THE INFLUENCE OF POLITICS UPON THE IRISH MIND.
Among the humours of the Home Rule struggle, the story was current in
England that a peasant in Connemara ceased planting his potatoes when
the news of the introduction of the Home Rule Bill in 1886 seemed to
bring the millenium into the region of practical politics. Those who
used the story were not slow to suggest that, had the Bill become law,
the failure of spontaneous generation in the Connemara potato patch
might have been typical of much analogous disillusionment elsewhere.
Even to those who are familiar with our history, the faith of the Irish
people in the potentialities of government, which this little tale
illustrates by caricature, will give cause for reflection of another and
more serious kind. The moral to be drawn by Irish politicians is that we
in Ireland have yet to free ourselves from one of the worst legacies of
past misgovernment, the belief that any legislation or any legislature
can provide an escape from the physical and mental toil imposed through
our first parents upon all nations for all time.
'The more business in politics, and the less politics in business, the
better for both,' is a maxim which I brought home from the Far West and
ventured to advocate publicly some years ago. Being still of the same
mind, I regret that I am compelled to introduce a whole chapter of
politics into this book, which is a study of Irish affairs mainly from a
social and economic point of view. But to ignore, either in the
diagnosis or in the treatment of the 'mind diseased,' the political
obsession of our national life would be about as wise as to discuss and
plan a Polar expedition without taking account of the climatic
conditions to be encountered.
In such an examination of Irish politics as thus becomes necessary I
shall have to devote the greater part of my criticism to the influence
of the Nationalist party upon the Irish mind. But it will be seen that
this course is not taken with a view to making party capital for my own
side. As I read Irish history, neither party need expect very much
credit for more than good intentions. Whichever proves to be right in
its main contention, each will have to bear its share of the
responsibility for the long continuance of the barren controversy. Each
has neglected to concern itself with the settlement of vitally important
questions the consideration of which need not have been postponed
because the constitutional question still remained in dispute.
Therefore, though I seem to throw upon the Nationalist party the chief
blame for our present political backwardness, and, so far as politics
affect other spheres of national activity, for our industrial
depression, candour compels me to admit that Irish Unionism has failed
to recognise its obligation--an obligation recognised by the Unionist
party in Great Britain--to supplement opposition to Home Rule with a
positive and progressive policy which could have been expected to
commend itself to the majority of the Irish people--the Irish of the
Irish Question.
To my own party in Ireland then, I would first direct the reader's
attention. I have already referred to the deplorable effects produced
upon national life by the exclusion of representatives of the landlord
and the industrial classes from positions of leadership and trust over
four-fifths of the country. I cannot conceive of a prosperous Ireland in
which the influence of these leaders is restricted within its present
bounds. It has been so restricted because the Irish Unionist party has
failed to produce a policy which could attract, at any rate, moderate
men from the other side, and we have, therefore, to consider why we have
so failed. Until this is done, we shall continue to share the blame for
the miserable state of our political life which, at the end of the
nineteenth century, appeared to have made but little advance from the
time when Bishop Berkeley asked 'Whether our parties are not a burlesque
upon politics.'
The Irish Unionist party is supposed to unite all who, like the author,
are opposed to the plunge into what is called Home Rule. But its
propagandist activities in Ireland are confined to preaching the
doctrine of the _status quo_, and preaching it only to its own side.
From the beginning the party has been intimately connected with the
landlord class; yet even upon the land question it has thrown but few
gleams of the constructive thought which that question so urgently
demanded, and which it might have been expected to apply to it. Now and
again an individual tries to broaden the basis of Irish Unionism and to
bring himself into touch with the life of the people. But the nearer he
gets to the people the farther he gets from the Irish Unionist leaders.
The lot of such an individual is not a happy one: he is regarded as a
mere intruder who does not know the rules of the game, and he is treated
by the leading players on both sides like a dog in a tennis court.
Two main causes appear to me to account for the failure of the Irish
Unionist party to make itself an effective force in Irish national life.
The great misunderstanding to which I have attributed the unhappy state
of Anglo-Irish relations kept the country in a condition of turmoil
which enabled the Unionist party to declare itself the party of law and
order. Adopting Lord Salisbury's famous prescription, 'twenty years of
resolute government,' they made it what its author would have been the
last man to consider it, a sufficient justification for a purely
negative and repressive policy. Such an attitude was open to somewhat
obvious objections. No one will dispute the proposition that the
government of Ireland, or of any other country, should be resolute, but
twenty years of resolute government, in the narrow sense in which it
came to be interpreted, needed for its success, what cannot be had under
party government, twenty years of consistency. It may be better to be
feared than to be loved, but Machiavelli would have been the first to
admit that his principle did not apply where the Government which sought
to establish fear had to reckon with an Opposition which was making
capital out of love. Moreover, the suggestion that the Irish Question is
not a matter of policy but of police, while by no means without
influential adherents, is altogether vicious. You cannot physically
intimidate Irishmen, and the last thing you want to do is morally to
intimidate a people whose greatest need at the moment is moral courage.
The second cause which determined the character of Irish Unionism was
the linking of the agrarian with the political question; the one being,
in effect, a practical, the other a sentimental issue. The same thing
happened in the Nationalist party; but on their side it was intentional
and led to an immense accession of strength, while on the Unionist side
it made for weakness. If the influence of Irish Unionists was to be even
maintained, it was of vital importance that the interest of a class
should not be allowed to dominate the policy of the party. But the
organisation which ought to have rallied every force that Ireland could
contribute to the cause of imperial unity came to be too closely
identified with the landlord class. That class is admittedly essential
to the construction of any real national life. But there is another
element equally essential, to which the political leaders of Irish
Unionism have not given the prominence which is its due. The Irish
Question has been so successfully narrowed down to two simple policies,
one positive but vague, the other negative but definite, that to suggest
that there are three distinct forces--three distinct interests--to be
taken into account seems like confusing the issue. It is a fact,
nevertheless, that a very important element on the Unionist side, the
industrial element, has been practically left out of the calculation by
both sides. Yet the only expression of real political thought which I
have observed in Ireland, since I have been in touch with Irish life,
has emanated from the Ulster Liberal-Unionist Association, whose weighty
pronouncements, published from time to time, are worthy of deep
consideration by all interested in the welfare of Ireland.
It will be remembered that when the Home Rule controversy was at its
height, the chief strength of the Irish opposition to Mr. Gladstone's
policy, and the consideration which most weighed with the British
electorate, lay in the business objection of the industrial population
of Ulster; though on the platform religious and political arguments were
more often heard. The intensely practical nature of the objection which
came from the commercial and industrial classes of the North who opposed
Home Rule was never properly recognised in Ireland. It was, and is still
unanswered. Briefly stated, the position taken up by their spokesmen was
as follows:--'We have come,' they said in effect, 'into Ireland, and not
the richest portion of the island, and have gradually built up an
industry and commerce with which we are able to hold our own in
competition with the most progressive nations in the world. Our success
has been achieved under a system and a polity in which we believe. Its
non-interference with the business of the people gave play to that
self-reliance with which we strove to emulate the industrial qualities
of the people of Great Britain. It is now proposed to place the
manufactures and commerce of the country at the mercy of a majority
which will have no real concern in the interests vitally affected, and
who have no knowledge of the science of government. The mere shadow of
these changes has so depressed the stocks which represent the
accumulations of our past enterprise and labour that we are already
commercially poorer than we were.'[11]
My sole criticism of those leaders of commerce and industry in Belfast,
who, whenever they turn their attention from their various
pre-occupations, import into Irish politics the valuable qualities which
they display in the conduct of their private affairs, is that they do
not go further and take the necessary steps to give practical effect to
their views outside the ranks of their immediate associates and
followers. Had the industrial section made its voice heard in the
councils of the Irish Unionist party, the Government which that party
supports might have had less advice and assistance in the maintenance of
law and order, but it would have had invaluable aid in its constructive
policy. For the lack of the wise guidance which our captains of industry
should have provided, Irish Unionism has, by too close adherence to the
traditions of the landlord section, been the creed of a social caste
rather than a policy in Ireland. The result has been injurious alike for
the landlords, the leaders of industry, and the people. The policy of
the Unionist party in Ireland has been to uphold the Union by force
rather than by a reconciliation of the people to it. It has held aloof
from the masses, who, bereft of the guidance of their natural leaders,
have clung the more closely to the chiefs of the Nationalist party; and
these in their turn have not, as I shall show presently, risen to their
responsibility, but have retarded rather than advanced the march of
democracy in Ireland. If there is to be any future for Unionism in
Ireland, there must be a combination of the best thought of the country
aristocracy and that of the captains of industry. Then, and not till
then, shall we Unionists as a party exercise a healthful and stimulating
influence on the thought and action of the people.
I cannot, therefore, escape from the conclusion that whilst the Irish
section of the party to which I belong is, in my opinion, right on the
main political question, its influence is now for the most part
negative. Hence I direct attention mainly to the Home Rule party, as the
more forceful element in Irish political life; and if it receives the
more criticism it is because it is more closely in touch with the
people, and because any reform in its principles or methods would more
generally and more rapidly prove beneficial to the country than would
any change in Unionist policy.
In examining the policy of the Nationalist party my chief concern will
be to arrive at a correct estimate of the effect which is produced upon
the thought and action of the Irish people by the methods employed for
the attainment of Home Rule. I propose to show that these methods have
been in the past, and must, so long as they are employed, continue to be
injurious to the political and industrial character of the people, and
consequently a barrier to progress. I know that most of the Nationalist
leaders justify the employment of these methods on the ground that, in
their opinion, the constitutional reforms they advocate are a condition
precedent to industrial progress. I believe, on the contrary, and I
shall give my reasons for believing, that their tactics have been not
only a hindrance to industrial progress, but destructive even to the
ulterior purpose they were intended to fulfil.
It is commonly believed--a belief very naturally fostered by their
leaders--that, if there is one thing the Irish do understand, it is
politics. Politics is a term obviously capable of wide interpretation,
and I fear that those who say that my countrymen are pre-eminently
politicians use the term in a sense more applicable to the conceptions
of Mr. Richard Croker than of Aristotle. In intellectual capacity for
discrimination upon political issues the average Irish elector is, I
believe, far superior to the average English elector. But there is as
yet something wanting in the character of our people which seems to
prohibit the exercise by them of any independent political thought and,
consequently, of any effective or permanent political influence.
The assumption that Irishmen are singularly good politicians seems to
stand seriously in the way of their becoming so; and yet it is a matter
of the greatest importance that they should become good politicians in a
real sense, for in no country would sound political thought exercise a
more beneficial influence upon the life of the people than in Ireland.
Indeed I would go further and give it as my strong conviction that,
properly developed and freed from the narrowing influences of the party
squabbles by which it has been warped and sterilised, the political
thought of the Irish people would contribute a factor of vital
importance to the life of the British empire. But at the moment I am
dealing only with the influence of politics on Irish social and economic
life.
I am aware that any political deficiencies which the Irish may display
at home, are commonly attributed to the political system which has been
imposed upon Ireland from without. If you want to see Irish genius in
its highest political manifestation, it must be studied, we are told, in
the United States, the widest and freest arena which has ever been
offered to the race. This view is not in accordance with the facts as I
have observed them. These facts are somewhat obscured by the natural,
but misleading habit of reckoning to the account of Ireland at large
achievements really due to the Scotch-Irish, who helped to colonise
Pennsylvania, and who undoubtedly played a dominant part in developing
the characteristic features of the American political system. The
Scotch-Irish, however, do not belong to the Ireland of the Irish
Question Descended, largely, as their names so often testify, from the
early Irish colonists of western Scotland, they came back as a distinct
race, dissociating themselves from the Irish Celts by refusing to adopt
their national traditions, or intermarry with them, and both here and in
America disclaiming the appellation of Irish.[12]
Leaving, then, out of consideration the political achievements of the
Scotch-Irish, it appears to me that the part played in politics by the
Irish in America does not testify to any high political genius. They
have shown there an extraordinary aptitude for political organisation,
which, if it had been guided by anything approaching to political
thought, would have placed them in a far higher position in American
public life than that which they now occupy. But the fact is that it
would be much easier to find evidence of high political capacity and
success in the history of the Irish in British colonies; and the reason
for this fact is not only very germane to the purpose of this book, but
has a strong practical interest for Americans as well. Irishmen when
they go to America find themselves united by a bond which does not and
could not exist in the Colonies--though it does exist in Ireland--the
bond of anti-English feeling, and by the hope of giving practical effect
to this feeling through the policy of their adopted country. Imbued with
this common sentiment, and influenced by their inherited clannishness,
the Irish in America readily lend themselves to the system of political
groups, a system which the 'boss' for his own ends seeks to perpetuate.
The result is a sort of political paradox--it has made the Irish in
America both stronger and weaker than they ought to be. They suffer
politically from the defects of their political qualities: they are
strong as a voting machine, but the secret of their collective strength
is also the secret of their individual weakness. This organisation into
groups is much commoner among the Irish than among other American
immigrants, for the anti-English feeling with which so many of the Irish
land in America is carefully kept alive by the 'boss,' whose sedulous
fostering of the instinctive clannishness and inherited leader-following
habits of the Irish saps their independence of thought and prevents them
from ceasing to be mere political agents and developing a citizenship
which would furnish its due quota of statesmen to the service of the
Republic. They lack in the United States just what they lack at home,
the capacity, or at any rate the inclination, to use their undoubted
abilities in a large and foreseeing manner, and so are becoming less and
less powerful as a force in American politics.
The fallacious views about the nature and sphere of politics, which the
Irish bring with them from Ireland, and which are perpetuated in
America, have the effect not only of debarring the Irish from real
political progress, but also, as at home, from gaining success in
industrial pursuits which their talents would otherwise win for them.
They succeed as journalists owing to their quick intelligence and
versatility, and as contractors mainly owing to their capacity for
organising gangs of workmen--a faculty which seems to be the only good
thing resulting from their political education. They are as brilliant
soldiers in the service of the United States as they are in that of
Britain--more it would be impossible to say--and they have produced
types of daring, endurance, and shrewdness like the 'Silver Kings' of
Nevada which testify to the exceptional powers always developed by the
Irish in exceptional circumstances. But in the humdrum business of
everyday life in the United States they suffer from defects which are
the outcome of their devotion to mistaken political ideals and of their
subordination of industry to politics, which are not always purely
American, but are often influenced by considerations of the country of
their birth. On the whole, a quarter of a century of not unsympathetic
observation of the Irish in the United States has convinced me that the
position they occupy there is not one which either they or the American
people can look on with entire satisfaction. The Irish immigrants are
felt to belong to a kind of _imperium in imperio_, and to carry into
American politics ideas which are not American, and which might easily
become an embarrassment if not a danger to America. Hence the powerful
interest which America shares with England, though of course in a less
degree, in understanding and helping to settle the complex difficulty
called the Irish Question. The Irish remember Ireland long after they
have left it. They are not in the same position as the German or English
immigrants who have no cause at home which they wish to forward. Every
echo in the States of political or social disturbance in Ireland rouses
the immigrant and he becomes an Irishman once more, and not a citizen of
the country of his adoption. His views and votes on international
questions, in so far as they affect these Islands, are thus often
dictated more by a passionate sympathy for and remembrance of the land
he no longer lives in, than by any right understanding of the interests
of the new country in which he and his children must live.
The only reason why I have examined the assumption that Irishmen display
marked political capacity in the United States is to make it clear that
the political deficiencies they manifest at home are to be attributed
mainly to defects of character, and to a conception of politics for
which modern English government is very slightly responsible. I admit
that English government in the past had no small share in producing the
results we deplore to-day, but the motives and manner of its action
have, it seems to me, been very imperfectly understood.
The fact is that the difficulties of English government in Ireland,
until a complete military conquest had been effected, were of a
peculiarly complex character. Before the English could impose upon
Ireland their own political organisation--and the idea that any other
system could work better among the Irish never entered the English
mind--it was obviously necessary that the very antithesis of that
organisation, the clan system, should be abolished. But there were
military and financial objections to carrying out this policy. Irish
campaigns were very costly, and England was in those days by no means
wealthy. English armies in Ireland, after a short period spent in
desultory warfare with light armed kernes in the fever-stricken Munster
forests, began to melt away. For many generations, therefore, England,
adopting a policy of _divide et impera_, set clan against clan. Later
on, statecraft may be said to have supervened upon military tactics. It
consisted of attempts made by alternate threats and bribes to induce the
chiefs to transform the clan organisation by the acceptance of English
institutions. But any systematic endeavours to complete the
transformation were soon rendered abortive by being coupled with huge
confiscations of land. The policy of converting the members of the clans
into freeholders was subordinated to the policy of planting British
colonists. After this there was no question of fusion of races or
institutions. Plantations on a large scale, self-supporting,
self-protecting, became the policy alike of the soldier and the
statesman.
The inevitable result of these methods was that it was not until a
comparatively late date that a political conception of an Irish nation
first began to emerge out of the congeries of clans. In the State Papers
of the sixteenth century the clans are frequently spoken of as
'nations.' Even as late as the eighteenth century a Gaelic poet, in a
typical lament, thus identifies his country with the fortunes of her
great families:--
The O'Doherty is not holding sway, nor his noble race;
The O'Moores are not strong, that once were brave--
O'Flaherty is not in power, nor his kinsfolk;
And sooth to say, the O'Briens have long since become English.
Of O'Rourke there is no mention--my sharp wounding!
Nor yet of O'Donnell in Erin;
The Geraldines they are without vigour--without a nod,
And the Burkes, the Barrys, the Walshes of the slender ships.[13]
The modern political idea of Irish nationality at length asserted itself
as the result of three main causes. The bond of a common grievance
against the English foe was created by the gradual abandonment of the
policy of setting clan against clan in favour of impartial confiscation
of land from friendly as well as from hostile chiefs. Secondly, when the
English had destroyed the natural leaders, the clan chiefs, and
attempted to proselytise their adherents, the political leadership
largely passed to the Roman Catholic Church, which very naturally
defended the religion common to the members of all the clans, by trying
to unite them against the English enemy. Nationality, in this sense, of
course applied only to Celtic Roman Catholic Ireland. The first real
idea of a United Ireland arose out of the third cause, the religious
grievances of the Protestant dissenters and the commercial grievances of
the Protestant manufacturers and artisans in the eighteenth century, who
suffered under a common disability with the Roman Catholics, and many of
whom came in the end to make common cause with them. But even long after
this conception had become firmly established, the local representative
institutions corresponding to those which formed the political training
of the English in law and administration either did not exist in Ireland
or were altogether in the hands of a small aristocracy, mostly of
non-Irish origin, and wholly non-Catholic. O'Connell's great work in
freeing Roman Catholic Ireland from the domination of the Protestant
oligarchy showed the people the power of combination, but his methods
can hardly be said to have fostered political thought. The efforts in
this direction of men like Gavan Duffy, Davis, and Lucas were
neutralised by the Famine, the after effects of which also did much to
thwart Butt's attempts to develop serious public opinion amongst a
people whose political education had been so long delayed. The prospect
of any early fruition of such efforts vanished with the revolutionary
agrarian propaganda, and independent thinking--so necessary in the
modern democratic state--never replaced the old leader-following habit
which continued until the climax was reached under Parnell.
The political backwardness of the Irish people revealed itself
characteristically when, in 1884, the English and Irish democracies were
simultaneously endowed with a greatly extended franchise. In theory this
concession should have developed political thought in the people and
should have enhanced their sense of political responsibility. In England
no doubt this theory was proved by the event to be based on fact; but in
Ireland it was otherwise. Parnell was at the zenith of his power. The
Irish had the man, what mattered the principles? The new suffrages
simply became the figures upon the cheques handed over to the Chief by
each constituency, with the request that he would fill in the name of
the payee. On one or two occasions a constituency did protest against
the payee, but all that was required to settle the matter was a personal
visit from the Chief. Generally speaking, the electorate were quite
docile, and instances were not wanting of men discovering that they had
found favour with electors to whom their faces and even their names were
previously unknown.
No doubt, the one-man system had a tactical value, of which the English
themselves were ever ready to make use. "If all Ireland cannot rule this
man, then let this man rule all Ireland," said Henry VII. of the Earl of
Kildare; and the echo of these words was heard when the Kilmainham
Treaty was negotiated with the last man who wore the mantle of the
chief. But whatever may be said for the one-man system as a means of
political organisation, it lacked every element of political education.
It left the people weaker, if possible, and less capable than it found
them; and assuredly it was no fit training for Home Rule. While
Parnell's genius was in the ascendant, all was well--outwardly. When a
tragic and painful disclosure brought about a crisis in his fate, it
will hardly be contended by the most devoted admirer of the Irish people
that the situation was met with even moderate ability and foresight. But
the logic of events began to take effect. The decade of dissension which
followed the fall of Parnell will, perhaps, some day be recognised as a
most fruitful epoch in modern Irish history. The reaction from the
one-man system set in as soon as the one man had passed away. The
independence which Parnell's former lieutenants began to assert when the
laurels faded upon the brow of the uncrowned King communicated itself to
some extent to the rank and file. The mere weighing of the merits of
several possible successors led to some wholesome questioning as to the
merits of the policies, such as they were, which they respectively
represented The critical spirit which was now called forth, did not, at
first, go very far; but it was at least constructive and marked a
distinct advance towards real political thought. I believe the day will
come, and come soon, when Nationalist leaders themselves will recognise
that while bemoaning faction and dissension and preaching the cause of
'unity' they often mistook the wheat for the tares. They will, I feel
sure, come to realise that the passing of the dictatorship, which to
outward appearances left the people as "sheep without a shepherd, when
the snow shuts out the sky," in fact turned the thoughts of Ireland in
some measure away from England into her own bosom, and gave birth there
to the idea of a national life to which the Irish people of all classes,
creeds, and politics could contribute of their best.
I sometimes wonder whether the leaders of the Nationalist party really
understand the full effect of their tactics upon the political character
of the Irish people, and whether their vision is not as much obscured by
a too near, as is the vision of the Unionist leaders by a too distant,
view of the people's life. Everyone who seeks to provide practical
opportunities for Irish intellect to express-itself worthily in active
life--and this, I take it, is part of what the Nationalist leaders wish
to achieve--meets with the same difficulty. The lack of initiative and
shrinking from responsibility, the moral timidity in glaring contrast
with the physical courage--which has its worst manifestation in the
intense dread of public opinion, especially when the unknown terrors of
editorial power lurk behind an unfavourable mention 'on the paper,'
are, no doubt, qualities inherited from a primitive social state in
which the individual was nothing and the community everything. These
defects were intensified in past generations by British statecraft,
which seemed unable to appreciate or use the higher instincts of the
race; they remain to-day a prominent factor in the great human problem
known as the Irish Question--a factor to which, in my belief, may be
attributed the greatest of its difficulties.
It is quite clear that education should have been the remedy for the
defects of character upon which I am forced to dwell so much; and I
cannot absolve any body of Irishmen, possessed of actual or potential
influence, of failure to recognise this truth. But here I am dealing
only with the political leaders, and trying to bring home to them the
responsibility which their power imposes upon them, not only for the
political development but also for the industrial progress of their
followers. They ought to have known that the weakness of character which
renders the task of political leadership in Ireland comparatively easy
is in reality the quicksand of Irish life, and that neither
self-government nor any other institution can be enduringly built upon
it.
The leaders of the Nationalist party are, of course, entitled to hold
that, in existing political conditions, any non-political movement
towards national advancement, which in its nature cannot be linked, as
the land question was linked, to the Home Rule movement constitutes an
unwarrantable sacrifice of ends to means. And so holding, they are
further entitled to subject any proposal to elevate popular thought, or
to direct popular activities, to a strict censorship as to its remote as
well as to its immediate effect upon the electorate. I know, too, that
it is held by some thinking Nationalists who take no active part in
politics that the politicians are justified on tactical grounds in this
exclusive pursuit of their political aims, and in the methods by which
they pursue them. They consider the present system of government too
radically wrong to mend, and they can undoubtedly point to agrarian
legislation as evidence of the effectiveness of the means they employ to
gain their end.
This view of things has sunk very deep into the Irish mind. The policy
of 'giving trouble' to the Government is looked upon as the one road to
reform and is believed in so fervently that, except for religion, which
sometimes conflicts with it, there is scarcely any capacity left for
belief in anything else. I am far from denying that the past offers much
justification for the belief that nothing can be gained by Ireland from
England except through violent agitation. Until recently, I admit,
Ireland's opportunity had to wait for England's difficulty. But, as
practised in the present day, I believe this doctrine to be mischievous
and false. For one thing, there is a new England to deal with. The
England which, certainly not in deference to violent agitation,
established the Congested Districts Board, gave Local Government to
Ireland, and accepted the recommendations of the Recess Committee for
far-reaching administrative changes, as well as those of the Land
Conference which involved great financial concessions, is not the
England of fifty years ago, still less the England of the eighteenth
century. Moreover, in riveting the mind of the country on what is to be
obtained from England, this doctrine of 'giving trouble,' the whole
gospel of the agitator, has blinded the Irish people to the many things
which Ireland can do for herself. Whatever may be said of what is called
'agitation' in Ireland as an engine for extorting legislation from the
Imperial Parliament, it is unquestionably bad for the much greater end
of building up Irish character and developing Irish industry and
commerce. 'Agitation,' as Thomas Davis said, 'is one means of redress,
but it leads to much disorganisation, great unhappiness, wounds upon the
soul of a country which sometimes are worse than the thinning of a
people by war.'[14] If Irish politicians had at all realised this truth,
it is difficult to believe that the popular movement of the last quarter
of a century would not have been conducted in a manner far less
injurious to the soul of Ireland and equally or more effective for
legislative reform as well as all other material interests.
Now, modern Nationalism in Ireland is open to damaging criticism not
only from my Unionist point of view, which was also, in many respects,
the view of so strong a Nationalist as Thomas Davis; it is also open to
grave objection from the point of view of the effectiveness of the
tactics employed for the attainment of its end--the winning of Home
Rule.
Before examining the effect of these tactics I may point out that this
conception of Nationalist policy, even if justifiable from a practical
point of view, does not relieve the leaders from the obligation of
giving some assurance that they are ready with a consistent scheme of
re-construction, and are prepared to build when the ground has been
cleared. In this connection I might make a good deal of Unionist
capital, and some points in support of my condemnation of the political
absorption of the Irish mind, out of the total failure of the
Nationalist party to solve certain all-important constitutional and
financial problems which months of Parliamentary debate in 1893 tended
rather to obscure than to elucidate. I am, however, willing for
argument's sake to postpone all such questions, vital as they are, to
the time when they can be practically dealt with. I am ready to assume
that the wit of man can devise a settlement of many points which seemed
insoluble in Mr. Gladstone's day. But even granting all this, I think it
can easily be shown that the means which the political thought
available on the Nationalist side has evolved for the attainment of
their end, and which _ex hypothesi_ are only to be justified on tactical
grounds, are the least likely to succeed; and that, consequently, they
should be abandoned in favour of a constructive policy which, to say the
least, would not be less effective towards advancing the Home Rule
cause, if that cause be sound, and which would at the same time help the
advancement of Ireland in other than political directions.
Tactics form but a part of generalship, and half the success of
generalship lies in making a correct estimate of the opposing forces.
This is as true of political as it is of military operations. Now, of
what do the forces opposed to Home Rule consist? The Unionists, it may
be admitted, are numerically but a small minority of the population of
Ireland--probably not more than one-fourth. But what do they represent?
First, there are the landed gentry. Let us again make a concession for
the sake of argument and accept the view that this class so wantonly
kept itself aloof from the life of the majority of the people that the
Nationalists could not be expected to count them among the elements of a
Home Rule Ireland. I note, in passing, with extreme gratification that
at the recent Land Conference it was declared by the tenants'
representatives that it was desirable, in the interests of Ireland, that
the present owners of land should not be expatriated, and that
inducements should be afforded to selling owners to continue to reside
in the country.
But I may ignore this as I wish here to recall attention to that other
element, which was, as I have already said, the real force which turned
the British democracy against Home Rule--I mean the commercial and
industrial community in Belfast and other hives of industry in the
north-east corner of the country, and in scattered localities elsewhere.
I have already admitted that the political importance of the industrial
element was not appreciated in Irish Unionist circles. No less
remarkable is the way in which it has been ignored by the Nationalists.
The question which the Nationalists had to answer in 1886 and 1893, and
which they have to answer to-day, is this:--In the Ireland of their
conception is the Unionist part of Ulster to be coerced or persuaded to
come under the new regime? To those who adopt the former alternative my
reply is simply that, if England is to do the coercion, the idea is
politically absurd. If we were left to fight it out among ourselves, it
is physically absurd. The task of the Empire in South Africa was light
compared with that which the Nationalists would have on hands. I am
aware that, at the time when we were all talking at concert pitch on the
Irish Question, a good deal was said about dying in the last ditch by
men who at the threat of any real trouble would be found more discreetly
perched upon the first fence. But those who know the temper and fighting
qualities of the working-men opponents of Home Rule in the North are
under no illusion as to the account they would give of themselves if
called upon to defend the cause of Protestantism, liberty, and imperial
unity as they understand it. Let us, however, dismiss this alternative
and give Nationalists credit for the desire to persuade the industrial
North to come in by showing it that it will be to its advantage to join
cordially in the building up of a united Ireland under a separate
legislature.
The difficulties in the way of producing this conviction are very
obvious. The North has prospered under the Act of Union--why should it
be ready to enter upon a new 'variety of untried being'? What that state
of being will be like, it naturally gauges from the forces which are
working for Home Rule at present. Looking at these simply from the
industrial standpoint and leaving out of account all the powerful
elements of religious and race prejudice, the man of the North sees two
salient facts which have dominated all the political activity of the
Nationalist campaign. One is a voluble and aggressive disloyalty, not
merely to 'England' and to the present system of government, but to the
Crown which represents the unity of the three kingdoms, and the other is
the introduction of politics into business in the very virulent and
destructive form known as boycotting.
Now, hostility to the Crown, if it means anything, means a struggle for
separation as soon as Home Rule has given to the Irish people the power
to organise and arm. And (still keeping to the sternly practical point
of view) that would, for the time being at least, spell absolute ruin to
the industrial North. The practice of boycotting, again, is the very
antithesis of industry--it creates an atmosphere in which industry and
enterprise simply cannot live. The North has seen this practice condoned
as a desperate remedy for a desperate ill, but it has seen it continued
long after the ill had passed away, used as a weapon by one Nationalist
section against another, and revived when anything like a really
oppressive or arbitrary eviction had become impossible. There seems to
have been in Nationalist circles, since the time of O'Connell, but
little appreciation of the deadly character of this social curse; and
the prospect of a Government which would tolerate it naturally fills the
mind of the Northern commercial man with alarm and aversion.
Again, the democratisation of local government which gave the
Nationalist leaders a unique opportunity of showing the value, has but
served to demonstrate the ineffectiveness, of their political tactics.
North of Ireland opinion was deeply interested in this reform, and
appreciated its far-reaching importance. Elsewhere, I think it will be
safe to say, people generally were indifferent to it until it came, and
the leaders seemed to see in it only a weapon to be used for political
purposes. To the great vista of useful and patriotic work opened out by
the Act of 1898, to the impression that a proper use of that Act might
make on Northern opinion, they were blind. It is true that the Councils
when left to themselves did admirably, and fully justified the trust
reposed in them. But at the inauguration of local government it was
naturally not the work of the Councils but the attitude of the party
leaders which appeared to stamp the reception of the Act by the Irish
people.
It is true, of course, that many thoughtful men among the Nationalist
party repudiate the idea that the methods of to-day would be continued
in a self-governed Ireland. I fail to see any reason why they should
not. Under any system of limited Home Rule questions would arise which
would afford much the same sort of justification for the employment of
such methods, and they could hardly be worse for the welfare of the
country then than they are now. There is abundant need and abundant work
in the present day for thoughtful and far-seeing men in a party
constitutionally so strong as that of the Irish Nationalists. If those
among them who possess, or at any rate can make effective use of
qualities of constructive statesmanship are as few as the history of
recent years would lead us to suppose, what assurance can Ulster
Unionists feel that such men would spring up spontaneously in an Ireland
under Home Rule? I admit, indeed, that a considerable measure of such
assurance might be derived from the attitude of the leaders of the party
at and since the Land Conference. But this adoption of statesmanlike
methods which cannot be too widely understood or too warmly commended is
a matter of very recent history; and though we may hope that the success
attending it will help materially in the political education of the
Irish people, that will not, by itself, undo the effect of a quarter of
a century of political agitation governed by ideas the very reverse of
those which are now happily beginning to find favour.
I have thought it necessary to examine at some length the defence on the
ground of tactics which is often made for Nationalist politics, because
it is the only defence ever made by those apologists who admit the
disturbing influence upon our economic and social life of Nationalist
methods. A broader and saner view of political tactics than prevailed
ten years ago is now possible, for circumstances are becoming friendly
and helpful to the development of political thought. Though the United
Irish League apparently restored 'unity' to the ranks of the
Nationalists, the country is, I believe, getting restless under the
political bondage, and is seething with a wholesome discontent. In this
very matter of political education, the stir of corporate life, the
sense of corporate responsibility which in every parish of Ireland are
now being fostered by the reformed system of local government, must make
their influence felt in wider spheres. Even now I believe that the field
is ready for the work of those who would bid the old leader-following
habit, the product partly of the dead clan system, partly of dying
national animosities, depart as a thing that has had its day, and who
would endeavour to train up a race of free, self-reliant, and
independent citizens in a free state.
In this work the very men whose mistaken conception of a united Ireland
I have criticised will, I doubt not, take a leading part. In many
respects, and these not the least important, no one could desire a
better instrument for the achievement of great reforms than the Irish
party. They are far beyond any similar group of English members in
rhetorical skill and quickness of intelligence and decision, qualities
which no doubt belong to the mechanism rather than the soul of politics,
but which the practical worker in public life will not despise. But even
when tried by a higher standard the Irish members need not fear the
judgment of history. They have often, in my opinion, misconceived the
true interests of their country, but they have been faithful to those
interests as they understood them, and have proved themselves notably
superior to sordid personal aims. These gifts and virtues are not
common, but still rarer is it to see such gifts and virtues cursed with
the doom of futility. The influence of the Irish political leaders has
neither advanced the nation's march through the wilderness nor taught
the people how they are to dispense with manna from above when they
reach the Promised Land. With all their brilliancy, they have thrown but
little helpful light on any Irish problem. In this want of political and
economic foresight Irish Nationalist politicians, with some exceptions
whom it would be invidious to name, have fallen lamentably short of what
might be expected of Irish intellect. For the eight years during which I
represented an Irish constituency I always felt that an Irish night in
the House of Commons was one of the strangest and most pathetic of
spectacles. There were the veterans of the Irish party hardened by a
hundred fights, ranging from Venezuela to the Soudan in search of
battlefields, making allies of every kind of foreign potentate, from
President Cleveland to the Mahdi, from Mr. Kruger to the Akhoom of Swat,
but looking with suspicion on every symptom of an independent national
movement in Ireland; masters of the language of hate and scorn, yet
mocked by inevitable and eternal failure; winners of victories that turn
to dust and ashes; devoted to their country, yet, from ignorance of the
real source of its malady, ever widening the gaping wound through which
its life-blood flows. While I recall these scenes, there rises before my
mind the picture vividly drawn by Miss Lawless of their prototypes, the
'Wild Geese,' who carried their swords into foreign service after the
final defeat of the Stuarts:--
War-battered dogs are we,
Fighters in every clime,
Fillers of trench and of grave,
Mockers, bemocked by Time;
War-dogs, hungry and grey,
Gnawing a naked bone,
Fighting in every clime
Every cause but our own.[15]
Irishmen have been long in realising that the days of the 'Wild Geese'
are over, and that there are battles for Ireland to be fought and won in
Ireland--battles in which England is not the enemy she was in the days
of Fontenoy, but a friend and helper. But there will be little gain in
replacing the traditional conception of England as the inexorable foe by
the more modern conception, which threatened to become traditional in
its turn, of England as the source of all prosperity and her favour as
the condition of all progress in Ireland. In the recent Land Conference
I recognise something more valuable even than the financial and
legislative results which flowed from it, for it showed that the
conception of reliance upon Irishmen in Ireland, not under some future
and problematical conditions, but here and now, for the solution of
Irish questions, is gaining ground among us. If this conception once
takes firm hold, as I think it is beginning to do, of the Nationalist
party in Ireland, much of the criticism of this chapter will lose its
meaning. The mere substitution of a positive Irish policy for a negative
anti-English policy will elevate the whole range of Nationalist
political activity in and out of Ireland. And I am certain that if the
ultimate goal of Nationalist politics be desirable, and continue to be
desired, it will not be rendered more difficult, but on the contrary
very much easier of attainment if those who seek it take possession of
the great field of work which, without waiting for any concessions from
Westminster, is offered by the Ireland of to-day.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] This view of the case was powerfully stated by the deputation from
the Belfast Chamber of Commerce which waited on Mr. Gladstone in the
spring of 1893. They pointed out _inter alia_ that the members of the
deputation were poorer by thousands of pounds owing to the fall in Irish
stocks consequent upon the introduction of the Home Rule Bill in that
year.
[12] The term 'Scotch-Irish' does not mean an amalgam of Scotch and
Irish, but a race of Scottish immigrants who settled in north-east
Ireland. I may point out that in these criticisms of Irish-American
politics I refer, of course, mainly to the Irish-born immigrants and not
to the Irish, Scotch-Irish or other, who are American-born. Nobody can
have a higher appreciation than I of the great part played by the
American-Irish once they have assimilated the full spirit of American
institutions.
[13] _Poems of Egan O'Rahilly._ Edited, with translation, by the Rev.
P.S. Dinneen, M.A., for the Irish Texts Society, p. 11. O'Rahilly's
charge against Cromwell is that he "gave plenty to the man with the
flail," but beggared the great lords, p. 167.
[14] _Prose Writings of Thomas Davis_, p. 284. 'The writers of _The
Nation_,' wrote Davis in another place, 'have never concealed the
defects or flattered the good qualities of their countrymen. They have
told them in good faith that they wanted many an attribute of a free
people, _and that the true way to command happiness and liberty was by
learning the arts and practising the culture that fitted men for their
enjoyment'_ (p. 176). The thing that especially distinguished Davis
among Nationalist politicians was the essentially constructive mind
which he brought to bear on Irish questions, as illustrated in the
passage I have italicised. It is, I am afraid, the part of his legacy of
thought which has been least regarded by his admirers.
[15] _With the Wild Geese_. Poems by the Hon. Emily Lawless. I have
never read a better portrayal of the historic Irish sentiment than is
set forth in this little volume. By the way, there is a preface by Mr.
Stopford Brooke, which is singularly interesting and informing.