In the Home Rule controversy to-day Ulster occupies the place of public
interest. Lord Rosebery upon one occasion committed himself to the
opinion that, before Home Rule was conceded by the Imperial Parliament,
England, as the predominant member of the partnership of the three
kingdoms, would have to be convinced of its justice.[62] He did not
foresee that the party of which he was then the leader would, under
duress, abandon even the pretence of consulting the "predominant
partner," much less be guided by its wishes. But it has come to pass:
and Ulster alone remains the stumbling-block to the successful issue of
the plot against the Constitution. By Ulster we do not mean, as Mr.
Sinclair points out, the geographical area, but the district which
historical events have made so different in every respect from the rest
of Ireland.
In the Act of Union I have a personal interest from family connection. I
am convinced that Lord Castlereagh was absolutely right on both Imperial
and Irish grounds. I feel that so far as Ireland is concerned the
conditions and position of Ulster to-day afford ample confirmation: and
of Ulster I may claim to have some knowledge. I represented County Down
in the Imperial Parliament at Westminster before it was divided into
constituencies, and in my later days I have maintained my close interest
in Ulster. At the least, then, I may say that the temperament, the
political and religious convictions, and the character of Ulster
Unionists are not unknown to me.
I often read of "the Ulster bogey;" and I believe Mr. John Redmond once
devoted an article in a Sunday paper to elaborate statistical
calculations from which he drew the deduction that there was no Ulster
question. Other Home Rulers, by an expert use of figures, show that
there is a Home Rule majority in Ulster itself. To those who know Ulster
their efforts fail to carry the slightest conviction. Figures, however
skilfully chosen, articles in the press, however cleverly written,
cannot destroy the facts of Ulster Unionist opposition to Home Rule, the
intensity and seriousness of which is, I believe, only now beginning to
be appreciated by His Majesty's Ministers.
I hear of "Ulster bigots," "Ulster deadheads," and assertions made that
the opposition only proceeds from a few aristocratic Tory landlords.
Hard words do us no harm; but abusive epithets will not lessen Ulster
opposition. Indeed the more we are reviled by our opponents, the more we
believe they recognize the futility of persuading us to accept Home
Rule.
We read of the intense anxiety of Irish Nationalists on English
platforms lest even the suspicion of intolerance should cloud their
administration and legislation under Home Rule, with interest but
without respect. We do not believe in these sudden repentances, and we
have heard these professions time and again when the exigencies of the
moment demanded them.
The spirit of change has even affected the Government. At first Ulster
was to be ignored; now it is to be conciliated. There is no safeguard
that they will not insert in the Bill at our request. The First Lord of
the Admiralty has a list already prepared; and they will welcome
additions. Mr. Redmond accepts them all; and the fact that he does it
readily raises our suspicions of their worth. Has not Mr. John Dillon
said that artificial guarantees in an Act of Parliament were no real
protection,[63] and for once it is possible to agree with him.
Why should "bigots" be conciliated; or "deadheads" receive so much
consideration? Why should the opposition of aristocratic Tory landlords
be thought worthy of respect? Whenever have they been treated in this
manner before by the Government in their schemes of legislation?
That our views receive so much attention is indeed the proof of the
falsity of these hard names. Opposition to Home Rule in Ulster proceeds
not from "bigots" or "deadheads," not from "Tories," or "aristocrats,"
or "landlords" exclusively. It is neither party question, nor class
question. It has destroyed all differences between parties and classes.
I doubt if there are any more democratic organizations than those of the
Ulster Unionist Council, the Unionist Clubs, and the Orangemen. Nor are
the religious bodies less popularly organized--the Church of Ireland,
the Presbyterians, and other Protestant denominations have no class
restrictions in their government. And as for party distinctions, those
of us who took part in the old political contests before Home Rule
became an urgent danger are now side by side in this greater fight for
our very existence.
What stronger evidence that opposition to Home Rule in Ulster is no
party question is to be found than in the disappearance of the Liberal
Party. I can remember when it was powerful; but it has vanished before
the threat of Home Rule. All attempts to resuscitate the corpse have
failed, and a Liberal Party, independent of the Nationalists,
representing Ulster constituencies in the House of Commons, in spite of
repeated efforts, does not exist.
Let me impress upon the people of Great Britain that Ulster opposition
to Home Rule is no party matter. It is an uprising of a people against
tyranny and coercion; against condemnation to servitude; against
deprivation of the right of citizens to an effective voice in the
government of the country.
Mr. Birrell said recently at Bristol that Ulster would be right to fight
if it were oppressed in its religion or despoiled of its property. We
welcome his conversion. When he pleads for Ulster to wait until it is
plain that oppression has come, we recall to mind the phrase so often on
Liberal lips, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," and we say
that we should be false to ourselves and to our trust if we were
unprepared for what the future will bring under Home Rule.
For our opposition to Home Rule we are condemned by the Irish
Nationalists as the enemies of our country. We believe ourselves to be
its best friends. We believe Home Rule to be the greatest obstacle to
Irish progress and prosperity. Irish Nationalists have made Home Rule
their only idol and denounce every one who will not worship at its
shrine. Every reform, unless they thought that it tended to advance Home
Rule or magnify their powers, has received their hostility, sometimes
open and avowed, at other times secret and working through devious ways.
No one who reads the history of Ulster can doubt that its inhabitants
have not as much love of Ireland and as much wish to see her prosperous
as the Nationalists. They indeed attribute all Irish shortcomings to the
Union. Ulstermen, bearing in mind their own progress since the Union,
not unnaturally decline to accept so absurd an argument. The Union has
been no obstacle to their development: why should it have been the
barrier to the rest of Ireland? Ulstermen believe that the Union with
Great Britain has assisted the development of their commerce and
industry. They are proud of the progress of Belfast and of her position
in the industrial and shipping world. Without great natural advantages
it has been built up by energy, application, clearheadedness and hard
work. The opposition to Home Rule is the revolt of a business and
industrial community against the domination of men who have shown no
aptitude for either. The United Irish League, the official organization
of the Home Rule Party, is, as a Treasurer once confessed, remarkably
lacking in the support of business men, merchants, manufacturers,
leaders of industry, bankers, and men who compose a successful and
progressive community.[64] In the management of their party funds, their
impending bankruptcy but a few years ago, the mad scheme of New
Tipperary, and the fiasco of the Parnell Migration Company there is the
same monotonous story of failure. Can surprise be felt that Ulstermen
refuse to place the control of national affairs in the hands of those
who have shown little capacity in the direction of their own personal
concerns. What responsible statesman would suggest that the City of
London, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle, or any advancing
industrial and commercial centre in Great Britain should be ruled and
governed and taxed, without the hope of effective intervention, by a
party led by Mr. Keir Hardie and Mr. Lansbury? Yet Home Rule means much
like that for Ulstermen, and the impossibility of the scheme is
emphasized in the example of Ireland by religious differences which have
their roots in Irish history.
Ulster's opposition to Home Rule is no unreasoning hate. It proceeds not
from the few; it is not the outcome of political prejudice; it is the
hostility of a progressive and advancing people who have made their
portion of their country prosperous and decline to hand it over to the
control of representatives from the most backward and unprogressive
counties.
They are actuated by love of their country. They yield to no one in
their patriotism and their desire for Ireland's welfare. They have
always given their support to movements which have had for their objects
the improvement of Irish conditions and the increase of Irish
well-being. Their sympathies are with Irish social reform--and the
sympathies of many of them with social reform of an advanced character.
Contrast their attitude with that of the Irish Nationalist Party in
respect of reforms which have proceeded from the Imperial Parliament and
movements within Ireland herself.
Take the Irish Land Act of 1903, accepted by both political parties in
Great Britain as affording the real solution of the Irish agrarian
problem. What has been the Irish Nationalist attitude? Praise for it on
platforms in the United States when it was essential to reach the
pockets of subscribers by recounting a record of results gained from
the expenditure of American donations; but in Ireland itself opposition
to its effective working. Read Nationalist speeches and there is always
running through them the fear that the Act by solving the land question
would remove the real motive power which made Home Rule a living issue.
Hence the interference to prevent landlords and tenants coming to an
agreement over sales without outside assistance. So to-day Irish
Nationalists are still endeavouring to keep alive the old bad feeling
between landlord and tenant which they so successfully created in the
seventies and eighties. What better proof of this deliberate attempt to
prevent the success of a great reform is to be found than the frank
utterance of Mr. John Dillon at Swinford.[65] "It has been said," he
declared, "that we have obstructed the smooth working of the Act. I wish
to heaven we had the power to obstruct the smooth working of the Act
more than we did. It has worked too smoothly--far too smoothly to my
mind.... Some men have complained with the past year that the Land Act
was not working fast enough. For my part I look upon it as working a
great deal too fast, and at a pace which has been ruinous to the
people." What have the Ulster people done which can compare with this
opposition to a measure that has admittedly effected a beneficial
revolution in Irish agrarian life? Yet Mr. John Dillon is acclaimed as a
true Irish patriot and we are denounced as the enemies of our country!
What greater blow to the continuance of land purchase than the Birrell
Act of 1909. Granted that some revision of the law was necessary in
respect of finance; yet, the Act of 1909 went far beyond finance. Any
one with a knowledge of land purchase law knows that the measure of 1909
contained innumerable provisions of a technical character calculated to
make the free sale between landlord and tenant difficult, and in respect
of a large portion of Ireland impossible. No wonder it was welcomed by
the Irish Nationalist Party, since it did so much to restore them to
their self-elected position of counsellors and arbiters in the affairs
of the tenants. And Ulster Unionists for declining to accede to this
re-establishment of the old supremacy of the agitators are regarded as
the opponents of liberty and freedom!
The same sad story of Nationalist opposition to Irish progress meets the
student of the co-operative movement at every period of its existence.
No one who knows Sir Horace Plunkett will believe for a moment that he
was actuated by other than the sole desire to do something for Ireland's
benefit. From the leaders of the Nationalist Party he has had no
assistance, although they claim to be the only workers for Irish
progress, and the co-operative movement was intended to complete the
agrarian revolution. In more recent times the hostility of the
Nationalist leaders has become bolder as they found a ready instrument
in Mr. T. W. Russell in his official capacity as Vice-President of the
Department of Agriculture.
The co-operative movement is flourishing in spite of the opposition of
the Nationalist leaders. From Ulster it has received considerable
support for the reason that Ulstermen believed it to be for the benefit
of Irish agriculture. Their support, unlike Nationalist hostility, has
not arisen from political motives. They do not believe that Sir Horace
Plunkett has given a moment's thought to politics in their relation to
the co-operative movement, and they have appreciated his movement either
as co-operators or as supporters and members of the Irish Agricultural
Organization Society. Contrast the Ulster welcome with the Nationalist
opposition, and ask why we should be denounced as bad Irishmen and the
Nationalists receive praise as true lovers of Ireland.
The co-operative movement has brought into existence another movement
which has for its object the prosperity of Irish industries. The
Industrial Development movement which seeks to bring before the people
of Ireland and the Irish public bodies the excellence of Irish
manufactures is as yet in its infancy. It has no political character,
yet I should hesitate to say that official Irish Nationalism gives it
hearty support. In Belfast, however, it has made great strides. It gains
its support in Ulster not for any political reason, but simply and
solely because the North of Ireland thinks that the industrial movement
is to Ireland's advantage.
Where in these instances is our "bigotry" or our hostility to Irish
progress? Does not the balance of credit when the comparison is made
with the Nationalists come on the side of Ulster? The Nationalists show
their unreasoning opposition by proclaiming that they would rather see
Ireland in rags and poverty than abate their demand for Home Rule.
Ulster Unionists desire to see Ireland prosperous and contented. For
that reason they welcome all reforms and movements from whatever quarter
which have this excellent end in view. They intend to offer the
strongest and most unrelenting opposition to Home Rule not as political
partisans for party gain, but as Irishmen determined to resist so
reactionary a measure which they firmly believe will prove of the
greatest evil to their unhappy country.