Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/39

 dishonest dividends, had induced several of the bank managers in Ireland to become agents for what Mr. M'Kenna regarded as no better than an organised swindle, and had protected managers who had violated their duty to the bank, if they did this work effectually. This gentleman had been returned to Parliament by the influence of the Repeal Association at the late general election. The yacht of one of the directors, a man with an historic name, was seized for debt, and the bank protected him against his creditors by claiming the yacht as their property. His younger brother was also a director, but had not invested a penny in the concern, a qualification having been borrowed for him. In short, the concern was fatally rotten. I opened the case mildly in the Nation, but the facts disclosed created consternation throughout Munster, where the bulk of the shareholders resided. Mr. Christopher Fitzsimon, a son-in-law of O'Connell, and brother-in-law of two of the directors, who was chief officer of the bank in Ireland, sent for his kinsman, Maurice Leyne, and demanded was the Nation going to ruin a great national institution. "Certainly not," I said, when the case was referred to me; "let the directors agree to an investigation before some competent arbitrators of the facts stated by the inspectors, and there never shall be another word on the subject in the Nation." Mr. Fitzsimon replied that the directors were not going to consent to be tried before their dismissed servants. I answered that it seemed to me a case between dismissed servants and other servants who ought to be dismissed, and I could not permit the latter to destroy four millions and a half worth of property, mostly belonging to Irish farmers and shopkeepers. The inquiry went on, Mr. M'Kenna writing letters clear, trenchant, and persuasive. Finally the peccant directors were removed by order of the shareholders, and two of the inspectors reinstated, the third having gone to Australia.

Let me complete the story a little out of chronological order. A couple of years later Mr M'Kenna found an opportunity of reciprocating my good offices effectually. Shortly after the Nation was revived I placed the commercial department under the control of Mr. John M'Grath, who was