Evening Memories

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 21, 31 May 1923, Page 7

Evening Memories

(By William O’Brien.)

CHAPTER XXIII. —A BAD LOSER (1889). A man who was not afflicted with the subtlety of Mr. Balfour would have found no difficulty in understanding the lesson of Manchester. The course he now took can only be accounted for by the quality of all others that might seem least applicable to him —stupidity. Far from recognising that he had been outraging the British sense of decency, he proceeded to outrage it more insolently than ever. Instead of sensibly closing the chapter of his prison theories with the surrender of six months before, at Tullamore, he wilfully reopened it under every circumstance that could suggest personal chagrin, as well as ineptitude in a ruler of men. His Irish prisoner, who was received with •provoking honor by the people of Manchester, and lodged in the State apartments of his Royal Highness of Clarence by their Lord Mayor, was the morning after his transfer to Ireland felled to the ground by Mr. Balfour’s warders in his prison of Clonmel, with every accessory of stupid barbarity, for refusing to do the very thing respecting which after a long struggle he had been formally justified, a few months before, in his refusal; now as then, the Chief Secretary gloried in these not very valorous insults’ to his captive, and this time with a perceptible' ingredient of spite running through his misrepresentations and jests; and now, even more decisively than then, it was to end in a capitulation on every point dictated by his prisoner, and the final disgrace of the policy of prison degradation which he had made the touchstone of .his Irish Administration. If one need not dispute the JoveTlke aloofness from human infirmities which Mr. Balfour claimed when he told Mr. Dillon in the House of Commons “he could assure the hon. gentleman that no articles he ever read, either in Irish or in English newspapers, had ever given him a moment’s uneasiness, or the least desire to inflict vengeance on the editor," it can only be observed that his words and his official acts were chosen with an infelicitous gift for throwing suspicion upon his own boast.

First let me recall the terms in which the Chief Secretary saw fit to address a festive Unionist banquetting party in Dublin at a moment while the people of Ireland, and, perhaps, a considerable portion of the people of Britain, Mere distressed by the unequal struggle going on within the Malls of Clonmel gaol. It need only be prefaced that the press was excluded from the banquet, and the names of the hilarious company suppressed, and that the “prolonged laughter,” and the “roars of laughter,” with which his patrician humor was rewarded, were expressly inserted in “the official report.”

“I had the honor of receiving at about a quarter to one last night—(prolonged laughter)—a telegram front the Lord Mayor of Dublin—(renewed laughter)which I allude to now because I take it, it represents the Nationalists’, case with regard to Air. William O’Brien’s treatment in prison, and in this document, the original of which I have got in my hand, I read —(I won’t read it all) —‘ illegal and brutal violence ’ —(laughter)that .isn't —(laughter)—

‘ unexampled indignation ’—(laughter)— ‘ system of attacking and beating down your political adversary by torture ’ —(laughter)—No^that is not it. Here it — 1 Mr. O’Brien has now been naked in his cell for thirty-six hours—(roars of laughter)—and to-night Me learn that he is lying speechless, and that the prison ’authorities, considering his condition dangerous, have applied to you for instructions.’ That, gentlemen, is the operative, the important part of the telegram which yon will probably have all seen in the Freeman's Journal , and which I shall have to allude to in quite another connection in a few moments! / Now, I Avant to say to you that every single substantial statement in that passage I have read is wholly and absolutely incorrect —(cheers). What has happened is this: Air. O’Brien,

after an Odyssey which I won’t further dwell on, was arrested in the ordinary course, and was taken to Clonmel prison. When he got to Clonmel prison he used to allow —he threw every obstacle in the way of—any medical examination ; he declined absolutely to be weighed (laughter)—and, as he did not permit the doctor to form any judgment, from personal examination, of his case, he went through the ordinary process to which every prisoner is subject who offends against the law — (cheers). This happened on Thursday. It might surprise some of you—some of you who read, if there are such, who read only Nationalist journals it may surprise you to learn that I have not the control and management of all the prisoners in Ireland—(laughter). The Prisons Board is not in my department; the questions connected with (prisoners do not, as a matter of course, come through either my hands or the hands of the Irish Office, and, therefore, it is only under exceptional circumstances that any questions connected with any prisoner in Ireland come before me. However, when I went down to the office on Friday, the facts which I have just stated were brought before me, and I immediately proceeded to write a minute in which I said that, of course, if Mr. O’Brien, having the prison clothes at his disposal, choose to stay in his shirt —(laughter)—and if he refused to submit himself to any medical examination whatever, any evil consequences to his health which might ensue, he would be responsible for, and not —(hear! hear ! and applause). But, at the same time, I said I did not think we ought to permit Mr. O’Brien to ruin his constitution for the purpose of injuring her Majesty’s Government (laughter and applause)— and I, therefore, gave directions that, as Mr. O’Brien would not allow himself to be medically examined, the reports made by Dr. Ridley and Dr. Barr , upon Mr. O’Brien when he was in Tullamore gaol should be sent down at once by special message to the doctor at Clonmel,, so that in the light of these reports, and having learnt, what, in the opinion of the doctors who had examined Mr. O’Brien the condition of his health was, the doctor should most carefully watch Mr. O’Brien, and take care that no eccentricity of his should in any way risk his constitution. (Applause). And in order that the full ’St medical opinion possible should be taken on this important point, the medical member of the Prisons Board has very kindly consented to go down and assist the doctor of Clonmel prison— a doctor in whom, I may say, I have every reason to believe that the State has a faithful and efficient servant. (Hear! hear!).” Here it will be observed that, setting aside the artful artlessness of the contemptuous references to the Lord Mayor (Air. Thomas Sexton) —who, as it happened, was a greater Parliamentarian than himself — the Chief Secretary hazarded only one specific allegation viz., that my treatment was due to a refusal on my part to submit to medical examination, while he, not for the first time, set up the plea that “it is absurd to say that the management of Irish prisoners is in my department,” (speech of February 25, 1889). Within a couple of days after the publication of my reply, he was obliged publicly to confess that his first statement was, to put it bluntly, a falsehood, and his defence of irresponsibility was proved to be so impudently at variance with the truth that he subsequently acknowledged ho was personally responsible for the treatment of his prisoners in every particular.*

* E.fj. “He had never pretended that the course hr had pursued was free from doubt and difficulty . . but, they had not yet said anything in the debate which either convinced him that he was wrong in going so far as he had gone or convinced him that he ought to have gone further.” (To be continued.) <&<>■ The dispute about religion, and the practice of it, seldom go together.—