CHAPTER VIII

THE CONVENTION AND THE END

I

The Longford election had in reality been not merely a symptom, but an

event of great importance. It was a notice of dismissal to the

Parliamentary party. There was no reason to suppose anything specially

unfavourable to us in the local conditions. Neither candidate made a

special appeal to the electors; nor was the constituency in any sense a

stronghold of Sinn Fein. The fact was that the country as a whole had

ceased to believe in the Parliamentary party as an efficient machine for

obtaining the national ends. The organization of the United Irish League

had lost touch with the young; the main support we had lay in the

Ancient Order of Hibernians, which many Nationalists disliked on

principle because it was limited to Catholics. What had riot yet

disappeared up till July 1916, though it was threatened, was belief in

the principle of constitutional action as against revolutionary methods.

Willie Redmond, who never lacked instinct, and whose separation from

party politics by conditions of service gave him a vantage-ground of

detachment, reached a shrewd view of the position before the Longford

vacancy occurred. He pressed upon his brother that we should all retire,

saying plainly that we had been too long in possession, and should hand

over the task of representing Ireland at Westminster to younger men. His

association with the Volunteer Committee, brief though it was, had made

him more aware than most of our colleagues how wide was the

estrangement between us and the new Ireland; but it also taught him to

believe that many of the men whom he had met there would be willing to

take up the task on constitutional lines.

This proposal never came before the party. But after Longford had given

its decision, it was proposed that we should accept the verdict in

general and resign in a body. Those who put forward the suggestion felt

that some drastic action was needed to force upon Ireland the

responsibility for a clear choice between the two courses,

constitutional and unconstitutional. Redmond, as Chairman, advised

strongly against this. He said that it would be a lack of courage: that

one defeat or two defeats should not turn us from our course. But it is

clear to me that he welcomed the Convention as another and a better

means of effecting the same end--of replacing the existing Parliamentary

party by another body of men.

On May 21st Mr. Lloyd George's speech gave the go-by completely to the

detailed proposal for a settlement on the basis of partition to which

the Cabinet--including Sir Edward Carson--had consented. It dealt only

with the alternative plan suggested in the conclusion of the published

letter. The Government had decided to invite Irishmen to put forward

their own proposals for the government of their country, he said. This

invitation was directed to a Convention not merely of political parties,

although they must all be represented--the followers of Redmond, of Mr.

O'Brien, the Ulster Unionists, the Southern Unionists, "and he hoped

also the Sinn Feiners as well." But in the main it was to consist of

"representatives of the local governing bodies, of the Churches, of the

trade unions, of the commercial interests, of educational interests"; it

was to be "a real representation of Irish life and activity in all their

leading branches." It was to be pledged in advance to no

conclusions--except one, and that was only indicated by implication. "If

substantial agreement should be reached as to the character and scope

of the Constitution for the future government of Ireland within the

Empire" (these three words were the limitation), Government would

"accept the responsibility for taking all the necessary steps to enable

the Imperial Parliament to give legislative effect to the conclusions of

the Convention."

A recommendation was added, amounting to a direction, that the

Convention should sit with closed doors and publish nothing of its

proceedings till their conclusion.

Nothing was said to define the all-important words "substantial

agreement." But the Prime Minister laid grave emphasis on the importance

of a settlement for the purpose of the war. The limitation upon Ulster's

claim was plainly conceived by him to lie in Ulster's sense of an

Imperial necessity. "The Empire cannot afford uncured sores that sap its

vigour. The entire strength of Great Britain and the whole-hearted

support of Ireland are essential to victory." He appealed "to Irishmen

of all faiths, political and religious, and especially to the patriotic

spirit of Ulster, to help by healing."

Redmond, in following him, assumed that there would be concurrence from

all sections of Irishmen. It must be "a free assembly"--no proposal must

be barred in advance: it must be representative of "every class, creed

and interest"--and in recapitulating these, he added the Irish peers. In

regard to political parties and bodies, as such, he desired a very

limited representation. The United Irish League, "the militant official

organization of the Irish party," should be unrepresented, and he

advised the same in regard to other purely political organizations and

societies. For the Irish party itself he asked a representation only

equal in number to that given to Irish Unionists. The Cork Independents

must have what they considered a full and adequate number; and for Sinn

Fein he asked "a generous representation."

Then he added:

"So anxious am I that no wreckers, mere wreckers, should go on that

body--I do not believe any men would go on as wreckers, but any men who

would be regarded by their opponents as going on it as wreckers--that on

the question of personalities, I would be very glad, if there are

protagonists on one side or the other who during the last twenty or

thirty years or more have been engaged in the struggle and who--there

have been faults on both sides--have done things and said things which

have left bitter memories, I should be very glad that such men should be

left off. If there were any feeling that I am such a man myself, I would

be only too willing and happy to stand down" (he was interrupted by

cries of "No, No") "if by doing so I could promote harmony."

In this there was a genuine expression of the desire which governed his

whole conduct in the Convention, to get away from the old lines with

their old traditional antagonisms, and refer the solution not to Irish

politicians but to Ireland as a whole. What followed in his speech gave

positive development to the self-denying ordinance which he had proposed

for the party machines. He asked for a nominated element--first, to make

sure that men obviously suitable, who none the less might not happen to

be elected, should find a place: and secondly, to increase still further

the Unionist representation.

He added once more a plea for quick action; dilatoriness had had much to

do, he said, with the Government's late failures in Ireland. But, if

prompt steps were taken on the path outlined, he would, in spite of all

that had come and gone, face the new venture with good heart. Yet even

in his confidence there was the pathetic accent of one who feels need to

bid defiance to despair.

"Although I know I lay myself open perhaps to ridicule as too sanguine a

prophet, I have some assured hope that the result may be blessed for

Ireland as for the Empire. ... The life of a politician, especially of

an Irish politician, is one long series of postponements and compromises

and disappointments and disillusions.... Many of our cherished ideals,

our ideals of complete, speedy and almost immediate triumph of our

policy and of our cause, have faded, some of them almost disappeared.

And we know that it is a serious consideration for those of us who have

spent forty years at this work and now are growing old, if we have to

face further postponements. For my part, I feel we must not shrink from

compromise. If by this Convention which is now proposed we can secure

substantial agreement amongst our people in Ireland, it will be worth

all the heartburnings and postponements and disappointments and

disillusions of the last thirty or forty years."

The omens were not favourable to this storm-beaten courage. When he sat

down, Sir John Lonsdale rose to reiterate on behalf of the Ulster

Unionists that they "could not and would not be driven into a Home Rule

Parliament"--and that they relied absolutely on the pledges that they

should not be coerced. Mr. William O'Brien followed. After years of

advocating settlement by conference among Irishmen, he condemned this

proposal as coming six or seven years too late, and as defective in its

machinery, in that it proposed a large body of men: "A dozen Irishmen of

the right stamp" would be the proper Conference; and the proposal of

partition should be barred out in advance. If the experiment were tried

now and failed, the failure would "kill any reasonable hope in our time

of reconstructing the constitutional movement upon honest lines."

Ireland is always fruitful in Cassandras who do not lack power to assist

in the fulfilment, of their ill-bodings, and this speech foreshadowed

Mr. O'Brien's intention to abstain. Sir Edward Carson and Mr. Devlin

gave the debate a more promising tone: but it was difficult for anybody

to be sanguine.

Preparation, discussion, went on in private and in public. It was soon

indicated that Sinn Fein would take no part, on the double ground,

first, that the Convention was not elective in any democratic sense, for

all the representatives of local bodies had been elected before the

war, before the rebellion, before the new movement took hold in Ireland;

and secondly, that it was committed in advance to a settlement within

the Empire. On the other hand, Redmond was flooded with correspondence

concerning candidates for membership of the new body. There was also the

question of a meeting-place. The Royal College of Surgeons offered its

building with its theatre, possessing admirable facilities. But Trinity

College offered the Regent House. The conveniences here were in all ways

inferior; but Trinity was the nearest place to the old Parliament House;

much more than that, it was the most historic institution in Ireland.

Its political associations of the past and the present were strangely

blended and Redmond liked it none the less for that. He decided to press

for acceptance of this offer.

Then across the current of all our thought came the news of the Battle

of Messines. Troops had been massing for some time on the sector of line

which the Irish Divisions had now held since the previous October; and

the day was plainly in sight which had been expected since spring, when

they were to try and carry positions in front of which so much blood had

been vainly shed. On June 7th, at the clearing of light, all was in

readiness: the Ulstermen and ours still in the centre of the attack from

Spanbroekmolen to Wytschaete. Just before the moment fixed, men could

see clearly: in half a minute all was blotted out. The eighteen huge

land-mines in whose shafts our second line had been so often billeted

were now at last exploded and the sky was full of powdered earth, with

God knows what other fragments. In that darkness the troops went over.

For once staff-work and execution harmonized perfectly; the success was

complete, and the sacrifice small. The Irish raced for their positions,

and no one could say who was first on the goal. News of the victory

quickly reached London--great news for Ireland. Australians and New

Zealanders had their full share in it, but the shoulder to shoulder

advance of the two Irish Divisions caught everyone's imagination: it was

Ireland's day.

Then came through the message that Willie Redmond had fallen.

Ever since his illness in the previous summer he had been taken away

from his work as company commander; at his age--fifty-six--he was

probably the oldest man in any capacity with the Division. A post was

found for him on General Hickie's divisional staff which made him

specially responsible for the comforts of the men, in trenches and out

of trenches. In the battles on the Somme he entreated hard to be let

rejoin his battalion, but General Hickie issued peremptory orders which

did not allow him to pass the first dressing-station. Here, indeed, he

was under terrible shell fire and saw many of his comrades struck down;

but he was not content. For this new battle he insisted that he must be

in the actual advance. If he were refused leave, he said he would break

all discipline and take it. He was permitted to be with the third

attacking wave; but he slipped forward and joined the first, on the

right, where the line touched the Ulstermen. So it happened that when he

fell, struck by two rifle bullets, the stretcher-bearers who helped him

and carried him down to the dressing-station were those of an Ulster

regiment. He was brought back to the hospital in the convent at Locre,

familiar to all of us by many memories; for the nuns kept a restaurant

for officers in the refectory, and he and I had dined there more than

once with leading men of the Ulster Division. His wounds were not grave;

but he had overtaxed himself, and in a few hours he succumbed to shock.

It was the death that he had foreseen, that he had almost desired--a

death that many might have envied him. He had said more than once since

the rebellion that he thought he could best serve Ireland by dying; and

in the sequel, so deep was the impression left by his death that it

seemed at times as if his thought had been true.

Yet one aspect of it was overlooked by many--the loss inflicted on his

brother, the Irish leader. It was not merely that Redmond lost the sole

near kinsman of his generation; he lost in him the closest of those

comrades who had been allied with him in all the stages of his life's

fight. The veterans of the old party had been vanishing rapidly from the

scene; name succeeded name quickly on our death-roll. This death left

Redmond lonely, and sorely stricken in his affections. But it did more.

It deprived him of a counsellor, and perhaps the only counsellor he had

who temperamentally shared his own point of view. More especially now in

the war, when the leader's wisdom in giving the lead which he had given

began to be gravely questioned even by his own supporters, it was

invaluable for him to have backing from one who had taken the war as

part of his life's creed--who knew no hesitancies, no reserves in his

conviction that the right course had been followed, for the right thing

was to do the right. Finally and chiefly, Willie Redmond was the only

man who could break through his brother's constitutional reserve and

could force him into discussion. In the months that were to come such a

man was badly needed. The loss of him meant to John Redmond a loss of

personal efficiency. Sorrow gave a strong grip to depression on a

brooding mind which had always a proneness to melancholy, which was now

linked with a sick body, and which lived among disappointments and grief

and the sense of rancorous dislike in men who once thought it a

privilege to cheer him on his passing.

Add to all this that Redmond's one hope for Ireland now lay in the

Convention, and that he collated with good reason on his soldier

brother's influence there--as no man could fail to do who had seen the

effect which his last speech produced upon the House of Commons.

No doubt, however, part of the service which Willie Redmond rendered to

Ireland in dying lay in the sympathy which he conciliated to his

leader--in whom men saw, rightly, not only his nearest kinsman, but the

representative of the principles for which the soldier-politician died.

The sympathy was genuine and it was widespread; yet so reserved was John

Redmond that few, I think, guessed how deeply the blow had struck home.

Still less did they realize how much was meant by the bereavement which

followed immediately. Pat O'Brien, who had been through all vicissitudes

the faithful and devoted helper of his friend and leader, was suddenly

prostrated by a stroke. He came down to the House again; he could not

keep away from the place of his duty, where for a quarter of a century

he had scarcely missed one division in a hundred, where he had kept

watch for Redmond like the most trusty sheep-dog; but death was written

over him and it came in a few days. He was the one friend, I believe,

whom Redmond would have taken with him to Aughavanagh after Willie

Redmond's death. Now, Aughavanagh, which had been a place of rest, was a

place of intense loneliness. Yet to Aughavanagh Redmond had withdrawn

himself, like a wounded creature; and from Aughavanagh he came to Dublin

for Pat O'Brien's funeral in Glasnevin. Then, and then only in his

lifetime people saw him publicly break down; he had to be led away from

the grave.

Meanwhile, he was beset by ceaseless correspondence concerning the

numbers and composition of the assembly to which the British Government

on his suggestion had decided to entrust so great a charge. But a

startling political event indicated only too plainly how much belated

that decision had been.

Directly the proposal for a Convention had been disclosed, with its

attempt to create a new atmosphere, it was put to the Government that

Sinn Fein could not be expected to take part in the Convention while its

leaders were in jail or under detention as suspects. This

representation came from several quarters, and it was soon publicly

pleaded by the Nationalist party; but it was, to my knowledge,

immediately put forward by English members of Parliament, the prime

mover being a Unionist soldier, Major J.W. Hills, M.P. As usual, the

advantage of prompt action was urged; and as visual, the concession was

delayed till it had lost its grace and seemed to be extracted. Sinn

Fein's opinion in all these days was hardening against the Convention,

which was represented as a mere trick to gain time and to conciliate

American good will by an unreal offer.

When the prisoners were released, a new personage immediately came into

the public eye. It was certain that one of them would be nominated to

contest the vacancy in East Clare left by Willie Redmond's death; the

choice fell on Mr. de Valera; and the world learnt that in these months

while the imprisoned Sinn Feiners had been discussing their plans for

the future--for the right of association as political prisoners had been

conceded to them--this young man had been recognized by his fellows as

the leading spirit. Ireland as a whole knew nothing of him. He was the

son of a Southern American and a county Limerick woman; scholarly, a

keen Gaelic Leaguer, by profession a teacher of mathematics. In the

rebellion he had held Boland's bakery, a large building covering the

approaches to Dublin from Kingstown by rail; he had been the last of the

leaders to surrender, and had earned high opinions by his conduct in

these operations. This was the Sinn Fein candidate for East Clare--a

county where "extreme" men had always been numerous.

The view was expressed that he should have been opposed by one who took

up the cause where Willie Redmond left it--by a soldier who was a strong

Nationalist and strongly identified with the Parnellite tradition. It

was decided that we should stand a better chance if constitutional

Nationalism were represented by a Dublin lawyer with close personal ties

to the constituency. How it would have gone had a soldier been put up,

no man can say; but it could not have gone worse. Mr. de Valera won by a

majority of five thousand. He was a stranger, but he stood for an ideal.

The alternative ideal--which was John Redmond's and Willie

Redmond's--had never been put before the electors. The election was,

rightly, taken as a repudiation of Redmond's policy; but in it Redmond's

policy had gone undefended.

The newly elected Sinn Fein leader was very prominent in these days, and

a good deal of his eloquence was spent in ridicule of the Convention.

That body was certainly starting its task under the most unpromising

auspices.

II

The first meeting was fixed for July 25. On the evening before, Redmond

came up and there was an informal discussion between the Nationalist

members of Parliament and the Catholic Bishops. There were four of each

group. Five members had been allowed to the party and as many to the

Ulstermen. Redmond was not present at the meeting when selection was

made, but he recommended a list, consisting in addition to himself of

Mr. Dillon, Mr. Devlin, and Mr. Clancy, K.C.--the latter having been

always his most trusted adviser in all points of draftsmanship and

constitutional law. My name was added in the place which should have

been his brother's, as representing Irish troops.

Mr. Dillon, however, thought it better not to serve, though Redmond

pressed him very strongly to do so. He considered he could best help the

Convention from outside its ranks. Mr. O'Brien and Mr. Healy had, on

different grounds, come to the same conclusion, so that we lacked the

assistance of three commanding personalities in Irish life, though we

were thereby freed from some dangers of personal friction. A vacant

place was thus left in our five, and since the Ulster party had decided

to put in only two members of Parliament, filling the other places with

local men, it was thought well that we should take a similar

representative, Mr. Harbison, who spoke for the county of Tyrone.

Of the four representatives of the hierarchy, Archbishop Harty of Cashel

had always been a downright outspoken supporter of the Parliamentary

party. He had publicly denounced the rebellion both on civil and on

moral grounds. But he had never been prominently concerned with

political affairs as such; nor had the Bishop of Down and Connor, Dr.

MacRory, a man young for his office and not long in it. He had been

chosen, no doubt, to guard the special interests of Catholicism in the

north-east corner. The others were of a very different stamp; no two in

Ireland had a better right to the name of statesmen. Dr. O'Donnell, the

Bishop of Raphoe, had been for many years officially one of the

treasurers of the United Irish League. Since the foundation of the

Congested Districts Board, he had been one of its members, and served on

the Dudley Commission which inquired into these regions. His native

Donegal could show the traces of his influence in applying remedial

measures to what was once its terrible poverty. Dr. Kelly, the Bishop of

Ross, came from the extreme south of the same western coast-line; a keen

student of finance and economics, he had been a member of the Primrose

Committee on Financial Relations, and, before that, of Lord George

Hamilton's Commission on the Poor Law. His repute was great in his own

order and outside his own order. In any assembly these two brains would

have been distinguished.

The question which was discussed among us chiefly on that evening

concerned the choice of a chairman. Government had originally proposed

to nominate this all-important officer, but having failed to solve the

interminable difficulties, had left it to the assembly. Much trouble was

anticipated by the public. On the whole, our conclusion pointed, but not

decisively, to the choice which was eventually made. Redmond swept aside

peremptorily the suggestion of himself.

Next day we assembled--some ninety persons. The main bulk consisted of

local representatives--thirty-one chairmen of County Councils, one only

having declined to serve. Two of these, Mr. O'Dowd and Mr. Fitzgibbon,

were members of our party. There were eight representatives of the Urban

Councils, over and above the Lord Mayors of Dublin, Belfast and Cork and

the Mayor of Derry. Labour had seven representatives, one of whom, Mr.

Lundon, representing the Agricultural Labourers' Union of the South, was

an Irish member of Parliament. One was a railway operative from Dublin;

one a Catholic Trade-Unionist leader from Derry; the remaining four came

from Belfast. Organized labour in Dublin and the Southern towns had

endorsed Sinn Féin's attitude and declined to recognize the Convention.

The Southern Unionist Group was led by Lord Midleton; with him were

Lords Mayo and Oranmore, representing the Irish peers. The Irish

Unionist Alliance had sent Mr. Stewart, a great land-agent, and Mr.

Andrew Jameson (whose name, as someone said, was "a household word

written in letters of gold throughout Ireland"). The Chambers of

Commerce had their representatives from Dublin, Belfast and Cork.

In the Ulster group, Mr. Barrie, M.P., acted as leader, Lord Londonderry

as secretary. Of the rest, Sir George Clark, chairman of Workman and

Clark's great shipbuilding yard, had been known to us in Parliament. A

Scot by birth, with a life of thirty years spent in Belfast, during

which time he had seen his business grow from two hundred hands to ten

thousand, he knew nothing of Ireland but Belfast, and had no trace of

Irish feeling. In this he stood alone; but unhappily no man carried more

weight in Belfast--with the possible exception of one whom few of us

outside Ulster knew before we came to that body. Mr. Alexander McDowell

was a solicitor by profession, the adviser of policy to all the business

men of Belfast. From the first day of our meeting he stood out by sheer

weight of brain and personality. He was to some of us the surprise of

that assembly, and made us realize how little part we had in Ulster when

the existence of such a man could be an unknown factor to us.

Mr. Pollock, President of the Belfast Chamber of Commerce, was also new

to us, and was destined to play a prominent part in our affairs. With

the Catholic prelates sat the two Archbishops of the Church of

Ireland--Dr. Crozier and Dr. Bernard--to both of whom the democratic

constitution of their Church had given great experience in management of

business and discussion. Dr. MacDermott, Moderator of the Presbyterian

General Assembly, was the official head of his Church for the year only

and had not equal knowledge of administration. An orator, with a touch

of the enthusiast in his temperament, he was a simple and sympathetic

figure; vehement in his political faith, yet responsive to all the human

charities and deeply a lover of his country. There was no better

representative there of Ulster, of the Ulster difficulty--at once so

separate from and so akin to the rest of Ireland.

The Government nominees included, as was only natural, the most

personally distinguished group. First of them should be named the

Provost of Trinity, Dr. Mahaffy, under whose aegis we assembled--a great

scholar and a great Irishman. He brought with him an element of

independent unregimented political thought--often freakish in

expression, but based on a vast knowledge of men and countries. In a

more practical sense, Lord MacDonnell and Lord Dunraven were our chief

political theorists, devisers by temperament of constitutional

machinery. Lord MacDonnell's repute as an administrator, Lord Dunraven's

as a leading figure in the Land Conference, gave weight to whatever came

from them. Lord Granard, who sat with them, was a Catholic peer who had

commanded a battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment in the Tenth Division

and had held offices in Mr. Asquith's Government. He had now the

brilliant idea of reopening for the period of the Convention one of the

most beautiful eighteenth-century dwellings, Ely House, and making it a

centre of hospitality and a meeting-place for friendly outside

intercourse. Few more useful assistances were rendered to our purpose,

and certainly none more pleasant.

Lord Desart, a distinguished lawyer, acted closely with Lord Midleton.

Sir Bertram Windle, President of University College, was another of

Government's choices--a man of science who was also very much a man of

affairs. Another, far less of a debater, far more of a power, was Mr.

William Martin Murphy, Chairman of the Dublin Tramways, a powerful

employer of labour who had headed the fight against Larkin in 1913, and

had been mainly responsible for the character of the employers' victory.

He was the owner of the most widely circulated Irish paper, the _Irish

Independent_--which stood in journalism for what Mr. Healy represented

in Parliament--an envenomed Nationalist opposition to the Parliamentary

party.

Mr. Edward Lysaght, the son of a great manufacturer in South Wales,

combined like his father an aptitude for literature and for business; he

wrote books, he was concerned in a publishing venture, but he was

chiefly interested in his farm in county Clare--where he had voted for

de Valera. He had been chosen deliberately as a link with Sinn Fein. It

stamped an aspect of the Convention that he was the youngest man

there--for he would not have been noticeably young in the House of

Commons. We were a middle-aged assembly. Another link, though not so

explicit, with Republican Ireland was Mr. George Russell, "A.E.," poet,

writer on co-operative economics, a mystic, with all a mystic's

shrewdness, an orator with much personal magnetism. Lastly, there was

Sir Horace Plunkett, perhaps the only member of the Convention except

Redmond whose name would have occurred to every Irishman as

indispensably necessary.

Two other personages should be noted. Mr. Walter MacMurrough Kavanagh,

Chairman of the Carlow County Council, was by tradition and training a

strong Unionist, by inheritance the representative of one of the old

Irish princely families. He had been elected to the Vice-Chairmanship of

his County Council while still a Unionist; later, he adhered to Lord

Dunraven's proposals of devolution, but finding no rest in a half-way

house, came into full support of Redmond and for some time was a member

of our party; by temperament deeply conservative, he was in no way

separated by that from many of the ablest Nationalists, lay and

ecclesiastic. As a speaker he had few equals in the Convention; no man

there, indeed, except Redmond, could throw equal passion into the plea

of urgency for a settlement, for I think no other man felt it with such

earnestness.

Captain Doran, Chairman of the Louth Council, was on his way back to

France when the summons to the Convention stopped him. A Methodist, he

was divided by religion from his neighbours in County Louth: but that

did not stop them from putting this prosperous and capable farmer,

working his land on the most modern methods, into the Chair of their

County Council. Before the war, when the Larne gun-running took place,

he decided that matters looked serious, called his friends together and

formed a company of Volunteers, who might be needed to protect

themselves or to protect other Nationalists across the adjacent Ulster

border. After the war had broken out and the Home Rule Act was passed,

and Redmond had launched his appeal, this country farmer, then aged

fifty, made his way to Mallow and asked General Parsons to accept him as

a recruit. He was accepted, and very shortly given a commission in the

Dublin Fusiliers. Out of his local Volunteers he took seventy-five into

the Army with him. He was with the Sixteenth Division from its landing

in France till after the day of Messines, commanding his company. All

this gave him an authority in an assembly where all voices were in

support of the war, and more particularly in an appeal to Ulster; and

with this advantage went an unusual gift of frank and eloquent speech,

linked with a fine idealism.

These were the main personal elements in the group that came together on

July 25th--Mr. Duke, the Chief Secretary, acting as temporary Chairman

and Sir Francis Hopwood (soon to become Lord Southborough) having been

brought over as Secretary. Mr. Duke having addressed us with an earnest

suavity, we were told to select a Chairman: and on the motion of the

Primate, Archbishop Crozier, this embarrassing task was delegated to a

committee of ten, rapidly told off. We adjourned for lunch, and on

reassembling found that a unanimous recommendation named Sir Horace

Plunkett. The Ulstermen had expressed a willingness to accept Redmond.

This he refused to discuss; but he was put into the Chair of the

selecting committee. There was a recommendation also that Sir Francis

Hopwood should be Secretary to the Convention. Both these proposals were

welcomed, and we dispersed feeling that we had done a good day's work.

There was, however, one set-off to it. When the Selection Committee had

done its work, its members went off singly, and outside the gate of

College a small group of ardent patriots were waiting, who mobbed

Redmond on the way to his hotel. They were young, no doubt; but the

Republican party claimed specially the youth of Ireland; and these lads

expressed with a simple eloquence very much what was said by older and

more articulate voices, uttering the same thought in print. It is worth

while to illustrate here the attitude taken towards Redmond by much of

Nationalist Ireland, for it profoundly influenced Redmond's attitude and

action in the Convention. I take, not casual and partisan journalism,

but a passage from a book published by a distinguished Irish writer who

had never publicly attached himself to any party. Mr. James Stephens was

in Dublin during the insurrection; he wrote a book about his own

personal observation of it, which as a record of observation is

admirable. But when Mr. Stephens comes to emit opinions, here is what he

has to say:

"Why it happened is a question that may be answered more particularly.

It happened because the leader of the Irish party misrepresented his

people in the English House of Parliament. On the day of the declaration

of war between England and Germany he took the Irish case, weighty with

eight centuries of history and tradition, and he threw it out of the

window. He pledged Ireland to a particular course of action, and he had

no authority to give this pledge and he had no guarantee that it would

be met. The ramshackle intelligence of his party and his own emotional

nature betrayed him and us and England. He swore Ireland to loyalty as

if he had Ireland in his pocket and could answer for her. Ireland has

never been disloyal to England, not even at this epoch, _because she has

never been loyal to England_, and the profession of her National faith

has been unwavering, has been known to every English person alive, and

has been clamant to all the world beside.

"Is it that he wanted to be cheered? He could very easily have stated

Ireland's case truthfully, and have proclaimed a benevolent neutrality

(if he cared to use the grandiloquent words) on the part of this

country. He would have gotten his cheers, he would in a few months have

gotten Home Rule in return for Irish soldiers. He would have received

politically whatever England could have safely given him. But, alas!

these carefulnesses did not chime with his emotional moment. They were

not magnificent enough for one who felt that he was talking not to

Ireland or to England, but to the whole gaping and eager earth, and so

he pledged his country's credit so deeply that he did not leave her even

one National rag to cover herself with.

"After a lie, truth bursts out, and it is no longer the radiant and

serene goddess we knew or hoped for--it is a disease, it is a moral

syphilis, and will ravage until the body in which it can dwell has been

purged. Mr. Redmond told the lie, and he is answerable to England for

the violence she had to be guilty of, and to Ireland for the desolation

to which we have had to submit. Without his lie there had been no

Insurrection, without it there had been at this moment, and for a year

past, an end to the 'Irish question.' Ireland must in ages gone have

been guilty of abominable crimes, or she could not at this juncture have

been afflicted with a John Redmond."

Politicians everywhere need to grow tough skins; but Redmond, though he

was a veteran in politics, had no special gift that way. It was not

pleasant for the Nationalist leader, when an assembly of Irishmen were

called together to attempt the framing of a Constitution, to find

himself the object, and the sole object, of public insult; it was not

pleasant for him to feel that he might at any time be subjected to a

renewal of this experience in the streets of Ireland's capital, where he

had been acclaimed as a hero so few years ago. It was not pleasant for

him to feel that whenever he took up a book or paper dealing with

Ireland he was liable to come upon some outburst such as the one which I

have quoted. These things were pin-pricks, yet pin-pricks administered

in public; and the mere effort to endure such things without wincing

saps a man's vitality. Behind them lay the definite repudiation of his

policy in election after election--for Kilkenny City followed the

example of Clare and replaced Pat O'Brien by a Sinn Feiner. He was

repudiated in the eye of the world, and repudiated with every

circumstance of contumely. Plainly in the Convention he could no longer

claim to speak for Ireland; that limited gravely his power to serve.

I think, however, that deep in his heart a resentment, all the more

rankling because he gave it no voice, prompted him to be on his guard

against lending the least colour of justification to any plea that in

the Convention he had sought to pledge Ireland without due mandate or

had committed anyone but himself. All that was personal in his

resources--his labour, his experience, his judgment, his eloquence--all

this he put unreservedly at the Convention's service: but he abstained,

and I think not only out of policy but as the result of silent anger,

from making the least use of that authority which he still possessed and

which he might easily have augmented. If in the result he took too

little upon him, lest anyone should ever say he had taken too much, and

if because he left too much to others Ireland was the loser, Ireland

must bear not the loss only but the blame.

Many even of those who most agreed with his action had, under the

influence and events of these years and of public comments on these

events, lost confidence in him. Some weeks after the Convention

assembled, a very able priest said to me that he regarded Redmond as "a

worn-out man." The genuineness of his regret was proved by the delight

with which he heard what I could tell him. Never in my life did I find

so much cause for admiration of Redmond as in the early stages--which

were in many ways the most important--of our meetings. Never at any time

did I know him exert so successfully his charm of public manner. At the

second day's meeting, when the new Chairman took up his place and

function, there were several small points to be settled, each capable of

creating friction; and it has to be admitted that in the technical

aspect of his duty Sir Horace Plunkett did not shine: business quickly

became involved. Fortunately he was of a temper to welcome help, and it

was quickly to hand. Archbishop Crozier showed himself to be

accomplished, resourceful, and most tactful on all points of procedure:

and Redmond then for the first time did with extraordinary skill what he

had to do at many stages later. By a series of questions to the Chair he

suggested rather than recommended a way of clearing the involved issue;

and all this was done with a precision of phrase which was none the less

exact because it was easy, and with a dignity which was none the less

impressive because it had no pretence to effect. His mastery both of the

form and substance of procedure was conspicuous. One of the ablest among

the Southern Unionists said to me in these days: "He is superb: he does

not seem able to put a word wrong."

I think that the secret of his happiness of manner lay simply in this,

that within the Convention he was happy. There was a note in it that I

never felt in the House of Commons, even when he was at his best. There

he always spoke as if almost a foreigner, no matter among how familiar

faces. Here he was among his own countrymen, and for the first time in

his life in an assembly in no way sectional. For from the first it was

plain that, by whatever means, there had been gathered a compendium of

normal, ordinary Irish life: farmer, artisan, peer, prelate, landlord,

tenant, shopkeeper, manufacturer--all were there in pleasantly familiar

types. The atmosphere was unlike that of a political gathering; it

resembled rather some casual assemblage where all sorts of men had met

by accident and conversed without prejudice. Everybody met somebody whom

he had known in some quite different relation of life and with whom he

had never looked to be associated in any such task as the framing of a

Constitution. It was all oddly haphazard, full of interest and

surprises; all of us were a little out of our bearings, but much

disposed to reconnoitre in the spirit of friendly advance.

After the first day of Sir Horace Plunkett's chairmanship there was an

adjournment of something like a fortnight to give the Chairman and

secretariat time for preparation: and in this interval a plan of action

was formed. The object in view was to avoid the danger of an immediate

break and to give play to the reconciling influences. It was decided to

begin by a prolonged process of general discussion, in which men could

express their minds freely without the necessity of coming to an

operative decision on any of the controversial points, until the value

of each could be assessed in relation to the possibility of a general

agreement.

The plan adopted was to discuss, without division taken, the schemes

which had been submitted by members of the Convention and by others.

Members would propose and expound their own projects: for the exposition

of the others some member must make himself responsible.

At this "presentation stage" and at all stages, Redmond absolutely

declined to put forward a plan in his own name. This was not only from

temperamental reasons: there was an official obstacle. He was an

individual member of the Convention: but he was Chairman of the Irish

party, pledged not to bind it without its consent. He felt, no doubt,

that any detailed proposal from him would be taken as binding the party,

whom he could not consult without bringing them into the secrets of the

Convention.

But this attitude of self-abnegation was pushed very far by him, and

perhaps too far. In his early utterances he deprecated all official

recognition of sections. Yet from the moment when committees came to be

appointed this recognition was claimed; and from the first the Ulster

group maintained a compact organization. They had their own chairman,

Mr. Barrie, and their secretary; they secured a committee-room for their

own purposes; they voted solidly as one man. All this, though we did not

know it at first, was dictated by the conditions of their attendance.

They were pledged to act simply as delegates, who must submit every

question of importance to an Advisory Committee in Belfast--behind which

again was the Ulster Unionist Council. They had therefore no freedom of

action and were of necessity extremely guarded in speech.

The Southern Unionists, including the representatives of the Irish

peers, were also organized as a group; but they came to the Convention

with much fuller powers. They felt themselves bound to consider, and in

certain conditions to consult, those whom they represented; but they

were free to originate suggestions, and individually each man expressed

his own view. But they too had their meeting-place and their frequent

consultations.

The handful of Labour men also met and discussed action, though they

were not organized as a group and did not feel pledged to a joint

course. Each, according to his own lights, represented the interests of

Labour. Still, they met.

The only group which had no common centre of reunion was that of the

Nationalists--a majority of the whole assembly. This included the

representatives of the Irish party and the County and Urban Councillors,

all of whom had been returned as its supporters. It included also the

four representatives of the hierarchy, every one of whom had been either

actually or potentially a part of Nationalist Conventions, and of whom

three had been most prominent supporters of the general organization.

But a difficulty existed in the presence of other personages who were in

general support of us, but who outside the Convention belonged to a

different category. Lord Dunraven was a Home Ruler, but had been no

supporter of the Irish party. Lord MacDonnell stood much nearer to us,

but was a power in his own right and had never been a party politician.

Mr. Lysaght had voted against us in Clare. Mr. Russell had very often

attacked the party on aspects of its general action. Above all, there

was Mr. W.M. Murphy, who, like Mr. Healy, had been at one time a member

of the Irish party, and whose paper had for long been in nominal support

of its purposes, but who had throughout recent years done more than all

forces together to discredit and weaken its influence.

All of these five men were Government nominees, as were also Lord

Granard and Sir Bertram Windle, who in different ways gave Redmond

complete and most useful backing. It would have been possible to call

together a group consisting of men who had been members of the national

organization which would have excluded all these and included the

Bishops;[10] but Redmond probably felt it would be ungracious to do

this. His chief desire was to avoid all recognition of party and still

more of partisan machinery. His conclusion was to do nothing; and it was

a conclusion to which he was prone at all times when he did not see his

way clear. This temperamental disinclination to take any action which

might create difficulties was in these days at its height with him.

Since the spring his usually perfect health had been failing; he

suffered from the physical inertia which accompanies the growth of a

fatal disease; and sorrow upon sorrow, rebuff upon rebuff, had weakened

the resilience of his mind. It was not that he lacked courage or

confidence in his own judgment; but he was bound as a statesman to make

allowance for the estimate which others, his followers, would put upon

that judgment when he declared it. Sensitive by nature, he was deeply

aware of failure which had resulted from the most disparaging of

causes--not flat rejection, but belated, half-hearted and blundering

adoption, of whatever course he had proposed. He overrated, I am sure,

the extent to which his personal position had been depreciated in the

minds of those who were there. It was true, as the event was to prove,

that he could no longer count on unquestioning support of any policy

simply on the ground that he advocated it; but any opinion which he

presented would have been commended not only by the cogency of his

argument but by an old esteem for his wisdom, and, above and beyond

this, by a personal feeling Men would have inclined to his side not for

the argument's sake only, but for his sake.

There was felt, too, precisely at the moment when it mattered most, the

defect in his quality as leader. He lacked the personal touch. It was

not that he would not, but that he could not, put himself into contact

with the individual minds of men. He owed it, I think, to the rank and

file to give them more of his guidance than they actually received. He

was a genial presence when they met; but of confidential discussion upon

details I am sure that nothing passed. Had he called the group together,

had he spoken his mind to them collectively, in confidence, things would

in all ways have been better. But there was ingrained in him a sort of

shyness, a repugnance to force his view on others by argument, an

indisposition to controversy, which was his limitation; and all this was

at this time accentuated by the hurt sense that there would be always in

men's minds a memory, not of the hundred times when his wisdom had amply

justified itself, but of recent occasions when he had advised them and

the result was not what he foretold.

To sum up, then, this criticism--what he said and did publicly in the

Convention could hardly by stretch of imagination have been bettered.

But outside its sessions he did not handle his team. On the balance,

probably, he thought it better to leave them to their own devices; but

his temperament weighed in that decision. As a result, the County

Councillors and other local representatives used to hold meetings of

their own. They were shrewd and capable men; but in the matters with

which we had to deal the most skilled direction was necessary; and there

was never a man more capable of giving them guidance out of a lifetime's

experience than was Redmond, nor one from whom they would have more

willingly accepted instruction.

Discussion in the Convention itself was not of great value for the

education of opinion, because men naturally were reluctant to get up and

state precisely their individual difficulties, which in a confidential

interchange of views might have been shown to proceed from some defect

in comprehension. The chief value in the debates lay in what they

revealed rather than what they imparted. One fact was salient. No

Nationalist was prepared to recommend acceptance of the Home Rule Act as

it stood, though some of its most vehement assailants adopted great

parts of its framework. Broadly speaking, Nationalists wanted for

Ireland the powers which were possessed by a self-governing Dominion,

but were content to leave all control of defence to the Imperial

authority and did not press any demand for a local militia. On the other

hand, there was strong insistence on the right of an Irish Parliament to

have complete power of taxation within its jurisdiction.

It was manifest that the financial clauses of the existing Act would no

longer apply. They were framed in view of a situation which found

Ireland contributing ten millions in taxation and costing twelve to

administer. Now, less than half the taxation paid the cost of all Irish

services and the balance went towards the war.

It was also evident that Nationalists were prepared to make concessions

to the minority quite inconsistent with the current democratic view of

what a Constitution should be. The Bishop of Raphoe, for instance,

expressed willingness to have the Irish peers as an Upper House. Lord

Midleton, however, for the Southern Unionists, insisted that those whom

he spoke for must have a voice in the House of Commons--however they got

it; and there was general desire to give it them, even by methods which

no one could justify for general application.

In short, it became increasingly clear as the debates proceeded that we

could come to an arrangement with Unionists if Lord Midleton represented

Unionism. But he did not. Ulster was there; and the Ulster men made it

plain that their business was to hear suggestions, not to put them

forward. Two facts, however, emerged about Ulster's attitude. The first

was that in coming to the Convention the Ulstermen had expected to

negotiate on the basis of taking the Home Rule Act as the maximum

Nationalist demand. The only compromise which they had contemplated was

a mean term between the provisions of that Act and Ulster's demand for a

continuance of the legislative Union so far as Ulster was concerned. The

second was that Belfast regarded as ruinous to its interests any

possibility of a tariff war with Great Britain, and believed that if

Ireland were given the power to fix its own customs duties the dominant

farming interest would seek to find revenue by new taxation on imports.

Hence, the proposal to give Ireland full fiscal powers could not be

acceptable to Ulster. Here lay the main rock in our course.

As the discussion proceeded, one category of proposals was summarily

dealt with--those which contemplated the setting up of some provincial

authority intermediate between the central Parliament, which all

postulated, and the existing local bodies in the counties. This policy

did not lack advocates. But the County Councillors were solid against

it: evidently their private meeting discussed and decided against an

expedient which they held would detract from the dignity of the central

Parliament and from the dignity of the County Councils. Those who

defended it as a plan which might meet Ulster's difficulty got no

backing from Ulster; that group said neither for nor against it. In the

rest of the assembly there was a strong feeling against anything that

looked like partition or might in public be called partition. Several of

us had thought in advance that this was the most likely path to the

solution; and looking back, I think it ought to have been much more

fully explored. But encouragement was lacking.

Another anticipation proved illusory. We all realized that in the

circumstances Ireland could come to a financial arrangement with Great

Britain on easier terms than at any time in her history; that to settle

at once would be highly profitable; and more particularly, that we could

probably secure the completion of land purchase as part of the bargain.

It was thought that this argument would appeal to the commercial sense

of Ulster. We were met by a resolute reiteration that Ulster considered

it Ulster's duty and Ireland's duty to take a full share, equally with

the rest of the United Kingdom, in all the consequences of the war--even

if it cost them their last shilling; and Ulster speakers denounced our

argument as a bribe. Some Nationalists were inclined to discount these

protestations, yet I see no reason to doubt their sincerity. At all

events, no one disputed that it was to Ireland's interest financially

that a settlement should be made.

It is quite unnecessary to summarize here in any detail the course of

these general discussions in full Convention, which began on August

21st. One thing, however, resulted from them on which too much emphasis

cannot be laid. In the process of "exploring each other's minds," as the

phrase went, we came to know and to like one another. Later in the year,

a friend of mine, high placed in the Ulster Division, but not an

Ulsterman by upbringing or sympathy, came home from France. He told me

that the main impression on the minds of Ulster delegates had been made

by the Nationalist County Councillors. They had expected noisy

demagogues; they had found solid, substantial business men, many of them

with large and prosperous concerns, all of them rather too silent than

too vocal, and all of them most good-humoured in their tolerance of

dissent. What Willie Redmond had foretold in his last speech was coming

true: Irishmen brought into contact with one another in the Convention,

as other Irishmen had been brought into contact in the trenches, and no

longer kept apart by those unhappy severances which run through ordinary

Irish life, came under the influence of that fundamental fellowship,

deeper than all divergence of politics or creed, which draws our people

into a sense of a common bond.

The desire to bring delegates together in friendly social intercourse

had shown itself in many quarters. The Viceregal Lodge pressed

invitations on us, and Redmond, though in the circumstances he himself

would go to no entertainment anywhere, expressed his wish that

Nationalists should alter their traditional attitude and accept what was

offered in so friendly a spirit. But the first place where we met as a

body with informal ease was at the Mansion House as guests of the Lord

Mayor--a popular figure in our assembly.

Next day the Lord Mayor of Belfast rose at the adjournment to express

all our thanks, and to insist that there should be a session in Belfast,

where he could return the compliment. Immediately, there came another

proposal for a similar visit to the South of Ireland. We went to Belfast

at the beginning of September, and the attitude of the Ulster members,

which had till then been somewhat guarded and aloof, changed into that

of the traditional Irish hospitality. They showed us their great linen

mills and other huge manufactories; they showed us the shipyards, in

which the frames of monster ships lay cradled in gigantic gantries,

works of architecture as wonderful in their vast symmetry as any

cathedral, and having the beauty which goes with any perfect design

combining lightness and strength. Perhaps the most impressive sight of

all was the disbandment of workmen from the yards. Endless lines of

empty tramcars drawn up on the quay awaited the turn-out of some ten

thousand artisans, who streamed past where we stood assembled; and as

the crowds swept along, all these eyes, curious, but not unfriendly,

scrutinized us, and one word was in all their mouths as they came

up--"Which is Redmond? Where's John Redmond?"

A fortnight later Cork completed what Belfast had begun; and, perhaps

because Cork is less strenuous, the whole atmosphere there was even

friendlier. It had almost the quality of a holiday excursion, for we

assisted at the ancient ceremony by which the Lord Mayor of Cork asserts

his jurisdiction over the harbour waters--proceeding outside the

protecting headlands and flinging from him a ceremonial dart outwards to

the sea. This day, however, we accomplished the ceremony well within the

limits; we passed the narrow gateway in the chain of mines, but outside

that, submarines were a very real menace, and the Admiralty cut short

our steamer's voyage. We were none the less festive on board.

It was not all mere holiday in Cork. One speech in particular at this

meeting impressed the whole Convention. A Southern delegate illustrated

from his personal knowledge how cumbrous and uneconomic were the

dealings of a government at Westminster with the meat supply from

Ireland; and a mass of complicated and important trade detail was

skilfully linked to the larger issue of war interest and Imperial

interest; there was genuine eloquence as well as commercial shrewdness

in this discourse. A short speech, too, from one of the Ulster County

Councillors indicated by its tone, what was in my opinion the general

sentiment, that as a result of these preliminary discussions almost

everybody in the assembly expected and desired an effective agreement.

At least for the purposes of this book, and perhaps many purposes, the

trend of our debates can be best summarized by reproducing Redmond's

main contribution to them. He intervened on the first day when Mr.

Murphy's scheme was proposed, on August 21st, but only with a few

welcoming words, and to emphasize his view that we were all there to

accept whatever commanded most support. But at Belfast on September 5th

he spoke fully; and I do not think his speech would have been materially

different had he delivered it three weeks later in Cork. What I print

here is based on the unusually full notes made by him, so full that they

admit of being treated like a press telegram, and read clearly when

small and obvious words are added. The manuscript is scored with

underlining, single, double and treble, to guide the voice in reading

from it; it has interest as illustrating the technical devices which a

great orator employed for a special occasion; and for this speech he

spared no effort. I thought, then as always, that he was less impressive

and less effective in so fully prepared an oration than when he was

putting his thought into the form which immediately came to him. But as

a document it represents beyond doubt his considered opinion and his

most deliberate advice.

Dealing briefly at first with the contention that the system of the

Union had been a success and should not be touched, he outlined the

familiar arguments. But, as he said, the existence of the Convention was

the final answer. The head of a Coalition Ministry had declared, without

dissent from any of his Unionist colleagues, that Dublin Castle had

hopelessly broken down. The Prime Minister of another Coalition, mainly

Unionist in its composition, had set up this assembly, charging it to

find another and better system of government.

Beneficent legislation had been quoted. Yes, but how was it attained?

"In any constitutionally governed country, once public opinion is

converted to some great reform, it naturally passes, surely and easily,

though perhaps slowly, into law. In Ireland, after Irish public opinion

has made up its mind, the reformer has to convert the public opinion of

another country which is profoundly ignorant or apathetic, and unhappily

it is uncontrovertible that scarcely a single piece of beneficent

legislation on land, or anything else, has been passed since the Union

except by long, violent, semi-revolutionary agitation.

"Are we to go on for ever upon this path? Are we to go back into the

region of perpetual and violent agitation in order to get the reforms we

need? Are we never to be allowed to have peace in our country?"

He passed then to the complaint that Ulster's special case had not been

sufficiently considered.

"The man who would hope to settle this great problem without special

consideration of the special case of Ulster would indeed be a fool. Only

for the special case of Ulster we should not be here at all. Our chief

business is to endeavour to satisfy that special case.

"For myself, I am one of those Nationalists to whom Mr. Barrie referred,

who believe that the co-operation of Ulstermen is necessary for a

prosperous and free Ireland, and there are no lengths consistent with

common sense and reason to which I would not go to satisfy their fears

and doubts and objections.

"The special case of Ulster as put before us was this: 'We are contented

under the Union, we have prospered under the Union. Therefore from our

particular standpoint we have no reason to ask for a change.' But they

declare themselves not only Ulstermen but Irishmen. They admit that the

rest of Ireland is not prosperous as they are, and is not contented;

and, that being so, they have come here in a spirit of true patriotism

to see what is proposed as a remedy; and, as I understand it, they only

stipulate that in any scheme of reform their rights and interests and

sentiments shall be safeguarded and respected. That is a reasonable and

patriotic attitude, and I wish most heartily and most sincerely to

respond to it.

"Now let me say what are the main objections to these schemes which have

emerged from the debate. Some may be regarded as more particularly

affecting Ulster, others as more particularly affecting the Southern

Unionists, but all of them taken together make up what I may call the

Unionist objection.

"The Archbishop of Dublin grouped these objections under three heads:

1. Imperial Security.

2. Fiscal Security.

3. Security for Minorities.

"On the question of Imperial Security, objection is taken to what is

called an 'Independent' Parliament.

"It is supposed that what is called Dominion Home Rule implies an

'Independent' Parliament. This is a complete delusion. There is only one

Sovereign and Independent Parliament in the Empire--the Imperial

Parliament; its supremacy is indefeasible and inalienable. Every other

Parliament in the Empire is subordinate, and an Irish Parliament must be

subordinate.

"The Imperial Parliament has created many Parliaments and given to them

power to deal in general as they wish with local affairs, but it never

parted with its own overriding authority--it has no power to do so--and

in several of the colonies it has exercised that overriding authority

from time to time.

"Gladstone spoke of the Irish Parliament which he proposed to set up as

'practically independent in the exercise of its statutory functions.'

But the overriding authority of the Imperial Parliament would always be

there in the background to arrest injustice or oppression, just as it is

in regard to every Dominion Parliament in the Empire to-day.

"That position was specifically laid down and accepted by Parnell in

1886.

"Lord Midleton demands that the rights and authority of the Crown shall

be preserved and safeguarded. There is no difference whatever between us

on this, and no difficulty can arise upon it.

"As to the control of Army and Navy, no one suggests any interference

with the Imperial authority over the Army and the Navy. I include in

that such naval control of harbours as is necessary for security.

"Captain Gwynn has proposed that Ireland should have power to raise a

force for home defence. In other words, to pass a Territorial Act for

Ireland. My policy about the Volunteers is known: I proposed at the

beginning of the war that the Government should utilize the existing

Volunteer forces; and had this proposal been acted on in 1914 there

would have been no rebellion in 1916. If I understand Captain Gwynn, he

did not suggest that Irish Territorials should be under an Irish War

Office and an Irish Minister for War, but that in his opinion a system

of Irish Territorials was desirable, and inasmuch as the English

Territorial Acts are not suitable to us, the Irish Parliament should be

given the power to raise under Imperial authority a force for itself and

on its own lines.

"If this is his view, I agree with it. But this is a matter on which no

one would think of breaking off.

"Speaking generally, I think the Archbishop of Dublin and those who

agree with him may take it for granted that upon all those questions

which he grouped under the heading of Imperial Security there would be

little difficulty in arriving at an agreement with, at any rate, men

like myself.

"Now let me deal with the second group of subjects put forward by the

Archbishop of Dublin under the heading of Fiscal Security--or a

reasonable prospect of national prosperity.

"The first objection is to what is called fiscal autonomy, although,

after listening most carefully to his speeches, it seems to me that the

real objection is not so much an objection to fiscal autonomy as

establishing the full power of the Irish Parliament over the collection

and imposition of Irish taxes, as an objection to giving that Parliament

power to set up a tariff against Great Britain."

He referred then at length to the Report of the Primrose Committee on

Irish Finance, dated October 1911.[11] That Committee had for its

chairman a great English Civil Servant; three of its members were famous

English financiers; another was the Professor of Political Economy at

Oxford. Of the two names associated closely with Ireland, one was Lord

Pirrie, whose fortune had been made in Belfast, and the only Irish

Nationalist was the Bishop of Ross. They had reported unanimously for

giving to Ireland full fiscal powers. "We tried hard," Redmond said, "to

get the principle of their Report adopted in framing the Bill of 1912."

Government insisted on adhering to the plan of "contract finance" which

their own non-partisan committee of experts had explicitly condemned.

He quoted several passages from the weighty argument by which the

Committee had justified its conclusions, especially those dealing with

the contention that the power would be used to set up a tariff against

British goods.

"Ireland is not a nation of fools.

"If in framing a new Constitution you go on the assumption that every

power you confer will be abused, it would be far better to desist from

your task altogether, and instead of increasing the powers of a people

dead to all sense of responsibility and manifestly unfit for political

freedom, you had better disestablish all existing forms of

constitutional government and advocate the government of Ireland as a

Crown Colony. But none of us so distrust our people.

"Dr. O'Donnell has proposed a solution of the difficulty about imposing

a tariff against England by means of a Conference between the two

nations. Other suggestions will be made. Protection may be found for

Ulster by giving to them disproportionate representation. It may be

found in the power of the Senate, it may be found in the power to

suspend. If we are agreed somewhat on the general lines of the Primrose

Report, the outstanding difficulty will be capable of adjustment.

"Sir Crawford McCullagh rightly pointed out the terrible burden of war

taxation, which is at present over twenty millions, and he said we

cannot go on on those lines, and we must get back to pre-war burdens or

the country will be ruined. How are we to get back?

"If nothing is done by us, and the war goes on, as it may, for some

years, we may easily be paying thirty, forty, or fifty millions, and

generations to come will have to bear a crushing load. The income tax is

certain to be raised, and excess profits also, and no part of Ireland

will suffer more than Ulster, and especially Belfast.

"The highest interest of Ulster, therefore, is a speedy settlement

whereby the increase of war taxation will cease and Ireland's

contribution to Imperial purposes will either disappear or, to put it at

the very lowest, be limited and stereotyped.

"Mr. Knight raised the question of land purchase. I agree with every

word he said, but what is the difficulty? The difficulty is in providing

the additional money needed at a low rate of interest. As part of a

settlement I feel quite sure we could obtain the completion of land

purchase on satisfactory terms. Indeed, I have the highest authority for

the statement that this question would be regarded as an essential

portion of a settlement, and that a most generous arrangement would be

made. But if there is no settlement, do you imagine the Treasury will

do anything to help us? No. I fear the British Government will be more

occupied in endeavouring to deal with the state of open anarchy in

Ireland than in making great financial concessions on land purchase. Mr.

Knight, if he wants purchase completed, had better help us to an

agreement.

"The third group of objections mentioned by the Archbishop of Dublin

deals with Security for Minorities.

"On this, it is impossible for the Convention to break down, because we

are all in favour of the object in view. It is a mere question of the

best machinery to carry out our unanimous desire and intention.

"Ulster may clearly claim a representation out of proportion to her

numbers, not only, I admit, in the Senate, but in the lower chamber.

Safeguards of the most stringent character would be accepted, at any

rate by me, in the machinery of the Constitution to prevent the

possibility of Ulster's interest, Ulster's prosperity and Ulster's

sentiments being injured or over-ridden.

"For Southern Unionists, the case is unanswerable. They _must_ get

proper representation in both Houses.

"Some suggestions have been made: proportional representation; Mr.

Murphy's proposal of a special representation for property; special

representation for creeds, and finally a nominated element in the House

of Commons. I have an open mind on them all. It may be none of these

will be found wholly satisfactory. But where there is a will there is a

way. We are all agreed it must be done, and therefore it can and will be

done.

"In none of these objections, and they are the chief ones that have

emerged on Imperial security, fiscal security, and security of

minorities, is there in my mind any difficulty in coming to an

agreement, if we are really animated by the desire every speaker has

professed to answer the appeal of the Empire in this hour of her dire

extremity by removing one of her greatest weaknesses and dangers.

"We were told by Lord Midleton to play for safety. What is safety for

us? What is safety for the Empire? I strongly say the only safety is a

settlement of this question.

"What will be the certain effect of a breakdown? No one could fail to

have been impressed by the serious and solemn note upon which the

Archbishop of Dublin concluded his speech. He reminded you this was not

a question of Ulster and the rest of Ireland, not of Catholic and

Protestant, or Unionist and Nationalist: it was a question of the

necessity for all men of good will, all men of responsibility, all men

who know that the foundation of freedom is the maintenance of order, to

join hands to protect their common country from anarchy and chaos.

"The Archbishop spoke of Mr. Lysaght's speech as a threat. No one here

will be moved by threats, but let us not be mad enough to shut our eyes

to the facts. Is there a man in this room who can contemplate without

horror the immediate future of Ireland if this Convention fails? For my

part, I see clearly a future following on our failure in which on one

side there will be an angered, if you like, a maddened people, with no

responsible control, and on the other, Government ruling by the point of

the bayonet. Between these two forces there will be no place for a

Constitutional party or for men like myself.

"That would be the effect in Ireland. What would be the effect

throughout the Empire?

"I have close relations with statesmen of all parties in all the

Dominions, and I am informed that twenty-five per cent, of their troops

are of Irish birth or of Irish parents, and that they have practically

joined because they believed the Irish problem was as good as settled.

"What has happened about Ireland has caused untold difficulties in every

Dominion. Mr. Holman, the Prime Minister of New South Wales, said that

conscription was defeated by the Irish vote. Mr. Hughes said the same.

Two hundred thousand troops have been lost to the Empire by the feeling

of disgust at the failure to settle the Irish question. It has been the

same in Canada. Everywhere a breakdown will be regarded with dismay.

"What will be the effect in America? The position of America is grave

and dangerous. I have close relations with many Americans of high

position and influence, and they all tell me the same. This is a secret

session, and I can repeat what they say. There is little or no

enthusiasm for the war. Mind, I am speaking of Americans, not Irish

Americans. The apathy is largely due to distrust of England. They

distrust her posing as the champion of small nations while here at her

doors the Irish question is unsettled. Lord Midleton says the Americans

are uninformed. Perhaps so as to details. Perhaps they only see the

broad effect. But how does that help us? The fact remains. Ireland is

the only, or the chief, cause of American apathy to-day. This is of

vital importance. Could we hope to win the war if America dropped out?

Russia has gone. The President of the United States has many pacifist

men around him. Their movement is strong. Germany is abstaining from

outrages that would raise American feeling. I say, the danger of peace

proposals which we could not accept being offered to America and

accepted by her is a real and a very serious one.

"Hence it is that the Government, the diplomatic service, and all

connected with our foreign affairs are feverishly anxious as to the

result of our deliberations. If we break down in despair and

helplessness, God only knows how terrible and far-reaching may be the

consequence.

"Far better for us and for the Empire never to have met than to have met

and failed of an agreement.

"Finally, what would be the effect of a breakdown at the front?

"We are called upon on all sides of this ancient quarrel to make what

people call sacrifices--sacrifices of inherited predilections, of

old-world ideas, and of ancient shibboleths, of perhaps ingrained

prejudice. I would be ashamed to speak of the surrender of such things

as sacrifices, when I remember the kind of sacrifices our brave boys

have made and are making this very hour while we are safe at home

talking. I cannot trust myself to speak upon this matter. Only the other

day, once again the Ulster Division and the Sixteenth Irish Division,

shoulder to shoulder, have fought and died for Ireland. The full story

is not yet known, but it is full of tragedy, of heroism and of glory.

Surely they deserve some encouragement. No set of men living would be

prouder and happier than they if we can send them the news of a

settlement of this question which will relieve them from the daily shame

they feel, every time they meet their Allies, in the consciousness that

their country, Ireland, for which they are facing death, is distracted

and disunited and a source of reproach.

"No, we must come to a settlement. We must rise to the occasion--if only

to save ourselves from a lifelong remorse for wrecking this venture--for

what the historian of the future would describe as a crime against the

Empire in her hour of deadliest peril, and a crime against the peace and

happiness of our own beloved and long-suffering country."

One result of this speech was seen at once in an utterance from Mr.

Andrew Jameson, a leading figure among the Southern Unionists. He said

at once that Redmond had convinced him that all the difficulties as to

maintaining the Imperial connection and providing safeguards for

minorities could and would be met. The fiscal difficulty remained. He

pressed the Ulster group to come to our assistance and depart from their

attitude of silence. This speech went further towards our desire than

any Unionist had previously gone.

In a later debate Mr. Pollock outlined two essentials of the Ulster

demand. The United Kingdom must remain a fiscal unit; and Ireland must

be represented at Westminster. If these points were conceded, agreement,

he thought, should be possible.

On the whole, as discussion grew franker and more business-like,

relations improved. There were small passages at arms, but these only

served to show how strong was the general desire for harmony. One of my

colleagues said that he did not know what to make of a political

assembly where everyone applauded when you got up, and applauded when

you sat down, and never interrupted you. Another said that the

Convention was the only society in Ireland from which one always came

away cheered up: and this was so generally felt that an Ulster speaker

reminded us that the atmosphere of our proceedings was pleasant but

exceptional. He warned us to remember that, even if we agreed, either

side might be repudiated. Yet there was a marked feeling that the

Convention, and the tone which prevailed in the Convention, had done

good in the country. This was admitted by the Grand Master of the Orange

Order, Colonel Wallace, in a speech which led to an important

illustration of the mutual process of education, for it raised with

great frankness the issue of religious differences and alluded specially

to the recent Papal decrees over which so much controversy had raged.

The Bishop of Raphoe rose to reply and expounded, as an ex-professor of

Canon Law, the true bearing of these documents. His speech was a

masterpiece; its candour and its lucidity commended itself to all

hearers, but most of all to the Ulstermen, who applauded at once Lord

Oranmore's comment that the _odium theologicum_ had been replaced by

_divina caritas_; and at a very late stage in our proceedings, Mr.

Barrie referred back to this speech of the Bishop's as one of the

things which they would never forget.

The Primate, who in this month of September was one of the hopeful

hearts ("My confidence has grown daily," he said), used words which met

with widespread response: "We can never leave this hall and speak of men

whom we have met here as we have spoken of them in the past." There was

good will in the air--good will to each other and to the enterprise. At

the close of the proceedings in Cork the Lord Mayor of Belfast moved a

vote of thanks to the citizens through their Lord Mayor, and he closed

on a note of hope--anticipating "something in store for Ireland."

Yet already these anticipations were overcast. During this week, while

all seemed going so well, one of the endless unhappy and preventible

things happened. It was from Redmond that I first heard the news. One of

the Sinn Fein leaders who had been rearrested on suspicion after the

amnesty took part in a hunger-strike as a protest against being

subjected to the conditions imposed on a convicted felon. He was

forcibly fed and died under the process, owing to heart-failure. Redmond

told me with fury how he had urged again and again on the Chief

Secretary the possibility of some such calamity, and had urged that

these men should receive the treatment proper in any case to political

prisoners, but above all to men who had been neither convicted nor

tried.

The result was immediately seen in some hostile demonstrations in Cork,

chiefly against Mr. Devlin and Redmond. But this was only the beginning.

On the following Sunday the body of the dead man, Thomas Ashe, was

carried through the streets of Dublin at the head of a vast procession,

in which large bodies of Volunteers, openly defying Government's

proclamation, marched in uniform; and he was buried with military

honours and volleys fired over his grave. With all this breach of the

law Government dared not interfere. They had put themselves in the

wrong; whether they prevented the demonstration or permitted it,

mischief was bound to follow. A new incitement was given to the

enthusiasm for Sinn Fein, a new martyr was provided, and new hostility

was raised against the Convention, for whose success Government was

notoriously anxious. On the other hand, Ulster Unionist opinion was

violently offended; they were scandalized by the disregard for law and

the impotence of constitutional authority. This attitude, however open

to comments based on their own recent history, did not render them any

easier to deal with. Above all, the Ashe incident emphasized the

presence in Ireland of a great force over which Redmond had no control

and which had no representative in the Convention. How, men asked, even

if a bargain could be made with Constitutional Nationalists, should that

covenant be carried into effect?

III

The Cork visit marks the close of the first stage in the history of the

Convention. At the opening of our session there it was decided to

appoint a Grand Committee of twenty, whose task should be, "if possible,

to prepare a scheme for submission to the Convention, which would meet

the views and difficulties expressed by the different speeches during

the course of the debate." The Convention itself, after its

deliberations of that week, would adjourn until the Committee was in a

position to report. This second stage, purely of committee work, was to

last much longer than anyone anticipated: the Convention did not

reassemble till the week before Christmas. If that length of adjournment

had been foreseen, the Committee would never have been appointed.

Mr. Lysaght in his first address to the Convention had pressed upon us

the view that Sinn Féin could be won. But he warned us also (with such

emphasis that some speakers afterwards resented it as a threat) that if

the Convention produced no result, or an unacceptable result, or

provoked suspicion by delay, the result would be a revolution. Already

impatience was growing. We could publish no account of our proceedings:

but it became known inevitably that we had not as yet reached one

operative conclusion in our task of Constitution building.

At Cork, Sir Horace Plunkett made an encouraging speech at the public

luncheon; he announced the appointment of our Committee, which certainly

looked like business. But only when we got to detail did men fully

realize the difficulties and the embarrassing nature of the position.

The Ashe affair had done more harm than we knew. When the Primate was

making the hopeful speech from which a few words have already been

quoted, he spoke also of our experience as having been a process of

mutual education, which we needed to extend beyond our own assembly. He

promised his help in this, and it was felt that Ulstermen generally were

on their honour to report well of what they commended in our presence.

They were, it seems, at least as good as their word; the Committee

behind them was favourably impressed, and when we went to Cork--so I

have been informed--the question of giving the delegates full powers to

negotiate was under discussion. But this mood was dissipated by the

angry temper in all sections which arose out of the imprisonments, the

hunger-strikes, the penalties imposed, and the successive concessions to

violent resistance.

To this was added a new cause of quarrel. The Franchise Bill was now

coming before the House of Commons; and under the provisions agreed to

by the Speaker's Conference, extension of the franchise was to be

applied in Ireland, but there was to be no redistribution. This proposal

was not unreasonable, since the Home Rule Act was now a statute and

under it new and properly distributed constituencies were scheduled;

while over and above this the Convention was in existence to occupy

itself with the matter.

On the other hand, the existing distribution of seats was hard on

Unionist Ulster: the great mass of population in and about Belfast was

under-represented. Ulstermen said that while Nationalists professed

great desire to give favour to minorities, in reality they persisted in

keeping their political opponents at an unfair disadvantage. There was

no more question of enlarging the delegates' authority in Convention:

the Advisory Committee hardened their attitude, and it was our task to

convince a body which could not hear our arguments at first hand.

Decisions lay with Ulstermen in Belfast, not in the Convention--that is

to say, not subject to the daily, hourly, prompting to remember that

they were not only Ulstermen but Irishmen, which arose from friendly

intercourse with their fellow-delegates.

The Grand Committee of twenty, representing all groups, met on October

11th. Sir Horace Plunkett had in advance begged Redmond to undertake the

presentation of a scheme which would serve as a basis for discussion.

Redmond declined, on the ground that the initiative should come from

someone who was not there as a politician; but he admitted that the onus

of making a proposal was on Home Rulers. Dr. O'Donnell, though an

office-bearer in the United Irish League, was present as a

representative of the hierarchy; he was charged with the task. He had

been throughout a strong advocate of claiming for Ireland all the powers

possessed by any of the Dominions, with limitations on the military

side; he had also been forward in his desire to give wholly exceptional

rights of representation to minorities.

But when we got into Committee one man immediately took the lead. Sir

Alexander McDowell[12] had not spoken in any debate; there is reason to

believe that he was glad not to commit himself in advance before the

moment when his special gift might come into play. All his life he had

been carrying through agreements between conflicting interests: he was a

great mediator and negotiator. Now, he advocated what was, in

strictness, an irregularity. A task had been delegated to us: he asked

us to delegate it again to a smaller group. The whole case, he said, had

been fully opened up; further debate would be no use; we all knew all

the arguments. He deprecated formal procedure; it was plainly a family

quarrel, and we should treat it in that spirit. Honestly, he said, he

should be sorry if the Convention failed. Ulster had no fault to find

with the Union; but they were living next door to a house already in

flames.

That was the general tone, but it would be difficult to convey the

impression of experience and authority which his manner left: and

Redmond supported him. It was plain that the two men would understand

each other. In the upshot their view prevailed; Redmond, Mr. Barrie and

Lord Midleton were instructed to suggest names, and after an interval

they came back with a list of nine. Lord Midleton was for the Southern

Unionists; Mr. Barrie, Lord Londonderry and Sir Alexander McDowell for

the Northern; Redmond, Mr. Devlin and Bishop O'Donnell represented the

parliamentary Nationalists, and to them were added Mr. W.M. Murphy and

Mr. George Russell.

This left eleven of us unemployed, and some days later we were formed

into three sub-committees, the first dealing with the question of

Electoral Reform and the composition of an Irish Parliament; the second

with Land Purchase, and the third with a possible Territorial Force and

the Police. But the marrow of the business rested with the original

sub-committee of nine.

They, however, could not get rapidly to work; other affairs pulled them

in different directions. Redmond was forced to go to Westminster, where

the Franchise Bill was coming on; moreover, the Irish party felt that

it must raise the question of Irish administration.

As our leader, he was obliged to speak on both matters. His reply to the

Ulster amendment proposing to extend redistribution to Ireland was that

this departed from the compromise reached at the Speaker's Conference,

and moreover ignored the existence of the Convention. He spoke with

studied brevity and avoidance of party spirit: but the debate became a

wrangle. Mr. Barrie brought back into it some of the Convention's

friendlier atmosphere; but his argument was that in the interests of the

Convention this concession should be made.

The second debate, on October 23rd, was inevitably contentious: it

deplored the policy being pursued by the Irish Executive and the Irish

military authorities "at a time when the highest interests of Ireland

and the Empire demand the creation of an atmosphere favourable to the

Convention." Redmond had an easy task in convicting the Government's

action of incoherence and of blundering provocation--but to do this was

of no advantage to his main purpose, which he served as best he could by

a side-wind, eulogizing the temper of the Convention and specially the

"sincere desire for a reasonable settlement" shown by the Ulster

delegates.

Still, at the best, it was impossible for him not to feel that the

reaction of a debate which could not be kept in the tone on which he

started it must be unfavourable to the meetings of the Nine which were

about to take place. He was to go in to negotiate a settlement for his

country while the voices of faction were yelping at his heels all over

Ireland, and all the forces of reconciliation which he had brought into

play were neutralized and sterilized.

A debate of these days gave him a happier occasion to intervene than the

domestic bickerings in which he had been forced to take part; yet even

in this the note of sadness predominated. On October 29th, when a vote

of thanks was proposed to the Navy, Army and Mercantile Marine, he

joined his voice to that of other leaders of parties, to emphasize, as

he said, that they spoke from an absolutely unanimous House of Commons.

He recalled the exploits of Irish troops and dwelt again on the presence

of a large Irish element in the Canadian and Anzac Divisions. But his

reference was chiefly to those Nationalist Irish Brigades, who had

remained true, he said, to the old motto of the Brigade of Fontenoy,

_Semper et ubique fidelis_. These men had known in the midst of their

privations and sufferings a new and poignant feeling of anguish: they

had seen "a section at any rate of their countrymen" repudiate the view

that in serving as they served they were fighting for Ireland, for her

happiness, for her prosperity and her liberty.

"I wish it were possible for me to speak a word to every one of those

men. If my words could reach them, I would say to every one of them that

they need have no misgiving, that they were right from the first, that

time will vindicate them, that time will show that while fighting for

liberty and civilization in Europe they are also fighting for

civilization and liberty in their own land. I would like to say to every

one of them, in addition, that even at this moment, when ephemeral

causes have confused and disturbed Irish opinion, they are regarded with

feelings of the deepest pride and gratitude by the great bulk of the

Irish race and by all that is best in every creed and class in Ireland."

The Irish Divisions had once and again been engaged shoulder to

shoulder, but this time with very different fortune, in the third battle

of Ypres; yet, win or lose, they won or lost together. In that same

fighting Redmond's own son had earned special honour; the Distinguished

Service Order was bestowed on him for holding up a broken line with his

company of the Irish Guards. At a happier time this news would have been

received with enthusiasm all over Ireland; now, the most one could say

was that it delighted the Convention.

It would be quite wrong, however, to regard Redmond's attitude in these

days as unhopeful. The first meetings of the Nine were fruitful of much

agreement--conditional at all points on general ratification. But the

true spirit of compromise was there. So far as concerned the provision

to give minorities more than their numerical weight, it was agreed that

there should be two Houses, with powers of joint session, and with

control over money bills conceded to the Upper House. In the Lower House

Unionists should (somehow) get forty per cent, of the representation: so

that in the joint session the influences would be equally balanced.

The hitch came over finance. Nationalists wanted complete powers of

taxation, but would agree to a treaty establishing Free Trade between

the two countries for a long period. Ulster wanted a common fiscal

control for Great Britain and Ireland. By November 1st a complete

deadlock had been reached.

On that date the Grand Committee met to take stock informally of the

position, especially in regard to the procedure of the more detailed

sub-committees, and to face the fact that a grave misfortune had

befallen us. Sir Alexander McDowell had been prevented by illness from

attending any of the meetings. He had no further part in the

Convention's work, and died before it ended.

Redmond in a confidential talk spoke of his absence as lamentable. The

two had arranged--on the Belfast man's proposal--to meet for private

interviews before the Nine came together. Neither had control of the

forces for which he spoke; but both stood out, by everyone's consent,

from the rest of the assembly. It is impossible to say how much they

might have achieved had they come to an understanding; but assuredly no

other representative of the North spoke with the same self-confidence or

the same weight of personality as Sir Alexander McDowell. My own

feeling about him--if it be worth while to record a personal

impression--was that he was a man with the instinct for carrying big

things through--that the problem tempted him, as a task which called for

the exertion of powers which he was conscious of possessing. In losing

him we lost certainly the strongest will in his group, perhaps the

strongest in the Convention; and it was a will for settlement. It was,

too, a will less hampered by regard for public opinion than that of any

popularly elected representative man can be. He had, I think, also

eminently the persuasive gift which is not only inclined to give and

take but can impart that disposition to others.

Mr. Pollock, who replaced him, was an able man, but singularly lacking

in this quality. He held his own views clearly and strongly, but his

method of exposition accentuated differences: it had always a note of

asperity, though this was certainly not deliberate. One of the pleasant

memories which remains with me is of a day when debate grew acrimonious

and hot words were used. Mr. Pollock refused to reply to some phrases

which might have been regarded as taunts, because, he said, "I have made

friendships here which I never expected to make, and I value them too

much to risk the loss of them." That friendly temper, combined with his

ability, made him a valuable member of this Convention: but for the

critical work of bringing men's minds together, of sifting the essential

from the unessential, he was a bad exchange for Sir Alexander McDowell.

Redmond said to me that he had found Mr. Barrie much more conciliatory

than in the earlier and public stages. He was delighted with Lord

Midleton, who was, he said, "showing an Irish spirit which I never

expected";--standing up for the claims of an Irish Parliament if there

was to be one. In the discussion, however, one man, Bishop O'Donnell,

had been "head and shoulders above everyone else."

Argument had ranged about the question of customs and excise. This was

the dividing line. But when at last a deadlock was definitely reached,

the Ulster position was stated in a letter which refused to concede to

an Irish Parliament the control of either direct or indirect taxation.

It was to be a Parliament with no taxing power at all.

On the other hand, in the corresponding document from the Nationalist

side, the importance of immediate and full fiscal control had been put

very high.

"Self-government does not exist," it said, "where those nominally

entrusted with affairs of government have not control of fiscal and

economic policy. No nation with self-respect could accept the idea that

while its citizens were regarded as capable of creating wealth they were

regarded as incompetent to regulate the manner in which taxation of that

wealth should be arranged, and that another country should have the

power of levying and collecting taxes, the taxed country being placed in

the position of a person of infirm mind whose affairs are regulated by

trustees. No finality could be looked for in such an arrangement, not

even a temporary satisfaction."

The genesis of this passage should be told, for it had importance in the

history of the Convention; and also it conveys an idea of the limits to

which Redmond carried self-effacement. It is important because it acted

on Ulster like a red rag shown to a bull. Obviously, if this were the

Nationalist view, then the Home Rule Act could not be said to give

self-government--for under its system of contract finance Ireland

certainly had not control of her fiscal and economic policy. A measure

accepted with enthusiasm in 1912 was now regarded as impossible of

giving "even a temporary satisfaction."

What had happened was this. The Chairman in his tireless efforts to

bring about agreement had addressed two sets of questions, to the

Nationalists and to the Ulstermen respectively, by answering which he

hoped they might clear the air. The direct answers for the Nationalists

were drafted by Mr. Russell, but were shown to Redmond, Mr. Devlin and

the Bishop of Raphoe. It was, however, suggested that as an addendum a

summary should be added. Redmond did not ask to see this addition, and

it was not shown to him. It led off with the paragraph which has been

quoted. The fact that he allowed anything in any stage of such a

negotiation to go out in his name without his own revision marks the

loosening of grip--a tired man.

His exertions for the past years, the past ten years at least, had been

tremendous: they had been redoubled from 1912 to 1916. Towards the end,

one resource had been failing him--the chief of all. A leader when he is

well followed gives and takes; there is interchange of energy. For more

than a year now Redmond had lacked the moral support, the almost

physical stimulus, which comes from the ready response of followers.

Labour at no time came easy to him, there was much inertia in his

temperament; and the part which he had laid out for himself in the

Convention as merely an individual member did not impose on him the same

unremitting vigilance as if he acted as leader. Yet, the leadership was

his; if he did not exercise it, no one else could; and this incident

shows that his abnegation of leadership was not a mere phrase.

On November 22nd the Grand Committee reassembled to hear the report from

the Nine. Lord Southborough, who had presided at all their meetings,

detailed the conclusions which had been reached or the point on which

they had broken down.

Then followed a discussion lasting some three days, in which Ulstermen

and Nationalists reaffirmed their positions. Archbishop Bernard, the

Primate, and Lord MacDonnell all attempted mediation. Finally, Lord

Midleton, who described the position as "a stone wall on each side,"

announced that he and his group would put before the Grand Committee

certain proposals as a _via media_. These in effect conceded to an Irish

Parliament all that Nationalists claimed, subject only to the

reservation that customs must be fixed by the Imperial Parliament and

the produce of them retained as Ireland's contribution to Imperial

services.