party which walked in the old political ways was the Parliamentary Party.
They expected confidently that political conventions would finally be
observed or that Parliament would deal effectively with those who tried to
break them. It was becoming plain, however, as time went on that the
conventions were not going to be regarded and that Parliament was as
likely as not to acquiesce in the breach of them. And the Party was not
aware of the change that was slowly passing over Ireland. A long tenure of
their place among the great personages and amid the high doings of
Westminster seemed to have made them somewhat oblivious of the fact that
Irish politics are made in Ireland. They did not feel the thrill of
chastened pride that shivered gently through Ireland when the quiet places
of Ulster echoed to the march of the Ulster Volunteers. They did not know
how many Irishmen regarded the action of Ulster not as a menace to the
dignity of the Parliament in which the Party sat but as the harbinger of
national independence. They underrated (as who then did not?) the
influence of Sinn Fein; they regarded the foundation of the Irish
Volunteers as the work of "irresponsible young men," though the "young
men" were nearer the heart of Young Ireland: like O'Connell, they "stood
for Old Ireland and had some notion that Old Ireland would stand by them."
Ireland, though no one guessed it at the time, was the crucible in which
were slowly melting and settling down all the elements that were to go to
the making of the future Sinn Fein.
Sinn Fein was at the time to all outward seeming an insignificant and
discredited party with an impossible programme. It still published a
small weekly paper with no great circulation. It did not agree with the
parliamentarians: it had a standing feud with the Labour Party: it gave a
dignified and pontifical blessing to the Volunteers without committing
itself to their whole programme. Its only electioneering venture, outside
municipal politics, had been a disastrous failure: it had won a few seats
on the Dublin City Council: it had tried and failed to run a daily paper.
When all Nationalist Ireland was waiting for Home Rule it declared Home
Rule to be a thing of naught. To the buoyant confidence of the
Parliamentary Party it opposed a cynical distrust of their aims and
methods, a constant incredulity of their ultimate success. When the Party
pointed to what it had done and to what it was about to do Sinn Fein
reminded the country that the very existence of a Parliamentary Party was
an acknowledgment of the Act of Union. When the Liberal Government was
engaged in an embittered and apparently final struggle for supremacy with
the Tory Party in the interests of Ireland, Sinn Fein professed entire
disbelief in its sincerity; it asserted that the Liberals really loved the
Tories very much better than they loved the Irish. With a querulous and
monotonous insistence it preached distrust of all English parties and even
of the English nation, towards whom it displayed a hostility that seemed
almost to amount to a monomania. To Irish Labour this indiscriminating
attitude seemed insensate bigotry: to the Irish people as a whole it
seemed incomprehensible that a Nationalist Party should regard the
Liberals as enemies and the Ulster Volunteers as brothers in arms. Sinn
Fein never seemed less certain of a future in Ireland than when events
were preparing to make Ireland Sinn Fein.
Early in 1914 _Sinn Fein_ saw in the King's Speech at the opening of
Parliament indications that the Cabinet and the Opposition had arranged "a
deal" over Home Rule and foretold an attempt at compromise. The next month
the Prime Minister proposed the partition of Ireland between the Unionists
and the Nationalists and the Irish Party accepted the proposal as a
temporary device to ease the parliamentary situation for the Cabinet. No
proposal better calculated to offend the deepest instincts of Irish
nationalism could have been made: no concession more fatal to the party
which agreed to it could have been devised. The mention of it provoked an
outburst in Ireland which did more to smash the Parliamentary Party and
leave the field open to their rivals than anything which had happened
since Home Rule was first mooted. The criticisms passed upon it by the
non-Parliamentary Nationalists were important, not so much on account of
the quarters they came from, as for the grounds on which they were made,
and their words awakened deeper feelings than had come to the surface for
years. "To even discuss," said _Sinn Fein_, "the exclusion of Ulster or
any portion of Ulster from a Home Rule measure is in itself traitorous.
When God made this country, He fixed its frontiers beyond the power of
man to alter while the sea rises and falls.... So long as England is
strong and Ireland is weak, England may continue to oppress this country,
but she shall not dismember it." "If this nation is to go down," wrote
_Irish Freedom_, "let it go down gallantly as becomes its history, let it
go down fighting, but let it not sink into the abjectness of carving a
slice out of itself and handing it over to England.... As for Ulster,
Ulster is Ireland's and shall remain Ireland's. Though the Irish nation in
its political and corporate capacity were gall and wormwood to every
Unionist in Ulster yet shall they swallow it. We will fight them if they
want fighting: but we shall never let them go, never." Sinn Fein and the
Republicans were no more emphatic than the Labour Party. James Connolly in
the _Irish Worker_ said of Partition: "To it Labour should give the
bitterest opposition, against it Labour in Ulster should fight even to the
death if necessary as our fathers fought before us." It even used the
menace of partition as an argument in favour of joining the Citizen Army
and urged that Volunteers should transfer their membership to a body which
"meant business." "The Citizen Army," said an article signed with the
initials of one of its principal organizers, "stands for Ireland--Orange
and Green--one and indivisible. The men who tread the valleys and places
Cuchullain, Conall Cearnach, Russell and McCracken trod are bone of our
bone and flesh of our flesh. Because they may have a different creed does
not matter to us; it never mattered to the Government: an Irish Protestant
corpse dangled as often at the end of a rope as did the corpse of an Irish
Catholic."
But Sinn Fein saw that, though partition was unacceptable, it was no use
continually asking the Ulstermen to name the safeguards they wanted. They
would not name what they did not want: no safeguards would secure them in
a democratic modern community against their chief objection to Home
Rule--that in an Irish Parliament Protestants, as such, would be in "a
permanent minority." It was of the very nature of things that they should
be, if representative institutions were to be recognized at all. But
though in a minority they need not be, as they asserted they would be,
subject to disabilities, and Sinn Fein held that every offer to allay
their fears compatible with free institutions should be made. A Sinn Fein
Convention held in Dublin towards the end of April, 1914, agreed to make
the Ulstermen, on behalf of Sinn Fein, the following proposals: (1),
increased representation in the Irish Parliament on the basis partly of
population, partly of rateable value and partly of bulk of trade, the
Ulster representation to be increased by fifteen members including one for
the University of Belfast: two members to be given to the Unionist
constituency of Rathmines; (2), to fix all Ireland as the unit for the
election of the Senate or Upper House and to secure representation to the
Southern Unionist minority by Proportional Representation; (3), to
guarantee that no tax should be imposed on the linen trade without the
consent of a majority of the Ulster representatives; (4), that the
Chairman of the Joint Exchequer Board should always be chosen by the
Ulster Representatives; (5), that all posts in the Civil Service should be
filled by examination; (6), that the Ulster Volunteer Force should be
retained under its present leaders as portion of an Irish Volunteer Force
and should not, except in case of invasion, be called upon to serve
outside Ulster; (7), that the Irish Parliament should sit alternately in
Dublin and in Belfast; (8), that the clauses in the Home Rule Bill
restricting Irish trade and finance and prohibiting Ireland from
collecting and receiving its own taxes, or otherwise conflicting with any
of the above proposals, should be amended. These proposals, the most
statesmanlike and generous proposals put forward on the Nationalist side,
were, though approved of generally by the Belfast Trades Council,
contemptuously ignored by the Ulster leaders.
The offer of partition likewise was promptly rejected by Ulster: like the
Irish Citizen Army they "meant business." They meant to smash Home Rule
for good and all, for the South as well as for the North of Ireland, and
in conjunction with the English Tories they felt strong enough to do it.
They began openly to tamper with the allegiance of the army. Nor were
their efforts without success. Not only did large numbers of ex-officers
offer their services to the Ulster Volunteers, but many officers upon the
active list announced their intention of refusing to obey orders if
despatched to preserve order in Ulster and forestall the intention,
broadly hinted, of some of the Ulstermen to seize military depots in the
province. It was an open boast in Belfast that the ship conveying the arms
from Hamburg to Ulster had been sighted, but allowed to pass unchallenged
by officers of the Royal Navy on the ships detailed to intercept it. They
seemed deliberately to have adopted the policy of Catiline, _ruina
exstinguere incendium_, "to put out the fire by pulling down the house."
If the Protestant interest were to go down in Ireland, then should the
British Constitution which had fostered it go down with it.
All this was, of course, matter for unfeigned delight to all the
"advanced" people both in Ireland and outside of it. If officers were to
have the option of obeying orders or not at their will why should a like
latitude be denied the common soldier? If officers refused to act against
Ulster why should a private be required to fire upon strikers? Thanks were
publicly returned by _Irish Freedom_ to "the gallant British officers who
have helped their beloved Empire on to the brink above the precipice." But
so far as England was concerned, the crisis was tided over by the usual
method of compromise. There had been a "misunderstanding" for which both
sides were more or less responsible. There had been no actual intention of
employing force in a political dispute and therefore the question in
debate did not arise. The Minister of War was dismissed on a side issue,
the Premier assumed his responsibilities and everybody was more or less
satisfied, except the Irish.
Whatever were the rights or wrongs of the dispute between the Army and the
Government, it was plain that the dispute had been composed at the expense
of Home Rule. Partition in some form or other was now certain to accompany
Home Rule, if Home Rule were not actually shelved. The Irish Party were
solemnly warned by the advanced Nationalist papers. "Mr. Redmond has had
his chance," wrote one of these. "When partition is again mentioned, let
him stand aside even at the cost of the 'Home Rule' Bill. There is a force
and a spirit growing in Ireland which in the wrangle of British politics
he but vaguely realizes."
But Mr. Redmond was not so preoccupied with "the wrangle of British
politics" as he seemed. He realized quite clearly that the Irish
Volunteers were growing in numbers and in influence and that neither their
object nor their existence was compatible with the principles of Home
Rule. They proclaimed their intention of putting themselves eventually at
the disposal of the Irish Parliament: but the Bill contemplated a
Parliament which should have no right to accept their services. They were
largely controlled by men who thought little of Home Rule and everything
of the "rights of Irishmen," which might mean just what the Liberal
Government proposed to give but might also mean a great deal more. They
were a menace to the success of the parliamentary policy, and it seemed to
be his plain duty to suppress or to control them. To attempt suppression
would be dangerous: to control them seemed not impossible. He decided to
demand the right to nominate on their committee twenty-five "tried and
true" Nationalists whose allegiance to his policy was unquestioned. The
committee, faced by the alternative of either declaring war on Mr. Redmond
(a course as dangerous to them as to declare war on them would have been
to him) or of submitting to his demand, decided to submit. The twenty-five
new members (four of whom were priests and the majority of the remainder
Dublin Nationalists) joined the Committee and the Irish "military crisis"
seemed to have been solved. In reality it was only beginning. The Citizen
Army promptly declared war upon the reconstituted Volunteer Committee. "Is
there," asked _The Irish Worker_, "one reliable man at the head of the
National Volunteer movement apart from Casement who, we believe, is in
earnest and honest?... We admit the bulk of the rank and file are men of
principle and men who are out for liberty for all men: but why allow the
foulest growth that ever cursed this land (the Hibernian Board of Erin) to
control an organization that might if properly handled accomplish great
things." It accused the committee of having passed the Volunteers over to
a "gang of placehunters and political thugs" and called upon the rank and
file to sever all connection with them: "Our fathers died that we might be
free men. Are we going to allow their sacrifices to be as naught? Or are
we going to follow in their footsteps at the Rising of the Moon?" The
Citizen Army was gradually coming round to a standpoint more and more
national, and saw in the control of the Volunteers by the Parliamentarians
nothing but disaster to its idea of what nationalism involved. _Sinn Fein_
was equally vehement: "Redmond is only a tool," it wrote, "in the hands of
Asquith and Birrell who wish to destroy the Volunteers as Lord Northington
was a tool in the hands of Fox, to whom he wrote in 1783: 'They have got
too powerful, and there is nothing for us but for our friends to go into
their meetings and disturb the harmony of them and create division.'" When
Mr. Redmond appealed to America for money to "strengthen" the Volunteers
it pointed out that if he had been in earnest he would have asked not for
money but for arms, and would have had the Arms Proclamation withdrawn by
the Government. It printed a series of letters to the Volunteers, of which
the first contained the words: "The object [_i.e._ of the Volunteers] is
obtaining and maintaining the independence of Ireland. Those who are in
earnest should have their own committee, independent of Redmond and Co."
_Irish Freedom_ headed its leader on the transaction "The Kiss of Judas,"
and declared that "after the British Government the Irish Parliamentary
Party in its later years has been the most evil force in Ireland."
The original members of the Volunteer Committee were clearly uneasy and
tried to put the best face they could upon the matter. In their official
organ; _The Irish Volunteer_, they informed the public "The control of the
committee by Mr. John Redmond does not matter, provided his nominees
represent the feelings of the Volunteers: if they do the Irish Party will
see to the withdrawing of the Arms Proclamation and proceed to arm the
Volunteers at once." But the Irish Party did neither; and if Mr. Redmond
was expected to share the feelings of the Volunteers, the Volunteers
cannot have shared the feelings of the committee. A month before this the
_Irish Volunteer_ had printed the following: "For over a generation
Ireland has taken her national views from men whose whole lives were bound
up with the preservation of the peace. Suddenly, in a day, in an hour, the
whole situation has undergone a change. Force has reappeared as a factor
in Irish political life.... It is to be hoped that men are not joining the
national army from any motives but those which actuated the founders. The
object of the Volunteers is to maintain and preserve the rights and
liberties common to the whole people of Ireland. There is no question of
preserving merely the 'legal' rights graciously permitted us by a foreign
power." If the original committee seriously expected Mr. Redmond and his
nominees to acquiesce in the views expressed in the last sentence they
must have been simple to a degree. They were admittedly in a difficult
position; but they knew what they meant and they knew what Mr. Redmond
meant; and the sequel might have been foreseen.
It was put upon record later by a member of the committee that in the task
of arming the Volunteers the new members gave little effective assistance,
and that when arms were obtained they tried to have them taken from the
men who had paid for them and handed over _gratis_ to the Hibernians of
the North to use (without, it is true, a supply of ammunition) to overawe
the aggression of the Ulster Volunteers. But the members of the original
committee procured arms upon their own responsibility. In July they
succeeded in imitating the exploit of the Ulstermen at Larne. They ran a
cargo of rifles into Howth and another was landed at Kilcool. But the
forces of the Crown, absent at Larne and inactive in Ulster ever since,
displayed their unsuccessful vigour at Howth. The Volunteers were
intercepted on the way back, but after a scuffle succeeded in getting away
with their guns. The soldiers on the return journey fired upon a provoking
but unarmed crowd in the streets of Dublin. The country had barely time to
appreciate the contrast between Larne and Howth, when the sound of the
German guns in Belgium broke upon its ears.
SINN FEIN, 1914-1916.
John Mitchel had prophesied that "in the event of a European war a strong
national party could grasp the occasion" in Ireland, and Mitchel held too
high a place in the estimation of Irish Nationalists for his words to have
been forgotten or ignored. When Saurin (who, though an Orangeman and a
Tory and, after the Union, one of the law officers of the Crown in
Ireland, opposed the policy of Castlereagh) uttered his famous dictum on
the validity of the Act of Union, he provided Irish Nationalism with one
of its most authoritative maxims: "You may make the Union binding as a
law, but you cannot make it obligatory in conscience: it will be obeyed as
long as England is strong, but resistance to it will be in the abstract a
duty and the exhibition of that resistance will be a mere question of
prudence." Irish Separatists did not always find it prudent to speak with
the precision of the future Attorney-General: but the principle which he
laid down was always understood to be one of which they acknowledged the
validity. It had been repeated in language less classical, but equally
emphatic, by Parnell and Mr. Redmond; but the occasion to put into
practice the prudence of which Saurin spoke had either never come or never
been seized. But that it would come some day and in an unquestionable
shape was a maxim of the Separatists. The increasing signs of antagonism
between England and Germany had not since the beginning of the century
escaped watchful eyes in Ireland. In the year 1900 _The United Irishman_
in discussing German diplomacy had referred to the alliance between Irish
and Germans in the United States which (it added) "is such a welcome
feature of contemporary politics." When, two years before the war, Mr.
Churchill had referred in guarded language to the necessity to England of
a "loyal Ireland" in the near future, _Sinn Fein_ commented as follows on
his words: "We have, for instance, no illusion whatever on the subject of
Germany. If Germany victorious over England comes to Ireland, Germany will
come to stay and rule the Atlantic from our shores. She will give us
better terms than England offers. She will give us that Home Rule which
all the States of the German Empire enjoy.... We have no doubt whatever
that Ireland under German rule would be more prosperous than she has ever
been under the rule of England.... The fact would not induce us to love
Germany or to fight for a mere change of masters. But as a matter of
bargaining we can say to Mr. Churchill, when he offers us a bogus Home
Rule for aiding British policy against Germany, that Ireland would get
better terms from a successful Germany if she withheld that aid." This was
the language of a journal which voiced the opinions of a party definitely
committed against an Irish policy of force: the Republican Party, not so
committed used words less nebulous and guarded. In 1911 _Irish Freedom_,
printed a letter from John Devoy of New York, a prominent Irish-American
and ex-Fenian, pointing out that a German war was coming in the near
future, that England would need conscription before it was over, and that
Ireland must fight either for England or against her. A month or so later
an editorial returned to the point: "Wolfe Tone, though he appealed to
France for aid, did not ask Irishmen to sit idly by; and the arguments
Tone advanced with considerable success to induce France to aid in
establishing an Irish Republic can be applied to-day in the case of
Germany." Later in the year an article entitled "When Germany fights
England" discussed the policy of Ireland, having first stipulated for her
complete independence, throwing her weight on the side of Germany in a
war. Germany, it was thought, might play the same part as Tone had hoped
that France would play in 1798--might release Ireland from English
domination and then declare her absolute independence. No doubt seems to
have been entertained that such a policy would be acceptable to Germany;
for in Germany the Separatists saw, not an ambitious empire grasping at
world power, so much as a brave and efficient people trying to burst the
bonds with which English policy, and English intrigue had surrounded them.
Sinn Fein had taken its official economic policy from the German List, and
pointed to its success in establishing German industry upon a sure
footing (in spite of the industrial rivalry of England) as an augury for
Irish success and as a model for Irish effort. Germany was looked upon as
the one European nation at once bold enough and strong enough to challenge
English supremacy and vitally interested in challenging it effectively.
For, with Ireland in the possession of England, the key to the Atlantic
was in English hands: if Ireland were independent then the key would go to
whatever hands framed the most favourable alliance with Ireland.
But whatever the wisdom or the folly of such expectations, there is no
doubt that the Separatists looked to Germany not to annex but to free
Ireland. They did not desire that Germany should take Ireland from
England; but that Germany should declare Ireland to be an independent
sovereign State. Nothing less than this could have satisfied their
aspirations. For Germany to have offered less would not have secured their
assistance; if Germany had annexed Ireland they would have welcomed a
deliverer from Germany as eagerly as a deliverer was looked for them from
the domination of England.
But in the actual circumstances that accompanied the outbreak of war in
1914 there was no disposition to take sides with Germany on the merits, or
to stake everything upon the success of an understanding with Germany. It
is true that the official statement of the English case for the
declaration of war was received with a certain degree of quiet scepticism.
The commercial rivalry of the two empires, the prophecies of a coming war
that had been openly made for years, the _Entente Cordiale_ with the
French Republic, of the real meaning of which France at least made no
secret, had been too well known and had been too openly and too long
canvassed for the violation of Belgian neutrality by Germany to receive
the importance which was attributed to it or to be regarded as much more
than a blunder adroitly utilized. There was not so much sympathy with
Germany as a want of sympathy with England: there was not so much a lack
of sympathy with Belgium as a distrust of the appeals which were
insistently made to that feeling.