THE REBELLION AND ITS SEQUEL
I
The facts of the Irish rebellion are too generally familiar to need more
than the briefest restatement--and perhaps too little known for an
attempt at detailed analysis. Broadly, a general parade of the Irish
Volunteers all over the country was ordered for Easter Sunday. On the
night before Good Friday a German ship with a cargo of rifles was off
the Irish coast. This ship, the _Aud_, was a few hours later captured
and taken in convoy by a British sloop, so that the arms were never
landed. Emissaries from the Volunteers who had gone to Kerry by
motor-car to receive and arrange for distributing the arms were killed
in a motor accident while hurrying back to get in touch with their
headquarters. On Saturday the general parade was cancelled by order of
Professor MacNeill, chief of the Volunteer organization. On Monday,
against his wish, a portion of the Volunteer force in Dublin, including
the battalion specially under command of Pearse and MacDonagh, with the
Citizen Army under James Connolly, paraded, scattered through the city
and seized certain previously selected points, of which the most
important was the Post Office. From it as headquarters they proclaimed
an Irish Republic. Slight attempts at rising took place in county
Wexford, where the town of Enniscorthy was seized, in county Galway, and
in county Louth. At Galway, at Wexford and at Drogheda the National
Volunteers turned out to assist in suppressing the rising. Except for a
serious encounter with a police force in county Dublin, the fighting
was confined to the capital. It terminated by the unconditional
surrender of the rebels on the Saturday. The struggle was prolonged by
the total lack of artillery in the early stages. Riflemen established in
houses could not be dislodged by direct assault of infantry without very
heavy casualties to the attacking force.
The purpose of this book is to show Redmond's connection with this event
and the succeeding developments from it. He failed to foresee the event;
he failed to direct its developments into the course he desired. How far
he is to be held responsible, or blameworthy, for these failures,
readers may be assisted to decide.
From the beginning of 1916 onwards the Irish Government was warned of
danger. One of its members--the Attorney-General, Sir James
Campbell--advocated the seizure of arms from men parading with what were
evidently stolen service rifles or bayonets. But the Chief Secretary
refused to take any action which could be described as an attempt to
suppress or disarm the Irish Volunteers until there was definite
evidence of actual association with the enemy.
Proof of sympathy was not difficult to obtain, and the propaganda
against recruiting had now reached the point of attempts to break up
recruiting meetings. Still, Mr. Birrell was in a difficulty. He had a
logical mind, and he knew what had been permitted to Ulster. The fact
that the Attorney-General himself had been a main adviser of the
Provisional Government did not make it easier to follow his advice to
disarm men who professed disaffection to the existing authority. Mr.
Birrell knew that if he took such action he could be attacked in the
official Nationalist Press for having one law in Ulster and another in
the South. Further, Redmond would certainly not have disavowed, and
might even have endorsed, such a line of criticism. The reason was that
Redmond, as he had never believed in the reality of the Ulster danger,
so now did not believe in this one.
Later, when Mr. Birrell resigned his post after the insurrection was
suppressed, Redmond chivalrously took on himself a part of the
responsibility. "I feel," he said, "that I have incurred some share of
the blame which he has laid at his own door, because I entirely agreed
with his view that the danger of an outbreak of the kind was not a real
one, and in my conversations with him I have expressed that view, and
for all I know that may have influenced him in his conduct and his
management of Irish affairs." A later debate--on July 31st--showed that
his strong personal feeling for Mr. Birrell had moved him rather to
overstate than to belittle his advisory responsibility. Dublin Castle
had never consulted him as to policy. Conferences had taken place with
the Under-Secretary, Sir Matthew Nathan, but these were concerned with
considering and framing the machinery to be created for bringing the
Home Rule Act into operation, whenever the time came.
"There was no conference at all about the state of the country or about
Sinn Fein. When once or twice in casual consultation the matter came
up--I hope the House will listen to this--I did not hesitate to say what
in my opinion ought to be done in certain cases by the Government. For
example, I expressed a strong view to them as to how they should deal
with seditious newspapers and with prosecutions. What I did suggest,
they never did; what I said they ought not to do, they always did. And I
want to say something further. They never gave me any information, bad
or good, about the state of the country. From first to last I never saw
one single confidential Government report from the police or from any
other source. I know nothing whatever about their secret confidential
information."
It is fair to add that the Under-Secretary was in communication from
time to time with other members of the party, who were of course in
touch with Redmond. But the substantial accuracy of Redmond's statement
is sufficiently evidenced by one fact. Everybody knew that Sir Roger
Casement was in Berlin and had tried--most unsuccessfully--to recruit an
Irish Brigade from among the Irish prisoners. But neither Redmond nor
any Irish member knew that from April 17th Dublin Castle had warning
that a ship was on its way from Germany with rifles. The Navy was on the
alert, and when the _Aud_ came off Fenit, in Kerry, on Good Friday
morning, she was promptly challenged.[7] But in the dark hours of that
morning she had landed Sir Roger Casement and his two confederates, one
of whom was arrested with him the same day. On Saturday morning
Government decided to take action against what was now clearly a rebel
organization. But as the Chief Secretary and the General Commanding in
Chief were both in London, and as the available force of men in Dublin
was small, a postponement was decided on. No special precautions appear
to have been taken against the contingency of an immediate rising. On
Monday a very large proportion of the officers from the Curragh and the
Dublin garrison were at the Fairyhouse races. In the Castle itself there
was only the ordinary guard.
Redmond at this date was also in London. His lack of apprehension is
sufficiently indicated by the fact that his son and daughter were both
at the races, and drove up unknowingly to an armed barricade. Had he
been in authority and known, as the Government knew on Saturday, that
the Irish Volunteers expected and had arranged for the landing of a
heavy cargo of arms on Good Friday, and that a general parade of their
men had been ordered for Easter, I hope that he would have either had
troops in the utmost readiness to move, or have put strong guards in
places of importance. But this is a futile speculation, for had he been
in power the situation would never have arisen.
The decisive thing which drove most of the relatively small number among
the Volunteers who broke away from Redmond into their original hostility
was Government's failure to recognize them. Their force stood in their
own eyes for the assertion of Ireland's nationality; and many of those
who took active part in the rebellion were at the outset fully prepared
to assert that nationality in jeopardy of their lives in the Allied
cause. Redmond's policy, had effect been given to it by the Government,
still more had he himself been invested with the right to embody it in
action, would have prevented the estrangement of all but a very few.
Once the estrangement took place, however, I think that he undervalued
what was opposed to him, both in respect of its power and of its
quality. He lacked appreciation and respect for the idealists whose
ideals were not his own. He underrated their sincerity, and the danger
of their sincerity. The beauty of sacrifice in the young men who went
out to the war, carrying Ireland's cause in their keeping, moved him
profoundly; and he saw the practical bearing of their acts on the great
practical problem of statesmanship to which his life had been given. He
did not guess at the sway which might be exercised over men's minds by
an almost mystical belief which disdained to count with practicalities,
Redmond for fifteen years had been the leader, and for thirty-five years
had been a member, of a party which presented itself--with great
justification--as the winner for Ireland of many positive material
advantages on the way to an ultimate goal. Pearse, at a time when all
the world was plunged in a prodigal welter of destruction, came forward,
demanding from Irishmen nothing but a sacrifice--promising nothing but
the chance for young men to shed their blood sacramentally in the cause
of Ireland's freedom. Redmond also was calling for the extreme risk, but
on a sane and sound calculation, to ensure the full development of
something already gained. Pearse preached, mystically, the efficacious
power simply of blood shed in the name of Ireland. Those whom he brought
with him into the pass of danger were few, but they were touched with
his own spirit; and even the very recklessness of their act touched the
popular imagination. Irish regiments, after all, could do only what
other regiments were doing; their deeds were obscured in a chaos of war
from which individual prowess could not emerge. Pearse and his
associates offered to Irishmen a stage for themselves on which they
could and did secure full personal recognition--the complete attention
of Ireland's mind.
All this would have seemed vanity to Redmond's solid, positive
intelligence--vanity in all senses of the word. It would have moved him
to nothing but angry contempt--anger against the spirit which was
prepared to divide Ireland's effort, contempt for the futility of the
reasoning. But one aspect of the rising dominated all the others in his
mind. He had neither tolerance nor pity for Roger Casement, who was in
his eyes simply one who tried to seduce Irish troops by threats and
bribes into treason to their salt, one who made himself among the worst
instruments of Germany. At the re-assembly of Parliament on April 27th
he expressed the "feeling of detestation and horror" with which he and
his colleagues had regarded the events in Dublin; a feeling which he
believed to be shared "by the overwhelming mass of the people of
Ireland." On May 3rd, in a statement to the Press, he denounced fiercely
"this wicked move" of men who "have tried to make Ireland the cat's-paw
of Germany." "Germany plotted it, Germany organized it, Germany paid for
it." The men who were Germany's agents "remained in the safe remoteness
of American cities," while "misguided and insane young men in Ireland
had risked, and some of them had lost, their lives in an insane
anti-patriotic movement." It was anti-patriotic, he urged, because
Ireland held to the choice she had made, to the opinion which thousands
of Irish soldiers had sealed with their blood. It was "not half so much
treason to the cause of the Allies as treason to the cause of Home
Rule."
On the day when that statement appeared the sequel had begun to unroll
itself. In the House of Commons Mr. Asquith announced the trial,
sentence and shooting of three signatories to the Republican
proclamation--Pearse, Clarke and MacDonagh. With the exception of James
Connolly, these were the men most directly answerable for launching an
attempt which had cost five hundred lives and destroyed over two
millions' worth of property, Redmond accepted their doom as just.
"This outbreak happily seems to be over. It has been dealt with with
firmness, which was not only right, but it was the duty of the
Government so to deal with it."
But now that example had been made, he held that other thoughts should
guide those in authority.
"As the rebellion, or the outbreak, call it what you like, has been put
down with firmness, I do beg the Government, and I speak from the very
bottom of my heart and with all my earnestness, not to show undue
hardship or severity to the great masses of those who are implicated, on
whose shoulders there lies a guilt far different from that which lies
upon the instigators and promoters of the outbreak. Let them, in the
name of God, not add this to the wretched, miserable memories of the
Irish people, to be stored up perhaps for generations, but let them deal
with it in such a spirit of leniency as was recently exhibited in South
Africa by General Botha, and in that way pave the way to the possibility
... that out of the ashes of this miserable tragedy there may spring up
something which will redound to the future happiness of Ireland and the
future complete and absolute unity of this Empire. I beg of the
Government, having put down this outbreak with firmness, to take only
such action as will leave the least rankling bitterness in the minds of
the Irish people, both in Ireland and elsewhere throughout the world."
It is well to recall what he had in his mind. After the suppression of
the South African rebellion in 1914, one man only was put to death--an
officer who changed sides during an action. No attempt was made to try
accused persons before a jury; a special tribunal of judges was set up
by the South African Parliament. But their power of inflicting
punishment was limited by the Parliament to a sentence of three years.
General de Wet, the chief figure in the rebellion, was dismissed without
punishment to his farm. That was the manner in which a strong native
Government, realizing the possibilities of future trouble, dealt with an
insurrection infinitely more serious in a military sense than that which
broke out in Dublin. But in Ireland there was no native government; and
the announcement of Mr. Birrell's resignation meant in reality that Mr.
Asquith's Ministry had abdicated so far as Ireland was concerned. Quite
properly, they had called in a competent soldier to deal with the
military exigency. Quite shamefully, they left him in sole authority to
handle what was essentially the task of statesmanship.
Everybody saw that in such a case the need was to prevent a rebellious
spirit from spreading. Sir John Maxwell took the simple view that the
way to secure this was by plenty of executions. Knowledge of Irish
history cannot be expected in an English Minister, still less in an
English soldier; but it could have taught him how often and how
ineffectually that recipe had been applied. Still less could it be hoped
that a soldier, in no sense bound to the study of contemporary politics,
should allow for the effect of two factors which must certainly
influence Irish judgment and Irish feeling. The first of these was the
precedent within the Empire created by General Botha's Government. This,
I think, English opinion generally, and particularly English
Imperialist opinion, wholly disregarded; but it was the point to which
Redmond had instantly directed attention. For him, the idea of an
Imperial Commonwealth of States was a reality, and within one
Commonwealth there cannot be two standards of justice. The second factor
was the licence accorded by a Liberal Government, and the sanction given
by a Tory Opposition, to preparations for rebellion, and acts of
rebellion, in Ulster. This was generally recognized by public opinion,
though I think deliberately set aside by Sir John Maxwell--who perhaps
is not to be blamed. But the Prime Minister, who had been chiefly and
ultimately responsible for the decision to let Ulstermen do as they
liked, was specially bound to consider and provide for the consequences
of that line of policy in the past as it affected the present
development. He was also, as the Minister responsible alike for carrying
a Home Rule Act and for denying to it operation, specially bound in such
a pass as this to be guided largely by the judgment of the man who but
for that postponement would have been head of an Irish Government. But,
under the various pressures of the moment, Mr. Asquith moved in a wholly
different direction. Redmond's appeal and advice went totally
disregarded. Yet Redmond knew Ireland as no Englishman could know it;
and his hands were clean of guilt for what had happened. Mr. Asquith by
his past inaction, his Tory colleagues by their action before the war,
were deeply involved in responsibility. It is difficult, if not
impossible, to find in Mr. Asquith's conduct any recognition of this
cardinal fact. He judged rebels as if preparations for rebellion had
never been palliated or approved.
All that Redmond could achieve was by incessant personal intervention to
limit the list of executions, to put some stay on what he called later
"the gross and panicky violence" with which measures of suppression
were conceived and carried out. He could not prevent the amazing
procedure of sending flying columns throughout the country into places
where there had been no hint of disturbance, and making arrests by the
hundred without reason given or evidence produced. In many cases, men
who had been thoroughly disgusted by the outbreak found themselves in
jail; and disaffection was manufactured hourly.
On May 3rd, when Redmond made his public appeal to Mr. Asquith, it was
still not too late to prevent the mischief from spreading. By general
consent, Redmond was right when he said that the rising was thoroughly
unpopular in Ireland, and most of all in Dublin. The troops on whom the
insurgents fired were in the first instance Irish troops. Later in that
year I was attached to one of these battalions (the 10th Dublins), and
asked them how they did their scouting work during the conflict. "We
needed no scouts," was the answer; "the old women told us everything."
The first volley which met a company of this battalion killed an
officer; he was so strongly Nationalist in his sympathy as to be almost
a Sinn Féiner. Others had been active leaders in the Howth gun-running.
It was not merely a case of Irishmen firing on their fellow-countrymen:
it was one section of the original Volunteers firing on another.
Yet from the moment when English troops came on the scene, another
strain of feeling began to make itself felt. A lady ordered tea to be
made for one of the incoming regiments, halted outside her house on the
line of march. The refreshment was long in coming, and she went down to
see why. She found her cook up in arms: "Is it me boil the kettle for
Englishmen coming in to shoot down Irishmen?" Yet that was still the
voice of a minority. When I came home from France a few weeks later, a
shrewd and prosperous Nationalist man of business said to me with fury:
"The fools! It was the first rebellion that ever had the country
against it, and they turned the people round in a week."
Nothing could have prevented the halo of martyrdom from attaching itself
to those who died by the law for the sake of Irish freedom: the
tradition was too deeply ingrained in Ireland's history. Yet Redmond did
not go beyond the measure of average Irish opinion when he accepted the
first three executions as just. People at least knew who these men were,
and their signatures to the proclamation of an Irish Republic proved
their leadership. They were given the death of rebels in arms, to which
no dishonour attaches. But a fatal mistake was made in suppressing all
report of the proceedings of the court-martial on them, and this mistake
was to be repeated indefinitely. Ireland was made to feel that this
whole affair was taken completely out of the hands of Irishmen--that no
attempt even was made to enlist Irish opinion on the side of law by a
statement of the evidence on which law acted. Day by day there was a new
bald announcement that such and such men had been shot; and these were
men whose names Ireland at large had never heard of.
Then on top of all came the appalling admission that an officer
suffering from insanity had taken out three prisoners and caused them to
be shot without trial on his own responsibility, none of these men
having any complicity with the rebellion. This incident would have
inflamed public opinion in any community; in Ireland its effect was
beyond words poisonous. It revived the atmosphere of the Bachelor's Walk
incident; and there was only too much justification for holding that the
military authorities were indisposed to take the proper disciplinary
action. Its effect detracted from the excellent opinion which the troops
generally had earned by their conduct: it instilled venom into the
resentment of those few cases (and it was beyond hope that they should
not occur) in which soldiers had either lost their heads or yielded to
the temptation of revenge in its ugliest shapes.
The result can be best expressed by recording the experience of one Sinn
Féiner who was captured in the fighting. While the military escort was
taking him through the streets to his place of confinement, a crowd
gathered round and ran along, consisting of angry men and women who had
seen bloodshed and known hunger during these days. They shouted to the
soldiers to knock his brains out there and then. Three weeks later he
was again marched through the streets on his way to an English prison,
and again a crowd mustered. But this time, to his amazement, they were
shouting: "God save you! God have pity on you! Keep your heart up!
Ireland's not dead yet!"
These were the effects produced in Ireland on the mind of common people
by the action of Government in enforcing the ultimate sanction of law
which the members of that same Government by their action and by their
inaction had brought into contempt. In England, in the meanwhile, a new
Military Service Bill was going through the House, and naturally
attempts to include Ireland in its operation were renewed. Sir Edward
Carson, criticizing the Government of Ireland, said that (as Redmond put
it in replying) Nationalists had held the power but not the
responsibility. There was a note of angry protest in the Irish Leader's
rejoinder. "I wish to say for myself that certainly since the Coalition
Government came into operation, and before it, but certainly since then,
I have had no power in the Government of Ireland. All my opinions have
been overborne. My suggestions have been rejected, and my profound
conviction is that if we had had the power and the responsibility for
the Government of our country during the past two years, recent
occurrences in Ireland would never have taken place."
I think that view was at that moment very generally shared in England.
The British Press had shown by their attitude towards the events in
Dublin how deeply Redmond had made his mark. Almost without exception
Unionist papers refrained from any attempt to identify Nationalist
Ireland generally with the rising: they did full justice to the valour
and the sufferings of Irish troops--who, indeed, at that very moment
were passing through a cruel ordeal. In that Easter week the Sixteenth
Division was subjected to two attacks with poison gas of a concentration
and violence till then unknown, and under weather conditions which
prolonged the ordeal beyond endurance. The 48th and 49th Brigades had
very terrible losses. We of the 47th relieved them in the line.
That was a long tour of trenches, some eighteen days beginning on the
29th of April, and throughout it papers came in with the Irish news. I
shall never forget the men's indignation. They felt they had been
stabbed in the back. For myself, I thought that a situation had arisen
in which Irish members who were serving had a more imperative duty at
home, and I went to discuss the matter with Willie Redmond, whose
battalion was then holding the front line to the left of Loos.
I found him in the deep company commander's dug-out in the bay of line
opposite Puits 14 bis, which will be known to many Irish soldiers. We
came up to the light to talk, and he agreed with me in my view. We
arranged that each of us should discuss with his commanding officer the
question of asking for special leave. Mine advised me to go, and I have
no earthly doubt that his would have said, or did say, the same; but
Willie Redmond never brought himself to leave his men. Next month,
however, he was invalided back, very seriously ill.
But in our talk that day, when we discussed the possibility of our
having some special influence, he said this: "Don't imagine that what
you and I have done is going to make us popular with our people. On the
contrary, we shall both be sent to the right about at the first General
Election." I think he was wrong, at least to this extent, that any man
who served would not have lessened his chance by doing so. When the tide
flowed strongest against us, in three provinces one Nationalist only
kept his seat--John Redmond's son, Major William Archer Redmond.
II
Already the tide had begun to turn in Ireland. On May 11th Mr.
Dillon--who had been in Dublin during the rebellion--moved the
adjournment of the House to demand that Government should state whether
they intended to have more executions upon the finding of secret
tribunals, and to continue the searches and wholesale arrests which were
going on through the country. The list of executions had now reached
fourteen, and no word of evidence had been published. Also the Prime
Minister stated that he heard for the first time of the shooting of Mr.
Sheehy-Skeffington and others by Captain Bowen Colthurst.
Unquestionably, discussion was urgently needed, and Mr. Dillon was fully
justified in emphasizing the mischief done in Ireland by alienating
men's minds. But Mr. Dillon spoke as one who felt to the uttermost the
passion of resentment which he depicted, and in his indignation against
charges which had been brought against the insurgents, he was led to
praise their conduct almost to the disparagement of soldiers in the
field. Even in print the speech seethes with growing passion; and its
delivery, I am told, accentuated its bitterness and its anti-English
tone.
It would be futile to deny that this utterance had a great effect in
Ireland and in England, or to conceal Redmond's view that the effect was
most lamentable. But it had one notable result. Mr. Asquith, in
replying, announced his intention to visit Ireland and look into the
situation for himself. Within a fortnight--on May 25th--he reported to
the House his impressions.
"The first was the breakdown of the existing machinery of the Irish
Government; and the next was the strength and depth, and I might almost
say, I think without exaggeration, the universality of the feeling in
Ireland that we have now a unique opportunity for a new departure for
the settlement of outstanding problems, and for a joint and combined
effort to obtain agreement as to the way in which the Government of
Ireland is for the future to be carried on."
He indicated that an attempt would be made to renew negotiations for a
settlement which would enable the Home Rule Act to be brought into
operation at once; and that Mr. Lloyd George had consented to undertake
the task of reconciling parties. But he begged that there should be no
debate upon this proposal or upon Irish affairs at all. Redmond, in
accepting, said that the request for acceptance without discussion was
putting the goodwill of Nationalists to a very severe test.--A
discussion would at once have produced this criticism: that Ireland
would say to-morrow, "The Parliamentary party brought to Ireland a
post-dated order for Home Rule, liable to an indefinite series of
postponements: Sinn Fein by a week's rebellion secures that Home Rule
shall be brought into force at once."
In truth, the rapid growth of Sinn Fein from May 1916 onwards is due
largely to this reasoning; but also to resentment against the
Government's dealing with the rebellion, and against the Irish party's
silence in Parliament in spite of the numerous actions of the military
power which called for vigorous criticism.
Irish Nationalist members realized the unpopularity of their silence and
submitted to it, for the negotiations appeared to offer a real chance.
We held that Mr. Lloyd George could not afford to fail, and had power
enough to carry through a settlement. We did not know, and could not,
that the Minister of Munitions had been called off from his regular work
within five weeks before the beginning of the offensive on the Somme,
for which an unprecedented outlay of material had been undertaken.
The negotiations proceeded, and were conducted on the principle of
discussion through a go-between. The parties never met: Mr. Lloyd George
submitted proposals to each side separately. Redmond and his colleagues
insisted on protecting themselves by securing a written document, so
that, as it was hoped, there could be no understanding and the terms
come to would be final.
Those of us who hoped for a completely new approach to the problem were
doomed to disappointment. The affair was taken up where the Buckingham
Palace Conference left it. The terms to be arranged were terms of
exclusion for Ulster; and the two questions of defining the area and the
period met the negotiators on the threshold.
It has been shown above that Redmond regarded as vital the distinction
between temporary and permanent exclusion. His purpose was to stamp the
whole of this proposed agreement with a provisional and transient
character. It was to be simply a war measure, subject to re-arrangement
at the close of hostilities; and it was to be adapted to a community
still agitated by rebellion.
An Irish Parliament with an Executive responsible to it was to be set up
at once. But no elections were to be held. The existing members for the
existing constituencies were to be the provisional Parliament till the
war ended.
The same considerations precluded the possibility of a referendum in
Ulster. Nationalists accepted an area defined by agreement. It left out
of "Ulster" the three counties, Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan, in whose
eight constituencies no Unionist had been returned since 1885. But it
left to the excluded area the counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh, each
with a Nationalist majority, and the boroughs of Newry and Londonderry,
both represented by Home Rulers.
This was a provision which no body of men could be expected to acquiesce
in permanently as representing the equity of the case. It was accepted
for the sake of peace, as a temporary expedient. A strong inducement was
added by Mr. Lloyd George's proposal that at the close of the
provisional period the whole matter should be referred to a Council of
the Empire with the Prime Ministers of the Dominions taking a hand in
the settlement. But to guarantee and seal its provisional and transitory
character an extraordinary clause was added. Until a permanent
settlement was reached, the Irish membership at Westminster was to
remain at its original number of 103.
The document embodying these conclusions was accepted in identical terms
by each side, and each party of negotiators set out for Ireland to
endeavour to secure acceptance of it. But before he left London Sir
Edward Carson asked for an interpretation of the terms. Did the
agreement mean that none of the six excluded counties could be brought
under a Dublin Parliament without an Act of Parliament? In other words,
was the exclusion permanent until Parliament should otherwise determine?
He was answered that the Prime Minister accepted this interpretation,
and would be prepared to say so when the matter came before Parliament.
Knowledge of these communications was not conveyed to Redmond. Redmond's
interpretation was that at the termination of the war this arrangement
lapsed, and the Home Rule Act, which was the law of the land, came into
force. If Ulster, or any part of it, were to be excluded, it must be by
a new amending Act. Had the assurance given to Sir Edward Carson been
conveyed to Redmond, either the negotiations must have been resumed or
they must have been rendered abortive.
On June 13th the Ulster Council accepted the terms, no doubt with great
reluctance. The signatories to the Covenant in the three western
counties felt themselves betrayed. The whole body found itself committed
to acceptance of Home Rule in principle for twenty-six counties. But the
war necessity was pressed upon them and they submitted.
The Nationalist Convention met ten days later in Belfast. Mr. Devlin had
been strenuous in his exertions throughout the province, but the whole
force of the ecclesiastical power was thrown against him. Apart from the
detestation of partition, the Catholic Church conceived that the
principle of denominational education would be lost in the severed
counties, where the dominant Presbyterian element was opposed to it.
Very many delegates came to the Convention pledged in advance to resist
the proposals: and the general anticipation was that Redmond would be
thrown over.
The proceedings were secret. But in the result the Nationalists of the
North refused to be any party to denying the rest of Ireland
self-government. A division was taken, and consent to temporary
exclusion was carried by a large majority. The victory was in the main
due to Mr. Devlin's extraordinary personal gifts, exercised to carry a
conclusion which inevitably must injure himself where he was most
sensitive to a wound, in the hearts of those among whom he was born and
bred.
It must have been in the weeks immediately after this that Redmond spoke
to me, as I never heard him speak of any other man, his mind about Mr.
Devlin. "Joe's loyalty in all this business has been beyond words," he
said. "I know what it has cost him to do as he has done." He knew well
that the younger man's influence had been more efficacious than the
threat of his own resignation--which was not withheld. A man of other
nature might have been jealous of the young and growing power: but such
an element as this was so foreign to Redmond's whole being that even
the thought of it never entered the most suspicious mind.
The result of the Belfast Convention was communicated and discussed at a
meeting of the Irish party held at the Mansion House on June 26th. It
was one of the most hopeful moments in our experience; reaction from a
depression approaching to despair gave confidence to the gloomiest among
us. Hope was in the air. The effect of Mr. Asquith's sentence upon the
whole machinery of Dublin Castle had not yet worn off. No new Government
had been installed: the Chief Secretaryship remained vacant, the
Lord-Lieutenant also had retired from his office. It seemed a certainty
that we should enter, under whatever auguries, into the realization of a
self-governing Ireland. Even those who were most enthusiastic for the
birth of a new and glorious era that was to date from the stirring
action of the rebels, and who were most open-mouthed in condemnation of
Redmond's futile efforts, in practice shared our view. I asked one such
man how he counted on securing the necessary first step of establishing
an Irish Government. "Oh, I suppose," was his answer, "the Irish party
will manage that somehow."
But soon delay began to hang coldly on this temper of anticipation, and
to delay were added disquieting utterances. On June 29th Lord Lansdowne
announced in the House of Lords that the "consultations" which had been
taking place were "certainly authorized" by the Government but were not
binding upon it; and that he, speaking for the Unionist wing of the
Cabinet, had not accepted the proposals. This was disturbing. Lord
Selborne had retired from the Government before the negotiators went to
Ireland, because he knew of the proposals and was not prepared to
sanction them. We assumed that other Unionists who shared this view
would have followed him in his frank action. Now we perceived that Lord
Lansdowne and his friends had frugally husbanded their force. It was
expected by many that Ireland would do the work for them. Failing that,
they had still the last stab to deliver. But we counted upon one thing:
that Mr. Lloyd George, if not Mr. Asquith, would feel himself committed
to see the deal through--and that his resignation would have to be faced
as a part of the consequences if attempts were made to go back on the
bargain.
Parliament reassembled and still nothing was said and nothing done: but
the Press was full of rumours. On July 19th Redmond asked that a date
should be fixed for the introduction of the proposed Bill, and next day
he renewed his demand, urging that the constant delays and postponements
were "seriously jeopardizing the chance of settlement." This was only
too true. A furious agitation against the proposal of even temporary
partition was raging through Ireland. Once more, the tide had been
missed: time had been given to inculcate all manner of doubts and
suspicions--and once more the suspicions proved to be only too well
justified. The whole story was revealed to the House on July 24th.
Redmond, in his speech, emphasized it that the proposals had come not
from the Nationalists, but from the Government; they had, however, been
accepted, after considerable negotiation and many changes in substance,
as a plan which Nationalists could recommend for acceptance.
Nationalists had been pressed to use the utmost despatch, had been told
that every hour counted and that it was essential in the highest
Imperial interests, if Ireland endorsed the agreement, that it should be
put into operation at once. "That is two long months ago," he said.
Action had been taken; the unpopularity of the proposals, fully
foreseen, had been faced, on a clear understanding.
"The agreement was in the words of the Prime Minister himself, for what
he called a provisional settlement which should last until the war was
over, or until a final and permanent settlement was arrived at within a
limited period after the war. This was the chief factor of this plan,
and without it not one of my colleagues or myself would for a moment
have considered it, much less have submitted it to our followers."
The retention of Irish members at Westminster in full strength was
covenanted for "as an indispensable safeguard of the temporary character
of the whole arrangement."
It was on this construction of the agreement that consent to it had been
secured, in the face of very strong and organized opposition: and
consent was secured to it as a final document. Nevertheless, when
Redmond arrived in London he had been at once confronted with a demand
for modifications--of which the first were unimportant. Yet to consent
to any alteration was a sacrifice of principle; but he was told that
this concession would secure agreement in the Cabinet. Later, however,
came a public statement from Lord Lansdowne that "permanent and
enduring" structural alterations would be introduced into the Home Rule
Act. Redmond had seen the draft Bill in which the Government's draftsmen
embodied the terms of the agreement, and he had accepted this, as
conforming to his covenant. In reply to Lord Lansdowne, he had pressed
for the production of this Bill, but could not get it. The end was that,
after a Cabinet held on July 19th, he was told that "a number of new
proposals had been brought forward"; that the Cabinet did not desire to
consult him about these at all; and on the 22nd Mr. Lloyd George and Mr.
Herbert Samuel were instructed to convey to him the Cabinet's decision,
with an intimation that there would be no further discussion or
consultation. That decision was to make the exclusion of six counties
permanent, and to withdraw the provision for retaining Irish members at
full strength during the transitory period.
Redmond attacked no individual. His anger was beyond words. He said
this, however:
"Some tragic fatality seems to dog the footsteps of this Government in
all their dealings with Ireland. Every step taken by them since the
Coalition was formed, and especially since the unfortunate outbreak in
Dublin, has been lamentable. They have disregarded every advice we
tendered to them, and now in the end, having got us to induce our people
to make a tremendous sacrifice and to agree to the temporary exclusion
of these Ulster counties, they throw this agreement to the winds, and
they have taken the surest means to accentuate every possible danger and
difficulty in the Irish situation."
That day really finished the constitutional party and overthrew
Redmond's power. We had incurred the very great odium of accepting even
temporary partition--and a partition which, owing to this arbitrary
extension of area, could not be justified on any ground of principle; we
had involved with us many men who voted for that acceptance on the faith
of Redmond's assurance that the Government were bound by their written
word; and now we were thrown over.
Apart from the effect on Redmond's position, the result was to engender
in Ireland a temper which made settlement almost impossible. No British
Minister's word would in future be accepted for anything; and any
Irishman who attempted to improve relations between the countries was
certain to arouse anger and contempt in his countrymen.
More particularly the relations between Irish members and the most
powerful members of the Government were hopelessly embittered. Mr. Lloyd
George put aside completely--probably he never for a moment
entertained--the thought of seriously threatening resignation because
his agreement with the Irish was repudiated by his colleagues. He was
entirely engrossed with the work of the War Office, where he thought,
and was justified in thinking, himself indispensable. Mr. Asquith, whose
object was to keep unity in his Government at all costs, when it came
to a choice whether to quarrel with the Irish who formed no part of it,
or with the Unionists who were his colleagues, had no hesitation which
side to throw over.
I have never seen the House of Commons so thoroughly discontented and
disgusted. There was much genuine sympathy with Redmond. Sir Edward
Carson evidently shared it, and he made a conciliatory speech in which
he proposed that he and the Nationalist leader should shake hands on the
floor of the House. That is a gesture which comes better from the loser
than from the winner, and there was no doubt that Sir Edward Carson had
won. But he knew Ireland well enough to realize the meaning of his
victory, and his speech indicated disquiet and even horror at the
prospect before us. He was quite avowedly anxious to see a start made
with Home Rule, Ulster standing apart. In a later debate, when the
Government announced its intention to fill again the vacant Irish
offices (appointing Mr. Duke as Chief Secretary), Redmond referred
hopefully to this utterance of the Ulster leader and generally to "the
new and improved atmosphere which has surrounded this Irish question
quite recently."
The end of this speech dealt with one of the elements which had
contributed most to the improvement. In the great battle of the Somme,
which opened on July 1st, the Ulster Division went for the first time
into general action, and their achievement was the most glorious and the
most unlucky of that day. They carried their assault through five lines
of trenches, and, because a division on their flank was not equally
successful, were obliged to fall back, adding terribly in this
withdrawal to the desperate losses of their advance. Side by side with
them on the other flank was the Fourth Division, containing two
battalions of Dublin Fusiliers, in one of which John Redmond's son
commanded a company; so that he and the Ulstermen went over shoulder to
shoulder. He came back unwounded; all other company commanders in the
battalion were killed. The only thing in which Redmond was entirely
fortunate during these last years of his life was in his son's record
during the war.
Another Nationalist well known to the House of Commons served also in
the Dublin Fusiliers on the Somme, with a different fortune. Professor
Kettle, owing to conditions of health, had been unable to come to France
with the Sixteenth Division, and had been mainly employed in recruiting.
Now in these summer months he pushed hard to get out to France, though
he was not physically fit for the line. He got to France, and, as was
easy to foresee, broke down and was sent to work at the base on records:
but before he left his regiment he knew that it was under orders for a
general action, and he insisted that he should have leave to rejoin for
that day. He came back accordingly, found himself called on to take
command of a company, and led it with great gallantry, and on the second
day of action was shot dead. It was the fate that he expected; he, like
so many, had a forerunning assurance of his end. So was lost to Ireland
the most variously-gifted intelligence that I have ever known.
The Sixteenth Division were still on the sector about Loos, and their
casualties were heavy and continuous in the perpetual trench warfare.
With the last days of August they were withdrawn--for a rest, as they
believed at first; but their march was southwards to the Somme.
The purpose was to use them for an attack on Ginchy; but a shift of
arrangements brought the 47th Brigade into line against Guillemont and
its quarries, which had on six occasions been unsuccessfully attacked.
The Irish carried them. Three days later the whole division was launched
against Ginchy. They equalled the Ulstermen's valour, and were luckier
in the result. For these achievements praise was not stinted. Colonel
Repington in _The Times_ described the Irish as the "best missile
troops" in all the armies.
III
The deeds of Irish soldiers helped us greatly outside of Ireland; in
Ireland, the news was received with mingled feelings. There was
passionate resentment against the Government, and the question was
asked, For what were their men dying? Redmond's answer could not be so
confident as it would have been six months earlier. There were many who
said that he dare not face the country. His answer to this was given at
Waterford, where on October 6, 1916, his constituents received him with
their old loyalty--though now for the first time there were hostile
voices in the crowd. He spoke out very plainly, saying with justice that
in all his life he had never played to the gallery and would not now.
Things had to be looked at squarely.
"We have taken a leap back over generations of progress, and have
actually had a rebellion, with its inevitable aftermath of brutalities,
stupidities and inflamed passions."
He would impugn no man's motives, least of all the motives of the dead;
but those who had set this train of events in motion had been always the
enemies of the constitutional movement. The constitutional movement must
go on, he said; but it would be folly to pretend that it could go on as
if nothing had happened. Ireland must face its share in the
responsibility. But the real responsibility rested with the British
Government.
To establish this he entered on a review of the whole series of
circumstances, not omitting Ulster's preparations for civil war, and
stressing heavily the mischief that was done when Sir Edward Carson was
chosen "by strange irony" to be the First Law Officer of the Crown.
Passing from his review, he issued grave warning against the idea of
conscription: it would be resisted in every village and its attempted
enforcement would be a scandal which would ring through the world. For
Ireland also he had admonition. He had told them before that Home Rule
was an impregnable position. But "no fortress is impregnable unless the
garrison is faithful and united."
This, alas! was already a counsel of perfection for a country so deeply
divided in opinion as Nationalist Ireland had come to be. The old
loyalties had gone--and he felt it. Ending on a personal note, he
referred to his age: he was over sixty; he had done thirty-five years of
work which would have broken down any man less robust in constitution
than it had been his luck to be born. He believed in youth, he said, and
would gladly give way to younger men.
"But one thing I will not do while I have breath in my body. I will not
give way to the abuse and calumny and the falsehoods of men whom I have
known for long years as the treacherous enemies of Ireland."
With all his reticence, he was a sensitive man; and for months now he
could scarcely take up a newspaper, except his party's official organ,
without finding himself accused of imbecility, of idle vanity, of
corrupt bargaining, of every unworthy motive. Worse than all, he
realized the inherent weakness of his position. He told his hearers at
Waterford that the Irish party would not vary its attitude upon the war,
but that we should now become a regular and active opposition. He was
far too experienced not to be aware that during a war--and such a
war--he neither could nor would offer to the Government in power
opposition in the sense in which Nationalist Ireland would understand
the word.
But he took steps at once for raising the Irish question by a direct
vote of censure. On October 18th he moved:
"That the system of Government at present maintained in Ireland is
inconsistent with the principles for which the Allies are fighting in
Europe, and has been mainly responsible for the recent unhappy events
and for the present state of feeling in that country."
His speech avoided all controversial reference to what had preceded the
war, but it reviewed with great power the long series of blunders,
beginning with the delay in putting the Home Rule Bill on the Statute
Book, and ending with the Cabinet's destruction of the agreement entered
into in June. Now, as the end of all, Dublin Castle, after the Prime
Minister's description of its hopeless breakdown, was set up again with
a Unionist Chief Secretary and a Unionist Attorney-General: with a
universal system of martial law in force throughout the country, and
with hundreds of interned men in prison on suspicion. He warned the
Government of the inevitable effect upon the flow of recruits for the
Irish Divisions; and in a passage which showed how close his attention
was to all this matter of recruitment, he pressed the War Office for
certain minor concessions to Irish sentiment which would help us to
maintain the Division that had so greatly distinguished itself at
Guillemont and Ginchy.
But the real pith of his speech was political in the larger sense. He
pressed upon the House the injury which England's interest was suffering
through the alienation of American opinion, and through the reflection
of Irish discontent in Australia; he pleaded for the withdrawal of
martial law. Nothing came of the debate, except a speech in which Mr.
Lloyd George admitted the "stupidities, which sometimes almost look like
malignancy," that were perpetrated at the beginning of recruiting in
Ireland. The Labour men and a few Liberals voted for our motion. But as
a menace to the Government it was negligible.
I was in France during the period of intrigue which followed, leading up
to the displacement of Mr. Asquith. When the change occurred, members of
Parliament who were serving were recalled by special summons. I found
Redmond in these days profoundly impressed with the strength of Mr.
Lloyd George's personal position. He was convinced that the new Premier
could, if he chose, force a settlement of the Irish difficulty, and was
very hopeful of this happening. Sir Edward Carson dared not, he thought,
set himself in opposition; at this moment the Ulster party was not
popular, while there was in the House a widespread feeling that Redmond
in particular had been treated in a manner far other than his due.
Another of his brother's interventions in debate gave an impetus to this
sympathy.
Again in a thin House, during some discussion on Estimates, Willie
Redmond got up and spoke out of the fullness of experiences which had
profoundly affected his imagination. He told the House of what he had
seen in Flanders, where the two Irish Divisions had at last been brought
into contact, so that the left of the Ulster line in front of
Ploegstreet touched the right of ours in front of Kemmel. It had always
been said that the two factions would fly at each other's throats: by a
score of happy detailed touches the soldier built up a picture of what
had actually happened in the line and behind the line, and then summed
it up in a conclusion:
"They came together in the trenches and they were friends. Get them
together on the floor of an Assembly, or where you will, in Ireland, and
a similar result will follow."
Then, from this theme, he passed to one even more moving--the fate of
Irish Nationalists, who were confronted daily with evil news of their
own land. "It is miserable to see men who went out with high hearts and
hopes, who have acquitted themselves so well, filled with wretchedness
because their country is in an unhappy condition." He appealed for a new
and genuine attempt to set all this right; and he eulogized once more
with warm eloquence the conduct of the troops, Ulstermen and the rest
alike. Raw lads, who eighteen months before had never thought of seeing
war, had come in before his eyes bringing prisoners by the hundreds from
the most highly trained soldiery in Europe.
Man after man, when Willie Redmond had ended, rose and thanked him; but
the most notable words came from Mr. Bonar Law:
"His name and his action, in connection with that of the leader of his
party, stand out as a landmark for all the people of this country as to
what is being done by those who represent Nationalist feeling."
All this increased Redmond's hopes of what might be expected from the
new Premier, the representative of another small nationality, whose
early days in Parliament had linked him almost more closely with Irish
Nationalists than with British Liberalism. I was on the upper bench when
Mr. Lloyd George came in, amid loud cheering. "Look at him," said Willie
Redmond (his senior in the House by ten years), who sat beside me: "It
seems only the other day he was sitting over here cheering like mad for
the Boers; and there he is now, Prime Minister."
But Mr. Lloyd George's speech, which had been deferred for several days
owing to illness, was long before it came to Ireland, and then its tone
was no way hopeful. He referred back to the negotiations of June and
July, with their "atmosphere of nervous suspicion and distrust,
pervasive, universal, of everything and everybody."
"I was drenched with suspicion of Irishmen by Englishmen and of
Englishmen by Irishmen and, worst of all, of Irishmen by Irishmen. It
was a quagmire of distrust which clogged the footsteps and made progress
impossible. That is the real enemy of Ireland."
No one could say that the transaction to which Mr. Lloyd George was
referring had helped to destroy distrust: and in view of the opinion
held by Irishmen--and not by Irishmen only--of Ministers' dealing with
Ireland, it was natural that this passage should provoke the resentment
which was evident in Redmond when he rose.
He followed Mr. Asquith, and made it clear that Ireland did not keep its
praises for the rising star. He commended in weighty words the
patriotism, the reticence and the magnanimity of the dispossessed
leader; he renewed Ireland's expression of gratitude for the service
done in the Home Rule Act; then, turning to the new power, he told Mr.
Lloyd George bluntly that his words would be received in Ireland with
the deepest disappointment. This was to be a Ministry of quick and
effective decisions; but so far as our question was concerned, they had
shown every disposition to wait and see. Was Ireland only to be let
drift? Two courses might be taken--the statesman's, of real remedy; the
politician's, of palliatives. Even of the latter nothing had been said.
Martial law could be removed; untried men could be released from jail.
Yet there was no sign. The Prime Minister intervened angrily. He had
been ill, he said. Redmond was in no way inclined to accept the reason
as sufficient, and again Mr. Lloyd George rose to say that it was "not
merely unfair, but a trifle impolitic" not to give him a couple of days
to consult with the Chief Secretary.
Still Redmond maintained his tone of aggression. A radical reform was
needed, and of those things that must be borne in mind the first was
that time was of the essence of success. Promptness was essential.
Secondly, Government must take the initiative themselves; they must not
seek to evade their responsibility by putting the blame on other
shoulders (this was his rejoinder to the allegation of paralysing
distrust); there was no use in resuming negotiations, going to this man
and to that man to see what he would be willing to take. Thirdly, the
problem must be approached by a different method; it must be dealt with
on lines of a united Ireland. The time had gone by, in effect, for any
proposals of partition, temporary or permanent.
He added a caution that there must be no attempt to mix up the problem
of an Irish settlement with conditions about recruiting or conscription.
"That question must be left to a change of heart in Ireland." In
conclusion he expressed to the House of Commons--though in no sanguine
accents--what he had expressed to me a fortnight earlier in private
talk: his belief that the time was "ripe for drastic, decided and bold
action" by the Prime Minister. Powerful influences were at Mr. Lloyd
George's back--in the Press of all parties, in the opinion of leading
men of all parties. Three-quarters of the House of Commons, Redmond
said, would welcome such action: the whole of the overseas Dominions
would be for it; and it would have "the sympathy of all men of good will
in the Empire."
For the first time I noticed lack of cordiality in the response of the
House--not from want of agreement, but from a profound depression. The
old temper of bickering had revived, especially between some of our
party and those who disagreed with them. One was glad to get back to
France for Christmas, even in that grim winter.
When I was invalided back in February, I found that things had not stood
still in Ireland. Redmond's suggested palliative had been applied, and
the deported persons were let back home for Christmas. But this produced
little easing of the situation, and within a few weeks Government
rearrested several of them.
One, however, Count Plunkett, was still in Ireland when a vacancy
occurred in Roscommon. He was not in himself a likely man to appeal to
that constituency. He had been an applicant for the Under-Secretaryship
at Dublin Castle, and was therefore clearly not a person of extreme
Nationalist views. But one of his sons, a young poet, had been among the
signatories to the proclamation of an Irish Republic, and had paid for
it with his life; Count Plunkett stood really as the father of his son.
He was returned by a very large majority. This was the first open defeat
inflicted by the physical force men on the Constitutional party since
the beginning of Parnell's day.
In March, Redmond desired to bring the Irish question again before
Parliament, and Mr. T.P. O'Connor introduced a motion calling on the
House "without further delay to confer upon Ireland the free
institutions long promised her."
That debate will always be remembered by those who heard it for one
speech. Willie Redmond was among the oldest members of the Parliamentary
party; not half a dozen men in all the House had been longer
continuously members; he had always been one of the most popular figures
at Westminster and in Ireland; and he had always spoken a great deal.
Yet he had never been in the front rank either as a speaker or as a
politician. The humour and the wit which made him the joy of groups in
the smoking-room on the occasions when he was in full vein of
reminiscence never got into his set speeches--though no man oftener lit
up debate with some telling interruption. He was often merely
rhetorical; he had the name--though in my experience he never deserved
it--for being indiscreetly vehement. His early reputation, which he had
never lived down, is not unkindly represented by a story which he used
to tell against himself. When the first Home Rule Bill was introduced he
had a great desire to speak in the debate, and went to Parnell with his
request. "Will you promise," said Parnell, "that you will write out what
you are going to say, and show it to me, and say that and no more?" He
promised, and handed in his manuscript. Days went by and he heard
nothing, so he went back to the Chief. "Ah yes," said Parnell, "I have
it in my pocket. An excellent speech, my dear Willie. If I were you I
shouldn't waste it on the House of Commons. It's too good for them."
Later, in the days from 1906 onwards, with all his experience, it cannot
be said that he ever affected opinion in the House. What he said was the
common stuff of argument: it was all what someone else might have
said--until the war came. Then, he was a changed creature. He went
through in the Army the same experience as hundreds of other members of
Parliament; but he and he only seemed to have got the very soul out of
it. He took to his soldier's duty as a religion: he saw all that
concerned him in the light of it. It has been told already how his two
speeches on almost casual occasions affected public feeling: but in them
he was chiefly an Irish member of Parliament speaking about soldiers and
about Irish soldiers. In this debate he was an Irish soldier pleading
with Parliament for Ireland in the name of Irish soldiers--who had
responded to the call to arms because, as he said, they were led to
believe that a new and better and brighter chapter was about to open in
the relations of Great Britain and Ireland.
"I do not believe that there is a single member of any party in this
House who is prepared to get up and say that in the past the government
and treatment of Ireland by Great Britain have been what they should
have been. Mistakes, dark, black, and bitter mistakes, have been made. A
people denied justice, a people with many admitted grievances, the
redress of which has been long delayed. On our side, perhaps, in the
conflict and in the bitterness of contest, there may have been things
said and done, offensive if you will, irritating if you will, to the
people of this country; but what I want to ask, in all simplicity, is
this, whether, in face of the tremendous conflict which is now raging,
whether, in view of the fact that, apart from every other consideration,
the Irish people, South as well as North, are upon the side of the
Allies and against the German pretension to-day, it is not possible from
this war to make a new start?--whether it is not possible on your side,
and on ours as well, to let the dead past bury its dead, and to commence
a brighter and a newer and a friendlier era between the two countries?
Why cannot we do it? Is there an Englishman representing any party who
does not yearn for a better future between Ireland and Great Britain?
There is no Irishman who is not anxious for it also. Why cannot there be
a settlement? Why must it be that, when British soldiers and Irish
soldiers are suffering and dying side by side, this eternal old quarrel
should go on?....
"If there ought to be an oblivion of the past between Great Britain and
Ireland generally, may I ask in God's name the First Lord of the
Admiralty [Sir Edward Carson] why there cannot be a similar oblivion of
the past between the warring sections in Ireland? All my life I have
taken as strong and as strenuous a part on the Nationalist side as my
poor abilities would allow. I may have been as bitter and as strong in
the heated atmosphere of party contests against my countrymen in the
North as ever they have been against me, but I believe in my soul and
heart here to-day that I represent the instinct and the desire of the
whole Irish Catholic race when I say that there is nothing that they
more passionately desire and long for than that there should be an end
of this old struggle between the North and the South.
"The followers of the right honourable gentleman the First Lord of the
Admiralty should shake hands with the rest of their countrymen. I appeal
to the right honourable gentleman here in the name of men against whom
no finger of scorn can be pointed; in the name of men who are doing
their duty; in the name of men who have died; in the name of men who may
die, and who at this very moment may be dying, to rise to the demands of
the situation. I ask him to meet his Nationalist fellow-countrymen and
accept the offer which they make to him and his followers, and on the
basis of that self-government which has made, and which alone has made,
the Empire as strong as it is to-day, come to some arrangement for the
better government of Ireland in the future.
"Why does the right honourable gentleman opposite not meet us half way?
I want to know what is the reason. It surely cannot be that the right
honourable gentleman and his friends believe that under a system of
self-government they would have anything to fear. Nothing impressed me
more than the opinion I heard expressed by a high-placed Roman Catholic
officer who is in service with the Ulster Division, when he told me of
his experience there, and when he said that although he was the only one
of the Catholic religion in that Division, it had dawned upon him that
they certainly were Irishmen and were not Englishmen or Scotsmen.[8] The
right honourable gentleman knows perfectly well that it would not take
so very much to bring his friends and our friends together, and I ask
him why the attempt is not made? I ask him whether the circumstances of
the time do not warrant that such an attempt should be made? I ask him
whether he does not know in his inmost heart that it would bring to the
common enemy more dismay and consternation than the destruction of a
hundred of their submarines if they knew that England, Scotland and
Ireland were really united, not merely within the confines of the shores
of these islands, but united in every part of the world where the Irish
people are to be found?
"What is it that stands in the way of Ireland taking her place as a
self-governing part of this Empire? Ireland is the only portion of the
Empire now fighting which is not self-governing. The Australians whom I
meet from time to time point to their government being free; the
Canadians and the New Zealanders do the same, and we Irishmen are the
only units in France to-day taking our part in the war who are obliged
to admit that the country we come from is denied those privileges which
have made the Empire the strong organization which it is to-day. If
safeguards are necessary--I speak only for myself, and I do not speak
for anybody else on these benches, because I have been away from this
House so long that I have almost lost touch with things--as far as my
own personal opinion goes, there is nothing I would not do, and there is
no length to which I would not go, in order to meet the real objections
or to secure the real confidence, friendship and affection of my
countrymen in the North of Ireland.
"For my own part, I would gladly, if it would ease the situation, agree
to an arrangement whereby it might be possible for His Majesty the King,
if he so desired, to call in someone at the starting of a new Irish
government, a gentleman representing the portion of the country and the
section of the community which the First Lord represents; and if a
representative of that kind were placed with his hand upon the helm of
the first Irish Parliament, I, at any rate, as far as I am concerned,
would give him the loyal and the strong support which I have given to
every leader I have supported in this House. After all, these are times
of sacrifice, and every man is called upon to make some sacrifices. Men
and women and children alike have to do something in these days, and is
it too much to appeal to the right honourable gentleman and his friends
to sacrifice some part of their position in order to lead the majority
of their countrymen and to bring about that which the whole
English-speaking world desires, namely, a real reconciliation of
Ireland? I apologize for having detained the House so long, but this is
a matter upon which I feel strongly, and I feel all the more strongly
about it because I know that I am trying altogether too feebly, but as
strongly as I can, to represent what I know to be the wishes nearest to
the hearts of tens of thousands of Irishmen who went with me and their
colleagues to France, many of whom will never return, all of whom are
suffering the privations and the hardship and the risk and the wellnigh
intolerable circumstances of life in France. I want to speak for these
men, and if they could all speak with one voice and with one accord,
they would say to this House, to men in every part of it, to
Conservatives, Liberals and Labour men, to their Nationalist countrymen
and to their countrymen from the North of Ireland: In the name of God,
we here who are about to die, perhaps, ask you to do that which largely
induced us to leave our homes; to do that which our fathers and mothers
taught us to long for; to do that which is all we desire: make our
country happy and contented, and enable us, when we meet the Canadians
and the Australians and the New Zealanders side by side in the common
cause and the common field, to say to them, 'Our country, just as yours,
has self-government within the Empire.'"
I have given the speech almost in full as it stands in print after the
opening paragraph. But I cannot give the effect of what was heard by a
densely crowded House in absolute silence. It was not an argument; it
was an appeal. There was not a cheer, not a murmur of agreement. They
were not needed, they would have been felt an impertinence, so great was
the respect and the sympathy. As the speaker stood there in war-stained
khaki, his hair showed grey, his face was seamed with lines, but there
was in every word the freshness and simplicity of a nature that age had
not touched. In his usual place on the upper bench beside his brother,
he poured out his words with the flow and passion of a bird's song. He
was out of the sphere of argument; but the whole experience of a long
and honourable lifetime was vibrant in that utterance. He spoke from his
heart. All that had gone to make his faith, all the inmost convictions
of his life were implicit--and throughout all ran the sense in the
assembly who heard him, not only that he had risked, but that he was
eager to give his life for proof. It was not strange that this should be
so, for he was going on what he believed would be his last journey to
France; and when he reached the supreme moment of his passion with the
words "In the name of God, we here who are about to die, perhaps," the
last word was little more than a concession to the conventions.
It was a speech, in short, that made one believe in impossibilities; but
in Parliament no miracles happen. Mr. Lloyd George replied, as John
Redmond expected--declaring that the Government were willing to give
Home Rule at once to "the parts of Ireland which unmistakably demand
it," but would be no party to placing under Nationalist rule people who
were "as alien in blood, in religious faith, in traditions, in outlook
from the rest of Ireland as the inhabitants of Fife or Aberdeen." No
Liberal Minister had ever before so completely adopted the Ulster theory
of two nations. Taxed with the refusal to allow Ulster counties to
declare by vote which group they belonged to, he declined to discuss
"geographical limitations" at present, but indicated that if Irish
members could accept the principle of separate treatment for two
peoples, there were "ways and means by which it could be worked out."
Suggestion of a Conference of Irishmen was thrown out, or of a
Commission to discuss the details of partition. Redmond, in replying,
answered to this that "after experience of the last negotiations he
would enter into no more negotiations." He warned the Government that
the whole constitutional movement was in danger. There were in Ireland
"serious men, men of ability, men with command of money," who were bent
on smashing it.
"After fifty years of labour on constitutional lines we had practically
banished the revolutionary party from Ireland. Now again, after fifty
years, it has risen."
The rest was a prophecy only too accurate:
"If the constitutional movement disappears, the Prime Minister will find
himself face to face with a revolutionary movement, and he will find it
impossible to preserve any of the forms even of constitutionalism. He
will have to govern Ireland by the naked sword. I cannot picture to
myself a condition of things in which the Prime Minister, with his
record behind him, would be an instrument to carry out a government of
that kind.... I say this plainly. No British statesman, no matter what
his platonic affection for Home Rule may have been in the past, no
matter what party he may belong to, who by his conduct once again
teaches the Irish people the lesson that any National leader who, taking
his political life in his hands, endeavours to combine local and
Imperial patriotism--endeavours to combine loyalty to Ireland's rights
with loyalty to the Empire--anyone who again teaches the lesson that
such an one is certain to be let down and betrayed by this course, is
guilty of treason, not only to the liberties of Ireland but to the unity
and strength and best interests of this Empire."
After these bitter words he called on his colleagues not "to continue a
useless and humiliating debate," but to withdraw from the House: and we
accordingly followed him into the lobby. In our absence the discussion
continued, in a tone not flattering to the Government. It was remarkable
for one utterance from Mr. Healy, concerning Redmond:
"I wish to say at the outset that in my opinion this Empire owes him a
debt of gratitude which it can never repay, and I wish also to say of
him as an opponent that in my opinion, if his advice had been taken by
the War Office, it is absolutely true, as he contends, that you would
have marshalled in Ireland from two hundred thousand to three hundred
thousand men, from whom large drafts could have been drawn; and I will
further say I believe if his advice had been taken the elements of
rebellion would have been appeased."
It was plain that matters could not stay at this point; but our breach
with the Government was complete for the moment. Redmond's demand was
for a full and definite statement of policy, which should be made in
the House of Commons and there discussed. On May 15th Mr. Bonar Law
announced that the Prime Minister would make a communication to the
leaders of Irish parties. It was explained that this method of outlining
the proposals would be only preliminary to discussion.
On that evening a great banquet to General Smuts was given in the House
of Lords by Parliament. Strong pressure was used with Redmond to attend
it, and he consented unwillingly. He was ill--physically ill, probably
with the beginnings of his fatal disease--and morally sick at heart and
out of hope. Another Irish election in South Longford had been
strenuously fought by the party and had been won by the Sinn Feiner; a
decisive factor in the election was the issue of a letter from
Archbishop Walsh which grossly misrepresented Redmond's whole policy and
action. He was in no humour for banquetings, and at this moment the
Irish party was nearly back at its old attitude, which dictated a
refusal to have part or lot with the House on such ceremonial
occasions.[9] But Redmond's feeling for South Africa was specially
strong, his feeling about the war was unchanged; and this was a
recognition of a great South African statesman's services in the war. He
let himself be persuaded into accepting.
At the dinner he sat next to a Liberal peer, a member of the late
Government, who talked with him of Irish possibilities. Redmond did not
know what the Government intended. He was told, now, that the Government
had written a letter to him and to Sir Edward Carson setting out plainly
an offer for the immediate introduction of Home Rule with the exclusion
of the six counties.
Redmond said: "It is impossible that we should accept; nothing can come
of it." He was asked then what hope he saw. He answered, as he had for
some time been saying in private, that the only chance lay in a
Conference or Convention of Irishmen; but it must include everybody, and
in no sense be limited to discussion between the Irish party and the
Unionists. The Liberal peer expressed great interest and proved it in
action. Next morning he was with Redmond by ten o'clock, and got his
view in writing that it might be placed before the Cabinet, who were to
meet at eleven to decide finally the terms of their letter.
As a result of this intervention, the letter, instead of containing a
single proposal, offered two alternatives: the second was so oddly
tacked on that many at the time said it read like a postscript. So, in
point of fact, it was. That was the genesis of the Irish Convention.
His son, from whom I know this, said to me that more than once, when
things were hopeful in the Convention, Redmond said to him, "What a
lucky thing it was I went to that dinner!"
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 7: The Admiralty do not appear to have communicated their
information to Dublin Castle.]
[Footnote 8: This might mislead. The exclusively Protestant character of
the Ulster Division was not maintained in France, and it came to include
many Catholic Irishmen in the rank and file and not a few among the
officers--all in equal comradeship.--S.G.]
[Footnote 9: We had never been parties, for instance, to receptions of
Prime Ministers from the overseas Dominions, even when they were our
close friends and supporters.]