One of the first queries put to a Briton by an American after the pair
have achieved a certain degree of intimacy, is: "Why can't you people
settle the Irish Question?"
The form of the query varies in intensity. Earnest well-wishers say: "I
don't profess to understand the ins and outs of the matter, but wouldn't
it save a deal of trouble all round if you were to _give_ them Home Rule
and have done with it?" Candid friends say, quite simply: "If you
English can't run Ireland yourselves, why not let the Irish have a
try?" (Here again we may note that England, not Great Britain, gets the
blame.) Finally, a well-meaning but ferocious lady wrote to me the other
day from the Middle West, to enquire: "How does England dare to pose as
the champion of Belgium, when all the while she is grinding poor Ireland
under her heel?"
All this is very illuminating, and at the same time distressing, to the
stay-at-home Briton, who had always imagined that his domestic troubles
were his own property, and were not causing concern to other people. But
it is an undoubted fact, and cannot be too strongly impressed upon the
English people, that the failure of Great Britain to settle the
so-called Irish Question is a distinct bar to a complete entente
cordiale with America, and, to a certain extent, with the British
Dominions overseas.
But before plunging more deeply into the matter, let us make one thing
clear. It is not from want of effort or from lack of good will on the
part of the English people that the Irish problem still remains
unsolved.
This is not, thank Heaven! a disquisition upon the pros and cons of the
Home Rule Question. Home Rule is coming quite soon, anyway. But it is
permissible to set down here, briefly, the reasons why the English
people have so steadily declined to accede to Ireland's persistent
demand for a separate Parliament for so many years.
The first rock upon which both sides split is the difficulty of
determining what, exactly, is meant by "Home Rule."
When a responsible leader of the Irish Nationalist party states his case
to an audience which is friendly without being bigoted--in Canada, say,
or at a meeting of moderate English Liberals--he clothes his appeal in
some such words as these:
"All we ask is the right, as a little nation, to conduct our affairs in
our own way, without interference from the officials of another and more
powerful nation. Ireland free, and Ireland a nation, can then take her
proper place as a loyal daughter of the Empire, side by side with Canada
and Australia."
Well, nothing could sound more reasonable or unexceptionable than that.
But two comments present themselves. In the first place, you will note
that the orator says "We." "We" means the Nationalist Party,
representing about seventy per cent.--possibly more--of the Irish
nation, and ignores the existence of the minority--a minority which,
before the War, had deliberately and openly declared its intention, and
was fully prepared, to fight and die rather than be forced out of the
Union. Such a determination was doubtless very indefensible, but there
it stands. It is recorded here as one of the trifling factors which
prevent the Irish Question from being settled out of hand by the mere
wave of some amateur magician's wand. Secondly, it implies that Ireland
is not free. Now here is a statement that can be refuted at once.
Ireland is just as free as England and Scotland and Wales. In one
respect her freedom is very much greater, for she is heavily
over-represented in the House of Commons. An Irish member, returned by a
remote Galway fishing village of fifteen hundred voters, can balance the
vote, say, of an English member representing a great working-class
constituency of forty or fifty thousand. If a redistribution of seats,
on a basis of proportional representation, were to be ordered in the
House of Commons to-day, Ireland would automatically lose about thirty
seats. The Irish members, then, wield a power in the councils of the
United Kingdom to-day quite out of proportion to the population of the
country which they represent.
In another respect Ireland enjoys a freedom not vouchsafed to the
nations of the sister isle. In the dim and distant days before the War,
Mr. Lloyd George was engaged in a campaign of what his friends called
Social Reform, and his victims Rank Piracy. One of his most unpopular
flights of legislation was the Land Valuation Act, and another was his
National Insurance scheme. Neither of these acts has ever been visited
upon Ireland, for the simple reason that the Irish people refused to
entertain them at any price; so the oppressed English, as usual, gave
way, and paid the piper alone. Again, last year, when the Military
Service Act, imposing conscription upon every able-bodied man between
nineteen and forty-one, became law, Ireland was once more exempted. To
the black shame and grief of every true Irishman, Ireland to-day stands
officially aloof and alone in the struggle for liberty and humanity. The
thousands of her gallant sons who are fighting in the trenches alongside
their English and Scottish and Ulster comrades find difficulty in
filling up the gaps in their ranks, because certain of their brothers
prefer to stay at home--to make political bargains, or to engage in the
profitable task of supplying the demands of depleted Great Britain for
ablebodied labour.
So much, then, for the little flaws underlying the responsible
Nationalist's earnest appeal. But a greater shock to the sentimental
supporter of Home Rule, as such, comes when he is confronted with this
same modest proposal translated into the actual terms of an Act of
Parliament. The Home Rule Act, the storm-centre of the summer of
1914--so severe was the storm that it quite dispelled the fears of
Germany lest Great Britain should step in and interfere with the great
_coup_ planned for August--contained the following provisions; and
these provisions were the irreducible minimum which the Nationalist
Party (who held the balance of power in the House) were prepared to
accept:
(1) A Parliament to be established in Dublin.
(2) Ireland to be exempt from Imperial taxation. Great Britain was to
pay for the entire upkeep of the Army and Navy, but to continue to pay
the Irish Old Age Pensions, together with an annual subsidy to Ireland.
In other words, England and Scotland were to find the money, and The
Irish Executive were to spend it. The sum involved, including both
direct payments and remissions of taxation, amounted to an annual free
gift of about thirty-five million dollars.
(3) About forty Irish members were to be retained in the House of
Commons.
There were many other clauses, but these three will suffice to show the
difference between a Home Ruler indulging in sentimental aspirations and
the same gentleman engaged in the transaction of business. The second
clause might have passed muster; for the Englishman, with all his
faults, has never been niggardly. But Clause Three broke the camel's
back.
To the average Englishman the one redeeming feature of Home Rule was the
prospect it offered of getting rid, once and for all, of the Irish
members from Westminster. The gentle intimation that forty of these
would still remain, to assist in the counsels of England and Scotland,
and incidentally to glean such further pickings for Ireland as could be
secured by the help of forty skilfully manipulated votes, was too much
even for the much-enduring Englishman. The worm turned, and the storm
broke. It is difficult to understand why such an astute leader as Mr.
Redmond should have insisted upon such a condition; for it automatically
destroyed the claim upon which he based his plea for the sympathy of the
United States and the Dominions--namely, the plea that Ireland should be
permitted to govern herself after the fashion of Canada and Australia,
neither interfering with or being interfered with by the Parliament at
Westminster.
Further into the political merits of the case we need not go. As already
stated, the purpose of this disquisition is not to prove a case for or
against Home Rule, but to point out to friends whose knowledge of the
subject has been derived almost entirely from the perfervid orations of
imaginative gentlemen with Irish surnames and (too often) German
salaries, who have abandoned their beloved land for the more sympathetic
and lucrative atmosphere of New York--firstly, that England during the
past fifty years has stopped at nothing, short of the disintegration of
the United Kingdom, to remove and assuage the ancient grievance of
Ireland; and secondly, that the chief bar to a complete and speedy
settlement of the affair is, and always has been, the inability of a
lovable but irresponsible people to agree amongst themselves as to what
they really want.
The task of redressing wrongs has not been confined to one Party. Fifty
years ago the Church of England was the Established Church of
Ireland--an obvious injustice to a people of whom the great majority
were Catholics. Therefore the Church of England in Ireland was
disestablished, by a Liberal Government under Mr. Gladstone. Again, for
generations the cry had gone up from Ireland that Irish land was owned
by great landlords of English descent, who spent most of their time in
London, and confined their energies as lords of the manor to evicting
such of their tenants as could not or would not pay their rent. This was
obviously a very wrong state of affairs, and fifteen years ago a
Unionist Government set out to put it right. Parliament passed George
Wyndham's Land Purchase Act, the object of which was to enable the
tenant-farmers of Ireland to _buy_ their farms from the landlords. The
tenant was invited to state the sum which he could afford to pay for his
farm, and the landlord was invited to state the sum which he was
prepared to accept. This was indeed a gorgeous opportunity for both
tenant and landlord. The two amounts, having been stated, were adjusted
and confirmed by a Board, and the intervening gap--no small gap, as may
be imagined--was bridged by the English taxpayer. This little experiment
in philanthropy cost the tyrannical English considerably more than five
hundred million dollars. Under its provisions every Irish peasant is now
his own proprietor. Evictions are a thing of the past. Yet how often is
this fact so much as admitted by soulful exploiters of Erin's wrongs in
America or the Dominions?
Then, as regards Ireland's inability to express her desires with a
single voice. Roughly, Irish political parties fall under the following
heads:
(1) The official Nationalist Party, under Mr. John Redmond.
(2) The Protestants of the North.
(3) The Unionists of the South and West.
(4) The frankly revolutionary party (Sinn Feinn, Clan-na-Gael, etc.),
whose "platform" is absolute separation from England and the British
Empire.
The official Nationalist Party is divided into many groups, but at its
best it represents the true soul of Ireland--the soul of a
high-spirited, imaginative, and intensely quick-witted people--fiercely
impatient of the stolid, matter-of-fact, self-complacent race across the
Irish Sea. In this respect Ireland resembles a "temperamental" wife
married to an intensely respectable but unexciting husband. She wants to
"live her own life." The Irish character again, ever prone to dream and
brood, prevents Ireland from forgetting her ancient wrongs. Heaven knows
they were grievous enough; but they were probably no worse than those of
Scotland; and if they had been regarded as hers were by Scotland, they
need have left no permanent mark. Edward the First, "The Hammer of the
Scots," wrought no less havoc in the days of Wallace than Essex and Sir
John Perrot in the time of Elizabeth. Ireland has her Ormonde, and that
grim forerunner of Democracy, Oliver Cromwell. Scotland can point, with
an equal degree of unhappy satisfaction, to Claverhouse and the Butcher
Cumberland. But the phlegmatic Scot has avenged these outrages in subtle
fashion. He does not brood; he simply migrates to England in the
capacity of a peaceful trader, and proceeds to spoil the Egyptians at
his leisure. Ireland, differently constituted, refuses to forget. And it
is those two overwhelming forces--undying resentment, and impatience of
the control of an intellectually inferior though mentally more stable
race--that lie at the root of the Irish Home Rule agitation of to-day.
"Leave us to ourselves!" cry the Nationalists. "We don't _want_ to be
brought up-to-date! We don't _want_ to be made business-like and
efficient! We don't _want_ scientific farming, or state-aided
incubators, or sanitary milk cans. We are not interested in the glorious
British Empire. We only ask to be left alone with our own beloved,
witty, unmethodical country, to manage or mismanage as we please!" And
it is that sentiment which has underlain the steady, consistent
resistance of the official Nationalist Party to all attempts on the part
of England--some of them very admirable attempts--to improve the
condition of Ireland. Their attitude is perfectly logical. Such
legislation, if successful, would prevent the coming of Home Rule. And
most of the bitterness and sorrow of the last thirty years has arisen
from the inability--perhaps natural--of the average matter-of-fact
Englishman to appreciate that attitude of mind.
"We offer you," he says, "a fair and equal share--the same as our
own--in the running of the greatest Empire that the world has ever seen.
For goodness sake what more do you want?" And back, without fail, comes
the unvarying cry--so heartfelt, so tragic, yet in many ways so
unsubstantial:--
"Ireland a Nation! Ireland Free!"
And if only Ireland could have formulated her appeal in a spirit more in
accordance with that genuine _cri du coeur_, and less in the spirit of
the extremely materialistic Home Rule Bill of 1914, there is little
doubt that she would have had her wish long ago.
Then Ulster. The men of Ulster differ entirely from the other elements
of Irish political society in knowing exactly what they want.
"We belong," they announce, "to the Union; we are proud of the Union;
and we shall resist, to the death if need be, any attempts to force us
out of it."
That is all there is to be said about Ulster. But the brevity of
Ulster's contribution to the controversy does not simplify the solution
in any way.
Here is a curious footnote to the Ulster problem. Americans will
remember that in the early summer of 1914 certain British Regiments
(unconscious of the very different task which awaited them in August)
were instructed to hold themselves in readiness to enforce the Home Rule
Act on Ulster. A number of the officers of those regiments resigned
their commissions rather than fight against their own kin. They were
much criticised at the time. But in 1776, when the British Army was
mobilized against the American Colonies, a number of British officers
resigned their commissions, too (and incidentally sacrificed their
careers), rather than fight against their own flesh and blood across the
sea. Thus does History repeat herself.
Then the Unionists of the West and South. Their sentiments are the
sentiments of Ulster, but their position is very different. Though
numerically quite strong, they are scattered over a wide area. They
cannot, like centralized Ulster, act on "interior lines"; and it is
probable that when a definite form of Home Rule crystallizes out of the
present turmoil, it will be found that their interests have been
sacrificed by the mutual consent of the stronger factions.
Lastly, that curious medley of brooding visionaries--ever the prey of
the agitator--political place-hunters, subsidised pro-Germans, and
ordinary cut-throats, which calls itself Sinn Feinn. This interesting
organization is actuated by a variety of sentiments, varying from a
passionate remembrance of woes long past down to a sound business
instinct for the loaves and fishes of salaried office. The tie which
binds together all its incongruous elements is a fierce hatred of
England, derived possibly from the remembrance that rather more than two
centuries ago Oliver Cromwell sacked the fair city of Drogheda, or in
certain individual cases from a lively personal recollection of having
been committed to gaol for three months by a tyrannical magistrate for
the trifling indiscretion of burglary or theft.
Whatever its motives or ideals, this party has only one panacea for all
ills, and that is complete separation from "England." They aspire to
none of the status of Canada or the other Dominions; they are out for
secession, pure and simple--secession accompanied, if possible, by a
mortal blow at the hated pride of England. In order to put their amiable
intention into effect, the Sinn Feinners proceeded, on Easter Monday of
1916, to deal the British peoples, including some three hundred thousand
of their own compatriots serving on the Western Front, a stab in the
back in the shape of that grim medley of tragedy and farce, the Dublin
"revolution." The farce was supplied by Germany, which deposited upon
the western shores of Ireland, from a submarine, a degenerate criminal
lunatic named Casement, who had already failed egregiously in a
monstrous effort to seduce the Irish prisoners in the German prison
camps from allegiance to their cause. Casement was promptly arrested by
the local village policeman, and his share in the matter ended. But in
Dublin there was no lack of tragedy. The forces of the "revolution"
struck the first blow for Freedom by an indiscriminate massacre of such
British soldiers as happened to be strolling about the streets, unarmed,
in their "walking out" dress. The killing was then extended to a large
number of innocent civilians, not all of the male sex; and the apostles
of Freedom then settled down, with the able assistance of the slum
population, to the unrestrained looting of the shops and houses of
Dublin.
Naturally the whole of Ireland stood aghast at the crime. Denunciations
of the murderers poured in from every side, irrespective of political
creed. The leader of the Nationalist Party publicly repudiated and
condemned the occurrence in the House of Commons. Never did England and
Ireland stand so close together as on that day. But one thing was
morally certain from the start, and that was that when the first flush
of indignation had died down, the old pernicious sentimentality and
political animus would raise their heads again. And it was so. The
"revolution" was crushed. Some twelve or fifteen executions took place,
either of men who had been directly convicted of deliberate murder, or
of those who had set their names to the outrageous document which
authorized the same. It is difficult, considering the circumstances, to
see how a conscientious tribunal could have done less, for to have
condoned such a blend of black treachery and plain murder would rightly
have been construed as an act of weakness. But it is even more
difficult--nay, impossible--to conceive any handling of the situation
out of which persons interested would have refrained from making
political capital. The Oppressed English were booked for trouble, both
"going and coming."
Probably it would have been best to have held a series of drumhead
courts-martial, followed by instantaneous executions, wherever
necessary, while public opinion was not merely prepared but anxious for
such. But that is not the English way. Each prisoner was accorded a
full, conscientious, and lengthy trial. What was worse, the trials were
held _seriatim_; with the result that by the time the last man had been
condemned or acquitted, Irish public opinion, ever volatile, had veered
round to an attitude of sympathy with the frustrated conspirators. The
opportunity to denounce "English justice" was too strong. The fact that
scores of innocent people had been foully murdered by the
"revolutionists" was forgotten. As might have been anticipated from the
start, the odium for the whole tragic occurrence, both the crime and
the punishment, was laid by popular acclamation upon the shoulders of
England. To-day, particularly in the United States, industrious
propagandists are busily engaged in extolling the virtues of the
departed criminals; and no tale seems too improbable, no accusation too
fantastic, for those whose profession it is to disseminate them.
One case in particular has gained unnecessary notoriety in the United
States. An unfortunate man named Skeffington, a harmless visionary,
instead of following the counsels of common sense and staying at home,
wandered forth into the streets of Dublin during the height of the
rioting. Here he was arrested by an English officer who, with a party
of troops, was engaged in clearing the streets. This officer had
recently returned from the Western Front on sick leave. Utterly unstrung
by the appalling sights which confronted him, he appears to have
suddenly lost his mental balance. At the end of the day he visited the
barracks where his prisoners were confined, selected Skeffington and two
others, and ordered their execution. The sentence was carried out. In
due course the matter was reported to the authorities; a searching
inquiry was held; and the afflicted officer was confined in an insane
asylum. Such are the facts of the wretched occurrence; the wonder is,
not that it should have happened, but that, in all the turmoil and
agony of that hellish night in Dublin, it should only have happened
once. But it is easy to imagine the form in which the story is being
presented in the United States. Poor Skeffington is now canonised as a
man who died for freedom with his back against a wall; while his widow
is, or was, touring the chief cities of America, where she is being
exploited by astute politicians (with Teutonic axes to grind) as a
victim of the tyrannical "English" Government.