THE DEATH OF A LEADER
There is no Irishman who can study the incidents leading up to
Parnell's downfall and the wretched controversies connected with it
without feelings of shame that such a needless sacrifice of greatness
should have been made.
Parnell broke off the Boulogne negotiations ostensibly on the ground
that the assurances of Mr Gladstone on the Home Rule Question were not
sufficient and that if he was to be "thrown to the English wolves," to
use his own term, the Irish people were not getting their price in
return. But giving the best thought possible to all the available
materials it would seem that Mr Dillon's reflection on Parnell's
_bona fides_ was really at the root of the ultimate break-away.
Mr Barry O'Brien, in his _Life of Parnell_, thus describes the
incident:
"Parnell went to Calais and met Mr O'Brien and Mr Dillon. The Liberal
assurances were then submitted to him and he considered them
unsatisfactory; but this was not the only trouble. Mr O'Brien had
looked forward with hope to the meeting between Parnell and Mr Dillon.
He believed the meeting would make for peace. He was awfully
disappointed. Mr Dillon succeeded completely in getting Parnell's back
up, adding seriously to the difficulties of the situation. He seemed
specially to have offended Parnell by proposing that he (Mr Dillon)
should have the decisive voice in the distribution of the Paris
Funds.... Mr Dillon proposed that the funds might be drawn without the
intervention of Parnell; that, in fact, Mr Dillon should take the
place Parnell had hitherto held.[1] Parnell scornfully brushed aside
this proposal and broke off relations with Mr Dillon altogether,
though to the end he remained on friendly terms with Mr O'Brien."
It is a vivid memory with me how closely we in Ireland hung upon the
varying fortunes and vicissitudes of the Boulogne pourparlers, and how
earnest was the hope in every honest Irish heart that a way out might
be found which would not involve our incomparable leader in further
humiliations. But alas for our hopes! The hemlock had to be drained to
the last bitter drop. Meanwhile Parnell never rested day or night. He
rushed from one end of the country to the other, addressing meetings,
fighting elections, stimulating his followers, answering his defamers
and all the time exhausting the scant reserves of strength that were
left him.
Considering all the causes of his downfall in the light of later
events the alliance of the Irish Party with English Liberalism was, in
my judgment, the primary factor. Were it not for this entanglement or
obligation--call it what you will--the Gladstone letter would never
have been written. And even that letter was no sufficient
justification for throwing Parnell overboard. If it were a question of
the defeat of the Home Rule cause and the withdrawal of Mr Gladstone
from the leadership of the Liberal Party, something may be said for
it, but the words actually used by Mr Gladstone were: "The continuance
of Parnell's leadership would render my retention of the leadership of
the Liberal Party almost a nullity." Be it observed, Gladstone did not
say he was going to retire from leadership; nor did he say he was
going to abandon Home Rule--to forsake a principle founded on justice
and for which he had divided the Liberal Party and risked his own
reputation as a statesman.
To think that Gladstone meant this is not alone inconceivable, but
preposterous. And, indeed, it has been recently made abundantly clear
in Lord Morley's book of personal reminiscences that the Parnell Split
need never have taken place at all had steps been taken by any
responsible body of intermediaries to obtain Gladstone's real views.
We now know it for absolute fact that Gladstone had had actually
struck out of his letter as prepared by him for publication the fatal
and fateful passage and that it was only reinserted at Mr John
Morley's dictation. Mr Morley's own narrative of the circumstances
deserves quotation:
"At 8 to dinner in Stratton Street. I sat next to Granville and next
to him was Mr G. We were all gay enough and as unlike as possible to a
marooned crew. Towards the end of the feast Mr G. handed to me, at the
back of Granville's chair, the draft of the famous letter in an
unsealed envelope. While he read the Queen's speech to the rest I
perused and reperused the letter. Granville also read it. I said to Mr
G. across Granville: 'But you have not put in the very thing that
would be most likely of all things to move him,' referring to the
statement in the original draft, that Parnell's retention would mean
the nullity of Gladstone's leadership. Harcourt again regretted that
it was addressed to me and not to P. and agreed with me that it ought
to be strengthened as I had indicated if it was meant really to affect
P.'s mind. Mr G. rose, went to the writing-table and with me standing
by wrote, on a sheet of Arnold M.'s grey paper, the important
insertion. I marked then and there under his eyes the point at which
the insertion was to be made and put the whole into my pocket. Nobody
else besides H. was consulted about it, or saw it."
Thus the fate of a great man and, to a very considerable extent also,
the destiny of an ancient nation was decided by one of those
unaccountable mischances which are the weapons of Fate in an
inscrutable world. I think that to-day Ireland generally mourns it
that Parnell should ever have been deposed in obedience to a British
mandate--or perhaps, as those who conscientiously opposed Mr Parnell
at the time might prefer to term it, because of their fidelity to a
compact honestly entered into with the Liberal Party--an alliance
which they no doubt believed to be essential to the grant of Home
Rule.
We have since learned, through much travail and disappointment, what
little faith can be reposed in the most emphatic pledges of British
Parties or leaders, and we had been wiser in 1890 if we had taken
sides with Parnell against the whole world had the need arisen. As it
was, fought on front and flank, with the thunders of the Church, and
the ribaldry of malicious tongues to scatter their venomed darts
abroad, Parnell was a doomed man. Not that he lacked indomitable
courage or loyal support. But his frail body was not equal to the
demands of the undaunted spirit upon it, and so he went to his grave
broken but not beaten--great even in that last desperate stand he had
made for his own position, as he was great in all that he had
undertaken, suffered and achieved for his country. It was a hushed and
heart-broken Ireland that heard of his death. It was as if a pall had
fallen over the land on that grey October morning in 1891 when the
news of his passing was flashed across from the England that he
scorned to the Ireland that he loved. It may be that those who had
reviled him and cast the wounding word against him had then their
moment of regret and the wish that what had been heatedly spoken might
be unsaid, but those who loved him and who were loyal to the end found
no consolation beyond this, that they had stood, with leal hearts and
true, beside the man who had found Ireland broken, maimed and
dispirited and who had lifted her to the proud position of conscious
strength and self-reliant nationhood.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: This is not exact. What Dillon proposed was that Parnell,
McCarthy and Dillon himself should be the trustees, the majority to be
sufficient to sign cheques. When Parnell objected to a third being
added, Dillon made the observation which ruined everything: "Yes,
indeed, and the first time I was in trouble to leave me without a
pound to pay the men" (O'Brien's _An Olive Branch in Ireland_).]