In March 1879, O’Connor Power advised Disraeli’s Government that the war in South Africa was unprovoked and unpatriotic. He deplored the ‘evil effects of aggressive imperialism’.
… if they wanted to be on good terms with the black population of South Africa, they must treat them as if they were a white population … [I am] expressing the true feeling of the Irish people on the subject, as well as the views of a large portion of the English nation.
Hansard 26 March 1879, Manchester Guardian, 30 March 1879.
With the decisive support of an organised Irish vote, Disraeli’ s government fell the following Spring.
[O’Connor Power claimed victory] for the first time in the political history of this country an English Minister has appealed in vain to the anti-Irish prejudices of his countrymen: and his discomfiture affords incontestable proof of the growth of Irish political power and the advance of Irish opinion in England.
Hansard 20 May 1880. See also That Irishman, pp. 98-99, 131.