The Life Of Charles Stewart Parnell Vol - I

Mi. 34] A SECRET CONCLAVE 243
back. How were they to gain the farmers ? By throwing themselves into the land agitation, by identifying their cause with the cause of the tenants.
The prominent Fenian attacked Davitt. He said that the new departure was immoral and impolitic. Fenians and Constitutionalists were to be combined in qne movement. There was to be a pretence of loyalty, but in reality treason all along the line. The upshot of this arrangement would be sham loyalty and sham treason. He did not believe in a policy of dust-throwing and lying, but that was the policy of the new departure. The Fenian movement was purely a national movement. If he were to stand absolutely alone, he would resist this dishonest and unholy alliance. ' Freedom comes from God's right hand/ and he, at all events, believed in righteous means as well as ID righteous ends.
A division was then taken on the Clan-na-Gael man's motion, and it was defeated. The prominent Fenian had beaten Davitt in 1879* Davitt had his revenge in 1880.
The founder of the Land League, as Davitt has been called, next made a tour throughout the States, forming branches of the League and ' spreading the light/ All his public utterances—and he addressed many meetings—resolved themselves into two main arguments:
1. The cause of the tenant farmers was just in itself and ought to be supported.
2. The destruction of landlordism would lead to the overthrow of the English power in Ireland.
Two extracts may be given from his speeches to illustrate their character. Speaking at Chicago in August, he said, referring to the raid on the c Juno':
R 2