been requested to give a pledge that, if released, they would cease to
engage in political propaganda objectionable to the Government. This they
had stoutly refused to do, and they had been released at last without
conditions. Apparently it was supposed that the operation of martial law
and the promises of the new Government would exercise a moderating
influence: but martial law was only a standing challenge, and the
sincerity of the Government was no longer believed in. If it had been even
moderately sincere it might have rallied to the side of compromise those
large numbers of men who in every country have an instinctive dread of new
and untried policies and leaders. But it was soon plain that a Prime
Minister pledged to everybody was pledged to nobody.
By the middle of February, 1917, the Sinn Fein leaders were at work again.
_Nationality_ reappeared as a weekly paper. It appealed no longer to a few
enthusiasts but to a wide public eager to learn more of the only movement
which promised anything definite. Before the Rising Sinn Fein had seemed
to aim at the impossible by means beyond the powers of average human
nature: it did not seem possible that any large body of Irishmen should
try to secure independence by the hard path of Sinn Fein, when there was a
prospect of something (to all outward appearance) nearly as good to be
gained by recording a vote for the right man at elections. It was now
plain to the average Nationalist that the parliamentary prospect held no
promise: that the Irish Parliamentary Party were no longer listened to,
and that the sworn enemies of Irish nationality were in the seats of power
both in Ireland and in England. Mr. Redmond, confronted alternately in
England by the iron insolence of the Tories and the smiling sinuosities of
the Prime Minister, manned his guns to the last: but he had no longer the
support of the country. The country was beginning to rally to the party
which alone seemed to be the party of fixed principles: which had another
standard by which to measure national rights than the temporary
possibilities, varying from month to month, offered by the difficulties
confronting English Ministers: the party which did not entreat but
demanded. Sinn Fein did not promise now any more than in the days of its
obscurity that national freedom could be won by the anaemic struggles of
the division lobbies in the House: it warned its followers that the way
would be long and steep, that to shun the steep places was to miss the
track, and that the path did not cross the water. It had said this before,
but it said it now to ears ready to receive it. If men had died for
Ireland (men asked) facing the old enemy, what lesser sacrifice could be
called too great? A wave of enthusiasm which no appeal to policy or
prudence could withstand swept over the country when the new campaign
began.
_Nationality_ with a tenacity of purpose that nothing seemed able to
disturb began its new series with the old lesson, the decay of Ireland
under the Union. As if there had been no Rising, no imprisonments, no
threats of summary repression, the doctrine was again proclaimed with
deadly deliberation that the Union had destroyed and was destroying the
prosperity of Ireland even in those districts which clung to it with most
affection. The population of Antrim, Armagh, Derry and Down was steadily
declining under a system which the inhabitants declared essential to their
continued existence. It asserted the right of Ireland to prevent food
being exported from the country to feed strangers while the country that
supplied it was left to starve, and proposed the formation of a Watch
Committee for every seaport in the country. The very first number
contained a statement of the policy of an appeal no longer to a Government
pledged to disregard it, but to the Peace Conference which must be
summoned on the conclusion of the war. The advertisement of the Irish
Nation League, a body independent of Sinn Fein, already showed how far
Sinn Fein principles had spread in Ireland. "The Irish Nation League
claims the right of Ireland to recognition as a Sovereign State. It
asserts too and claims Ireland's right to representation at any
International Peace Conference. It offers determined and resolute
resistance to any attempt to enforce Conscription.... It calls on the
Irish people to rely on themselves alone.... Members elected under the
auspices of the Irish Nation League will remain under the control of its
Supreme Council and will only act at Westminster when the Council so
decides. Never again must power be placed in the hands of a parliamentary
party to mislead the country or to sacrifice opportunities." In March
_Nationality_ announced the formation of a National Council to support the
admission of Ireland to the Peace Conference and "to safeguard the general
interests of the nation." But though admission to the Peace Conference was
the political objective of Ireland for the moment it was not regarded as
its ultimate or only aim. The Peace Conference was an opportunity to be
made use of when circumstances brought it about, a precious and unique
opportunity, but Ireland's main and serious work was to develop her own
resources and her own powers of resistance. Accordingly, though Sinn Fein
declared repeatedly its intention of carrying the Irish case before the
Peace Conference, its main work was still to organize and consolidate
opposition to the two chief measures now openly proclaimed as in
contemplation, the partition of Ireland and the enforcement of
Conscription. Both these measures were in contradiction to the claim that
"the only satisfactory settlement of the Irish Question now is the
independence of Ireland." And it was not hard to show that the professed
objects of the war were incompatible with the policy of refusing
self-government to Ireland. "When England declared," wrote _Nationality_,
"that she entered this war with the object of asserting the freedom of
Small Nations the Lord delivered her into our hands."
There were not wanting signs that the Sinn Fein policy was rapidly
becoming the policy of a Nationalist Ireland. By the summer of 1917 at
least a dozen Irish newspapers were declared exponents of the Sinn Fein
policy. An election for North Roscommon in February had resulted in the
return of the Sinn Fein candidate by an overwhelming majority. The next
contested election was in May and was by common consent regarded as a test
election. It was a straight fight between the Parliamentary Party and Sinn
Fein. Each party put its full strength into the contest and Sinn Fein won;
the majority, it is true, was a small one but it was more useful than a
large one, for it was both an endorsement and an incentive. The
_Manchester Guardian_ frankly declared that the Sinn Fein victory under
the circumstances was equivalent to a serious defeat of the British Army
in the field.
The reply of the Government to the result of the North Roscommon election
had been the re-arrest and deportation of some of the released prisoners,
to whom a number of others, some of them prominent Gaelic Leaguers, were
added; the Chief Secretary defended this action by saying that he had
decided "although there can be no charge and although there can be no
trial" that it was better for these men to be out of Ireland than to be in
it. The Parliamentary Party, opposed upon principle to Sinn Fein, saw that
measures such as these meant its ultimate and complete triumph, but no
arguments could move the determination of the Government to rely upon
force. They seemed to feel that force was the only weapon that was left
them and that they might as well use it at once; while Sinn Fein could
point to the employment of it as evidence of its own reiterated but
constantly challenged contention as to the real attitude of all English
Governments towards Ireland. And had the Prime Minister and his advisers,
whoever they may have been, deliberately set themselves to prove to
Ireland that they were not the wise representatives of an enlightened and
friendly democracy (which the Parliamentary Party had up to this
represented them to be) but the jealous and implacable guardians of a
subject and hated race (which Sinn Fein had always asserted that they
were) it is very doubtful whether they could have bettered their record in
a single detail. The Parliamentary Party, fighting for its life, with the
ground in Ireland slipping from under its feet, appealed pathetically to
its old services and old friendship, to the memory of the Irishmen who had
fallen in the war, to the opinion of moderate men, to prudence and
justice; it could not deflect by one hair's breadth the course chosen by
the Cabinet. The fact seems to be that the Tory members who had always
hated the Parliamentary Party saw the chance of paying back old scores and
embraced it regardless of the consequences; while the Liberals, real and
so-called, thought the Parliamentary Party's influence was waning in
Ireland, and threw them over without remorse: they had got as much out of
them as was to be got, and for the rest they might shift for themselves.
It was very difficult to believe that (as the Prime Minister said) the
"dominant consideration was the war" and that preoccupation with it was
the reason for his refusal to attend to the Irish problem. Everybody knew
that Ministers, when they were interested, found time for many other
things than the prosecution of the war. What was done and what was not
done, and the reasons given both for action and for inaction, only served
to deepen the impression of the insincerity of the Cabinet.
Almost simultaneously the Parliamentary Party and Sinn Fein resolved upon
an appeal from the English Ministry and the English Parliament to bodies
that might be presumed to be less partial. The Irish Party withdrew from
Parliament and sent a Manifesto to the United States (now on the verge of
its declaration of war) and the self-governing Dominions. Sinn Fein
summoned a Convention to meet in Dublin to assert the independence of
Ireland, its status as a nation, and its right to representation at the
Peace Conference. This was the first, but it was not to be the only,
occasion upon, which the policy of the Parliamentary Party was moulded,
against its will, by the pressure of facts, into a tacit acknowledgment of
the justice of the Sinn Fein contention, that parliamentary action was
useless. The only difference was that while Sinn Fein held that it always
was and always would be useless, English policy being what it always had
been, the Parliamentary Party held that the Cabinet had by its action
since the Rising destroyed the efficacy of the normally useful and
legitimate means of reform.
The effect of this joint appeal from the Cabinet to the impartial opinion
of English-speaking countries and belligerent nations was to induce the
Prime Minister to bring forward "proposals" for the settlement of the
question. He proposed the exclusion of six counties of Ulster from the
Home Rule Act, if and when it became operative, the exclusion to be
subject to reconsideration after five years; the immediate establishment
of an Irish Council (in which the excluded counties were to have the same
number of delegates as all the rest of Ireland put together) to legislate
for Ireland during the war; and a reconsideration of the financial clauses
of the Act. Failing the acceptance of this solution, the Prime Minister
saw nothing for it but to summon a representative body of Irishmen to
suggest the best means of governing their own country.
The Prime Minister's proposals, whether the product of his own or of some
equally ingenious but equally uninformed brain, were promptly rejected by
everybody: his concluding suggestion was, after some delay, judged worthy
of a trial, the Ulster party stipulating expressly for freedom to refuse
to submit to any findings of the Convention with which it did not choose
to agree. They were practically informed by the Leader of the House of
Commons that their dissent was incompatible with "the substantial
agreement" which alone would justify the Government in giving effect to
the findings of the Convention.
To claim that the setting up of the Convention was a sincere attempt to
solve the problem of Irish Government is to make a demand upon faith which
it might be noble, but would certainly be extremely difficult, to grant.
The incorporation in the letter by which the Prime Minister suggested it
of an official proposal of heads of a settlement could serve no other
purpose than to indicate that a particular solution had found favour with
the proposer in advance: and to allow the Ulster Party the right of veto
was to perpetuate and sanction the attitude which everybody in the Three
Kingdoms knew to be the very obstacle which the Convention was blandly
invited to surmount. It says much for the general desire of Ireland for
peace and settlement that the outcome of the Convention (compassed by
secrecy which it was declared a criminal offence to violate while it sat)
was awaited generally with an anxious and almost pathetic expectation.
Sinn Fein promptly refused to take any part in the proceedings. It had
been formally invited to do so, but as five places only were assigned to
it, a number far below that to which its actual strength in the country
was known to entitle it, it was not intended that it should have very much
weight in the conclusions. Besides, the only solution which it was known
to favour, the independence of Ireland, was the only solution which it was
not possible for the Convention by the terms of its reference to suggest.
In a leader, declining on behalf of the Sinn Fein Party to participate in
the proceedings, _Nationality_ said, "Ignoring the Convention which is
called into being only to distract Ireland from the objective now before
her, to confuse her thought, and to permit England to misrepresent her
character and her claims to Europe, Sinn Fein summons Ireland to
concentrate her mind and energy on preparation for the Peace Conference,
where, citing the pledges given to the world by Russia, the United States,
and England's Allies, it will invoke that tribunal to judge between our
country and her oppressor and claim that the verdict which has restored
Poland to independent nationhood shall also be registered for Ireland."
The Executive of Sinn Fein also formally and unanimously declined to enter
the Convention unless (1) the terms of reference left it free to decree
the complete independence of Ireland; (2) the English Government publicly
pledged itself to the United States and the Powers of Europe to ratify the
decision of the majority of the Convention; (3) the Convention consisted
of none but persons freely elected by adult suffrage in Ireland; (4) the
treatment of prisoners of war was accorded to Irish political prisoners in
English prisons.
Of these proposals the first would have been rejected by the Government,
the second by the Ulster Party, and the third by the Parliamentary Party,
which by this time was aware that such a method of choosing
representatives would leave it almost without representation. The
Government to "create an atmosphere" not merely accepted but improved on
the fourth condition: the political prisoners were released
unconditionally. It is significant of the way in which "atmospheres" are
created in Ireland that though the prisoners were released unconditionally
on June 17th, a meeting held in Dublin to demand their release, on June
10th, was prohibited by Proclamation, and an attempt to hold it ended in a
riot in which a policeman was killed.
While the Convention was preparing to perform the duties which were to end
in nothing, Sinn Fein was engaged in the task of rallying the country to
its side. The death of Major Willie Redmond had created a vacancy in East
Clare: the Parliamentary Party had selected its candidate to succeed him:
but in little over a month after the release of the prisoners Mr. de
Valera, who had been sentenced to penal servitude for his share in the
Rising, was elected by an overwhelming majority. The leader "To the Men of
Clare" in which, the week before the election, _Nationality_ recommended
him to the electors, was suppressed by the Censor. During the same month
another vacancy occurred by the death of the member for Kilkenny City, and
as a preliminary to the election the authorities suppressed the _Kilkenny
People_, the editor of which was chairman of the convention called to
select a Sinn Fein candidate, who was promptly returned. Some idea of the
appeals which Sinn Fein was making to the electors may be gathered from
the leader "To the Electors, Traders and Taxpayers of Kilkenny," in which
_Nationality_ urged the return of its candidate. It began with a quotation
from a memorandum addressed in 1799 to Mr. Pitt by Under-Secretary Cooke,
"The Union is the only means of preventing Ireland from becoming too great
and too powerful," and by a quotation from another memorandum to the same
statesman, "By giving the Irish a hundred members in an assembly of six
hundred and fifty they will be impotent to operate upon that assembly, but
it will be invested with Irish assent to its authority." Figures were
given of the value of the trade between Great Britain and a number of
countries in 1914, the trade with Ireland being nearly as valuable as that
with the United States, twice that with France and nearly twice that with
Germany. It went on: "It will be seen that with the exception of the
United States, England has no customer nearly as big as Ireland....
England has had the market to herself for generations; Sinn Fein proposes
that England should not continue to monopolise that market longer. Ireland
has L150,000,000 worth of trade to do with the world each year,
L135,000,000 of which is restricted to England. In return for part of that
trade the other countries of Europe would gladly give Ireland facilities
in their markets and Ireland would compel England to pay competitive
prices.... So long as Ireland sends members to the English Parliament and
relies upon that institution, England will plunder Ireland's revenues and
monopolise Ireland's trade at her own price."
Meanwhile the growing popularity of Sinn Fein was leading to a revival of
the Irish Volunteers. Drilling was resumed and, though frequent arrests
were made and the Government declared its intention at all costs of
putting it down, it became more and more popular. Irish Volunteers even
took possession of the streets of Dublin, in defiance of military orders,
and kept the line of the procession on the occasion of the funeral of
Thomas Ashe who had died as the result of forcible feeding and inattention
in Mountjoy Prison. Though Sinn Fein held itself distinct from the
Volunteer Organization it did not refuse to extend some indirect
assistance. It printed a letter of Mr. Devlin's, addressed from the House
of Commons in July, 1916, to a correspondent, which was "captured" and
read to a Convention of the National Volunteers in Dublin in August, 1917.
In the letter Mr. Devlin had discouraged the importation of arms into
Ireland for the National Volunteers, some of whom had assisted the troops
in keeping order during the week of the Rising. This was of course
intended to discredit Mr. Devlin in the eyes of the National Volunteers
whose continued allegiance to the Parliamentary Party was now open to
grave suspicion. In fact the prospect of their junction with the Irish
Volunteers, a highly significant indication of the trend of opinion,
decided the Government to disarm them. On the morning of the 15th August
every place in which the National Volunteers had stored their arms was
raided by the military. The only outcome of this action, combined with the
steady and obstinate refusal to seize the arms of the Ulster Volunteers
(the only political party in Ireland now left in possession of arms), was
to alienate any sympathy remaining for the Government in the ranks of the
National Volunteers. Had there been the least pretence of impartiality
shown it might have been otherwise: but to disarm all Nationalists of any
shade of national politics, while designedly and openly leaving the
Unionists armed to the teeth, was a proof, now indeed hardly necessary, of
the insincerity of official professions. The disarming of all sections of
Nationalists gave an excuse for the practice of raiding for arms which now
became common and often led to deplorable results. Innocent people were
killed, either designedly or by accident, and the blame for the murders
was laid upon the shoulders of Sinn Fein. When a return to the policy of
physical force seemed threatened some of the ecclesiastical authorities
took alarm, and issued warnings against breaches of the law of God and
resistance to constituted authority. Murder was of course never
countenanced by Sinn Fein: but as regards resistance to constituted
authority, there were two sides to the question and Sinn Fein was not at
all inclined to allow the ecclesiastical authorities to dictate its
policy. Cardinal Logue might declare that the Sinn Fein programme was
insane, but it was persisted in without regard to his opinion. Sinn Fein
was always jealous of ecclesiastical interference: it welcomed gladly the
co-operation of ecclesiastics as Irishmen, but it was determined to keep
its own policy in its own hands.
While the Government Convention was sitting behind closed doors Sinn Fein
decided to hold a Convention of its own, consisting of delegates freely
elected by Sinn Fein Clubs throughout the country, and to lay its
proceedings and conclusions before the country. The Convention met on
November 1 and unanimously elected Mr. de Valera as the President of Sinn
Fein, a position which Mr. Griffith had held for six years. The election
was significant: it meant on the one hand that Sinn Fein thus silently and
without any formal repudiation of its previous constitutional attitude
accepted the Republican programme: it meant on the other hand that the
party of the Rising now publicly and officially accepted the Sinn Fein
policy and programme as distinct from the policy of armed insurrection.
Mr. de Valera had already in a reply to the warnings of the bishops denied
that another Rising was in contemplation: he had also in a speech at
Bailieboro' (28th October, 1917), replied to the kindred charge of
pro-Germanism: "The Sinn Fein Party were said to be pro-Germans, but if
the Germans came to Ireland to hold it those who are now resisting English
power would be the first to resist the Germans." The Constitution adopted
by the Convention sets out at great length the policy and objects of Sinn
Fein: its solution of the constitutional problem is as follows: "Sinn Fein
aims at securing the international recognition of Ireland as an
independent Irish Republic. Having achieved that _status_ the Irish people
may by referendum freely choose their own form of government. This object
shall be attained through the Sinn Fein Organization which shall in the
name of the sovereign Irish People (a) deny the right and oppose the will
of the British Parliament or British Crown or any other foreign Government
to legislate for Ireland; (b) make use of any and every means available to
render impotent the power of England to hold Ireland in subjection by
military force or otherwise. And whereas no law made without the authority
and consent of the Irish people is, or ever can be, binding on the Irish
people, therefore in accordance with the resolution of Sinn Fein, adopted
in Convention, 1905, a Constituent Assembly shall be convoked, comprising
persons chosen by the Irish constituencies, as the supreme national
authority to speak and act in the name of the Irish people and to devise
and formulate measures for the welfare of the whole people of Ireland." It
will be noticed that the _status_ of an independent Republic is claimed
not because Republicanism is the ideal polity, but because such a status
will leave Ireland free to choose either that or any other form of
government; further that the new movement expressly links itself to the
Sinn Fein of pre-war days by a formal recognition of its identity with it
and by the express adoption of its methods; and lastly that the means by
which independence is to be achieved are defined as "any and every means
available," the party being pledged neither to nor against any particular
method.