Mr. O'Brien's speech at Birmingham consisted chiefly of a fierce
attack on Mr. Chamberlain, of whom he said that "he would tell the meeting solemnly and in plain English, that it was not so many years ago since Mr. Chamberlain told Mr. Parnell, in the precincts of the House of Commons, that he might have an Irish Republic if he pleased, so far as he himself was concerned, if Mr. Parnell would only help him to dish the Whigs, and to dish that arm-chair politician, Lord Radii:Tim
That he most undoubtedly said on various occasions, and in the hearing of different persons, and if he had the slightest curiosity to have it publicly proved, it could be proved up to the hilt." Of course, Mr. Chamberlain denied this explicitly in the Birmingham Daily Post, where he wrote,—" There is not the slightest foundation for the statement that I have at any time, or in any place, afforded any encouragement whatever to any proposal for the creation of an Irish Republic, or for the legislative independence of Ireland ;" whereupon, instead of making any attempt to prove the " solemn " assertion "up to the hilt," one of Mr. O'Brien's chief supporters in the English Press remarked that this assertion of Mr. O'Brien's was, "according to Mr. O'Brien," made "more in joke than in earnest,"—in other words, was, we suppose, a solemn joke: You might as well say that United Ireland itself is a solemn joke ; and perhaps it is ; but it is not a joke that anybody ever laughed at.
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