absorbed. In view of this language, the meeting of November 20 at Birmingham was exciting and stormy. The Union was divided between Salt and O'Connor. Muntz was hissed. The meeting was adjourned.[1] The attack on O'Connor was renewed in the Birmingham Journal of November 24, in which Douglas roundly declared that, whatever O'Connor's party said and professed, their real programme was illegality, disorder, and civil war.[2]
There was a final conference on November 28, O'Connor again attending. The meeting was awaited with much misgiving. Apparently the Birmingham leaders were not unanimous as to the course to be pursued with respect to their unruly ally. Some were for repudiating him, which was perhaps the most honourable course. Others were for conciliation, thinking that a repudiation of O'Connor would remove the northern counties, and perhaps Scotland too, from the agitation. At the same time O'Connor, seeing the wide possibilities before a great national agitation, and knowing how popular the Petition-Charter programme was becoming, was prepared to make concessions to the nominal leaders of the movement. The result was that the meeting passed off with a restoration of harmony, both sides giving the soft answers that turn away wrath. Douglas and Salt spoke with absurd adulation of the Irish demagogue. Salt apologised. O'Connor was gracious. George Edmonds, who wanted to get rid of O'Connor at any price, tried to pin him down to an explicit repudiation of force, but O'Connor shuffled and the meeting was in his favour. Collins suggested a middle course which did not bind O'Connor to a repudiation of Stephens and all his ways. This was accepted and the meeting broke up, the Birmingham leaders fancying that they had at last muzzled their inconvenient rival. But the impression left by a study of these proceedings is rather that O'Connor had undermined the authority of the leaders in their own Union, especially amongst the working people over whom no one could so easily acquire influence as he. He no doubt relied upon his blarneying capacity when he invited himself into the Union meeting on November 6. If he did, his confidence was justified by the outcome.[3]
Nevertheless O'Connor's conduct was for a time distinctly moderated after this event. At Bury he addressed a torchlight meeting on December 8. This was "the most remark-
