THE EXCLUSION OF ULSTER
Within forty-eight hours of the Balmoral meeting the Prime Minister
moved for leave to introduce the third Home Rule Bill in the House of
Commons. Carson immediately stated the Ulster case in a powerful speech
which left no room for doubt that, while every clause in the Bill would
be contested, it was the setting up of an executive administration
responsible to a Parliament in Dublin--that is to say, the central
principle of the measure--that would be most strenuously opposed.
There is no occasion here to explain in detail the proposals contained
in Mr. Asquith's Home Rule Bill. They form part of the general history
of the period, and are accessible to all who care to examine them. Our
concern is with the endeavour of Ulster to prevent, if possible, the
passage of the Bill to the Statute-book, and, if that should prove
impracticable, to prevent its enforcement "in those districts of which
they had control." But one or two points that were made in the course of
the debates which occupied Parliament for the rest of the year 1912
claim a moment's notice in their bearing on the subject in hand.
Mr. Bonar Law lost no time in fully redeeming the promises he made at
Balmoral. Challenged to repeat in Parliament the charges he had made
against the Government in Ulster, he not only repeated them with
emphasis, but by closely-knit reasoning justified them with chapter and
verse. As to Balmoral, "it really was not like a political
demonstration; it was the expression of the soul of a people." He
declared that "the gulf between the two peoples in Ireland was really
far wider than the gulf between Ireland and Great Britain." He then
dealt specifically with the threatened resistance of Ulster. "These
people in Ulster," he said, "are under no illusion. They know they
cannot fight the British Army. The people of Ulster know that, if the
soldiers receive orders to shoot, it will be their duty to obey. They
will have no ill-will against them for obeying. But they are ready, in
what they believe to be the cause of justice and liberty, to lay down
their lives. How are you going to overcome that resistance? Do
Honourable Members believe that any Prime Minister could give orders to
shoot down men whose only crime is that they refuse to be driven out of
our community and be deprived of the privilege of British citizenship?
The thing is impossible. All your talk about details, the union of
hearts and the rest of it, is a sham. This is a reality. It is a rock,
and on that rock this Bill will inevitably make shipwreck."
The Unionist leader then made a searching exposure of the traffic and
bargaining between the Cabinet and the Nationalists by which the support
of the latter had been bought for a Budget which they hated, the price
paid being the Premier's improper advice to the Crown, leading to the
mutilation of the Constitution; the acknowledgment in the preamble to
the Parliament Act that an immediate reform of the Second Chamber was a
"debt of honour"; the omission to redeem that debt, which had provided a
new proverb--"Lying as a preamble"; and, finally, the determination to
carry Home Rule after deliberately keeping it out of sight during the
elections. The Prime Minister's "debt of honour must wait until he has
paid his debt of shame"; and the latter debt was being paid by the
proposals they were then debating. If those proposals had been submitted
to the electors, "there would be a difference," said Mr. Bonar Law,
"between the Unionists in England and the Unionists in Ireland. Now
there is none. We can imagine nothing which the Unionists in Ireland can
do which will not be justified against a trick of this kind."
Dissatisfaction with the financial clauses of the Bill was expressed at
once by the General Council of County Councils in Ireland, a purely
Nationalist body; but on the 23rd of April a Nationalist Convention in
Dublin, under the influence of Mr. Redmond's oratory, accepted the whole
of the Government's proposals with enthusiasm. The first and second
readings of the Bill were duly carried by the normal Government majority
of about a hundred Liberal, Labour, and Irish Nationalist votes, and the
committee stage opened on the 11th of June. On that day an amendment was
down for debate which required the most careful consideration by the
representatives of Ulster, since their attitude now might have an
important bearing on their future policy, and a false step at this stage
might easily prove embarrassing later on. The author of this amendment
was Mr. Agar-Robartes, a Cornish Liberal Member, whose proposal was to
exclude the four counties of Antrim, Derry, Down, and Armagh from the
jurisdiction of the proposed Irish Parliament, a gratifying proof that
Craigavon and Balmoral were bearing fruit.
A conference of Ulster Members and Peers, and some English Members
closely identified with Irish affairs, of whom Mr. Walter Long was one,
met at Londonderry House before the sitting of the House on the 11th of
June to decide what course to take on this proposal.
It was not surprising to find that there were sharp differences of
opinion among those present, for there were obvious objections to
supporting the amendment and equally obvious objections to voting
against it. The opposition of Ulster for more than a quarter of a
century had been directed against Home Rule for any part of Ireland and
in any shape or form. No suggestion had ever been made by any of her
spokesmen that the Protestant North, or any part of it, should be dealt
with separately from the rest of the island, although Carson and others
had pointed out that all the arguments in support of Home Rule were
equally valid for treating Ulster as a unit. There were both economic
and administrative difficulties in such a scheme which were sufficiently
obvious, though by no means insuperable; but what weighed far more
heavily in the minds of the Ulster members was the anticipation that
their acceptance of the proposal would probably be represented by
enemies as a desertion of all the Irish Loyalists outside the four
counties named in the amendment, with whom there was in every part of
Ulster the most powerful sentiment of solidarity. The idea of taking any
action apart from these friends and associates, and of adopting a policy
that might seem to imply the abandonment of their opposition to the main
principle of the Bill, was one that could not be entertained except
under the most compelling necessity.
But, had not that necessity now arisen? The Ulster members had to keep
in view the ultimate policy to which they were already committed. That
policy, as laid down at Craigavon, was to take over, in the event of the
Home Rule Bill being carried, the government "of those districts which
they could control" in trust for the Imperial Parliament, and to resist
by force if necessary the establishment of the Dublin jurisdiction over
those districts. The policy of resistance was always recognised as being
strictly limited in area; no one ever supposed that Ulster could
forcibly resist Home Rule being set up in the south and west. The
likelihood of failure to bring about a dissolution before the Bill
became law had to be faced, and if no General Election took place there
would be no alternative to resistance. If, then, it were decided to vote
against an amendment offering salvation to the four most loyalist
counties, what would be their position if ultimately driven to take up
arms? Except as to a matter of detail concerning the precise area
proposed to be excluded from the Bill, would they not be told that they
were fighting for what they might have had by legislation, and what they
had deliberately refused to accept? And if they so acted, could they
expect not to forfeit the support of the great and growing volume of
public opinion which now sympathised with Ulster? They could not, of
course, secure themselves against malicious misrepresentation of their
motives, but the Ulster members sincerely believed, and many in the
South shared the opinion, that if it came to the worst they could be of
more use to the Southern Unionists outside a Dublin Parliament than as
members of it, where they would be an impotent minority. Moreover, it
was perfectly understood that Ulster was resolved in any case not to
enter a legislature in College Green, and there would, therefore, be no
more "desertion" of Unionists outside the excluded area if the exclusion
were effected by an amendment to the Bill, than if it were the result of
what Mr. Bonar Law had called "trusting to themselves."
The considerations thus briefly summarised were thoroughly discussed in
all their bearings at the conference at Londonderry House. It was one of
many occasions when Sir Edward Carson's colleagues had an opportunity of
perceiving how his penetrating intellect explored the intricate windings
of a complicated political problem, weighing all the alternatives of
procedure with a clear insight into the appearance that any line of
conduct would present to other and perhaps hostile minds, calculating
like a chess-master move and counter-move far ahead of the present, and,
while adhering undeviatingly to principle, using the judgment of a
consummate strategist to decide upon the action to be taken at any given
moment. He had an astonishing faculty of discarding everything that was
unessential and fastening on the thing that really mattered in any
situation. His strength in counsel lay in the rare combination of these
qualities of the trained lawyer with the gift of intuition, which women
claim as their distinguishing characteristic; and it often extorted from
Nationalists the melancholy admission that if Carson had been on their
side their cause would have triumphed long ago.
His advice now was that the Agar-Robartes amendment should be supported;
and, although some of those present required a good deal of persuasion,
it was ultimately decided unanimously that this course should be
followed. The wisdom of the decision was never afterwards questioned,
and, indeed, was abundantly confirmed by subsequent events.
Mr. Agar-Robartes moved his amendment the same afternoon, summarising
his argument in the dictum, denied by Mr. William Redmond, that "Orange
bitters will not mix with Irish whisky." The debate, which lasted three
days, was the most important that took place in committee on the Bill,
for in the course of it the whole Ulster question was exhaustively
discussed. Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Churchill had thrown out hints in the
second reading debate that the Government might do something to meet the
Ulster case. The Prime Minister was now pressed to say what these hints
meant. Had the Government any policy in regard to Ulster? Had they
considered how they could deal with the threatened resistance? Mr. Bonar
Law told the Government that they must know that, if they employed
troops to coerce the Ulster Loyalists, Ministers who gave the order
"would run a greater risk of being lynched in London than the Loyalists
of Ulster would run of being shot in Belfast." Every argument in favour
of Home Rule was, he said, equally cogent against subjecting Ulster to
Home Rule contrary to her own desire. If the South of Ireland objected
to being governed from Westminster, the North of Ireland quite as
strongly objected to being ruled from Dublin. If England, as was
alleged, was incapable of governing Ireland according to Irish ideas,
the Nationalists were fully as incapable of governing the northern
counties according to Ulster ideas. If Ireland, with only one-fifteenth
of the population of the United Kingdom, had a right to choose its own
form of government, by what equity could the same right be denied to
Ulster, with one-fourth of the population of Ireland?
As had been anticipated at Londonderry House, Mr. Asquith and some of
his followers did their best to drive a wedge between the Ulstermen and
the Southern Unionists, by contending that the former, in supporting the
amendment, were deserting their friends. Mr. Balfour declared in answer
to this that "nothing could relieve Unionists in the rest of Ireland
except the defeat of the measure as a whole"; and a crushing reply was
given by Mr. J.H. Campbell and Mr. Walter Guinness, both of whom were
Unionists from the South of Ireland. Mr. Guinness frankly acknowledged
that "it was the duty of Ulster members to take this opportunity of
trying to secure for their constituents freedom from this iniquitous
measure. It would be merely a dog-in-the-manger policy for those who
lived outside Ulster to grudge relief to their co-religionists merely
because they could not share it. Such self-denial on Ulster's part would
in no way help them (the Southerners) and it would only injure their
compatriots in the North."
Sir Edward Carson, in supporting the amendment, insisted that "Ulster
was not asking for anything" except to be left within the Imperial
Constitution; she "had not demanded any separate Parliament." He
accepted the "basic principle" of the amendment, but would not be
content with the four counties which alone it proposed to exclude from
the Bill. He only accepted it, however, on two assumptions--first, that
the Bill was to become law; and, second, that it was to be, as Mr.
Asquith had assured them, part of a federal system for the United
Kingdom. If the first steps were being taken to construct a federal
system, there was no precedent for coercing Ulster to form part of a
federal unit which she refused to join. He had been Solicitor-General
when the Act establishing the Commonwealth of Australia was being
discussed, and it never would have passed, he declared, "if every single
clause had not been agreed to by every single one of the communities
concerned." Ministers were always basing their Irish policy on Dominion
analogies, but could anyone, Carson asked, imagine the Imperial
Government sending troops to compel the Transvaal or New South Wales to
come into a federal system against their will?
The arguments in favour of the amendment were also stated with
uncompromising force by Mr. William Moore, Mr. Charles Craig, and his
brother Captain James Craig, the last-mentioned taking up a challenge
thrown down by Mr. Birrell in a maladroit speech which had expressed
doubt as to the reality of the danger to be apprehended in Ulster.
Captain Craig said they would immediately take steps in Ulster to
convince the Chief Secretary of their sincerity. Lord Hugh Cecil, in an
outspoken speech, greatly to the taste of English Unionists, "had no
hesitation in saying that Ulster would be perfectly right in resisting,
and he hoped she would be successful."
In the division on Mr. Agar-Robartes's amendment the Government
majority fell to sixty-nine, both the "Tellers" being usual supporters
of the Ministry. Mr. F.E. Smith, in a vigorous speech to the Belfast
Orangemen on the 12th of July, declared that "on the part of the
Government the discussion (on Mr. Agar-Robartes's amendment) was a trap.
... The Government hoped that Ulster would decline the amendment in
order that the Coalition might protest to the constituencies: 'We
offered Ulster exclusion and Ulster refused exclusion--where is the
grievance of Ulster? where her justification for armed revolt?'" The
snare was avoided; but the debate was a landmark in the movement, for it
was then that the spokesmen of Ulster for the first time publicly
accepted the idea of separate treatment for themselves as a possible
alternative policy to the integral maintenance of the Union.
The Government, for their part, made no response to the demand of Bonar
Law and Carson that they should declare their intentions for dealing
with resistance in Ulster. It was clearly more than ever necessary for
the Ulstermen to "trust in themselves." The debates on the Bill occupied
Parliament till the end of the year, and beyond it, and great blocks of
clauses were carried under the guillotine closure without a word of
discussion, although they were packed with constitutional points, many
of which were of the highest moment. Over in Ulster, at the same time,
those preparations were industriously carried forward which Captain
Craig told the House of Commons would be necessary to cure the
scepticism of the Chief Secretary.
In England and Scotland, also, Unionists did their utmost to make public
opinion realise the gravity of the crisis towards which the country was
drifting under the Wait-and-See Ministry. Never before, probably, had so
many great political meetings been held in any year as were held in
every part of the country in 1912. With the exception of those that took
place in Ireland, the most striking was a monster gathering at Blenheim
on the 27th of July, which was attended by delegates from every Unionist
Association in the United Kingdom.
A notable defeat of the Government in a by-election at Crewe, news of
which reached the meeting while the audience of some fifteen thousand
people was assembling, was an encouraging sign of the trend of opinion
in the country, and added confidence to the note of defiance that
sounded in the speeches of Mr. Bonar Law, Mr. F.E. Smith, and Sir Edward
Carson.
The Unionist leader repeated, with added emphasis, what he had already
said in the House of Commons, that he could imagine no length of
resistance to which Ulster might go in which he and the overwhelming
majority of the British people would not be ready to give support. He
again said that resistance would be justified only because the people
had not been consulted, and the Government's policy was "part of a
corrupt parliamentary bargain." He refused to acknowledge the right of
the Government "to carry such a Revolution by such means," and as they
appeared to be resolved to do so, Mr. Bonar Law and the party he led
"would use any means to deprive them of the power they had usurped, and
to compel them to face the people they had deceived." Mr. F.E. Smith
expressed the same thought in a more epigrammatic antithesis: "We have
come to a clear issue between the party which says 'We will judge for
the democracy,' and the party which says 'The democracy shall judge
you.'"
The tremendous enthusiasm evoked by Mr. Bonar Law's pledge of support to
Ulster, and by Sir Edward Carson's announcement that they in Ulster
"would shortly challenge the Government to interfere with them if they
dared, and would with equanimity await the result," was a sufficient
proof, if proof were needed, that the intention of the Ulstermen to
offer forcible resistance to Home Rule had the whole-hearted sympathy
and approval of the entire Unionist party in Great Britain, whose
representatives from every corner of the country were assembled at
Blenheim.
Liberals hoped and believed that this promise of support for the
"rebellious" attitude of Ulster would alienate British opinion from the
Unionist party. The supporters of the Government in the Press daily
proclaimed that it was doing so. When Parliament adjourned for the
summer recess, at the beginning of what journalists call "the silly
season," Mr. Churchill published two letters to a constituent in
Scotland which were intended to be a crushing indictment both of Ulster
and of her sympathisers in Great Britain. The Ulster menace was in his
eyes nothing but "melodramatic stuff," and he sneeringly suggested that
the Unionist leaders would be "unspeakably shocked and frightened" if
anything came of their "foolish and wicked words." The letter was
lengthy, and contained some telling phrases such as Mr. Churchill has
always been skilful in coining; but the "turgid homily--a mixture of
sophistry, insult, and menace," as _The Times_ not unfairly described
it, was less effective than the terse and simple rejoinder in which Mr.
Bonar Law pointed out that Mr. Churchill's onslaught wounded his
father's memory more deeply than it touched his living opponents, since
Lord Randolph's "incitement" of Ulster was at a time when Ulster could
not be cast out from the Union without the consent of the British
electors.
Mr. Churchill's epistles to Scottish Liberals started a correspondence
which reverberated through the Press for weeks, breaking the monotony of
the holiday season; but they entirely failed in their purpose, which was
to break the sympathy for Ulster in England and Scotland. In March the
Unionists had won a seat at a by-election in South Manchester; the
victory at Crewe in July, which so cheered the gathering at Blenheim,
was followed by still more striking victories in North-west Manchester
in August, and in Midlothian--Gladstone's old constituency--in
September; and perhaps a not less significant indication of the trend of
opinion so far as the Unionist party was concerned, was given by the
local Unionist Association at Rochdale, which promptly repudiated its
selected candidate who had ventured to protest against the Blenheim
speech of the Unionist leader. In an analysis of electoral statistics
published by _The Times_ on the 24th of August it was shown that, in
thirty-eight contests since the General Election in December 1910, the
Unionists had gained an advantage of more than 32,000 votes over
Liberals. And shortly afterwards, at a dinner in London to three newly
elected Unionists, Mr. Bonar Law pointed out that the results of
by-elections, if realised in the same proportion all over the country,
would have given a substantial Unionist majority in the House of
Commons.
The Ulster people had, therefore, much to encourage them at a time when
they were preparing the most significant forward step in the movement,
and the most solemn pronouncement of their unfaltering resolution never
to submit to the Dublin Parliament--the signing of the Ulster Covenant.
Their policy of resistance, first propounded at Craigavon, reiterated at
Balmoral, endorsed by British sympathisers at Blenheim, and specifically
defended in Parliament both by Unionist leaders like Mr. Bonar Law and
Mr. Long and by prominent members of the Unionist rank and file like
Lord Hugh Cecil, had won the approval and support of great popular
constituencies in Lancashire and in Scotland, and had alienated no
section of Unionist opinion or of the Unionist Press. It was in no
merely satirical spirit that Carson wrote in August that he was grateful
to Mr. Churchill "for having twice within a few weeks done something to
focus public opinion on the stern realities of the situation in
Ulster."[27] For that was the actual result of the "turgid homily." It
proved of real service to the Ulster cause by bringing to light the
complete solidarity of Unionist opinion in its support. That meant, in
the light of the electoral returns, that certainly more than half the
nation sympathised with the measures that were being taken in Ulster,
and that Ulster could well afford to smile at the mockery which English
Home Rulers deemed a sufficient weapon to demolish the "wooden guns" and
the "military play-acting of King Carson's Army."
FOOTNOTES:
[27] See _The Times_, August 19th, 1912.