In the bye-elections about this time, we often got the most satisfactory results from places where the Irish vote was but small.  I have before my mind the Carnarvon Boroughs bye election of 1890.  Here the seat had been held by a Tory, and the Irish vote in the five towns, all told, was not much more than 50.  I was sent to the constituency by our Executive to use every exertion to get our people to poll for David Lloyd-George, a thorough-going Home Ruler, at that time an unknown man, though he has since risen to the first political and ministerial rank.  It was then I made his acquaintance, and time has only increased the friendly feeling between us.

Our meeting happened rather curiously.  While on my round I came across an unpretentious-looking young man who, I discovered, was also working on the same side.  We had chatted together for some time when I happened to make some reference to the candidate.  “Oh,” he said, with a laugh, “I am the candidate.”  It was Mr. Lloyd-George.  We worked together with all the more ardour being brother Celts.  I frequently expressed to him my admiration for a striking feature in their great meetings during the election campaign.  This was the singing in their native tongue of songs calculated to rouse the enthusiasm of an emotional people like the Welsh, the climax being reached at the end of each meeting with their noble national anthem, sung in the native tongue of course, “Land of my Fathers.”

Since that time it is gratifying to realize the great progress which has been made in the revival of our native tongue through the instrumentality of the Gaelic League.  The success of our friends in this direction ought to be an encouragement to us.  The old Cymric tongue is almost universal throughout Wales, side by side with the English, so that it is not all visionary to think that a day may come when ours, too, may become a bi-lingual people.

Mr. Edmund Vesey Knox, an Ulster Protestant Home Ruler, who was then a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party, came to assist in the return of Mr. Lloyd-George.  At one of their great gatherings he told his audience how much he was impressed by the enthusiasm created by their native music and song.  This reminded him, he said, that one of their great Irish poets, Thomas Davis, was partially of Welsh descent, which no doubt inspired one of his noblest songs “Cymric Rule and Cymric Rulers,” written to their soul-stirring Welsh air, “The March of the Men of Harlech.”  After Mr. Knox, more singing, and then came a delightful address from a distinguished Irish lady, Mrs. Bryant, who did splendid service at many of these bye elections.  Doctor Sophie Bryant, to give her full title, is a lady of great learning and eloquence, and not only a thorough Nationalist in sentiment, but an energetic worker in the Cause.  A literary lady colleague thus sums up her chief qualities:  “She is more learned than any man I know; more tender than any woman I have ever met.”