by reason of the fact that the Party could never have dragged along its existence if it had been dependent upon Irish contributions to its funds.  These were largely withdrawn because the Party was delinquent in adhering to the policy of Conciliation.  It is a phenomenon worth remarking that the Irish people never failed to contribute generously what Parnell had termed “the sinews of war” so long as the members of the Party deserved it of them.  But when symptoms of demoralisation set in, or when contentions distracted their energies, the people cut off the supplies.  This would undoubtedly have been an effective means of control in normal circumstances, but when the Party, of its own volition, was able to send “missions” to America and Australia to collect funds, it was no longer dependent on the popular will, as expressed in terms of material support, and it became the masters of the people instead of their servants.

Not that I want for one moment unnecessarily to disparage the personnel of the Party—­it was probably the best that Ireland could have got in the circumstances—­nor do I seek to diminish its undoubtedly great services to Ireland in the days of Parnell and during the period that it loyally adopted the policy of Conciliation.  But what I do deplore is that a few men in the Party—­not more than three or four all told—­were able, by getting control of “the machine,” to destroy the fairest chance that Ireland ever had of gaining a large measure of self-government.  Knowing all that happened within the Party in the years of which I am writing, knowing the methods that were employed, rather unscrupulously and with every circumstance of pettiness, to bear down any member who showed the least disposition to exercise legitimately an independent judgment—­knowing how the paid organisers of the League were at once dispatched to his constituency to intrigue against him and to work up local enmities, I am not, and never was, surprised at the compelled submission of the body of the members to the decrees of the secret Cabinet who controlled policy and directed affairs with an absolute autocracy that few dared question.  One member more courageous than his fellows, Mr Thomas O’Donnell, B.L., did come upon the platform with Mr Wm. O’Brien at Tralee, in his own constituency and had the manliness to declare in favour of the policy of Conciliation, but the tragic confession was wrung from him:  “I know I shall suffer for it.”  And he did!

I mention these matters to explain what would otherwise be inexplicable—­how it came to pass that a policy solemnly ratified by the Party, by the Directory of the League, and by a National Convention was subsequently repudiated.  Whilst Mr O’Brien remained in the Party there was no question of the allegiance of these men to correct principle.  Mr Joseph Devlin, who later was far and away the most powerful man in the Party, had not yet “arrived.” (It was the retirement of Mr O’Brien from public life