A GENERAL ELECTION THAT LEADS TO A "HOME RULE" BILL!
It boots not to dwell at any great length on the contests that
followed. Suffice it to say that Irish manhood and Irish honesty
magnificently asserted itself against the audacious and unscrupulous
tactics of the Party plotters. Mr O'Brien, by a destiny there was no
resisting, was forced into the fight in Cork City and emerged
victoriously from the ordeal, as well as winning also in North-East
Cork. In my own case, except for the splendid and most generous
assistance given me by Mr Jeremiah O'Leary, the leading citizen of
Macroom, who shared all the labours and all the anxieties of my
campaign, I was left to fight my battle almost single-handed, having
arrayed against me two canons of my Church and every Catholic
clergyman in the constituency, with two or three notable exceptions.
The odds seemed hopeless, but the result provides the all-sufficient
answer to those who say that the Irish Catholic vote can be controlled
under all circumstances by the priests, for I scored a surprising
majority of 825 in a total poll of about 4500, and I have good reason
for stating that 95 per cent. of the illiterate votes were cast in my
favour, although a most powerful personal canvass was made of every
vote in the constituency by the clergy.
I consider this incident worthy of special emphasis in view of the
ignorant and malicious statements of English and Unionist publicists,
who make it a stock argument against the grant of independence to
Ireland that the Catholics will vote as they are bidden by their
priests. I have sufficient experience and knowledge of my countrymen
to say that whilst in troublous times the Irish soggarths were the
natural leaders and protectors of their flocks, even to the peril of
their lives, yet in these times, when other conditions prevail, whilst
in religion remaining staunchly loyal to their faith and its teachers,
when it comes to a question of political principle there is no man in
all the world who can be so independently self-assertive as the Irish
Catholic. There is nothing to fear for Ireland, either now or in the
future, from what I may term clericalism in politics, whilst on the
other hand it is earnestly to be hoped that nothing will ever happen
to intrude unnecessarily the question or authority of religion in the
domain of more mundane affairs.
Mr O'Brien sums up the result of the General Election briefly thus:
"When the smoke of battle cleared away, nevertheless, every friend of
mine, against whom this pitiless cannonade of vengeance had been
directed, stood victorious on the field, and it was the conspirators
who a few weeks before deemed themselves unshakable in the mastery of
Ireland who, to their almost comic bewilderment and dismay, found
themselves and their boasts rolled in the dust. Not only did every man
for whose destruction they had thrown all prudence to the winds find
his way back to Parliament in their despite, but in at least eighteen
other constituencies their plots to replace members under any
suspicion of independence with reliables absolutely amenable to the
signs and passwords of the Order resulted in their being blown
sky-high with their own petards.... Messrs Dillon and Devlin led their
demoralised forces back, seventy in place of eighty-three, and for the
first time since 1885 they went back a minority of the Nationalist
votes actually cast as between the policy of Conciliation and the
policy of _Væ Victis_."
Mr O'Brien had established a campaign sheet during the election called
_The Cork Accent_ (as a sort of reminder of the "Baton"
Convention, at which the order was given that no one with a "Cork
accent" should be allowed near the platform), and surely never did
paper render more brilliant service in an exceptional emergency. It
was his intention that his attitude in the new Parliament should be
one of "patient observation" and of steady but unaggressive allegiance
to the principles of national reconciliation. But such a rôle was
rendered impossible by the active hostility of Mr Dillon and his
followers. The doors of the Party were shut and banged against every
man who was independently elected by the voters. It was proclaimed
that we would be helpless in the country without organisation or
newspaper to support us and that we would be left even without the
means of travelling to London to represent our constituents.
We could not sit inactively under this decree of annihilation. It was
decided to continue _The Cork Accent_ in a permanent form as a
daily journal under the title of _The Cork Free Press_, which was
founded at a public meeting presided over by the Lord Mayor. The
All-for-Ireland League was also established to advocate and expound
the principles for which we stood in Irish life. Its purposes are
clearly stated in the resolution which gave it birth--viz.:
"That inasmuch as we regard self-Government in purely Irish affairs,
the transfer of the soil to the cultivators upon just terms, and the
relief of Ireland from intolerable over-taxation as essential
conditions of happiness and prosperity for our country, and further
inasmuch as we believe the surest means of effecting these objects to
be a combination of all the elements of the Irish population in a
spirit of mutual tolerance and patriotic good will, such as will
guarantee to the Protestant minority of our fellow-countrymen
inviolable security for all their rights and liberties and win the
friendship of the entire people of Great Britain, this representative
meeting of the City and County of Cork hereby establishes an
Association to be called the All-for-Ireland League, whose primary
object shall be the union and active co-operation in every department
of our national life of all Irish men and women who believe in the
principle of domestic self-government for Ireland."
The All-for-Ireland League made memorable progress in a brief space of
time. Mr O'Brien's return to public life was hailed even by the late
W.T. Stead in _The Westminster Gazette_ as nothing short of a
great political resurrection. The noble appeal of the League's
programme to the chivalrous instincts of the race attracted the young
men to its side with an enthusiasm amounting to an inspiration. The
Protestant minority in Southern Ireland were being gradually won over
to a genuine confidence in our motives and generous intentions to
safeguard fully their interests and position and to secure them an
adequate part in the future government of our common country. Even the
great British parties began to see in the new movement hopes of that
peace and reconciliation between Great Britain and Ireland which must
be the hope of all just and broad-minded statesmanship.
It was in these circumstances that the Party surrendered "at discretion"
to the expediencies of Liberalism, abjectly waiving their position as an
independent entity in Parliament, with no shadow of the pride and spirit
of the Parnell period left, seeming to exist for the favours and bonuses
that came their way, and for the rest playing to the gallery in Ireland
by telling them that Home Rule was coming "at no far distant date," and
that they had only to trust to Asquith and all would be well. Never had
a Party such a combination of favourable circumstances to command
success. They possessed a strategical advantage such as Parnell would
have given his life for--they held the balance of power and they could
order the Government to do their bidding or quit. Yet instead of
regarding themselves as the ambassadors of a nation claiming its liberty
they seemed to be obsessed with a criminal selfishness passing all
possible belief. When it was proposed to make Members of Parliament
stipendiaries of the State, they at first protested vehemently against
the application of this principle to the Irish representatives, and
therein they were right. From a purely democratic standpoint no
reasonable objection can be urged against the payment of those who give
their time and talent to the public service, but Ireland was in
different case. Her representatives were at Westminster unwillingly,
not to assist in the government of the Empire with gracious intent, but
rather definitely to obstruct, impede and hamper this government until
Ireland's inalienable right to self-government was conceded, and
therefore it was their clear duty to say that they would accept payment
only from the country and the people they served and that they cast back
this Treasury bribe in the teeth of those who offered it. But having
ostentatiously resolved that they would never accept a Parliamentary
stipend, they finally allowed their virtuous resistance to temptation to
be overcome and voted for "payment of members," which, without their
votes, would never have been adopted by the House of Commons. There were
placemen now in Parliament, and place-hunting was no longer a pastime to
be proscribed amongst Nationalists. It may be there was no wilful
corruption in thus accepting from the common purse of the United Kingdom
payment which was made to all Members of Parliament alike, but it
deprived the Irish people of control of their representatives and handed
them over to the control of the English Treasury, and thus opened the
way to the downfall of Parliamentarianism in Ireland that rapidly set
in. Abandoned all too lightly was the rigid principle that to accept
favours from England was to betray Ireland, and the pursuit of place and
patronage was esteemed as not being inconsistent with a pure patriotism.
Furthermore, as if to cap the climax of their imbecilities and
blunders, the Irish Party allowed the first precious year of their
mastery of Parliament to be devoted to the passage of an Insurance Act
which nobody in Ireland outside the job-seekers wanted, which every
independent voice in the country, including a unanimous Bench of
Bishops, protested against, and whose only recommendation was that it
provided a regular deluge of well-paid positions for the votaries of
the secret sectarian society that had the country in its vicious grip.
Such a debauch of sham Nationalism as now ensued was never paralleled
in the worst period of Ireland's history, and that this should be done
in the name of patriotism was not its least degrading feature. Nemesis
could not fail to overtake this conscious sin against the national
ideal. It met with its own condign punishment before many years were
over. To show the veritable depths of baseness to which the so-called
National Movement had fallen it need only be stated that it was
charged against their official organ--_The Freeman's Journal
_--that no less than eighteen members of its staff had obtained
positions of profit under the Crown, including a Lord Chancellorship,
an Under-secretaryship, Judgeships, Crown Prosecutorships, University
Professorships, Resident Magistracies, Local Government
Inspectorships, etc. In this connection it is also worthy of mention
that when the premises of this concern were burnt out in the course of
the Easter Week Rebellion it was reendowed for "national" purposes,
with a Treasury grant of £60,000, being twice the amount which the
then directors of the _Freeman_ confessed to be the business
value of the property.
Thus did the "Board of Erin" attract to its side all the most selfish
and disreputable elements in Irish Catholic life, and thus also did it
repel and disgust the more broad-minded and tolerant Protestant
patriots whom the All-for-Ireland programme, under happier
circumstances, would have undoubtedly won over to the side of Home
Rule. Much might even yet be forgiven to the men who had the destiny
of Ireland in their hands if they had shown any striking capacity to
exact a measure of self-government sufficiently big and broad to
justify the national demand as then understood. But they showed
neither strength nor wisdom, neither courage nor sagacity in their
dealings with the English Liberal leaders and old Parliamentary hands
against whom they were pitted. They were hopelessly out-manoeuvred and
overmatched at every stage of the game. It is but just to state that
the members of the Party as a whole had scarcely an atom of
responsibility for these miserable failures and defects of policy.
They owed their election to "the machine." They were the complaisant
bondsmen of the secret Order. Whatever they felt they dared not utter
a word which would bring the wrath of "the Bosses" upon their heads.
They were never candidly consulted as to tactics or strategy, or even
first principles.
The decisions of the little ring of three or four who dominated the
situation within the Party were sometimes, it may be, submitted to
them for their formal approval, but more often than otherwise this
show of formal courtesy was not shown them. The position of Mr Redmond
was most humiliating of all. He did not lack many of the qualities
which might have made for greatness in leadership, but he did
undoubtedly lack the quality of backbone and that strength of
character to assert himself and to maintain his own position without
which no man can be truly considered great. Whenever it came to an
issue between them it is well known he had to submit his judgment and
to bend his will to the decision of the three others--Messrs Dillon,
Devlin and T.P. O'Connor--who must historically be held responsible
for the mistakes and weaknesses and horrible blunders of those years,
which no self-respecting Irishman of the future can ever look back
upon without a shudder of horror.
The Home Rule Bill, which was the product of those shameful years of
debility and disgrace, was so poor and paltry a thing as to be almost
an insult to Irish patriotism and intelligence. It proposed to
establish merely a nominal Parliament in Dublin. It was financially
unsound, besides being a denial of Ireland's right to fix and levy her
own taxes. As a matter of fact, the power of taxation was rigorously
maintained at Westminster with a reduced Irish representation of
two-thirds. And this was the measure which was proclaimed to be
greater than Grattan's Parliament or than any of the previous Home
Rule Bills! Furthermore, it made no provision for the completion of
land purchase, but Mr Asquith was not really to be blamed for this, as
Mr Dillon proclaimed that one of the great attractions of the Bill was
that it would leave the remnant of the landlords to be dealt with by
him and his obedient henchmen. Finally, neither the Liberal Party nor
their faithful Irish supporters would hear of any concessions to
Ulster.
These people were now so arrogant in the fancied security and strength
of their position to do just as they pleased that Mr Redmond rashly
undertook "to put down Ulster with the strong hand" and rather
prematurely declared: "There is no longer an Ulster difficulty." One
further financial infamy the Bill perpetrated. The twenty millions
sterling which were, under the Land Purchase Act of 1903, to have been
a free Imperial grant to lubricate the wheels of agrarian settlement,
was henceforth and by a "Home Rule Government" to be audaciously
charged as a debt against Ireland. And this, be it noted, was part of
the pact come to with the "Nationalist" leaders at the Downing Street
breakfast-table, where Ireland's fate was sealed, and which they
joyously supported in the House of Commons against such opposition as
the All-for-Ireland minority was allowed to give it by the ruthless
application of the guillotine.
The Independent Nationalist members were willing to make the best of a
very "bad bargain," if only they could succeed in getting adopted
three amendments which they regarded as vital to the success of the
measure: (1) A new financial plan; (2) the completion of land
purchase, and (3) such concessions as would win the consent of Ulster.
But our reward for thus endeavouring to make the Bill adaptable to
Irish requirements and acceptable to the whole of Ireland was to be
dubbed "factionists" and "traitors" by the official Irish Party, who
never once during three years' debates in Parliament made the
slightest attempt to amend or improve the Bill, but who remained
silent and impotent as graven images on the Irish benches whilst the
way was being paved for all the ruin and desolation and accumulated
horrors that have since come to Ireland through their compliant and
criminal imbecility.
They had a perfect Parliamentary unity; they certainly seemed to have
the most perfect understanding with their Liberal friends, but they
had no more claim to represent an independent, vigilant,
self-respecting nation than they had to represent, say, "Morocco"!