and to the Party whose chosen leader he was.  Mr Redmond was fully alive to the danger, but he hesitated about taking that bold action which could alone bring the recalcitrants to heel.  He was afraid of doing anything which might provoke a fresh “split.”  Later he delivered himself of the unstatesmanlike and unworthy apophthegm:  “Better be united in support of a short-sighted and foolish policy than divided in support of a far-sighted and wise one.”  This was the fatuous attitude which led him down the steep declivity that ended so tragically for him and his reputation.  In those fateful days, when so much was in the balance for the future of Ireland, Mr O’Brien pressed his views earnestly upon Mr Redmond that unless he exercised his authority, and that of the Party and the Directory, it would be impossible for them to persevere in their existing programme, and that the only alternative left for him would be to retire and leave those who had opposed the policy of Conciliation a free stage for any more heroic projects they might contemplate.  Mr Redmond still remained indecisive and Mr O’Brien—­whether wisely or unwisely will always remain a debatable point with his friends—­quietly quitted the stage, resigning his seat in Parliament, withdrawing from the Directory of the United Irish League, and ceasing publication of his weekly newspaper on the ground, as he says himself, that “the authorised national policy having been made unworkable, nothing remained, in order to save the country from dissension, except to leave its wreckers an absolutely free field for any alternative policy of their own.”

It is no exaggeration to say that the country was thrown into a state of stupefaction by Mr O’Brien’s retirement.  It did not know the reason of it.  Very few members of the Party did.  I was then a member of it—­perhaps a little on the outer fringe, but still an ordinarily intelligent member—­and I was not aware of the underground factors and forces which had caused this thunderbolt out of the blue, as it were.  Needless to say, the country was in a state of more abysmal ignorance still, and it is questionable whether outside of Munster, owing to a scandalous Press boycott of Mr O’Brien’s speeches for many years afterwards, the masses of the people ever had an understanding of the motives which impelled him “to stand down and out” when he was undoubtedly supreme in the Party and in the United Irish League and when he might easily have overborne “the determined campaigners” if he had only knit the issue with them in a fair and square fight.  This, however, was the thing of all others he wished to avoid.  Perhaps if he could have foreseen how barren in any alternative policy his sapient critics were to be he might have acted otherwise, but the credit is due to him of making dissension impossible by leaving no second party to the quarrel.