London Days: A Book of Reminiscences

There was a time when I doubted that he was really so elusive as political persons said. And if he were so, why? It could not be for the mere pleasure of eluding, or deluding people. There would be very little pleasure in that. Well, one day my doubt was dispelled.

Parnell had made an appointment to see me at the House of Commons. It was not for the purposes of a newspaper interview, for he would not have given himself the trouble on that account. It was not for any purpose or interest of my own. I had conveyed to him a proposal from an American editor. It was a proposal which Parnell had not only not declined, but which he was considering with some favour. I was to meet him again and discuss it further. The time and place were of his choosing. I was punctually there, only to be met with the message: "Mr. Parnell is not in the House."

That may have been technically true, as Mrs. A. may be technically "not at home" to Mrs. B. But he was somewhere on the premises, because I saw him enter them. There were good reasons for assuming that the appointment had not slipped his mind, or his memoranda. And so I thought that the person who told me Parnell was not in the House might have invented the reply he gave. He knew of the appointment, and, though he did not know its purpose, knew that Parnell had wished to see me; why, then, should he give a reply which might put his Chief in the wrong. But then, why had not Parnell sent word or left word, making another appointment? He would scarcely have declined the proposal from America without the courtesy of another meeting. Indeed, he had promised that.

"Very well," I said, "I will wait."

But the agreeable gentleman could not assure me that Mr. Parnell would be at the House that day.

"Has he been here?"

"I believe so."

It was too early to go away. Question time was not over. I decided to wait. Mr. Parnell's representative withdrew. After a while I thought there had been a mistake somewhere. Then I remembered that the emissary "could not assure" me, etc. I thought this odd, in the circumstances, and concluded not to wait any longer. The affair was Parnell's, not mine. But if he had decided to decline the proposal concerning which he had invited me to call upon him, it was not particularly civil of him to take this offhand way of doing so. I left the House and went toward the Westminster Bridge station of the Underground Railway, just opposite the Clock Tower of St. Stephen's. Turning the corner by the gates of Palace Yard, I saw Parnell, ahead of me, cross the street and enter the railway station. He took an eastbound train. I was just in time to catch the same train but not to catch him.

He alighted at the next station, Charing Cross. So did I, intent on overtaking him. But there was a blocking crowd at the exit stairs where tickets were collected, and he was away first. Up Villiers Street I followed him to the top at the Strand, where he turned into the South Eastern Railway station. This was interesting. Why had n't he, I wondered, taken the outside stairs that led from Villiers Street into the station?

"Possibly he has caught sight of me," I thought. "Is he trying to elude me? Let's see."

He entered the South Eastern station at the left-hand door. He left it presently by the door on the other side of the cab yard and crossed the Strand to the telegraph office, which at that time was exactly opposite the cab entrance to the railway. I withdrew into the tobacconist's pavilion at the gate and there awaited Parnell's exit from the telegraph office. But he didn't recross the Strand to the station. A hansom was passing the telegraph office door. Parnell ran out, hailed the cab, entered it, and drove eastward along the Strand. I took another cab and kept his in sight. His cab was held up by a block a little to the west of Wellington Street, where a long stream of traffic was crossing to Waterloo Bridge. Parnell left his cab in the crush and disappeared in the pack of humans and vehicles. I left my cab, walked back a short distance along the south side of the Strand, and there turned down by the Savoy Theatre, lingering a little, and then down the steps to the Embankment, keeping inside the gardens. My guess was right. Parnell passed within a few feet of me. He was walking westward. I walked inside the gardens, he outside and well in advance. He reached the Underground station again, passed through it to Villiers Street, walked up Villiers Street to the wooden stairs of the South Eastern, while I remained at the entrance of the Underground. Then I took a cab to my Club in Piccadilly.

If Parnell thought that he had the best of the chase, that he had given me "the slip", he had another opinion, probably, when, as he was about to enter a suburban train, he was approached by a courteous young man who introduced himself as my assistant and said how fortunate it was meeting like this, because it gave him the opportunity to ask if Mr. Parnell would send me the reply which he had promised for that day, as I wished to cable it to New York.

"Parnell did n't turn a hair," said my assistant, when he reported to me at the Club a few minutes later. "If he were surprised, he did n't show it. But he narrowed his eyes and said, in a frigid way that brought down the temperature of that cold station, 'I will write.' And then the train started."

"And he with it?" I asked.

"No. It left both of us on the platform. I bade him good afternoon and came here. I suppose he took the next train."

I made no comment, but calling for a cable form, wrote on it this message for New York:

        "Parnell declines."

"But he has n't declined," my assistant exclaimed.

"No, but he will. You can keep that cable message in your pocket until he does."

The reason I had not followed Parnell into the South Eastern station was that in the train from Westminster to Charing Cross I had told my assistant what to do, and where I thought Parnell was going.

For Parnell's reply I did n't care one way or another. But I thought that I was even with him for his evasion of me at the House, of his treatment of an appointment which he had made, and of a courteous proposal. My method of letting him know, without having said so, that I was not entirely ignorant of his reasons was, in the circumstances, quite legitimate. He could not and did not take open exception to it. And for nearly thirty years I never mentioned it. I do so now simply to illustrate what I mean by his elusiveness. It may interest the few who remember some of his traits. It is quite erroneous to suppose, as many souls not altogether simple seem to do, that a journalist always tells all that he knows.

But I might throw in here this remark: In all that promenade and hide and seek in London streets, nobody seemed to recognise Parnell, nobody turned to look at him. He was merely a passerby like another. Crowds stare, they do not observe. They see only what is pointed out to them, what they expect to see,—and not always that.

Two or three days later, in reply to a telegram of inquiry, Parnell declined the proposal from America. My assistant sent both the inquiry and my cable. Concerning the latter, he asked me:

"What made you certain in advance?"

"A rule known to astute politicians—2 and 2 make 4. It is not altered by Home Rule, or other matters."

I have often observed, with forty years of opportunity for doing so, that few persons know so little of conditions in Ireland, of Irish conditions in Parliament, of the "Irish movement", whatever that may be at any given time, as the Americans, and particularly the Irish in America. I have had my share of rebuke for mentioning this. An illustration will serve.

During the summer of 1890 I had a few weeks in the United States. One evening in Boston I happened to meet, as I was passing his office, a man whom I knew well, Jeffrey Roche, Editor of The Pilot, an Irish paper and the principal organ of Roman Catholicism in New England. Roche had been the assistant, and later became the successor, to the late John Boyle O'Reilly, and like him was a delightful and lovable fellow and the writer of charming verse. He hated England, of course, and as I did not, we had many tilts, in print and out of it, but we were always good friends.

"Hullo, Jeffrey," said I.

"Hullo, my enemy," said he, laughing as we shook hands.

"Why 'enemy'?" I asked. "Has poor old Ireland another grievance?"

"You wronged Parnell!"

"Sit down and tell me about it," said I.

And we went to dine at the nearest restaurant where the dear fellow explained that an article of mine, sent from London and published in the Boston Herald during the previous February, had "scandalised all Irishmen" and "imperilled the chances of Home Rule."

"Dear, dear," said I, "that's a lot for one man to do! How did it happen?"

"Your article said that an action for divorce had been entered by a Captain O'Shea who named Parnell as corespondent."

"Well, what of it? Everybody knows it."

"I don't know it. We don't know it here. Nobody knows it."

"And you 're an editor, Jeffrey! Is that the way you keep the run of the news?"

"Such a case has never been tried."

"It has not yet been tried, you mean. Of course not; it has to take its turn. It will come on in the autumn."

"Who is O'Shea?"

I stared at Roche in amazement. And then I laughed.

"Jeffrey," said I, "you do it very well."

"Do what? No," said he, "it is n't acting. Who is he?"

I told him, and added that the question had been put differently by the Irish members of Parliament a long time ago. They asked at one time—"Why is he?" After a while they asked nothing.

"And your article said that the Irish party would turn against Parnell if the case were tried, and that the English Liberals would throw him over, and the Home Rule cause would go to pieces."

"Pardon me, Jeffrey, my article said that those would be some of the results if O'Shea won his case, not if the case were tried."

"Gladstone would n't turn against Parnell!"

"Jeffrey, if that's all you know about the Irish Question, take my advice and return to Ireland by the next ship and study it on the spot. Then go to Westminster and study it there. Learn what the Unionists think, what Liberals think, and what Mr. Gladstone, as leader of the Liberal Party, has to think, and—"

"It's another Piggott trick! Parnell's defence will show it all up."

"Suppose he should n't defend himself?"

"That's unfair!"

"Let me tell you a thing or two. Make a note of 'em, and see what happens within a year!"

In the course of the next two hours Roche heard more of the inside of Irish and English politics than I would have supposed could previously have escaped an editor's mind. It was clear that the comings and goings of Irish parliamentarians bent on propaganda and money-raising had not left behind much information that could guide a distant editor over a course abounding with obstacles. My experience with Roche that evening resembled all the experiences I have ever had in the United States when talking on the Irish question with persons who seemed really anxious for information. And the situation is much the same at this hour, differing only in kind, not in degree.

The events of November and December, 1890, proved to my doubting friend the truth of all I had told in print or out of it during the preceding months. But he was as much surprised at the end of the year as he had been when I talked with him in May. Roche died years ago; perhaps he knew by that time how matters stood. At all events, perhaps he knows now. The Irish in America were not in those days, and have not been since then much or far behind the scenes of a certain political stage. They have paid their money, and, like other audiences, have remained in front to watch, to listen, to applaud, or to hiss. If they have frequently applauded or derided in the wrong places, other audiences beholding other dramas have done no less.

The conditions in Ireland, and concerning Ireland, are not new to me. I have known them pretty well for forty years. If I were an Irishman I would think, no doubt, on most points political, with other fellow countrymen of my party. But what party would that be? I might answer, if you could tell me where I would have been born and of what religious faith. My sympathy with Ireland is deep; it would be so, if only for the matchless, the invincible stupidity with which she has been and is still governed. But her "injustices" and "woes" have long since been wiped out. That is one thing they do not know in America. But it is unnecessary to go beyond certain Nationalist speeches in the House of Commons to learn as much. John Redmond said a good deal on that point. But now there are no Nationalist speeches, no Nationalist members to speak of. The Nationalist Party is dead. The Irish seats in the House of Commons are empty, voluntarily empty. Had Ireland done her share in the War, she would have had Home Rule before the Armistice. But she would not do her share, and she does not appear to desire Home Rule, and Great Britain did not try to force her. In America the meaning of this is not quite understood. While Great Britain was sending millions of men to the front, while her manhood was everywhere conscripted, while her fathers and sons were fighting the malignant German, while she was depriving herself of money, food, clothing, economising in the very necessaries of life, not merely in order to provide for her armies, but to aid her allies, Ireland did nothing. Ireland's food was not rationed; she had plenty and to spare; plenty to eat, plenty to drink, plenty to wear; petrol and motor cars were not forbidden her, they were forbidden to Britain; the luxuries which Britain denied herself were abundant in Ireland; she was, in fact, the most favoured country in Europe. She was never so prosperous as throughout the war.

But not a hand would she lift to defend her soil against the Germans. Thousands of Irishmen were at the front; they fought splendidly, but it was not in accordance with the will of Ireland that they fought. It was because they willed it themselves. Ireland was exempted from conscription. Englishmen and Scotsmen, Welshmen and Cornishmen, all the men and all the women from Land's End to John O'Groat's have long memories for things like that. And so have many Americans.

It is useless, I suppose, to say that Parnell's course had he lived to and through the war time, still leading Irish politics, would have been this, or would have been that. He did not have to face such conditions; they were not forward in his time, but they were always at the back of the minds of some British statesmen, and he knew it. He knew that the dominant reason which stood between Ireland and Independence was the need of Great Britain to guard herself against attacks and invasions from the Continent. France was thought to be the potential enemy then, as she had been supposedly since the days of Napoleon I. Well, we know what Germany did. England could no more allow the island on her western flank to become an independent power than the United States could permit any of her forty-eight States to break away from the family roof. Are arguments for separation based on racial and religious differences more valid in the case of Ireland than they are in the case of the United States? What are the racial differences between Ireland and Great Britain compared with the racial differences in the United States, differences which arose through conquest and purchase, not alone through immigration? The Indians, the Mexicans, the Spaniards, the French, the Negroes? And then the welter of immigrations on top of these? And is the argument for majority rule, based, as it is usually, upon the majority in Ireland, more valid? Ireland is, and has been for centuries, an integral part, a vital part of the political organism known since 1801 as "the United Kingdom", and of that organism the Irish population, in Ireland, is but a small minority of the whole! In an age of democracy shall a minority rule? In the United States we know something about secession; we have clear and firm opinions on it now. Why should we expect Britain to permit the secession of Ireland? And if the Ulster problem presents such "vast difficulties", what becomes of the famous panacea—Self-Determination? Won't the panacea work in Ulster's case?

These points were just as clear in Parnell's day as they are this morning. The Home Rule cause was one thing; the Separatist, Independence case was quite distinctly another thing. Parnell knew that he could never satisfy Ireland if Independence were what she wanted. The hot-heads in her politics were seeking that and not Home Rule. Home Rule was almost won by Parnell; after him it was thrown away by bitter dissensions within his party. Thirty years more were required to bring the factions to a point where they could pull together. Then the inevitable dissensions broke out anew. The power that had been John Redmond's slipped away, and Redmond's party went to pieces as Parnell's had done. It is folly to put the blame on the Nationalists alone, or on the Ulstermen alone. The conditions do not mix. They are antagonistic.

And, though the ideals of Ulster are not the ideals of the rest of Ireland, must Ulster be punished for her ideals? Ulster asks the privilege of being loyal to Britain. Must she then be punished for her loyalty and punished by Britain? That is a question which Americans who are so frequently called upon to interfere in the Irish question never ask themselves, because it is never presented to them. But if they were to ask it concerning any State in the American Union in its relation to the Government at Washington, there is no doubt what their answer would be.

What of the rest of Ireland? At present the Sinn Feiners have the floor. They proclaim openly what the Nationalists, or most of them, are said to have concealed; their object,—Independence. But they know that if Ireland should become an Independent Power, she must meet her obligations of financial maintenance. She could not meet them without drawing upon, or absorbing the revenues of Ulster. And she might not be able to meet them then. Are these matters, and matters such as these, to be settled, or even helped by pious resolutions passed in Madison Square Garden, or Faneuil Hall, or the Congress at Washington?

It might be thought that the ingenuity of man, to say nothing of his justice, could find a way out of this age-long dilemma. It can be seen that the dilemma is not quite so simple as at a distance it has been commonly supposed. And it can be said that difficult as the problem is, it has become none the less difficult through the conflict of views and policies of Sinn Feiners, clericals, Home Rulers, Ulstermen, the Asquith government, or the Lloyd-George government, politicians in America, or rhetoricians anywhere.

I find that thirty years ago I wrote in an American newspaper: "Parnell puzzles the British mind, because measures proposed in behalf of Ireland are rejected whether they come from Mr. Gladstone or from Mr. Balfour. It has not yet dawned upon the British mind that Parnell means that Parliament wastes its time over land bills and other remedial legislation; that the Irish mean to settle the land question, and all other Irish questions, without English assistance. What he wants is Home Rule and not land acts. What he wants beyond Home Rule he does not say, and no one is in his confidence."

It was all very well, but he could not prevent the Briton from bringing gifts, nor could he avoid him. The world has moved a long way since Parnell died and has brought changes of which he did not dream. But there, stripped of detail, was his object. If the ultimate object were not set forth, it was because he wanted Ireland to get Home Rule first. The difficulties of the step beyond that he knew well and appreciated thoroughly. Perhaps it was because he knew the British view so well, and could understand it so well because he was half-English and half-American, that his point of view was not limited by Irish experiences and aspirations. It may be that he did not expect Independence in his time, perhaps not really at any time. But whether he did or not, he said in the House of Commons, in April, 1890, "We have not based our claims to nationhood on the sufferings of our country." Well, if they were based on other grounds, it is likely that he saw insurmountable obstacles in their way.

I am far from agreeing with the conventional assertion that Parnell wrecked his party and postponed Home Rule by a generation. Such assertions are made easily, and they are easily accepted by the crowd. They ignore many other factors, even factors that I have suggested here. And they ignore the necessity which all politicians were under, or supposed themselves to be under, of claiming a virtue, though some had it not. I think of some politicians who were professionally horrified over the O'Shea case, although their own lives would not have borne the examination of a divorce court, and who had not in their lives the mitigating circumstance that Parnell had,—an absorbing love. And I think of the politicians who were professionally "surprised" but who had had a long preparation for what was coming. All the forces of hypocrisy and cant were let loose at that time, all the forces of envy, hatred, malice, and uncharitableness; and they did not rest until Parnell was crushed and dead. The spectacle was enough to make one nauseated forever with politics—and some other things.

Mrs. Parnell's book on her husband, published in 1916, throws a clear light upon that chapter in Parnell's life. I see no reason to doubt its statements and conclusions; I see many reasons for accepting them. They confirm the impressions that many of us had thirty years ago, and relate facts that some of us more than surmised at that time, and before it. It is scarcely possible for them to deal with the hypocrisy and jealousy, revengefulness and cant that broke a man's life and a nation's cause. These were not in Ireland alone. Britain and America had their share.

Was Parnell a great man? I am inclined to think that he just missed greatness. If he had won, there would be no doubt, I suppose. That he was the man for his time there can be no denying. It is idle, I suppose, to speculate whether he would have been the man for the time after Home Rule had been gained, for then the duties would have been vastly different. And yet they would have called for qualities not common among Irishmen, among political Irishmen in Ireland, I mean,—the qualities that made him eminent and successful as a leader. He was not eloquent, but eloquence is not essential to greatness. He did not inspire affection, devotion. To this it may be answered that the people of his country loved him. So they did. But a great many politicians who were his followers did not. Some of them entertained for him emotions quite opposite to love. Of course he inspired respect; more than that, he instilled fear into the hearts of his parliamentary army. They feared him then. But if his aloofness, his detachment from the usual, even the unusual, affairs of society and human interest, was one of his most remarkable characteristics, it was in his favour rather than against him, it contributed to "the mystery" in which his personality was shrouded, a mystery cultivated less by himself than by legend. An eminent politician whose life is isolated must be "mysterious" to the crowd.

He did not care for the play, for music, for pictures, or for literature, excepting when literature bore upon the work in hand. He did not care for society, for sport, for games of any kind. And so he was a mystery to more countries than one. He was easily bored; the ordinary life of politics bored him, his followers bored him; it often bored him to make a speech. His power was in his set purpose, his concentration upon it, his absolute disinterestedness. Save in one instance, he ground no axe and was not the cause of axe-grinding by others.

Although he was not an orator, he could and did put a case plainly, strongly, indeed with very great strength. He was cool when it paid to be cool, vigorous when vigour was required; he was seldom impassioned. When he was angriest he was least stirred. Internally he might rage, as when under general attack, when the assailants were, in a double sense, offensive, but outwardly he would be calm and pale. You would know when he felt the fiercest stress, not by his voice nor by his actions, but by his pallor. It was only in the last months of his life that he gave his temper free rein, let himself go, fiercely lashed his opponents, hitherto his partisans. There was something of revenge in this, of resentful wrath long pent up. Who shall say it was not justified, or that it was unnatural?