REUNION AND TREACHERY
It may be said that whilst all these things were going on in Ireland
and the Party marching with steady purpose to its irretrievable doom,
the British people were in the most profound state of ignorance as to
what was actually happening. And the same may be said of the Irish in
America, Australia, and all the other distant lands to which the
missionary Celts have betaken themselves. They were all fed with the
same newspaper pap. The various London Correspondents took their cue
from Mr T.P. O'Connor and the _Freeman_. These and the Whips kept
them supplied with the tit-bits that were in due course served up to
their several readers. And thus it never got to be known that it was
Mr William O'Brien and his friends who were the true repositories of
Party loyalty and discipline, the only men who were faithful to the
pledge, who had never departed from the policy of Conference,
Conciliation and Consent, upon which the great Land Act of 1903 was
based and to which the Party, the United Irish League, and Nationalist
opinion stood committed in the most solemn manner.
When the General Election of 1906 took place those of us in County
Cork and elsewhere who had taken our stand by Mr O'Brien were marked
out for opposition by the Party chiefs. But a truce was arranged
through the intervention of Mr George Crosbie, editor of _The Cork
Examiner_, who generously sought to avert a fight between brother
Nationalists, which, whatever its effects at home, would be bound to
have grave results abroad, where the only thing that would be
strikingly apparent was that brother Nationalists were at one
another's throats. So we all came back, if not exactly a happy family
at least outwardly in a certain state of grace.
This state of things was not, however, to last. Without rhyme or
reason, without cause stated or charge alleged, with no intimation of
any sort or kind that I was acting contrary to any of the Party
tenets, I was, so to speak, quietly dropped overboard from the Party
ship in November 1906. I did not get any official intimation that I
was dismissed the Party or that I had in any way violated my pledge to
sit, act and vote with it. I was simply cut off from the Party Whips
and the Parliamentary allowance and, without a word spoken or written,
thus politely, as it were, told to go about my business. The matter
seemed inconceivable and I wrote a firm letter of remonstrance to Mr
Redmond. It drew from him merely a formal acknowledgment--an adding of
insult to injury. To test the matter I immediately resigned my seat
for Mid-Cork, placed the whole facts before my constituents, published
my letter and Mr Redmond's acknowledgment and challenged the Party to
fight me on the issue they had themselves deliberately raised--namely,
as to whether in supporting the policy of Conciliation I was in any
way faithless to my pledge. Wise in their generation, the men who were
courageous enough to expel me from the Party, to which I belonged by
as good a title as they, were not brave enough to meet me in the open
in a fair fight and, where there could be no shirking a plain issue,
and accordingly I had a bloodless victory. It was satisfactory to know
I had the practically unanimous support and confidence of the electors
of Mid-Cork. It would have been more satisfactory still if we had the
policy of Conciliation affirmed, as we undoubtedly would have, by an
overwhelming vote in a genuine trial of strength. There were at this
time outside of the Party, besides myself, Mr William O'Brien, Mr T.
M. Healy, M.P. for North Louth (who had not been readmitted after
1900), Sir Thomas Esmonde, M.P. for North Wexford, Mr John O'Donnell,
M.P. for South Mayo, Mr Charles Dolan, M.P. for South Leitrim, and Mr
Augustine Roche (Mr O'Brien's colleague in the representation of
Cork).
The Party were now in a rather parlous state. The country was
disgusted with their mismanagement of the Irish Council Bill. Branches
of the United Irish League had ceased to subscribe to the Party funds
and it was evident that a temper distinctly hostile to the Party
managers was widely springing up. Furthermore, an irresistible
movement of popular opinion set in, demanding that there should be a
reunion of all the Nationalist forces and "Unity" demonstrations of
huge dimensions were held in Kerry, Limerick, Cork, Clare and Wexford.
There was no denying the intensity of the demand that there should be
an end of those differences which divided brother Nationalists and
dissipated their strength. Finally, at Ballycullane, in Mr Redmond's
native constituency, Mr O'Brien formulated proposals for reunion, the
first of which is so notable as a declaration of Nationalist principle
that I quote it fully:
"No man or party has authority to circumscribe the inalienable right
of Ireland to the largest measure of national self-government it may
be in her power to obtain."
Further conditions declared that it was the duty of Nationalist
representatives to devote themselves honestly to working for every
measure of practical amelioration which it may be possible to obtain
from "either English Party, or from both," and that the co-operation
of Irishmen of all creeds and classes willing to aid in the attainment
of any or all of those objects should be cordially welcomed. Within a
week Mr Redmond conveyed to Mr O'Brien his desire for a Conference on
unity. It was duly held. Mr O'Brien's proposals were substantially
agreed to. It will be observed that they were a solemn reiteration of
the principles of Conference and Conciliation, which was the bed-rock
basis of the Party policy in its most useful and memorable year, 1903.
It is possible that if Mr O'Brien's suggestion for a National
Convention to give the new Unity an enthusiastic "send-off" had been
agreed to, many things might have been different to-day. But Mr Dillon
never wanted, in those days, if he could help it, to appear before a
great assemblage of his countrymen in company with Mr O'Brien. He knew
his own limitations for popular appeal too well to risk comparison
with the most persuasive Irish orator since the days of O'Connell.
The six of us who rejoined the Party under the foregoing peace treaty
were sincerely anxious that the reunion should be cordial and thorough.
We saw, however, no manifestations of a similar spirit on the part of Mr
Dillon or his special coterie of friends. Mr O'Brien published in his
own paper, _The Irish People,_ a _communique_ in which he said:
"I am certain the universal Irish instinct will be, frankly and
completely, to drop all disputes as to the past and have no rivalries
except as to who shall do most to create good will and a common
patriotism among Irishmen of all shades and schools of thought. Let us
turn with high hearts from the tragedies of the past to the glorious
possibilities of the future."
Our optimism was sadly disappointed when the first occasion came for
testing the sincerity of the reunion. A Treasury Report was issued
containing proposals for lessening the landlords' bonus under the
Purchase Act of 1903 and for increasing the tenants' annuities. (These
proposals were later embodied in Mr Birrell's Land Act of 1909 and
practically put an end to land purchase and to the beneficent
operations of the Act of 1903.) A meeting of the reunited Party was
summoned for the Mansion House, Dublin (29th April 1908), to deal with
this grave situation, rendered all the more serious by reason of the
fact that the Treasury proposals were openly advocated by _The
Freeman's Journal._ One of the clauses of the articles of reunion
declared that the co-operation of Irishmen of all classes and creeds
willing to aid in the attainment of, among other things, "the
completion of the abolition of landlordism" is cordially welcomed.
When Mr O'Brien moved, in order that the demands of the Treasury
should be met with a united and resolute Irish front, that the Party
was prepared to appoint representatives to confer with representatives
of the landlords, Mr Dillon at once showed that on no account would be
agree to any Conference, and he proposed an amendment that the whole
matter should be referred to a Committee of the Irish Party
exclusively. This was a fatal blow at the principle on which the Party
had been reunited. Whilst the controversy raged around the Conference
idea, Mr Redmond spoke never a word, though he saw that "the
short-sighted and unwise policy" was again getting the upper hand. Mr
Dillon carried his amendment by 45 votes to 15, and thus the treaty on
which the Party was reunited was practically torn to pieces before the
ink was scarce dry on it.
One further effort was made to try to preserve the Act of 1903 from
being ham-strung by the Treasury. A short time previously a deputation
of the foremost landed men and representative bodies of Cork had saved
Ireland from the importation of Canadian cattle into Britain. It was
decided to organise now a still more powerful deputation from the
province of Munster to warn the Government of the fatal effects of the
proposed Birrell Bill. I had a great deal to do with the preliminaries
of the meeting at which this deputation was selected, and I can say
with all certainty that if we had had only the most moderate display
of political wisdom from Mr Dillon and his friends we could have the
great mass of the landlords in Ireland agreeing to the full concession
of the constitutional demand for Irish liberty. The Cork meeting was
beyond all doubt or question the most remarkable held in Ireland for a
century. It was summoned by a Joint Committee drawn from the
Nationalist and landlord ranks. On its platform were assembled all the
men, either on the landlord or the tenant side, who had been the
fiercest antagonists in the agrarian wars of the previous twenty-five
years--men who had literally taken their lives in their hands in
fighting for their respective causes. It is but the barest truth to
say that the evictors and the evicted--the leading actors in the most
awful of Ireland's tragedies--stood for the first time in Irish
history side by side to join hands in a noble effort to obliterate the
past and to redeem the future. It was one of the greatest scenes of
true emotion and tremendous hope that ever was witnessed in any land
or any time. If its brave and joyous spirit could only have been
caught up and passed along, we would have seen long before now that
vision glorious which inspired the deeds and sacrifices of Tone and
Emmet and the other magnificent line of martyrs for Irish liberty--we
would have witnessed that brotherhood of class and creed which is
Ireland's greatest need, and upon which alone can her eventual
happiness and liberty rest. And, most striking incident of all, here
had met, in a blessed forgetfulness of past rancours and of fierce
blows given and received, the two most redoubtable champions of the
landlords and the tenants--Lord Barrymore and Mr William O'Brien, the
men whose sword blows upon each other's shields still reverberated in
the minds of everyone present. What a study for a painter, or poet, or
philosopher! The most dauntless defender of landlordism, in a generous
impulse of what I believe to be the most genuine patriotism, stood on
a platform with Mr William O'Brien, whom he had fought so resolutely
in the Plan of Campaign days, to declare in effect that landlordism
could no longer be defended and to agree as to the terms on which it
could be ended, with advantage to every section of the Irish nation.
It was only magnanimous men--men of fine fibre and a noble moral
courage--who could stretch their hands across the yawning chasm of the
bad and bitter years, with all their evil memories of hates and wounds
and scars and defy the yelpings of the malicious minds who were only
too glad to lead on the pack, to shout afterwards at Mr O'Brien:
"Barrymore!" when of a truth, of all the achievements of Mr O'Brien's
crowded life of effort and accomplishment there is not one that should
bring more balm to his soul or consolation to his war-worn heart than
that he should have induced the enemy of other days to pay this
highest of all tributes to his honesty and worth. He had convinced his
enemy of his rectitude, and what greater deed than this! I confess it
made my ears tingle with shame when I used to hear unthinking
scoundrels, egged on by others who should have known better, shout
"Barrymore!" at Mr O'Brien in their attempts to hold him up to public
odium for an act which might easily have been made the most benign in
his life, as it certainly was one of the most noble.
This memorable meeting of the erstwhile warring hosts agreed
absolutely as to the main conditions on which the Land Settlement of
1903 ought to be preserved--viz. that the abolition of landlordism
should be completed in the briefest possible time, that the rate of
tenant purchasers' annuity should remain undisturbed, and that the
State bonus to the landlords should not be altered. If there were to
be losses on the notation of land loans the loss should be borne by
the Imperial Treasury for the greatest of all Imperial purposes. A
deputation of unequalled strength and unrivalled representative
character was appointed to submit these views to the Prime Minister,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Chief Secretary for Ireland.
But jealous and perverse and, I must add, blindly malignant,
influences had been at work, and a deputation which comprised six
peers, eleven Members of Parliament, and some of the leading public
men in Munster was refused a hearing by Mr Birrell. Though the act was
the act of Mr Birrell, all the world knew that the sinister figure in
the background was Mr Dillon. And they have both paid the penalty
since then of their follies, not to say crimes--though a nation still
suffers for them.