about two measures of Irish reform, long agitated and overdue, but
neglected until the events of '65 and '67 brought home to a disdainful
Parliament the realities of the abuses and of the feelings which their
continuance had aroused. The Irish Church Act and Mr. Gladstone's first
Land Bill were due to the Fenians. They were not formally concessions to
Fenianism, as the Fenians were concerned first of all to establish a
Republic and then to decide upon reforms for themselves; the Government
merely supposed that by mending two intolerable abuses they could cut the
ground from under the revolutionary movement. This policy could be only
partially successful: but it succeeded so far that for a period of thirty
years there was no Irish party that openly and consistently proclaimed its
adhesion to the doctrine of complete separation.
The Home Rule policy put forward by Isaac Butt in 1870 fell far short even
of O'Connell's Repeal. Its object was to set up, not an independent, but
a strictly subordinate, Parliament in Dublin: the effect of this proposal
(whatever its authors may have intended) would have been to consolidate
the Union by removing opportunities of friction and of discontent. But
even the appearance of a reversal of the policy of the Union was
distasteful to Parliament; and the Irish members exhausted themselves in
providing an annual exhibition of eloquence and passion for the
delectation of a languid or tolerant audience. The pathetic and
humiliating performance was ended by the appearance of Charles Stewart
Parnell who infused into the forms of Parliamentary action the sacred fury
of battle. He determined that Ireland, refused the right of managing her
own destinies, should at least hamper the English in the government of
their own house: he struck at the dignity of Parliament and wounded the
susceptibilities of Englishmen by his assault upon the institution of
which they are most justly proud. His policy of parliamentary obstruction
went hand in hand with an advanced land agitation at home. The remnant of
the Fenian Party rallied to his cause and suspended for the time, in his
interests and in furtherance of his policy, their revolutionary
activities. For Parnell appealed to them by his honest declaration of his
intentions: he made it plain both to Ireland and to the Irish in America
that his policy was no mere attempt at a readjustment of details in
Anglo-Irish relations but the first step on the road to national
independence. He was strong enough both to announce his ultimate
intentions and to define with precision the limit which must be placed
upon the immediate measures to be taken. During the years in which he was
at the head of the National Movement practically all sections of
Nationalists acknowledged his leadership and his policy. If he was not
able to control all the extreme elements that grouped themselves under his
banner it was no more than might have been expected. Neither he nor the
Irish Republican Brotherhood was responsible for the murders perpetrated
by the Invincibles, who had no connection or sympathy with the Fenian
policy; but their excesses were used, and used with effect, to damage not
only Parnell's position but the claims of Ireland. It was he himself who
gave to his enemies in the end the only fatal weapon which they could use
against him: but the prompt use of it by his own party was a portentous
event in Irish politics. For the first time the Irish people not alone
conformed to the exigencies of an alliance with an English party, but
allowed that party to veto their choice of a leader. Parnell himself had
once said "As the air of London would eat away the stone walls of the
House of Commons, so would the atmosphere of the House eat away the honour
and honesty of the Irish members." Certainly the tortuous ways of party
politics had destroyed their loyalty, and though a small band proved
faithful to him in spite of the Liberal veto, the majority came to a
decision, practically dictated by the Irish hierarchy and acquiesced in
(even if reluctantly) by a majority of his countrymen, to terminate his
position as leader. But, though this betrayal seemed to have destroyed the
cause for which he had fought, it may be questioned whether it was really
more than a symptom of the inherent weakness of his position. The utmost
he could gain in the direction of Home Rule, the utmost anyone could have
gained under the limitations which he himself imposed upon his policy,
fell markedly short of the minimum which a majority of his followers
thought attainable at once and of what he himself announced to be the
ultimate object of his policy. He is remembered, not as the leader who
helped to force a Liberal Government to produce two Home Rule Bills, but
as the leader who said "No man can set bounds to the march of a nation."
The death of Parnell marks the end of an epoch. A strong, romantic and
mysterious personality, he won and kept the affections of the Irish people
in a way which had been possible to few leaders before him and which none
has attained since. The history of Irish politics for years after his
death was a story largely of small intrigue, base personalities, divided
counsels and despairing expedients; and the policy which eventually
emerged, for which Mr. John Redmond was responsible, was widely removed
from that of Parnell. The policy to which Mr. Redmond's adhesion was given
was that of a Home Rule which might be described as "Home Rule within the
Union," a Home Rule which in return for a local legislature and internal
control, resigned to the Imperial Parliament all claim to the right to a
foreign policy and to all that would raise Ireland above the level of an
inferior dependency. It is true that Parnell would have obtained little
more than this, if he had lived; but he would have obtained it in a
different way and would have accepted the concession with a gesture of
independence. Post-Parnellite Home Rule has been based largely upon the
ground that a better understanding between the two countries is desirable
in the interests of both; that government in Ireland is less efficient,
more costly, less appreciated than it would be if it were administered by
the people of Ireland themselves, with a due regard to the interests and
general policy of the Empire; its justification is found in the success of
the self-governing colonies who, thanks to being responsible for their own
affairs, are contented, prosperous and loyal partners in an Imperial
Commonwealth. All this is true, but it is a truth that would have carried
no meaning to the mind of Parnell. To him the British Empire was an
abstraction in which Ireland had no spiritual concern; it formed part of
the order of the material world in which Ireland found a place; it had,
like the climatic conditions of Europe, or the Gulf Stream, a real and
preponderating influence on the destinies of Ireland. But the Irish claim
was to him the claim of a nation to its inherent rights, not the claim of
a portion of an empire to its share in the benefits which the constitution
of that empire bestowed upon its more favoured parts. For some years
after Parnell's death the leaders of the Irish Parliamentary Party felt
obliged to maintain the continuity of tradition by using the language of
the claim for independence and to speak of "severing the last link" which
bound Ireland to England; but even in America and Ireland such expressions
were heard less and less often from official Nationalists. The final
attitude of the Irish Parliamentary Party is admirably summed up in the
words of Mr. John Redmond: "Our demand for Home Rule does not mean that we
want to break with the British Empire. We are entirely loyal to the Empire
as such and we desire to strengthen the Imperial bonds through a liberal
system of government. We do not demand such complete local autonomy as the
British self-governing colonies possess, for we are willing to forego the
right to make our own tariffs and are prepared to abide by any fiscal
system enacted by the British Parliament.... Once we receive Home Rule we
shall demonstrate our imperial loyalty beyond question."
Ten years before these words were used the Sinn Fein movement had begun,
as a protest against the conception of national rights which made such
language possible, as the latest form which the assertion of national
independence has assumed.
SINN FEIN.
Of the origin of this name as the title of a political party a pleasant
tale is told. It is said that some people, convinced that (in the words of
Davis) "the freeman's friend is Self-Reliance," and wishing to make it the
basis of a national movement, being anxious for a suitable Irish name for
such an idea, applied to a famous Irish scholar to furnish it. He told
them a story of a country servant in Munster sent with a horse to the
fair. The horse was sold and the servant after some days appeared in his
master's kitchen, worn out but happy, and seated himself on the floor. To
the enquiries of some neighbours who happened to be there, as to where he
had been and what he had done, he would give no answer but "Sinn fein sinn
fein." The prodigal servant's witty reply eludes the translator. To his
hearers it conveyed that family matters were matters for the family: but
it was no mere evasion of a temporary or personal difficulty. It was the
expression of a universal truth. Society is divided into groups, large or
small, which have their own problems and their own interests. Their
problems they can best solve themselves, and of their interests they are
themselves the best judges. The solutions and the judgments will not
always commend themselves to outsiders; but though outsiders cannot be
denied the right to hold and to express their opinions they have no
rights of veto or of interference. This right of independence, however, is
subject in practice to serious limitations, and the history of human
society is largely the history of the reconciliation of the competing
interests and claims of social groups, each claiming to be in the last
resort rightfully independent. One of such groups is the nation, and it is
generally recognized that nations as such have rights analogous to those
exercised by other social groups. They may be forcibly deprived by another
and stronger group of rights the exercise of which seems to the stronger
to be inimical to its own interests; or rights may be surrendered in
return for what may be judged to be a fair equivalent. But it is not held
that rights can be extinguished by force or that, if a suitable
opportunity should occur, they may not be regained either by force or by
agreement. These things are generally acknowledged in the abstract; but in
concrete instances there is seldom an equal unanimity: and a nation whose
rights are in abeyance (especially if it be in the interest of a stronger
neighbour to prevent their exercise) is in a position which seldom admits
of a simple or harmonious solution. Ideally it has a right to complete
independence: practically it has to be content with as much independence
as it can make good; and the methods which it may employ are various,
always open to challenge and compassed by uncertainty.
A nation may maintain its moral and spiritual, long after it has
forfeited its material and political, independence. To such a nation the
more valuable part of its independence has been preserved. But it is
hardly possible in the long run for a nation which has become materially
and politically dependent upon another to retain its moral and spiritual
independence unimpaired. The loss of the latter is the final stage in
national decline.
To the founders of Sinn Fein, a national condition was presented to which
no other remedy than their own seemed to offer the prospect of relief. All
previous efforts to recover the political independence lost by the Act of
Union had ended in disaster and disappointment. Force had been tried and
proved unavailing: the experiences of '48 and '67 had left little doubt
upon the minds of reasonable men that the attempt to regain Irish
independence by force of arms was (however heroic) an impossible and
foolish attempt. "We believe" (wrote the chief exponent of Sinn Fein)
"with the editor of the _Irish World_ that the four-and-a-quarter millions
of unarmed people in Ireland would be no match in the field for the
British Empire. If we did not believe so, as firmly as we believe the
eighty Irishmen in the British House of Commons are no match for the six
hundred Britishers opposed to them, our proper residence would be a padded
cell." But if force of arms had proved useless, so had constitutional
agitation. There was no argument of public justice, public expediency or
public generosity which had not been urged without effect upon
Parliament. Irish members had been arguing against the Union for a hundred
years: there was no point of view from which the case could be presented
that had been overlooked. When Parliament seemed to listen and to be
prepared to act it was found not to have heard the arguments for
independence but arguments for a different kind of a Union. The belief
that nothing was to be expected from Parliamentary action received later a
striking confirmation: for when the Irish demand was whittled down to a
bare minimum and all claim to independence expressly renounced, a pretext
was found in the exigencies of English political relationships for
refusing even that.
Not only had political independence gone beyond the chance of recovery by
either force or argument but material independence had followed it. The
trade, commerce and industries of Ireland which had flourished during its
brief period of independence had dwindled since the Union and from causes
for which the Union was directly responsible. The "equitable proportion"
of Imperial taxation to which the taxes of Ireland had been restricted by
the terms of the Act of Union had proved to be inequitable, so that
Ireland was overtaxed to the extent of two-and-three-quarter millions of
pounds per annum: new taxes in defiance of the Act had been imposed:
Ireland, again in defiance of the Act, had been made jointly responsible
for a debt which was not her own: Irish banks and Irish railways were
managed not with reference to Irish interests but in the interests of
English finance and English trade: the Irish mercantile marine was no
more: the mineral resources of the country in coal and iron remained
undeveloped lest their development might act unfavourably upon vested
interests in Great Britain. The population had declined at a rate without
parallel in Europe: even Ulster, proclaimed to be prosperous because
Protestant and Unionist, had seen the population of its most "loyal"
counties almost halved in the space of seventy years. Nothing but the
removal of the cause could arrest this spreading decay, and the cause was
declared to be irremovable: to tamper with it was to lay an impious hand
upon the Ark of a grim Covenant.
But the last refuge of independence was still safe--resolve was still
strong--no weakness of acquiescence, no dimness of spirit, no decay of the
soul was as yet to be discerned. An answer to these questions might be
found in the history of the language and of what the possession of a
native language implied. Up to the time of the Union the Gaelic language
had preserved intact, in spite of Penal Laws and the instruments of
repression, all that was most vital in the national spirit. Tales of
warriors and heroes, of the long wars of the Gael with the stranger, the
sighs of love and the aspirations of devotion, satire and encomium, all
the literature and song of a people were enshrined in the native tongue.
Behind it, as behind an unassailable rampart, the national culture was
preserved, in misery and degradation, it is true, the mere shadow of what
it was and might be, but still its existence was secure. The Irish
language was understood all over Ireland, and was the familiar tongue of
three-quarters of its inhabitants. It was not a necessary consequence of
the Union itself that this should be destroyed, but it was a necessary
consequence of the measures which the Act of Union made it possible to
take. The English Government decided to embark upon the task of
"civilizing" the inhabitants of Ireland by a comprehensive system of
practical education. In 1831 the "National" Education system was founded
and before the century was old its work was done: it had "educated"
Ireland out of its traditional civilization and culture. The authors and
administrators of this system were sincere and well-intentioned men: they
believed that they were removing a disability and conferring a benefit.
They regarded ignorance as barbarous and disgraceful; and what was
ignorance if it was not inability to write, read, and speak the English
tongue? A love of learning had always distinguished the Irish people; and
here was the learning, for which so many vain sacrifices had been made in
the past, brought in full measure to their very doors. Everything that
might induce suspicion of the Danai, _dona ferentes_, was carefully
avoided. The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin held a seat on the Board and no
book was sanctioned by the Board without his unreserved acquiescence. The
Catholic clergy were encouraged to take a share in the administration of
the schools and to supervise or impart the religious instruction of the
pupils. It was the avowed policy of the Board to avoid anything that might
savour of proselytism on the one hand and of the perpetuation of sectarian
discord on the other. Pupils of the two creeds were to meet together on
equal terms and in friendly rivalry in the classroom, while their
particular religious interests were entrusted to their respective clergy.
But this paternal care for the susceptibilities of Irish children, this
careful abhorrence of sectarian animosities, went hand in hand with an
elaborate disregard of every distinctive national feeling and
characteristic. English was the language of the school, while Irish was
the language of the fireside and of the street. Irish history was ignored:
references to national and patriotic sentiments were carefully excluded,
as a possible disturbing influence, from the approved text books: while
the privilege of being "British," and the duty of feeling it to be a
privilege, were carefully inculcated.
It may seem extraordinary that such a system should have been accepted,
even if the attempt to impose it were made. But in fact the bribe of
knowledge is a great bribe; and in this case the consequence of taking it
was in obscurity. To learn English was to possess the only key to the
knowledge that was offered, and when English was learnt, the language of
"progress" crushed the language of tradition. A few far-seeing Irishmen,
like Archbishop MacHale, saw the inevitable tendency and endeavoured to
correct it; but in general no one noticed that the Irish language was
going until everyone noticed that it had gone. Men's minds were set upon
other things. The struggle for political independence and political and
social equality absorbed energy and attention, and the political struggle
had to be carried on by men who understood English. O'Connell's election
for the county of Clare struck a deadly blow at the preservation of the
language and at all that the preservation of the language implied: he
himself, with a miserable servility, refused to speak any tongue but the
tongue of Parliament. The National Board of Education did not, it is true,
escape criticism: but the criticism was directed not to its educational
shortcomings or to its anti-national bias, but to its policy of "religious
indifference." The Presbyterian ministers were up in arms against a system
by which "the Gospel" was excluded from the schools. They claimed the
right to conduct the schools supported by the Board in defiance of the
terms upon which the Board had promised to support them. They contended
for the principle of a programme in which the reading of the Bible might
at any moment without notice be substituted by a Presbyterian teacher for
any item on the programme for the day, any Catholic children who happened
to be in attendance being allowed to withdraw, the responsibility for the
child's spiritual loss being solemnly laid upon the shoulders of the
parents. The Protestant clergy, who were supposed as part of their duty to
keep schools in their parishes, though they had neglected the duty for
generations, followed with similar claims. They stirred up their
congregations until mobs took to wrecking the National Schools in counties
like Antrim and Down, and rifle clubs were formed under the patronage of
the local aristocracy for the defence of their threatened Bibles. Under
the Ultramontane leadership of Cardinal Cullen the Catholic clergy adopted
a similar attitude. They alleged that the National system was hostile to
their faith. Whatever danger to the faith had been contained in it had at
any rate escaped the vigilance of Archbishop Murray and the authorities
whom he had consulted. But the spirit of religious animosity once let
loose could not be chained; and the system which began by promoting the
co-education of the two creeds, ended by a segregating of the population
from infancy into hostile camps. This accomplished the end which was
designed by nobody but reached by everybody, that of breaking down the
feeling of national unity and perpetuating feelings which it had been the
aim of patriots to obliterate.