s I was not much of a politician. My heart was with the
neglected labourer and I stood, accordingly, as a Labour candidate, my
programme being the social elevation of the masses, particularly in
the vital matters of housing, employment and wages. I was not even a
member of the United Irish League, being wholly concerned in building
up the Irish Land and Labour Association, which was mainly an
organisation for the benefit, protection and the education in social
and citizen duty of the rural workers. Mr Joseph Devlin was sent down
to the Convention to represent the Party and the League. It was sought
to exclude a considerable number of properly accredited Labour
delegates from the Convention, but after a stiff fight my friends and
myself compelled the admission of a number just barely sufficient to
secure me a majority. This was heralded as a tremendous triumph for
the Labour movement, and it spoke something for the democratic
constitution of the United Irish League, as drafted by Mr O'Brien,
that it was possible for an outsider to beat its official nominee and
thereby to become the officially adopted candidate of the League
himself. In due course I entered the portals of the Irish Party, but
though in it was, to a certain extent, not of it, in that I was more
an observer of its proceedings than an active participant in its work.
My supreme purpose in public life was to make existence tolerable for
a class who had few to espouse their claims and who were in the
deepest depths of poverty, distress and neglect. Hence, except where
Labour questions and the general interests of my constituents were
concerned, I stood more or less aloof from the active labours of the
Party. I was in the position of a looker-on and a critic, and I saw
many things that did not impress me at all too favourably.

In the years immediately following the General Election of 1900 the
Party had a splendid solidarity and a fine enthusiasm. There had been
just sufficient new blood infused into it to counteract the jealous
humours and to minimise the weariness of spirit of those older members
who had served in the halcyon days of Parnell and had gone through all
the squalidness and impotence of the years of the Split. Had the Party
been rightly handled, and led by a man of strong will and inflexible
character, it could have been made the mightiest constitutional power
for Ireland's emancipation. Unfortunately Mr John Redmond was not a
strong leader. He un