lordship watched their procedure so closely that he was able to tell Sir Charles Duke that his plan for giving Belfast four Tory members had been neutralized by the creation of a “West Belfast ” area for Nationalists.

The Commissioners held public inquiries, and at most of them I appeared as Counse;. To counterbalance a Nationalist “South Down” they rejected the Ordnance Survey configuration of “South Derry,” and fashioned one to yield a Tory result.

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