THE HOME RULE BILL OF 1912
The year 1912, in which the straight fight on Home Rule was to begin,
opened stormily. Mr. Churchill was announced to speak under the auspices
of the Ulster Liberal Association in the Ulster Hall at Belfast. It was
the hall in which his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, had used the
famous phrase "Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right." Belfast was
determined that the son should not unsay what the father had said in
this consecrated building; it would be, as an Ulster member put it in
the House of Commons, "a profanation." On this first round, Ulster won;
Mr. Churchill spoke at Belfast, but not in the Ulster Hall. There were
angry demonstrations against him; his person had to be strongly
protected and he went away from the meeting by back streets. It was
noticeable that no such precautions were needed for Redmond, who
attended the meeting and walked quite unmolested through the crowd. The
British electorate, as a whole, was somewhat scandalized by the
exhibition of so violent a temper; but the education of the British
electorate was only beginning.
Congestion of business from the previous session deferred the
introduction of the Home Rule Bill till April. Great demonstrations for
and against it were held in advance. In Dublin on March 31st was such a
gathering as scarcely any man remembered. O'Connell Street is rather a
boulevard than a thoroughfare; it is as wide as Whitehall and its length
is about the same. On that day, from the Parnell monument at the north
end to the O'Connell monument at the south, you could have walked on the
shoulders of the people. Four separate platforms were erected, and
Redmond spoke from that nearest to the statue of his old chief. He dwelt
on the universality of the demonstration; nine out of eleven
corporations were represented officially by their civic officers;
professional men, business men, were all fully to the fore. But one
section of his countrymen were conspicuously absent. To Ulster he had
this to say:
"We have not one word of reproach or one word of bitter feeling. We have
one feeling only in our hearts, and that is an earnest longing for the
arrival of the day of reconciliation."
A feature of that gathering, little noted at the time, assumes strange
significance in retrospect. At one platform Patrick Pearse, then
headmaster of St. Enda's school, spoke in Irish. What he said may be
thus roughly rendered:
"There are as many men here as would destroy the British Empire if they
were united and did their utmost. We have no wish to destroy the
British, we only want our freedom. We differ among ourselves on small
points, but we agree that we want freedom, in some shape or other. There
are two sections of us--one that would be content to remain under the
British Government in our own land, another that never paid, and never
will pay, homage to the King of England. I am of the latter, and
everyone knows it. But I should think myself a traitor to my country if
I did not answer the summons to this gathering, for it is clear to me
that the Bill which we support to-day will be for the good of Ireland
and that we shall be stronger with it than without it. I am not
accepting the Bill in advance. We may have to refuse it. We are here
only to say that the voice of Ireland must be listened to henceforward.
Let us unite and win a good Act from the British; I think it can be
done. But if we are tricked this time, there is a party in Ireland, and
I am one of them, that will advise the Gael to have no counsel or
dealings with the Gall [the foreigner] for ever again, but to answer
them henceforward with the strong hand and the sword's edge. Let the
Gall understand that if we are cheated once more there will be red war
in Ireland."
The platform where Pearse spoke was set up within a stone's throw of the
General Post Office in which, four years later, he was to give effect to
the words he spoke then and to earn his own death in undoing the work of
Redmond's lifetime. At that moment no one heeded his utterance, nor the
speech, also in Irish, of Professor John MacNeill from another platform,
which went, as its speaker was destined to go, half the way with Pearse.
But Redmond never attempted to conceal the existence of this element in
Ireland. Speaking on the introduction of the Home Rule Bill on April
11th, he dealt at the very opening with the charge that the Irish people
wanted separation and that the Irish leaders were separatists in
disguise:
"I will be perfectly frank on this matter. There always has been, and
there is to-day, a certain section of Irishmen who would like to see
separation from this country. They are a small, a very small section.
They were once a very large section. They are a very small section, but
the men who hold, these views at this moment only desire separation as
an alternative to the present system, and if you change the present
system and give into the hands of Irishmen the management of purely
Irish affairs, even that small feeling in favour of separation will
disappear; and if it survives at all, I would like to know how under
those circumstances it could be stronger or more powerful for mischief
than at the present moment."
Sincerer words were never spoken, nor, I think, a better justified
forecast. Where Redmond and all of us were wrong was that we
underestimated the possibility of accomplishing what Pearse ultimately
accomplished, even when assisted by the widespread disillusionment and
sense of betrayal which was the atmosphere of 1916.
But no one in Ireland in 1912 thought of a separatist rebellion. What
was on all tongues was the possibility of physical resistance to Home
Rule. The debate on the first reading went by with little reference to
this contingency, but Mr. Bonar Law closed his speech on that note. He
had attended the great counter-demonstration in Belfast which followed
ours in Dublin and had seen in it "the expression of the soul of a
people."
"These people look upon their being subject to an executive Government
taken out of the Parliament in Dublin with as much horror, I believe
with more horror, than the people of Poland ever regarded their being
put under subjection by Russia; they say they will not submit except by
force to such government. These people in Ulster are under no illusion.
They know they cannot fight the British Army. But these men are ready,
in what they believe to be the cause of justice and liberty, to lay down
their lives."
Bloodshed, if bloodshed there was to be, was anticipated in Ulster only,
and the resistance indicated at this point was purely passive. But even
after the Bill had been introduced, Tories entertained the hope that a
Nationalist Convention might save them trouble and reject what the
Government offered. Even Mr. O'Brien, however, had given the Bill a
lukewarm approval, and at this moment Redmond's prestige stood very
high. When the Convention assembled, he utilized that advantage to the
full. These assemblies presented a problem which might intimidate the
most capable chairman. Theoretically deliberative, they had at least a
representative character; all branches of the United Irish League, all
branches of the Hibernians and Foresters, all county and district
councils sent up their chosen men, to whom were added such clergy as
chose to attend. The result was a mass of over two thousand persons
packed into a single room; they deliberated in the physical conditions
of a crowd; hearing was difficult, disorder only too easily brought
about. I have seen one of these Conventions sharply divided in opinion,
and counting of votes would have been impossible. On this day, however,
there was only one opinion: the business was to manifest support and to
strengthen the leader's hand, Redmond at the outset laid down the
proposition that it was their "duty" as Nationalists to accept what he
described as a far better Bill than Gladstone ever offered. He further
indicated the need for a resolution that the question of supporting,
proposing or rejecting amendments should be left to the Irish party.
This was promptly carried by acclamation. All decisions were unanimous
that day.
But before this or any other resolution was put to the Convention,
Redmond asked the multitude there to give, what they gave most
willingly, a welcome to Mr. Gladstone's grandson, who as a young member
of Parliament had just voted for the Bill. The greeting which he
received showed that Ireland had not forgotten what Gladstone's last
years had been.
In the first of his speeches upon the Bill, Sir Edward Grey, a survivor
from Gladstone's Ministry, said, as he threw a glance back over the
struggle from 1886 to 1893:
"Two things stirred me at the time; they stir me still. One is Mr.
Gladstone's intense grip of the fact that there was a national spirit in
Ireland, and the splendour of the effort he made in his last years to
acknowledge and reconcile that spirit. The other is the Irish response
to Mr. Gladstone. It was not the assent of mere tacticians who had
gained an advocate and a point. It was genuine, warm and living feeling,
a response of gratitude and sympathy the same in kind and as living as
his own."
If Redmond's task from 1912 onwards was not lightened by the existence
of any such genuine, warm and living feeling for any of Mr. Asquith's
Ministry, perhaps Ireland is not to blame. There was no intense grip of
any fact in the Government's attitude, and on one cardinal point they
were unstable as water. Sir Edward Carson, in opposing the introduction
of the Bill, had used the words: "What argument is there that you can
raise for giving Home Rule to Ireland that you do not equally raise for
giving Home Rule to that Protestant minority in the north-east
province?" Redmond, following him, made one of his few false moves in
debate. "Is that the proposal? Is that the demand?" he asked. Sir Edward
Carson shot the question at him: "Will you agree to it?" Seldom does the
House see a practised speaker so much embarrassed; Redmond in confusion
passed to another topic. He was soon to be confronted with that same
line of reasoning, pushed not dialectically by an opponent, but as a
step in parliamentary negotiation from the Treasury Bench. Mr.
Churchill, who introduced the Second Reading, made it apparent that the
demonstration in Belfast had not been wasted on him.
"Whatever Ulster's rights may be," he said, "they cannot stand in the
way of the whole of the rest of Ireland. Half a province cannot impose a
permanent veto on the nation. The utmost they can claim is for
themselves. I ask, do they claim separate treatment for themselves? Do
the counties of Down and Antrim and Londonderry, for instance, ask to be
excepted from the scope of this Bill? Do they ask for a parliament of
their own, or do they wish to remain here? We ought to know."
This was to proceed at once into the region of a bargain. Mr. Gladstone,
with his grip on the existence of a national spirit in Ireland, would
have known that concession on such point was a very different matter
from some alteration in the financial terms or in the composition of the
Parliament. It admitted, in fact, the contention that Ireland was not a
nation but a geographical expression.
As soon as the Bill went into Committee, the result was seen. The first
serious amendment proposed to exclude the four counties, Antrim, Down,
Armagh, and Derry, and it was moved from the Liberal benches. Three
Liberal speakers supported it in the early stages of a debate which
lasted to the third day--and on the division the majority, which had
been 100 for the Second Reading, fell to 69. Mr. Churchill did not
vote--nor, although this was not then so apparently significant, did Mr.
Lloyd George.
Thus from the very first the point of danger revealed itself. By the
mere threat of a resistance which could only be overcome through the use
of troops, Ulster had made the first dint for the insertion of a wedge
into the composite Home Rule alliance, and into the Cabinet itself. All
this had been gained without any tactical sacrifice, without even
anything like a full disclosure of the force which lay behind this line
of attack.
Nor was the full extent of weakness revealed. In such a case, much
depended on the personality of the man who moved the amendment, and Mr.
Agar-Robartes was one of the most whimsically incongruous figures in the
Government ranks. Twentieth-century Liberalism wears a somewhat drab and
serious aspect, but this ultra-fashionable example of gilded youth would
have been in his place among the votaries of Charles James Fox. The
climax of his incongruity was a vehement and rather antiquated
Protestantism; he was, for instance, among the few who opposed the
alteration of the Coronation oath to a formula less offensive to
Catholics. Nobody doubted that his Cornish constituents would endorse
whatever he did, for the House held few more popular human beings, but
no one took him very seriously as a politician. This particular view of
his certainly made no breach between him and his inseparable associate,
Mr. Neil Primrose, who, as time went on, took as strong a line against
Ulster's claims as Agar-Robartes did for them.--_Sunt lacrimae rerum_.
I remember vividly in August 1914 the sudden apparition of this pair,
side by side as always, in their familiar place below the gangway, but
in quite unfamiliar guise, for khaki was still new to the benches. The
two brilliant lads--for they were little more--have gone now, swept into
the abyss of war's wreckage; the controversy which divided them remains,
virulent as ever.
Agar-Robartes stuck to his guns and voted against the Bill henceforward;
the other Liberals who supported him were ultimately brought into the
Government lobby. What had really mattered was Mr. Churchill's speech on
the Second Reading. Captain Pirrie, one of Redmond's few closely
attached friends outside the Irish party, bound, I think, far more in
affection to the Irish leader than to his own chiefs, complained angrily
of the Government's evasive reticence. This brought up the Prime
Minister, whose speech was brief and direct:
"This amendment proceeds on an assumption which I believe is radically
false, namely, that you can split Ireland into parts. You can no more
split Ireland into parts than you can split England or Scotland into
parts."
When Sir Edward Carson had spoken, the Ulster leader's speech enabled
Redmond to point out that Ulstermen refused to accept this proposal as a
means by which Ulster might be reconciled to Home Rule, but were ready
to vote for it simply as a wrecking amendment. General opinion on both
sides of the House agreed that the amendment made the Bill impossible;
and the majority held that therefore Ulster must give way. Ulster, on
the other hand, held that therefore there must be no Home Rule Bill. But
there was a Liberal element evidently not convinced that Home Rule might
not be possible with Ulster excluded. Mr. Birrell admitted that the plan
of segregating a portion had been considered, but had been rejected, on
the merits, as unworkable. Still he professed himself open to
conviction. The argument which Mr. Bonar Law decided to use was a
threat. Government are saying to the people of Ulster, he said,
"Convince us that you are in earnest, show us that you will fight, and
we will yield to you as we have yielded to everybody else." Captain
Craig, following, said that the Prime Minister anticipated that Ulster's
objection would after a few years be merely a ripple on the surface. "If
the right honourable gentleman has challenged this part of his Majesty's
dominions to civil war, we accept the challenge."
This temper soon had ugly expression. On June 29th an excursion party of
the Ancient Order of Hibernians (the Roman Catholic counterpart to the
Orange Order) met with another excursion party of Protestants, mainly
Sunday-school children, at a place called Castledawson. Taunts were
exchanged and one of the Hibernians tried to snatch a flag from the
other procession; so a disturbance began in which some of the children
were hurt and many frightened. This discreditable incident was magnified
with all the rancour of partisanship--as in the state of feeling must
have been expected. But the reprisals were startling. All Catholics were
driven out of the Belfast shipyards; many were injured, and over two
thousand men were still deprived of work on July 12th, when the Unionist
party held a great meeting at Blenheim. Mr. Bonar Law, facing for the
first time a vast typical gathering of his supporters, said that, on a
previous occasion, when speaking as little more than a private member of
Parliament, he had counselled action outside constitutional limits. Now,
he emphasized it that he took the same attitude as leader of the
Unionist party.
"We shall use any means--whatever means seem to us to be most likely to
be effective--any means to deprive them" (the Government) "of the power
they have usurped and to compel them to face the people whom they have
deceived. The Home Rule Bill in spite of us may go through the House of
Commons. There are things stronger than parliamentary majorities. I can
imagine no length of resistance to which Ulster will go in which I shall
not be ready to support them, and in which they will not be supported by
the overwhelming majority of the British people."
Sir Edward Carson said on behalf of Ulster: "It will be our duty shortly
to take such steps--and, indeed, they are already being taken--as will
perfect our arrangements for making Home Rule absolutely impossible. We
will shortly challenge the Government to interfere with us if they dare.
We will do this regardless of consequences, of all personal loss and
inconvenience. They may tell us, if they like, that this is treason."
Well might Mr. Bonar Law say in returning thanks that this day "would be
a turning-point in their political history."
Moderate opinion was by no means glad to have reached this
turning-point, and _The Times_ rebuked Mr. Law for his violence. But,
tactically, the Unionists were right: they had a Government indisposed
to action and they made the most of their opportunity. Mr. Churchill
again took up the conduct of the controversy, and in the recess
proceeded to outline a policy which he described as federal devolution.
The Prime Minister had said you could no more split Ireland into parts
than England or Scotland. But Mr. Churchill argued that, in the interest
of efficiency, England must be divided into provincial units with
separate assemblies; that Lancashire, for instance, had on many matters
a very different outlook from that of Yorkshire. He did not draw the
conclusion; but it was not difficult to infer that Mr. Churchill was at
least as ready to give separate rights to Ulster as to any group of
English counties, and was equally ready to pitch overboard the Prime
Minister's argument for refusing partition in Ireland.
In the meantime Ulster's preparations continued. It was indicated that
they would bear a religious character, and the Protestant Churches were
deeply involved. The proposal of a Covenant was made public in August,
though the actual signing of it was deferred to "Ulster Day," September
28th. Sir Edward Carson was provided with a guard carrying swords and
wooden rifles, and in one instance dummy cannon made a feature of the
pageant. These things excited a good deal of derision, and the language
of the Covenant was held to be only "hypothetical treason." The main
words were:
"We stand by one another in defending for ourselves and our children our
cherished position of equal citizenship in the United Kingdom and in
using all means which may be found necessary to defeat the present
conspiracy to set up a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland."
The Covenant in that committed the signatories to no breach of the law;
it was only a pledge to refuse to recognize the authority of a
Parliament not yet in being. All Ulster's proceedings might so far be
dismissed, as the Attorney-General, Mr. Rufus Isaacs, dismissed them, as
being "a demonstration admirably stage-managed, and led by one of great
histrionic gifts." The threats of the use of force, said the
Attorney-General, would not turn them aside by a hair's-breadth. Mr.
Asquith, equally vigorous in his speech, was less decisive in his
conclusions. Speaking at Ladybank on October 5th, he denounced "the
reckless rodomontade of Blenheim, which furnishes forth the complete
grammar of anarchy." But he was careful to point out that there was no
demand for separate treatment for Ulster, and that Irish Unionists were
simply refusing to consent to Home Rule under any conditions. He
refrained from saying how a demand for separate treatment of Ulster
would be dealt with if it were made.
When Parliament resumed its sittings, in a temper much heated by all the
challenge and controversy of the recess, Mr. Lloyd George pushed this
line of argument a shade further. He argued that Sir Edward Carson
himself persisted in treating Ireland as a unit.
"Until Ulster departs from that position there is no case. Ulster has a
right to claim a hearing for separate treatment; she has no right to
say, 'Because we do not want Home Rule ourselves the majority of
Irishmen are not to have Home Rule.'"
Yet upon the balance of events, Unionists were probably disappointed. A
very strong British feeling against Sir Edward Carson and his Belfast
following had been generated by the expulsion of Catholics from the
shipyards and in general by the advocacy of civil war. In October 1912
several notable men who had previously counted as Unionists--Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle, Sir Frederick Pollock, Sir J. West-Ridgway--all declared
for Home Rule. Exasperation against the incidence of the new Insurance
Act lost the Government votes at every by-election; but the Irish cause
on the whole gained ground, and the chief cause of that advance was the
respect universally felt for Redmond's personality and leadership. On
November 22nd he attended a huge meeting of the National Liberal
Federation at Nottingham along with the Prime Minister and received a
wonderful welcome. The step was novel. Never since Parnell's work began
had the leader of the Irish people stood on the same platform in Great
Britain with the leader of any English party. It was, however, the
return of a compliment, for Mr. Asquith had come to Dublin in the summer
and there spoken along with the Irish leader. Moreover, a recent
incident had shown how necessary it was to maintain the closest
co-operation; a snap division on November 11th had inflicted defeat on
the Government and occasioned loss of perhaps a fortnight's
parliamentary time.
But in the very act of thus strengthening his hold on the British
electorate, Redmond gave ground to those in Ireland who desired to
represent him as a mere tool of the Liberal party, a pawn in Mr.
Asquith's game. Foreseeing this evil did not help to combat it, and on
the whole it was Redmond's inclination to take a sanguine view of his
country's good sense and generosity.
The Committee stage of discussion lasted beyond the end of the year. On
the finance arrangements Redmond had to face fierce opposition from Mr.
O'Brien's party, which was endorsed by the Irish Council of County
Councils. Here difficulties were inevitable, and attack was easy either
for the Unionists, who pressed the argument that Ireland was to be
started on its career of self-government with a subsidy of some two
millions per annum from Great Britain, or for the O'Brienites, who urged
that the country was already overtaxed in proportion to its resources,
that it needed large expenditure for development, and that the possible
budget indicated by the Bill left no serious possibility for reducing
taxes or for undertaking even necessary expenditure. Redmond, on the
other hand, was bound to conciliate the vested interests of civil
servants, officials in all degrees, and the immense police force.
Retrenchment on the vast area of unproductive expenditure which Castle
government had created could only be hoped for at a very distant date.
He could not therefore promise substantial economy; nor could he argue
for a further increase of subsidy without playing into the Tories'
hands. On all this detail of the measure, the attack in debate was bound
to be very powerful.
So far as Great Britain was concerned, the reply of Home Rulers was
tolerably effective. In 1886 it had been feasible to propose Home Rule
with an Imperial contribution of two and a half millions. By 1893 the
possible margin had dropped heavily, and Mr. Gladstone had foretold that
within fifteen years Ireland would absorb more money for purely Irish
services than Irish taxation produced. This prophecy had been fulfilled
to the letter, and everyone saw that to continue the Union meant
increasing this charge automatically. It was better to cut the loss and
at least say that it should not exceed a fixed figure.
But in Ireland men dwelt always on the Report of the Financial Relations
Commission, which had represented the balance as heavily against England
and the account for overtaxation of the poorer country as reaching three
hundred millions. No man quoted this document oftener than Redmond, and
none was a firmer believer in its justification. But he realized, as his
countrymen did not, that such a claim could never hope for cash
settlement, that its value was as an argument for the concession of
freedom upon generous terms. How could he urge that the terms proposed
were ungenerous, when Great Britain offered to pay the cost of all Irish
services--amounting to a million and a half more than Irish revenue--and
to provide over and above this a yearly grant of half a million,
dropping gradually, it is true, but still remaining at a subsidy of two
hundred thousand a year so long as the finance arrangements of the Bill
lasted?
Nevertheless, these arrangements were bad ones, and this was where the
Bill was most vulnerable on its merits; for self-government without the
control of taxation and expenditure is at best an unhopeful experiment.
But in the public mind at large only one difficulty bulked big, and that
was Ulster. Men on both sides began to be uneasy about the consequences
of what was happening, and this temper reflected itself in the House. On
New Year's Day 1913, at the beginning of the Report stage, Sir Edward
Carson moved the exclusion of the province of Ulster. His speech was in
a new tone of studied conciliation. But, as the Prime Minister
immediately made clear, there was no offer that if this concession were
made opposition would cease. It was merely recommended as the sole
alternative to civil war. Redmond, in following, let fall an _obiter
dictum_ on the position of the Irish controversy:
"No one who observes the current of popular opinion in this country can
doubt for one instant that if this opposition from the north-east corner
of Ulster did not exist, Home Rule would go through to-morrow as an
agreed Bill."
For this reason, he said, he would go almost any length within certain
well-defined limits to meet that section of his fellow-countrymen. His
conditions were, first, that the proposal must be a genuine one, not put
forward as a piece of tactics to wreck the Bill, but frankly as part of
a general settlement of the Home Rule question; secondly, that it must
be of reasonable character; and thirdly, not inconsistent with the
fundamental principle of national self-government. Ulster's present
proposal, if accepted, carried with it no promise of a settlement; it
was unreasonable as proposing to strike out of Ireland five counties
with Nationalist majorities. But finally, on a broader ground, it
destroyed the national right of Ireland.
"Ireland for us is one entity. It is one land. Tyrone and Tyrconnell are
as much a part of Ireland as Munster or Connaught. Some of the most
glorious chapters connected with our national struggle have been
associated with Ulster--aye, and with the Protestants of Ulster--and I
declare here to-day, as a Catholic Irishman, notwithstanding all the
bitterness of the past, that I am as proud of Derry as of Limerick. Our
ideal in this movement is a self-governing Ireland in the future, when
all her sons of all races and creeds within her shores will bring their
tribute, great or small, to the great total of national enterprise,
national statesmanship, and national happiness. Men may deride that
ideal; they may say that it is a futile and unreliable ideal, but they
cannot call it an ignoble one. It is an ideal that we, at any rate, will
cling to, and because we cling to it, and because it is there, embedded
in our hearts and natures, it is an absolute bar to such a proposal as
this amendment makes, a proposal which would create for all times a
sharp, eternal dividing line between Irish Catholics and Irish
Protestants, and a measure which would for all time mean the partition
and disintegration of our nation. To that we as Irish Nationalists can
never submit."
Later in the debate, Mr. Bonar Law admitted quite frankly the argument
against treating all Ulster as Unionist, and he proceeded to suggest
that any county in Ulster might be given power to decide whether or not
it should come into the new Parliament. It was plain, however, and Mr.
Churchill made it plainer, that the Unionist leader did not speak for
Ulster; Ulster's intention was still to use its own opposition to Home
Rule as a bar to self-government for the whole of Ireland.
Equally was it plain that the plebiscite by counties would not be
unacceptable to Mr. Churchill.
The proposal for the exclusion of the entire province was defeated by a
majority of 97 and the Third Reading was carried by 110. A few days
later the city of Derry returned a Home Ruler, and the Ulster
representation became seventeen for the Bill and sixteen against. This
dramatic change produced a considerable effect on British opinion.
Redmond, speaking at a luncheon given to the winner, Mr. Hogg, indicated
the lines on which he was disposed to bargain. He would be willing to
give Ulster more than its proportional share of representation in the
Irish Parliament.
The debate in the House of Lords was marked by certain speeches which
showed that public opinion had moved considerably. Lord Dunraven
declared for the Second Reading, though pressing all the line of
objection to the Bill which had been taken by Mr. O'Brien and his party.
He heaped scorn also as an Irishman upon "this absurd theory of two
nations which is only invented to make discord where accord would
naturally be." Lord MacDonnell, whose administrative experience could
no more be questioned than his genius for administration, held that
though amendment was needed the framework of the Bill was good, and that
urgent necessity existed for the change to self-government. He alluded
to the opinion expressed by Mr. Balfour in 1905, that the proper way of
reforming Dublin Castle was by increasing the power of the Chief
Secretary and his Under-Secretary, and thereby getting a stronger grip
on the various departments of the "complicated system" prevailing. "I
thought so too," said Lord MacDonnell, who in 1905 as Under-Secretary
had tried his hand at this reform. "It was one of the illusions that I
took with me to Ireland twenty years ago--but I am now a wiser man....
My observation of the Boards had convinced me before I left Ireland that
no scheme of administrative reform which depends on bureaucratic
organization for its success, or which has not behind it a popular
backing, has the least chance of success in an attempt to establish in
Ireland a government that is satisfactory to the Imperial Parliament or
acceptable to the Irish people."--This was a repudiation of the Irish
Council Bill of 1907 by its main author.
Lord Grey, a vivid and attractive personality, declared strongly for
"such a measure of Home Rule as will give the Irish people power to
manage their own domestic affairs." It was a conviction that had been
forced upon him by his experience of Greater Britain. "Practically every
American, every Canadian, every Australian is a Home Ruler." But the
settlement must proceed upon federal lines; his ideal for Ireland was
the provincial status of Ontario or Quebec, linked federally to a
central parliament at Westminster.
The most significant speech, however, came from the Archbishop of York.
Disclaiming all party allegiance, Dr. Lang claimed to express "the
opinions of a very large number of fair-minded citizens." He admitted
that there was an Irish problem, which could not be solved by "a policy
however generous of promoting the economic welfare of Ireland." "Some
measure of Home Rule is necessary not only to meet the needs of Ireland
but the needs of the Imperial Parliament." This Bill, however, in his
opinion, was ill-adapted to the latter purpose. It would be a block
rather than a relief to the congestion of business. But these objections
were "abstract and academic" in face of the real governing fact.
"The figure of Ulster, grim, determined, menacing, dominates the
scene.... We may not like it. Frankly, I do not like it. It carries
marks of religious and racial bitterness and suspicion. It uses language
about dis-obedience to the law which must provoke disquiet and dislike
in the minds of all who care for the good government of the country. I
am not competent, because I have not shared in the experience of the
history of the Ulster people, to decide whether or not their fears are
groundless. All these things seem to me to be beside the point. If
Ulster means to do what it says, then the results are certainly such as
no citizen can contemplate without grave concern.... I admit, everyone
must admit, that there are circumstances in which a Government is
entitled and bound to run this kind of risk. At the present time I think
we all feel that there is a call upon Governments to stiffen rather than
to slacken their determination in the presence of threats of
dis-obedience or disorder. I will go further and admit that there is one
condition which would justify in my mind His Majesty's Government in
running the risk of the forcible coercion of Ulster. That condition is
that they should have received from the people of this country an
authority, clear and explicit, to undertake that risk. It is perfectly
true that the Prime Minister gave notice that if his party were returned
to power they would be free to raise again the question of Home Rule,
but there is a great difference between the abstract question of Home
Rule and a concrete Home Rule Bill."
That speech undoubtedly represented the temper prevailing in the class
of balancing electors which is so largo in England. Some of us who read
it at the time recognized how far the long struggle for autonomy had
prevailed, but also how strong were the forces which no argument could
reach. Men like Dr. Lang might be offended, even shocked by the action
of those who claimed to be England's garrison in Ireland; but they would
be very slow to use force against such a section, although quite ready
to justify coercion of the Irish majority. Yet what impressed Redmond
was the advance made, rather than the revelation of what resistance
remained. Ho had been more than thirty years an advocate of Ireland's
cause; and now by the spokesman of the impartial educated mind of
England the justice of that cause was admitted. The argument that a
general election was necessary, or would be efficacious in solving the
problem, was one with which he felt well able to contend. In that speech
the Archbishop of York admitted his impression that in by-elections
there had been "much more of Food Taxes and the Insurance Act than of
Home Rule."
On the other hand, for Ulster such a speech had the plainest possible
moral: Ulster's game was to become more grim, more determined, more
menacing. The Home Rule controversy had now resolved itself into a
question whether Ulster really meant business. Sir Edward Carson set
himself to make that plain beyond yea or nay.
In a speech delivered in Belfast, at the opening of a new drill hall, he
asked and answered the question, "Why are we drilling?" He and his
colleagues did not recognize the Parliament Act, he said; a law passed
under it would be only an act of usurpation, a breach of right. "We seek
nothing but the elementary right implanted in every man: the right, if
you are attacked, to defend yourself."
Ulster was going to stand by its Covenant.
"When we talk of force, we use it, if we are driven to use it, to beat
back those who will dare to barter away those elementary rights of
citizenship which we have inherited.... Go on, be ready, you are our
great army. Under what circumstances you have to come into action, you
must leave with us. There are matters which give us grave consideration
which we cannot and ought not to talk about in public. You must trust us
that we will select the most opportune methods of, if necessary, taking
on ourselves the whole government of the community in which we live. I
know a great deal of that will involve statutory illegality, but it will
also involve much righteousness."
Some of the questions which needed grave consideration were suggested by
happenings that followed hard on this speech. Much ridicule had been
poured on the drillings with dummy muskets. Ulster evidently decided to
push the matter a step further. A consignment of one thousand rifles
with bayonets, in cases marked "electrical fittings," was seized at
Belfast on June 3, 1913. Other incidents of the same nature followed. It
was argued, by those who sought to represent the whole campaign as an
elaborate piece of bluff, that the weapons were useless and that they
were deliberately sent to be seized. A feature which scarcely bore out
this view was that one consignment was addressed to the Lord-Lieutenant
of an Ulster county who was also an officer in the Army. A justice of
the peace, or an officer, to whom a consignment of arms had been sent
for a Nationalist organization would have been ordered to clear himself
in the fullest way of complicity, and even of sympathy, or he would have
forfeited his commission. The noble-man involved, however, made no
explanation, and was probably never officially asked to do so.
It was commonly believed in the House of Commons that at some point, if
not repeatedly, Government consulted the Irish leader or his principal
advisers as to whether measures of repression should be undertaken
against Ulster. No such consultation took place. But the opinion
prevailing among the leading Nationalists was no doubt known or
inferred. Mr. Dillon, speaking on June 16, 1914, when the danger-point
had been clearly reached, justified the previous abstinence from
coercion.
"I have held the view from the beginning that it would not have been
wise policy for a Government engaged in the great work of the political
emancipation of a nation to embark on a career of coercion. I knew, and
knew well, all the difficulties and all the reproaches that the
Government would have to face if they abstained from coercion. It is a
difficult and almost unprecedented course for a Government to take, and
it is, as the Chief Secretary said, a courageous one. But with all its
difficulties and dangers it is the right course. We who have been
through the mill know what the effect of coercion is. We know that you
do not put down Irishmen by coercion. You simply embitter them and
stiffen their backs."
It is therefore unquestionable that the decision to do nothing had
Redmond's approval. Whatever may be thought of that policy, one factor
was assuredly underestimated--the effect produced on the public mind by
the spectacle of highly placed personages defying the law and defying it
with impunity. It was possible to argue that a conviction for
hypothetical treason would be difficult to secure and that failure in a
prosecution would only encourage lawless conduct. But Privy Councillors
who made preparations for prospective rebellion and remained Privy
Councillors were a new phenomenon. The public thought, and it was
apparent that the public would think, that Government was afraid to
quarrel with what is called Society. Society shared that belief and
began to extend its influence in a new direction. No Government can
permit itself to be defied without general relaxation of discipline, and
the effects extended themselves to the Army. At a meeting on July 12th
in Ulster a telegram was read out from "Covenanters" in an Ulster
regiment, urging "No surrender until ammunition is spent and the last
drop of blood." In his speech on that occasion Sir Edward Carson
declared that every day brought him at least half a dozen letters from
British officers asking to be enrolled among the future defenders of
Ulster. One officer, he said, having signed the Covenant, was ordered to
send in his papers and resign his commission. The officer refused to do
so, and after a short time was simply told to resume his duty.
"We have assurance from the Prime Minister," said Sir Edward Carson,
"that the forces of the Crown are not to be used against Ulster.
Government know that they could not rely on the Army to shoot down the
people of Ulster."
Later events in Ireland furnished a grim commentary as to what the Army
would be willing, and would not be willing, to do in the way of shooting
down in Ireland; and such words as these of Sir Edward Carson were
destined to be among the chief difficulties which Redmond had to
encounter when he sought to lead Ireland into the war.
At the meeting of that day, delegates were present from a British League
to assist Ulster in her resistance. Behind this new quasi-military
organization stood now the whole of one great party. Sir Edward Carson
transmitted a message from Mr. Bonar Law in these words:
"Whatever steps we may feel compelled to take, whether they be
constitutional, or in the long run whether they be unconstitutional, we
will have the whole of the Unionist party under his leadership behind
us."
Later in the autumn, on the first anniversary of Ulster Day, there was
formally announced the formation of an Ulster Provisional Government,
with a Military Committee attached to it. A guarantee fund to indemnify
all who might be involved in damaging consequences was set on foot, and
a million sterling was indicated as the necessary amount to be obtained.
In the meantime signs of distress came from the Liberal camp. Mr.
Churchill, in speeches to his constituents, renewed the suggestions for
partition. More notable was a letter from Lord Loreburn, who had till
recently been Lord Chancellor, and who was known as a steady and
outspoken Home Ruler. He appealed in _The Times_ of September 11, 1913,
for a conference between parties on the Irish difficulty. Irish
Nationalist opinion grew profoundly uneasy, and Redmond at Limerick on
October 12th set out his position with weighty emphasis. He referred to
the fact that during the summer he himself, assisted by Mr. Devlin, had
followed Sir Edward Carson and other Ulster speakers from place to place
through Great Britain, and on the same ground had stated the case for
Home Rule. He claimed, and with justice, a triumphant success for this
counter-campaign.
"The argumentative opposition to Home Rule is dead, and all the violent
language, all the extravagant action, all the bombastic threats, are but
indications that the battle is over."
Still, he was too old a politician, he said, not to build a bridge of
gold to convenience his opponents' retreat, provided that the fruits of
victory were not flung away. Mr. Churchill had told the Ulstermen that
there was no demand they could make which would not be matched, and more
than matched, by their countrymen and the Liberal party. On this it was
necessary to be explicit.
"Irish Nationalists can never be assenting parties to the mutilation of
the Irish nation; Ireland is a unit. It is true that within the bosom of
a nation there is room for diversities of the treatment of government
and of administration, but a unit Ireland is and Ireland must
remain.... The two-nation theory is to us an abomination and a
blasphemy."
These were carefully chosen words, and they indicated a possible
acceptance of the proposal that Ulster should have control of its own
administration in regard to local affairs, but that Irish legislation
should be left to a common parliament.
This plan Sir Edward Grey described as his "personal contribution" to a
discussion of possibilities which had been inaugurated by a notable
speech from the Prime Minister. At Ladybank, on October 25th, Mr.
Asquith invited "interchange of views and suggestions, free, frank, and
without prejudice." Nothing, however, could be accepted which did not
conform to three governing considerations. First, there must be
established "a subordinate Irish legislature with an executive
responsible to it"; secondly, "nothing must be done to erect a permanent
and insuperable bar to Irish unity"; and thirdly, though the process of
relieving congestion in the Imperial Parliament could not be fully
accomplished by the present Bill, Ireland must not be made to wait till
a complete scheme of decentralization could be carried out.
The second of these conditions was plainly the most significant. It was
taken to mean that "county option"--the right for each county to decide
whether it would come under a Home Rule Government--would not create "a
permanent and insuperable" obstacle, since each county could be given
the opportunity to vote itself in at any time. Redmond's next important
speech in England showed by its emphasis that he felt a danger. He
denounced "the gigantic game of bluff and black-mail" which was in
progress. The proposed exclusion of Ulster was not a proposition that
could be considered. It would bring about, he thought, the ruin of
Ulster's prosperity. "For us it would mean the nullification of our
hopes and aspirations for the future." It would stereotype an old evil
in the region where it still existed. What Ulster really feared, he
said, was the loss, not of freedom or prosperity, but of Protestant
ascendancy.
This was the truth; Protestant ascendancy, which in his boyhood had
existed throughout all Ireland, was in consequence of the Irish party's
work dead in three provinces. It remained and must remain in Ulster,
where Protestants were a majority, but it would be qualified if that
region came under the control of a parliament elected by all Ireland.
That was and is the true reason of Ulster's resistance to national
self-government. What he would concede and what he would reject, Redmond
indicated in general words: "There is no demand, however extravagant and
unreasonable it may appear to us, that we are not ready carefully to
consider, so long as it is consistent with the principle for which
generations of our race have battled, the principle of a settlement
based on the national self-government of Ireland. I shut no door to a
settlement by consent, but ... we will not be intimidated or bullied
into a betrayal' of our trust."
It was noted at that time that he had said nothing to rule out Sir
Edward Grey's proposal, which would have left the local majority
predominant in Ulster's own affairs; and on December 4th Sir Edward Grey
spoke again, showing a firmness that was the more impressive because of
his habitual moderation of tone. One thing, he said, was worse than
carrying Home Rule by force, and that would be the abandonment of Home
Rule. Two suggestions had been made--a proposal for the temporary
exclusion of Ulster and a plan for giving to Ulster administrative
autonomy. Neither had been received by Ulster "in a spirit which seemed
likely to lead to a settlement.... Was it a settlement by consent they
wanted, or was their aim simply the destruction of the Bill?"
This emphasized what Redmond had said a few days earlier at Birmingham,
when he declared that the fight against Home Rule was not an honest one,
that its real purpose was to defeat the Parliament Act and restore to
the Tory party its special control over the legislative machine.
The facts were plain on the surface. The Tories clamoured for a fresh
general election, urging that the electors never realized that the
Liberal programme involved civil war. But to concede this claim
indirectly defeated the Parliament Act, which would then have broken
down at the first attempt to apply it. What added to the insincerity of
the argument was Ulster's repeated refusal to be influenced by the
result of any election. Under no circumstances, speaker after speaker
from Ulster declared, would they submit to Home Rule. The prospect of
civil war remained, with only one limitation. Mr. Bonar Law undertook
that if a general election took place and the Liberals again came back,
the British Unionist party would not support Ulster in physical
resistance. They would, however, continue to oppose a Home Rule Bill by
all constitutional means.
Nevertheless, the English disposition to compromise was already
operating. Mr. Asquith was the last of mankind to make a quixotic stand
for principle, and the most disposed to pride himself on a practical
recognition of realities. His Government was in rough water. During the
summer Mr. Lloyd George's transaction in Marconi shares had been
magnified by partisan rancour into a crime. Much more serious was the
split with Labour, which led to the loss of seat after seat at
by-elections, when the allied forces which stood behind the Parliament
Act attacked each other and let the Tories in. The Women's Franchise
agitation was also coming to its stormiest point.
Redmond's part was one of extraordinary difficulty. The cause for which
he stood was one affecting the interests of only a small minority of the
total electorate concerned in the struggle which now spread over both
islands. The Irish problem belonged in reality to the Victorian era;
those in the British electorate whom it could stir to enthusiasm were
stirred by a memory, not by a new gospel. Normally, but for the chance
of Parnell's overthrow, it would have been solved in Gladstone's last
years. For most Liberals, for all Labour men, the fact that it had
passed beyond the sphere of argument meant a lack of driving force. It
was a part of accepted Liberal orthodoxy; minds were centred rather on
those social controversies in which Mr. Lloyd George was the dominant
figure, and upon which opinion had not yet crystallized.
Further, the cry of Protestant liberties in danger, the cause of
Protestants who conducted their arming to the accompaniment of hymns and
prayer, made inevitably a searching appeal to the feelings of an island
kingdom where the prejudice against Roman Catholics is more instinctive
than anywhere else in the world. Looking back on it all, I marvel not at
the difficulties we encountered, but at the success with which we
surmounted them; and the great element in that success was Redmond's
personality. His dignity, his noble eloquence, his sincerity, and the
large, tolerant nature of the man, won upon the public imagination. His
tact was unfailing. In all those years, under the most envenomed
scrutiny, he never let slip a word that could be used to our
disadvantage. This is merely a negative statement. It is truer to say
that he never touched the question without raising it to the scope of
great issues. Nothing petty, nothing personal came into his discourse;
he so carried the national claim of Ireland that men saw in it at once
the test and the justification of democracy.
That is why the Irish cause, instead of being a millstone round the neck
of the parliamentary alliance, was in truth a living cohesive force. But
in order to keep it so it must be pleaded, not as a question for Ireland
only but for the democracy of Great Britain and, in a still larger
sense, for the Commonwealth of the British Empire.
Liberal statesmen in their desire to simplify their own task
underestimated altogether the difficulty which their professed
short-cuts to the goal--or rather, their attempted circuits round
obstacles--created inevitably for the Irish leader. They did not realize
that his genuine feeling--based on knowledge--for the British democracy
at home, and still more for its offshoots overseas, was unshared by his
countrymen, still aloof, still suspicious, and daily impressed by the
spectacle of those who most paraded allegiance to British Imperialism
professing a readiness to tear up the Constitution rather than allow
freedom to Ireland. Liberal statesmen did not understand that Redmond
could only justify to Ireland the part which he was taking if he won,
and that he and not they must be the judge of what Ireland would
consider a defeat. In all probability, also, they overrated his power
and that of the party which he led. They did not guess at the potency of
new forces which only in these months began to make themselves felt, and
which in the end, breaking loose from Redmond's control, undid his work.
A new phase in Irish history had begun, of which Sir Edward Carson was
the chief responsible author.