power. Parnell
once said of him: "Dillon is as vain as a peacock and as jealous as a
schoolgirl." And when he was not included as a member of the Land
Conference I am sure it does him no wrong to say that he made up his
mind that somebody should suffer for the affront put upon him. It is
ever thus. Even the greatest men are human, with human emotions,
feelings, likes and dislikes. And though it is far from my intention
to robe Mr Dillon in any garment of greatness, he was, unfortunately,
put in a position to do irreparable mischief to great principles, as I
conceive, through motives of petty spite. Even if Mr Dillon had stood
alone I do not think he would have counted for very much, supported
though he was by the suave personality of Mr T.P. O'Connor. But he had
won to his side, in the person of Mr Devlin, one of great organising
gifts and considerable eloquence, who had now obtained control of the
United Irish League and all its machinery and who knew how to
manipulate it as no other living person could. Without Mr Devlin's
uncanny genius for organisation Mr Dillon's idiosyncrasies could have
been easily combated. Mr Dillon's diatribes against "the black-blooded
Cromwellians" at a time when the best of the landlord class were
steadily veering in the Nationalist direction, I could never
understand. Mr Devlin's detestation of the implacable spirit of Ulster
Orangemen was a far more comprehensible feeling, but the years have
shown only too thoroughly that both passions, and the pursuit of them,
have had the most disastrous consequences.

Even when Mr Dillon was most powerful in the Party there were many men
in it, to my knowledge, who secretly sympathised with the policy of
Conciliation but who had not sufficient moral courage to come out in
the open in support of it, knowing that if they did they would be
marked down for destruction at the next General Election. It is
evident that from a Party thus dominated and dragooned, and an
organisation which had its resolutions manufactured for it in the
League offices in Dublin, no good fruit could come.

Mr Redmond's position was pitiful in the extreme. Neither his judgment
nor his sense of statesmanship could approve the departure which Mr
Dillon and his accomplices had initiated. He avowed again and again,
publicly to the country and privately in the Party, that he was in
entire agreement with Mr O'Brien up to the date of his resignation;
and it is as morally certain as anyt