his way back to Parliament in their despite, but in at least eighteen
other constituencies their plots to replace members under any
suspicion of independence with reliables absolutely amenable to the
signs and passwords of the Order resulted in their being blown
sky-high with their own petards.... Messrs Dillon and Devlin led their
demoralised forces back, seventy in place of eighty-three, and for the
first time since 1885 they went back a minority of the Nationalist
votes actually cast as between the policy of Conciliation and the
policy of _Vae Victis_."

Mr O'Brien had established a campaign sheet during the election called
_The Cork Accent_ (as a sort of reminder of the "Baton"
Convention, at which the order was given that no one with a "Cork
accent" should be allowed near the platform), and surely never did
paper render more brilliant service in an exceptional emergency. It
was his intention that his attitude in the new Parliament should be
one of "patient observation" and of steady but unaggressive allegiance
to the principles of national reconciliation. But such a role was
rendered impossible by the active hostility of Mr Dillon and his
followers. The doors of the Party were shut and banged against every
man who was independently elected by the voters. It was proclaimed
that we would be helpless in the country without organisation or
newspaper to support us and that we would be left even without the
means of travelling to London to represent our constituents.

We could not sit inactively under this decree of annihilation. It was
decided to continue _The Cork Accent_ in a permanent form as a
daily journal under the title of _The Cork Free Press_, which was
founded at a public meeting presided over by the Lord Mayor. The
All-for-Ireland League was also established to advocate and expound
the principles for which we stood in Irish life. Its purposes are
clearly stated in the resolution which gave it birth--viz.:

"That inasmuch as we regard self-Government in purely Irish affairs,
the transfer of the soil to the cultivators upon just terms, and the
relief of Ireland from intolerable over-taxation as essential
conditions of happiness and prosperity for our country, and further
inasmuch as we believe the surest means of effecting these objects to
be a combination of all the elements of the Irish population in a
spirit of mutual tolerance and patriotic good will, such as will
guarantee to the Protestant minority of