TOWARDS LIGHT AND LEADING
Whilst the slow corruption of the Party had been going on in Ireland,
the cause of Home Rule had been going down to inevitable ruin. The
warnings on which Parnell founded his refusal to be expelled from the
leadership by dictation from England were more than justified in the
event. And later circumstances only too bitterly confirmed it, that
any blind dependence upon the Liberal Party was to be paid for in
disappointment, if not in positive betrayal of Irish interests. A Tory
Party had now come into power with a large majority, and the people
were treated alternately or concurrently to doses of coercion and
proposals initiated with the avowed object of killing Home Rule with
kindness. This had been the declared policy of Mr Arthur Balfour when
his attempt to inaugurate his uncle Lord Salisbury's policy of twenty
years of resolute government had failed, and when, with considerable
constructive foresight, he established the Congested Districts Board
in 1891 as a sort of opposition show--and not too unsuccessful at
that--to the Plan of Campaign and the Home Rule agitation.
With the developments that followed the Irish Party had practically no
connection. They were neither their authors nor instruments, though they
had the sublime audacity in a later generation to claim to be the
legitimate inheritors of all these accomplishments. Mr Dillon had now
arrived at the summit of his Parliamentary ambition--he was the leader
of "the majority" Party, but his success seemed to bring him no comfort,
and certainly discovered no golden vein of statesmanship in his
composition. The quarrels and recriminations of the three sectional
organisations--the National Federation of the Dillonites, the National
League of the Parnellites, and the People's Rights Association of the
Healyites--continued unabated. But beyond the capacity for vulgar abuse
they possessed none other. Parliamentarianism was dying on its legs and
constitutionalism appeared to have received its death-blow. The country
had lost all respect for its "Members," and young and old were sick
unto death of a movement which offered no immediate prospects of action
and no hope for the future. A generation of sceptics and scoffers was
being created, and even if the idealists, who are always to be found in
large number in Ireland, still remained unconquerable in their faith
that a resurgent and regenerated Ireland must arise some time, and
somehow, they were remarkably silent in the expression of their
convictions. Mr William O'Brien thus describes the unspeakable depths to
which the Party had fallen in those days:
"The invariable last word to all our consultations was the pathetic
one, 'Give me a fund and I see my way to doing anything.' And so we
had travelled drearily for years in the vicious circle that there
could be no creative energy in the Party without funds, and that there
could be no possibility for funds for a party thus ingloriously
inactive. Although myself removed from Parliament my aid had been
constantly invoked by Mr Dillon on the eve of any important meeting of
the Party in London, or of the Council of the National Federation in
Dublin, for there was not one of them that was not haunted by the
anticipation of some surprise from Mr Healy's fertile ingenuity. There
is an unutterable discomfort in the recollections of the invariable
course of procedure on these occasions--first, the dozens of
beseeching letters to be written to our friends, imploring their
attendance at meetings at which, if Mr Healy found us in full
strength, all was uneventful and they had an expensive journey for
their pains; next, the consultations far into the night preceding
every trial of strength; the painful ticking off, man by man, of the
friends, foes, and doubtfuls on the Party list, the careful collection
of information as to the latest frame of mind of this or that man of
the four or five waverers who might turn the scale; the resolution,
after endless debates, to take strong action to force the Party to a
manful choice at long last between Mr Dillon and his tormentors, and
to give somebody or anybody authority enough to effect something; and
then almost invariably the next day the discovery that all the labour
had been wasted and the strong action resolved upon had been dropped
in deference to some drivelling hesitation of some of the four or five
doubtfuls who had become _de facto_ the real leaders of the
Party."
I venture to say that a confession of more amazing impotency,
indecision and inefficiency it would be impossible to make. It brings
before the mind as nothing else could the utter degradation of a Party
which only a few brief years before was the terror of the British
Parliament and the pride of the Irish race.
One occasion there was between the Parnell Split and the subsequent
reunion in 1900 when the warring factions might have been induced to
compose their differences and to reform their ranks. A Convention of
the Irish Race was summoned in 1906 which was carefully organised and
which in its character and representative authority was in every way a
very unique and remarkable gathering. I attended it myself in my
journalistic capacity, and I was deeply impressed by the fact that
here was an assembly which might very well mark the opening of a fresh
epoch in Irish history, for there had come together for counsel and
deliberation men from the United States, Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, South Africa, Newfoundland, the Argentine, as well as from
all parts of Great Britain and Ireland--men who, by reason of their
eminence, public worth, sympathies and patriotism, were calculated to
give a new direction and an inspiring stimulus to the Irish Movement.
They were men lifted high above the passions and rivalries which had
wrought distraction and division amongst the people at home, and it
needs no great argument to show what a powerful and impartial tribunal
they might have been made into for the restoration of peace and the
re-establishment of a new order in Irish political affairs. But this
great opportunity was lost. The factions had not yet fought themselves
to a standstill. Mr Redmond and Mr Healy resisted the most pressing
entreaties of the American and Australian delegates to join the
Convention, and, beyond a series of laudable speeches and resolutions,
a Convention which might have been constituted the happy harbinger of
unity left no enduring mark on the life of the people or the fate of
parties.
When Mr Gerald Balfour became Chief Secretary for Ireland after the
Home Rule debacle of 1895 he determined to continue the policy,
inaugurated by his more famous brother, of appeasement by considerable
internal reforms, which have made his administration for ever
memorable. There have ever been in Irish life certain narrow coteries
of thought which believed that with every advance of prosperity
secured by the people, and every step taken by them in individual
independence, there would be a corresponding weakness in their desire
and demand for a full measure of national freedom. A more fatal or
foolish conviction there could not be. The whole history of nations
and peoples battling for the right is against it. The more a people
get upon their feet, the more they secure a grip upon themselves and
their inheritance, the more they are established in security and
well-being, the more earnestly, indefatigably and unalterably are they
determined to get all that is due to them. They will make every height
they attain a fortress from which to fight for the ultimate pinnacle
of their rights. The more prosperous they become, the better are they
able to demand that the complete parchments and title-deeds of their
liberty and independence shall be engrossed. Hence the broader-minded
type of Irish Nationalist saw nothing to fear from Mr Balfour's
attempts to improve the material condition of the people.
Unfortunately for his reputation, Mr Dillon always uniformly opposed
any proposals which were calculated to take the yoke of landlordism
from off the necks of the farmers. He seemed to think that a
settlement of the Land and National questions should go hand in hand,
for the reason that if the Land Question were once disposed of the
farmers would then settle down to a quiescent existence and have no
further interest in the national struggle.
Accordingly Mr Balfour's good intentions were fought and frustrated
from two opposing sources. His Land Act of 1906 and his Local
Government (Ireland) Act, 1898, were furiously opposed by the Irish
Unionists and the Dillonites alike. The Land Bill was by no means a
heroic measure, and made no serious effort to deal with the land
problem in a big or comprehensive fashion. The Local Government Bill,
on the other hand, was a most far-reaching measure, one of national
scope and importance, full of the most tremendous opportunities and
possibilities, and how any Irish leader in his senses could have been
so short-sighted as to oppose it will for ever remain one of the
mysteries of political life. This Bill broke for ever the back of
landlord power in Irish administration. It gave into the hands of the
people for the first time the absolute control of their own local
affairs. It enfranchised the workers in town and country, enabling
them to vote for the man of their choice at all local elections. It
put an end to the pernicious power of the landed gentry, who hitherto
raised the rates for all local services, dispersed patronage and were
guilty of many misdeeds and malversations, as well of being prolific
in every conceivable form of abuse which a rotten and corrupt system
could lend itself to. To this the Local Government Act of 1898 put a
violent and abrupt end. The Grand Juries and the Presentment Sessions
were abolished. Elected Councils took their place. The franchise was
extended to embrace every householder and even a considerable body of
women. It was the exit of "the garrison" and the entrance of the
people--the triumph of the democratic principle and the end of
aristocratic power in local life.
Next to the grant of Home Rule there could not be a more remarkable
concession to popular right and feeling. Yet Mr Dillon had to find
fault with it because its provisions, to use his own words, included
"blackmail to the landlords" and arranged for "a flagitious waste of
public funds"--the foundation on which these charges rested being
that, following an unvarying tradition, the Unionist Government bribed
the landlords into acceptance of the Bill by relieving them of half
their payment for Poor Rate, whilst it gave a corresponding relief of
half the County Dues to the tenants. He also ventured the prediction,
easily falsified in the results, that the tenants' portion of the rate
relief would be transferred to the landlords in the shape of increased
rents. As a matter of fact, the second term judicial rents,
subsequently fixed, were down by an average of 22 per cent.
Mr Redmond, wiser than Mr Dillon, saw that the Bill had magnificent
possibilities; he welcomed it, and he promised that the influence of
his friends and himself would be directed to obtain for the principles
it contained a fair and successful working. But, with a surprising
lack of political acumen, he likewise expressed his determination to
preserve in the new councils the presence and power of the landlord
and _ex-officio_ element. This was, in the circumstances, with
the Land Question unsettled and landlordism still an insidious power,
a rather gratuitous surrender to the privileged classes.
Before the Local Government Act was sent on its heaven-born mission of
national amelioration another considerable happening had taken place:
the Financial Relations Commission appointed to inquire into the
financial relations between Ireland and Great Britain having tendered
its report in 1896. Financial experts had long contended that Ireland
was grievously overtaxed, and that there could be no just dealing
between the two countries until the amount of this overtaxation was
accurately and scientifically ascertained and a proper balance drawn.
It was provided in the Act of Union that the two countries should
retain their separate budgets and should each remain charged with
their respective past debts, and a relative proportion of contribution
to Imperial expenses was fixed. But the British Parliament did not
long respect this provision. In 1817 it decreed a financial union
between the two countries, amalgamated their budgets and exchequers,
and ordered that henceforth all the receipts and expenditure of the
United Kingdom should be consolidated into one single fund, which was
henceforward to be known as the Consolidated Fund. It was not long
before we had cumulative examples of the truth of Dr Johnson's dictum
that England would unite with us only that she may rob us. Successive
English chancellors imposed additional burdens upon our poor and
impoverished country, until it was in truth almost taxed out of
existence. The weakest points in the Gladstonian Home Rule Bills were
admittedly those dealing with finance.
The publication of the report of the Financial Relations Commission,
which had been taking evidence for two years, created a formidable
outcry in Ireland. We had long protested against our taxes being
levied by an external power; now we knew also that we were being
robbed of very large amounts annually. The Joint Report of the
Commission, signed by eleven out of thirteen members, decided that the
Act of Union placed on the shoulders of Ireland a burden impossible
for her to bear; that the increase of taxation laid on her in the
middle of the nineteenth century could not be justified, and, finally,
that the existing taxable capacity of Ireland did not exceed
one-twentieth part of that of Great Britain (and was perhaps far
less), whereas Ireland paid in taxes one-eleventh of the amount paid
by Great Britain. Furthermore, the actual amount taken each year in
the shape of overtaxation was variously estimated to be between two
and three quarters and three millions. Instantly Ireland was up in
arms against this monstrous exaction. For a time the country was
roused from its torpor and anything seemed possible. All classes and
creeds were united in denouncing the flagrant theft of the nation's
substance by the predominant partner. By force and fraud the Act of
Union was passed: by force and fraud we were kept in a state of
beggary for well-nigh one hundred years and our poverty flaunted
abroad as proof of our idleness and incapacity. What wonder that we
felt ourselves outraged and wronged and bullied? Huge demonstrations
of protest were held in all parts of the country. These were attended
by men of all sects and of every political hue. Nationalist and
Unionist, landlord and tenant, Protestant and Catholic stood on the
same platform and vied with each other in denunciation of the common
robber. At Cork Lord Castletown recalled the Boston Tea riots. At
Limerick Lord Dunraven presided at a meeting which was addressed by
the Most Rev. Dr O'Dwyer, the Catholic bishop of the diocese, and by
Mr John Daly, a Fenian who had spent almost a lifetime in prison to
expiate his nationality.
There was a general forgetfulness of quarrels and differences whilst
this ferment of truly national indignation lasted. But the cohesive
materials were not sound enough to make it a lasting union of the
whole people. There were still class fights to be fought to their
appointed end, and so the agitation gradually filtered out, and
Ireland remains to-day still groaning under the intolerable burden of
overtaxation, not lessened, but enormously increased, by a war which
Ireland claims was none of her business.
The subsidence of the political fever from 1891 to 1898 was not
without its compensations in other directions. Ireland had time to
think of other things, to enter into a sort of spiritual retreat--to
wonder whether if, after all, politics were everything, whether the
exclusive pursuit of them did not mean that other vital factors in the
national life were forgotten, and whether the attainment of material
ambitions might not be purchased at too great a sacrifice--at the loss
of those spiritual and moral forces without which no nation can be
either great or good in the best sense. There was much to be done in
this direction. The iron of slavery had very nearly entered our souls.
Centuries of landlord oppression, of starvation, duplicity and
Anglicisation had very nearly destroyed whatever there was of moral
virtue and moral worth in our nature. The Irish language--our
distinctive badge of nationhood--had almost died upon the lips of the
people. The old Gaelic traditions and pastimes were fast fading away.
Had these gone we might, indeed, win Home Rule, but we would have lost
things immeasurably greater, for "not by bread alone doth man
live"--we would have lost that independence of the soul, that moral
grandeur, that intellectual distinction, that spiritual strength
without which all the charters of liberty which any foreign Parliament
could confer would be only so many "scraps of paper," assuring us it
may be of fine clothes and well-filled stomachs and self-satisfied
minds, but conferring none of those glories whose shining illumines
the dark ways of life and leads us towards that light which surpasseth
all understanding.
Thanks to the workings of an inscrutable Providence it was, however,
whilst the worst form of political stagnation had settled on the land
that other deeper depths were stirring and that the people were of
themselves moving towards a truer light and a higher leading.