miles fishing of the Pasvig River (longitude 30) with Sir Robert Gore Booth, of Lissadell, county Sligo, a well-known Irish yachtsman and sportsman. It was a very good river. In one year Kavanagh killed eight salmon, weighing 166 lbs., to his own rod. Next year in ten days he killed thirty-nine salmon averaging in weight 20 lbs.-total weight, 812 lbs. A further note in his diary, dated July 17, 1864, says:

Our salmon bag for three rods is now made up, showing 123 salmon weighing 2693 lbs., average 21 lbs., which is not bad for unsophisticated people who are used to Irish rivers.

One day an editorial remark in the Field in 1863 regretting that none of the yachtsmen who visited foreign countries ever gave that experience to the public caught Kavanagh's eye. The result was that he published in 1864 The Cruise of the Eva,' in which he gave a description of a shooting cruise about the Albanian shores.

When, at the age of twenty-three, fate threw upon him greater duties and responsibilities than had hitherto befallen him, he entered into his heritage determined to do what his father and forefathers did before him. The Kavanaghs had always been resident landlords, living amongst their tenants, entering into the life and local government of the county, and recognising the claims upon them to justify their existence. He found himself a member of the grand juries of three counties-Carlow, Kilkenny, and Wexford-and this involved much time and travelling. He took an interest in poor law affairs, and soon became chairman of the New Ross Board of Guardians. All these obligations he fulfilled with extraordinary application and interest. He fully recognised Drummond's aphorism, 'Property has its duties as well as its rights.'

In a wonderfully short time he became a man of mark and weight in the country. Ireland had, indeed, always needed more of such men than she produced; for it must be confessed that in too many cases land agents performed most of the work while their principals devoted themselves mainly to sport. Kavanagh became his own agent, and gave much time to the personal administration of his own property.

A few years passed, and a higher claim was made upon his talents, crippled as he was in body. In 1866 a parliamentary vacancy occurred in South Wexford, where he had property, and he was persuaded to contest the seat. His candidature was a brilliant success; he beat his opponent, Sir John Pope Hennessy, by the comfortable majority of 700 votes.

It is easy to imagine what an ordeal it was to Kavanagh's acute sensibility to go through the trying ceremony of taking his

seat in Parliament for the first time. His fame and feats had become somewhat well known during his election contest, and the curious gaze of England's great assembly was no doubt concentrated on the member for South Wexford as his chair was wheeled up the floor of the House to the table where he had to sign his name and receive the Speaker's greetings. Cheers of encouragement and welcome came from all parts of the House, and were a tribute of sympathy and help to the man whose victory of will had conquered personal disinclination and bodily disability.

Kavanagh did not address the House for the first few years, and when he did, devoted himself mainly to Irish subjects, such as poor law, the land question, railways, university education, and agriculture. He spoke always from the Conservative side of the House, from a seat immediately under the gallery. His voice was clear, robust and resonant, every word well pronounced with deliberation, and his speeches were always delivered with the emphasis of conviction. At the General Election of 1868 he was returned unopposed with Mr. Bruen, of Oak Park, as member for county Carlow, and sat for that constituency for twelve years. Then came, in 1880, the Land League movement, when Mr. Parnell's party swept the political board on the land question. There was a keen contest in Carlow, the sitting members being opposed by Mr. E. D. Gray, owner of the Freeman's Journal, and Mr. McFarlane, a Nationalist unknown to fame. The result was a decisive victory for the Parnellites, who polled 2000 votes each, as against 700 for Kavanagh and Bruen.

After the first sting of defeat, always painful, it is doubtful if Kavanagh regretted his severance from political life. He was a free man again, with leisure to go back to his congenial country life and to his old love the sea. Some honours came to him too. He was made a Privy Councillor for Ireland, was appointed Her Majesty's Lieutenant for county Carlow, and was made a member of the Bessborough Commission to inquire into the working of the Land Act, 1870. To this Kavanagh contributed a minority report which expressed the views of the Southern landlords on the subject. Always Conservative in politics, he was a broad and liberal-minded man, with a great love for his native land and a deep and lasting desire to do all he could to benefit her. He wrote in 1885 a remarkable forecast of political events which was headed 'A Few Suggestions for a Future Policy for the Government of Ireland.' In that he strongly advocated Local Government, which was passed into law in 1898 He also advocated Land Purchase, which was brought into full operation by the Act of 1903, through which three-fourths of the land of Ireland has been transferred from the owner to the occupier. Neither of these

measures was at the time the policy of the Conservative Party; but he saw further than his contemporaries in these things, and, though separated from active life in Parliament, he never lost touch with politics.

On the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Irish Church in 1869 Kavanagh had thrown himself into the work of reconstruction with all his ability and energy. He was one of the men who, fifty-three years ago, helped to build strength out of weakness, order out of confusion, and made the Irish Protestant Church the solid body which it is to-day. In the old Cathedral of St. Canice, Kilkenny, a memorial tablet in the chancel wall by his friends in the united diocese of Ossory, Ferns, and Leighlin testifies to the work he did both for the diocese and the Church at large.

In 1886 Kavanagh's health showed signs of decline. Outdoor exercise, so essential to his health, became less frequent. Instead of his daily ride and other fresh air occupations he turned more and more to work at his desk at home. His visits to Dublin for meetings connected with the Church, the land question, etc., were his only relaxation, but he had none of the daily movement which for other men in itself constitutes a certain amount of exercise. For the last few years of his life the only change he had from sedentary life was an occasional trip in his yacht to the coast of Holland, where he got some duck-shooting in a punt with a long swivel gun at the bow. On one such visit he fell seriously ill and returned immediately to London. He lived for a few months, getting gradually worse, and so passed to his long rest. He was buried in the graveyard at Borris in a far-off corner of the demesne in sight of the purple mountains he loved so well. He leaves behind to all who knew and loved him a wonderful record and example of a great moral conquest over life's difficulties and troubles and sorrows.

We live in an age of psychology. The world of science has exhausted itself in its labours to decipher the soul and mind of the human race from childhood to old age. It is a difficult task in the case of Kavanagh, for he was born not as other men are. His life of endurance and courage is the best key to it. He learned that life in its last analysis is spiritual; that mind and spirit can overcome all material evils. He must have felt that both are above the accidents to the body, or he would have died of ennui, if not of despair. With him it was nil desperandum. Above all, he had a great sense of the comedy of life with all its humour. But what mental struggles, what emotions, what temptations he must have endured on the road to manhood! Men with the powers of active and immediate locomotion fully developed must have been food for eternal envy. He was more

or less chained to earth as far as his own physical efforts were concerned, though, of course, small wonder that when bored sometimes with earth and men his cry was 'A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!'-for he loved the animal for its ready willingness, its swiftness and ease of action and progress. He felt its sympathy with his own love of action. In the same way he loved his yacht; and he would have gloried in the aeroplane!

Such was Arthur MacMurrough Kavanagh's fairy story. This slight sketch of a career pursued with the highest courage and stoic fortitude, with a tenacity of purpose and an undeviating sense of duty, may perhaps bring hope and encouragement to others in like circumstances. That, indeed, is the best justification for any account published of his wonderful conquest of life.

PHILIP H. BAGENAL.

The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake to return unaccepted MSS.

SUCH a mass of information concerning the doings of the Lausanne Conference has been poured upon the public, and the real problem of arriving at a peace settlement between the Entente Powers and Turkey has been so smothered under a multitude of details examined by the Sub-Commissions, that even the negotiators themselves ended by scarcely seeing the forest for the trees.

The man in the street has probably forgotten, if he ever knew and understood, the sequence of events that led up to the Conference and worked upon the delegates; wherefore, although all the facts have from time to time been published, as brief a recapitulation as possible may be useful to make clearer the situation when the Conference opened.

The fundamental principles of the Armistice signed in October 1918 were the freedom of the Straits and respect for the theory of territorial rights of nationalities, which was to obtain only in non-Turkish provinces in Anatolia and in Thrace, unless (Article 7) Allied interests were menaced in Europe or disorders broke out in the former Armenian vilayets. At this date the Turks were VOL. XCIII-No. 553 317

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