Chapter 12: The Times Commission of 1889 and the Role of Davitt

In the “Times Commission” I took no part and Mr. Davitt bore the brunt of the battle and conducted the defence in connection with Mr. Parnell in the ablest possible manner. As history tells, the trial closed in 1889 in a very sensational and triumphant manner for the Irish leaders and the Irish cause.^[1] Like the early Land League days when Parnell and Davitt worked together, everything was done in a very superior way. I was greatly gratified that the force of circumstance threw these two men together as it always appeared to me as if one was the complement of the other – Davitt with his outspoken mission to the mental and physical workers of the world, and Parnell with his revelation of silence, and power, and tolerance, and statesmanship to the world in general, but especially to the men who claimed to be the rulers, always seem to me to cover the whole ground of Ireland’s agitation for freedom. Remembering the interview I had with Mr. Parnell about Mr. Davitt’s worth and work in 1885,^[2] I was personally pleased that events verified my contention. But although I was not mixed up with the work of the Commission, it was still my destiny to learn all about that and many other things at first hand from Mr. Parnell. In conducting the defence, Mr. Davitt spent a large amount of his own money, and as he was placed in a different position from all others in the case, he decided not to send his accounts in to the solicitors for the defence, Messrs. Lewis, and they having spent the entire of the special fund collected for the purpose, there was no money to pay Mr. Davitt’s outlay.^[3] Mr. Davitt’s family and friends very justly complained of the position he was placed in, and the grumbling against Mr. Parnell for not seeing Mr. Davitt paid became so acute that I quietly determined to see Mr. Parnell about it. I saw that he had an invitation to visit Liverpool to receive a good sum of money collected for Irish work, but held over until the Times case was decided, and that he was to pay Mr. Gladstone a visit at Hawarden on the route.^[4] He spent a night at Hawarden with Mr. Gladstone, and went the next night to the Liverpool meeting, and I saw him the day following at Mr. Evans’ at Birkenhead. He was giving an interview to “Dr.” Byrne^[5] of the Freeman’s Journal when I called. His explanation about the delay in refunding Mr. Davitt his money was that the Irish Exchequer had run low owing to the Plan of Campaign expenses in Ireland, but that he would send on some of the Liverpool money when he would get to London.^[6] He was in good spirits, but quiet and reticent-like, the same as I often saw him with other people when he would seem to be measuring how much of his mind he would disclose to the present party or on the present occasion. But I was always fairly successful in getting him to talk.

When we finished talking about the unfortunate Pigott’s^[7] performances, I said: “You seem to be getting on well down here.” “Yes,” he says, “things are moving in a fair way.” “I suppose you want all the time the Tories will give you?” I said. “Oh, yes,” he says, “nothing could upset our plans but that the Liberals should come to office with a small majority, and they are not at all ready with candidates, or funds at present. If they took office with a small majority, they would be at the mercy of every fellow who could form a cave^[8] by taking away a few followers, and one fellow would want one thing whittled down and another fellow something else, and they might keep whittling down our bill until we would not know whether to take it or leave it.” “Is there then,” I said, “so much danger of caves in the Party?” “Why,” he says, “there are not three men in the Party prepared to toe Gladstone’s line on the question. Morley^[9] and Spencer^[10] are the only two we are certain of. The rest are thoroughly unsound on the subject. Unless we get a good majority we will have no chance of carrying a good measure through the Lords.” “Then,” I said, “I infer from all this that you consider the old fellow himself all right on the question.” “Well,” he says, and he instinctively pulled himself up a bit, as he always did when dealing with an Englishman, “he is in this way. Nothing could justify Gladstone in doing what he proposed to do, and what England has refused to do for a century except that it should prove to be a great imperial success, and he is now just as anxious to give us as much Home Rule as will make it a great imperial success as we are to take it.” “Then you will have the measuring of it largely in your own hands, but the Liberal Party may play you out again.” “Now,” he says, and he laughing, “don’t be speculating or prophesying. I always get restless. Enough for the day is the evil thereof. We will do it better next time.”

The information I received at this interview, coming at first-hand, fresh from the fountain head, gave me the key to the position when the great crisis came in about eleven months afterwards.^[11]

From the public meeting between Parnell and Gladstone until the Divorce Court proceedings was something less than a year. Mr. Davitt was in America when Mr. O’Brien started and he and Mr. Dillon over-ran Ireland with the Plan of Campaign rent strike, and when Mr. Davitt returned, he took no part in the agitation. The Times Commission brought him to Parnell’s side, and when that terminated he moved to London and started the Labour World newspaper.^[12] Had he remained in Ireland many of his old friends believed he would have taken a different stand from the one he took towards Parnell. He meant well, but he lost his temper when the Leader hesitated to be guided by his advice until he could leave things right for his successors.^[13] Home Rule seemed to be safe after the understanding between Parnell and Gladstone. The Parliamentary Party were in daily and nightly intercourse with the leaders and members of the Liberal Party. Evidence of this was the statement made by Mr. John O’Connor, M.P.,^[14] about the pressure Sir W. Harcourt^[15] put on him to desert Parnell and the Irish flag, which, like a man, he refused to do. As before stated, the rent strike in Ireland was started on such extraordinary lines that it had to be fought to a finish by the League, and had to be tolerated by Parnell and the whole Party. Like the late Land Conference business, no one liked to repudiate men who, the world knew, meant well and some of whom made great sacrifices. But in declaring war against Lord Lansdowne,^[16] Barrymore,^[17] Massarene,^[18] and other noted landlords, backed up by a powerful and wealthy Land Corporation, the leaders of the campaign left little hope for compromise. By clearing the people off the land, they left them helpless and a burden on the funds, and the clearance policy tempted the landlords to employ some able graziers to help them to make rent out of evicted lands, which they did successfully in many cases. The cattle trade favoured the evictors so far one season that they made several rents out of some of the grasslands. The funds of the League ran so low in carrying on this struggle, which had to be continued until the advent of the Gladstone Government to power, that to make the best of a bad job, a very strong deputation of representative men were sent to America to collect the sinews of war.

This was something like the situation when the melancholy crisis came, a crisis that put every man of the race on his trial, churchman, layman, the dissolute and the virtuous, the learned and the ignorant, the friends and the opponents of Mr. Parnell.^[19] It seemed so simple to manage the difficulty sensibly at some points that I fear posterity will wonder why something different was not done. I can only set down here my own experience of the whole upheaval.

Like most people, I was under a kind of impression that Mr. Parnell would manage, in his usual inevitable way, to get through every difficulty that might arise in his path. I spent part of a day with him in Avondale, a few months before the storm, and Mr. Kerr, his manager, seemed to be troubled about the rumours that were going around about the Divorce Court, but I laughed off his fears, saying: “The Chief is sure to get through all right.” It was on this visit which I made without notice, on chance like, that I met Mr. Parnell and Mrs. Dickinson^[20] riding from Avondale, and I must say they both looked to advantage on horseback. We met midway in the avenue, and when we came within talking distance he, smiling, said, “I knew you as far as I could see you. I told my sister here, Mrs. Dickinson, that if Kettle is alive, this is he. I am very glad to see you, but I am in the doctor’s hands and I must take an hour or two every day on horseback. Will you go to the house and wait until we return, or will you look up Kerr and view our farming?” “Oh, the latter by all means. I am very anxious to see how Mr. Doherty rigged up your cattle yard.”

It was during this visit I learned all about how the policy of obstruction in Parliament was started. The question came up for discussion in this way. Mr. Davitt being located in London, renewed his intercourse with Mr. O’Connor Power and at our last meeting he wished that Power could get an English seat in Parliament, with the assistance of the Irish vote, and rejoin the Irish Party. On mentioning this to Mr. Parnell he said, “I have nothing against Power except that he failed to go the whole way with us when starting the policy of obstruction. O’Donnell and Power and Biggar and myself arranged about Biggar reading the Blue Books, and all the other tactics.^[21] It seems to be generally thought that Biggar did that of his own motion, but he did not – it was arranged by the Party. You saw what O’Donnell did on the Army Bill,^[22] and he acted as well on the other bills, but when it came to Power’s turn he failed to go on, but he acted well enough all through since, from a constitutional point of view, and now with the Liberals coming back to power, I would have no objections to him getting a seat in England. He is a very able man.”