A New View of Mr Biggar.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 170, 18 September 1886, Page 8

A New View of Mr Biggar.

Mr T. P. O'Connor has jtst published an interesting volume to contemporary history, *♦ The Parnell Movement," in which he thus Bpeaka of Mr Biggar ;— «To his intimates, then, Mr Bipgar is known as a man overflowing with kindness ; of an almost absolute unselfishness. A man once bitterly hated Mr Biggar until he had a conversation with one of Mr Biggar's sisters, and found that she was unable to speak of all her brother's kindness with an unbroken voice. It is amusing to watch hia proceedings at the House of Commons, With all his fiftyseven years, he is at the beck and call of men who could be almost hia grandchildren. Mr Healy is preparing an onslaught on the treasury bench. "Joe, 1 he criea to Mr Biggar, "get me Return so and po." Mr Biggar is off to the library. He has scarcely got baok when the relentless for Monaghan requires to add to his armoury the division list in which the perfidious Minister has recorded his infamy, and away goes Mr Biggar to the library again. Then Mr Sexton, busily engaged in the study of an official report, approaches the member for Cavan with a card and an inBinuating smile, and Mr Biggar sets forth on an expedition to see some of the importunate visitants by whom members of Parliament are dogged. As a quarter to six is approaching on a Wednesday evening, and Mr Parnell thinks it just as well that the work of Government should not go on too fast, he calls on Mr Bigfcar, and Mr Biggar is on his legs,filling in the horrid interval — Heaven knows how ! The desolate stranger, who knows no mem bar of Parliament, yearns to see the House of Commons at work, thinks fondly of Mr Biggar, and obtain? a ticket of admission. He is seen almost every night surrounded by successive bevies of ladies — young and old, native and foreign— whom he is escorting to the Ladies' Gallery. Nobody asks any favour of Mr Biggar without getting it. The man who to the outside public appears the most odious type of Irish fractiousness i 3 adored by the policej men, worshipped by attendants of the House; and there is good reason for the suspicion that there was a secret treaty of inviolable friendship between him and the late Serjeant-at-arme, the genial and universally popular Captain Gosaett, founded on their common desire to bring sittings to the abrupt and inglorious end of a "count out." But this, as I have indicated, is but one aide of his character. His hate is as fierce and unquestioning as his love, and he hates all his political opponents. He has the true Ulster nature, uncompromising, downright, self-controlled, narrow. The subtleties by which men of wider minds, more complex natures, le9s stable purpose and conviction, are apt to palliate their changes are incomprehensible to Mr Biggar, and the self-justifications of moral weakness arouse only his scorn. . . Hia purpose, too, when once resolved upon, is inflexible. Towards the close of the session in 1835 a tramway scheme in the eonth of Ireland name before the House of Commons after it had passed triumphantly through the ' House of Lords. In his political economy Mr Biggar belong** to the stricteBt"seofc of tlio laissezfaire school, and tto every tramway scheme under Governmen patronage he has been accordingly strongly hostile, believing that they should be left to development by private enterprise. A deputation of strong Nationalists came over fronv the district ; they made out a capital case, convinced all the other members of the party present that the tramway was necessary, and a resolution was passed in their favour. But Mr Biggar remained- quite unmoved, persisted in his hostility, got over another and a rival deputation, and finally killed the bill. It is this inflexibility of purpose that has made him so great a political force. Finally he is as fearless as he is single-minded. 1 The worst tempeßt in the House of Commons, the sternest decree that English law could enforce against an Irish patriot, and equally the disapproval of hia own people, are incapable of causing him a moment of trepidation. He has said many terrible things in the House of Commons; the instance has got to occur of his having retracted one syllable of anything he has ever said. There is a scene in " Pere Goriot" in which the pangs of the dying and deserted father are depioted with terrible force. He is speaking of his daughter and of their husbands ; of - the onehe speaks with the tenderness of a woman's heart: ; of the other, with the ferocity of an enraged tiger. The" passage suggests the two bo contrary sides of Mr Biggar's nature ; in the depth of his love, in the fierceness^ his hate, he is the *' Pere Goriot "of s Irish politics. A great difficulty meets the • biographer of Mr Biggar at the outset, fie is not communicative about himself, and he much underrates himself. Asked by a friend to write his autobiography, his -answer., was, ♦'lam a very commonplace character." In his early days, when he used to be aslAi to make, a speech, he cheerfully: started out on the attempt, Having made the preliminary statement, " I oan't •peak a d— -d bit."