LORD LOREBURN'S LETTER
Whatever might be the state of public opinion in England, it was
realised that the Government, if they chose, were in a position to
disregard it; and in Ulster the tension was becoming almost unbearable.
The leaders were apprehensive lest outbreaks of violence should occur,
which they knew would gravely prejudice the movement; and there is no
doubt that it was only the discipline which the rank and file had now
gained, and the extraordinary restraining influence which Carson
exercised, that prevented serious rioting in many places. Incidents like
the attack by Nationalist roughs in Belfast on a carriage conveying
crippled children to a holiday outing on the 31st of May because it was
decorated with Union Jacks might at any moment lead to trouble. There
was some disorder in Belfast in the early hours of the 12th of July; and
an outbreak occurred in August in Derry, always a storm centre, when a
procession was attacked, and a Protestant was shot while watching it
from his own upper window. The incident started rioting, which continued
for several days, and a battalion of troops had to be called in to
restore order.
Meantime, throughout the summer, while the Government were complacently
carrying their Bill through Parliament for the second time, the Press
was packed with suggestions for averting the crisis which everybody
except the Cabinet recognised as impending.
It began to be whispered in the clubs and lobbies that the King might
exercise the prerogative of veto, and even men like Lord St. Aldwyn and
the veteran Earl of Halsbury, both of them ex-Cabinet Ministers,
encouraged the idea; but there was no widespread acceptance of the
notion that even in so exceptional a case His Majesty would reject the
advice of his responsible Ministers. But in a letter to _The Times_ on
the 4th of September, Mr. George Cave, K.C., M.P. (afterwards Home
Secretary, and ultimately Lord of Appeal), suggested that the King might
"exercise his undoubted right" to dissolve Parliament before the
beginning of the next session, in order to inform himself as to whether
the policy of his Ministers was endorsed by the people.
But a much greater sensation was created a few days later by a letter
which appeared in _The Times_ on the 11th of the same month over the
signature of Lord Loreburn. Lord Loreburn had been Lord Chancellor at
the time the Home Rule Bill was first introduced, but had retired from
the Government in June 1912, being replaced on the Woolsack by Lord
Haldane. When the first draft of the Home Rule Bill was under discussion
in the Cabinet in preparation for its introduction in the House of
Commons, two of the younger Ministers, Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Winston
Churchill, proposed that an attempt should be made to avert the stern
opposition to be expected from Ulster, by treating the northern
Province, or a portion of it, separately from the rest of Ireland. This
proposal was not acceptable to the Cabinet as a whole, and its authors
were roundly rated by Lord Loreburn for so unprincipled a lapse from
orthodox Gladstonian doctrine. What, therefore, must have been the
astonishment of the heretics when they found their mentor, less than two
years later, publicly reproving the Government which he had left for
having got into such a sad mess over the Ulster difficulty! They might
be forgiven some indignation at finding themselves reproved by Lord
Loreburn for faulty statesmanship of which Lord Loreburn was the
principal author.
Those, however, who had not the same ground for exasperation as Mr.
Lloyd George and Mr. Churchill thought Lord Loreburn's letter very sound
sense. He pointed out that if the Bill were to become law in 1914, as it
stood in September 1913, there would be, if not civil war, at any rate
very serious rioting in the North of Ireland, and when the riots had
been quelled by the Government the spirit that prompted them would
remain. Everybody concerned would suffer from fighting it out to a
finish. The Ex-Chancellor felt bound to assume that "up to the last,
Ministers, who assuredly have not taken leave of their senses, would be
willing to consider proposals for accommodation," and he therefore
suggested that a Conference should be held behind closed doors with a
view to a settlement by consent. If Lord Loreburn had perceived at the
time the draft Bill was before the Cabinet that it was not the Ministers
who proposed separate treatment for Ulster who had "taken leave of their
senses," but those, including himself, who had resisted that proposal,
his wisdom would have been more timely; but it was better late than
never, and his unexpected intervention had a decided influence on
opinion in the country.
The comment of _The Times_ was very much to the point:
"On the eve of a great political crisis, it may be of national
disaster, a distinguished Liberal statesman makes public confession
of his belief that, as a permanent solution, the Irish policy of
the Government is indefensible."
This letter of the ex-Lord Chancellor gave rise to prolonged discussion
in the Press and on the platform. At Durham, on the 13th of September,
Carson declared that he would welcome a Conference if the question was
how to provide a genuine expansion of self-government, but that, if
Ulster was to be not only expelled from the Union but placed under a
Parliament in Dublin, then "they were going to make Home Rule impossible
by steady and persistent opposition." The Government seemed unable to
agree whether a conciliatory or a defiant attitude was their wiser
policy, though it is true that the latter recommended itself mostly to
the least prominent of its members, such as Mr. J.M. Robertson,
Secretary of the Board of Trade, who in a speech at Newcastle on the
25th of September announced scornfully that Ministers were not going to
turn "King Carson" into "Saint Carson" by prosecuting him, and that "the
Government would know how to deal with him."[50] But more important
Ministers were beginning to perceive the unwisdom of this sort of
bluster. Lord Morley, in the House of Lords, denied that he had ever
underrated the Ulster difficulty, and said that for twenty-five years he
had never thought that Ulster was guilty of bluff. Mr. Churchill, at
Dundee, on the 9th of October, no longer talked as he had the previous
year about "not taking Sir Edward Carson too seriously," though he still
appeared to be ignorant of the fact that there was in Ulster anybody
except Orangemen. "The Orange Leaders," he said, "used violent language,
but Liberals should try to understand their position. Their claim for
special consideration, if put forward with sincerity, could not be
ignored by a Government depending on the existing House."[51]
The Prime Minister, less assured than his subordinate at the Board of
Trade that "King Carson" was negligible, also displayed a somewhat
chastened spirit at Ladybank on the 25th of October, when he
acknowledged that it was "of supreme importance to the future well-being
of Ireland that the new system should not start with the apparent
triumph of one section over another," and he invited a "free and frank
exchange of views."[52] Sir Edward Grey held out another little twig of
olive two days later at Berwick.
To these overtures, if they deserve the name, Mr. Bonar Law replied in
an address to a gathering of fifteen thousand people at Wallsend on the
29th, in the presence of Sir Edward Carson. Having repeated the Blenheim
pledge, he praised the discipline and restraint shown by the Ulster
people and their leaders, but warned his hearers that the nation was
drifting towards the tragedy of civil war, the responsibility for which
would rest on the Government. He expressed his readiness to respond to
Mr. Asquith's invitation, but pointed out that there were only three
alternatives open to the Government. They must either (1) go on as they
were doing and provoke Ulster to resist--that was madness; (2) they
could consult the electorate, whose decision would be accepted by the
Unionist Party as a whole; or (3) they could try to arrange a settlement
which would at least avert civil war.
There had been during the past six or eight months an unusual dearth of
by-elections to test public opinion in regard to the Irish policy of the
Government, and it must be borne in mind that the Unionist Party in
Great Britain was still distracted by disputes over the Tariff question,
which in January 1913 had very nearly led to the retirement of Mr. Bonar
Law from the leadership. Nevertheless, in May the Unionists won two
signal victories, one in Cambridgeshire, and one in Cheshire, where the
Altrincham Division sent a staunch friend of Ulster to Parliament in the
person of Mr. George C. Hamilton, who in his maiden speech declared that
he had won the contest entirely on the Ulster Question. Even more
significant, perhaps, were two elections which were fought while the
interchange of party strokes over the Loreburn letter was in progress,
and the results of both were declared on the 8th of November. At
Reading, where the Unionists retained the seat, the Liberal candidate
was constrained by pressure of opinion in the constituency to promise
support for a policy of "separate and generous treatment for Ulster." At
Linlithgow, a Liberal stronghold, where no such promise was forthcoming,
the Liberal majority, in spite of a large Nationalist vote, was reduced
by 1,500 votes as compared with the General Election. There were signs
that Nonconformists, whose great leaders like Spurgeon and Dale had been
hostile to Home Rule in Gladstone's time, were again becoming uneasy
about handing over the Ulster Presbyterians and Methodists to the Roman
hierarchy. A memorial against Home Rule, signed by 131,000 people, which
had been presented to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in
June, had no doubt had some effect on Nonconformist opinion in England,
and it was just about the time when these elections took place that
Carson was described at a large gathering of Nonconformists in London as
"the best embodiment at this moment of the ancient spirit of
Nonconformity."[53]
Meanwhile the people in Ulster were steadily maturing their plans. The
arrangements already mentioned for setting up a Provisional Government
were confirmed and finally adopted by the Unionist Council in Belfast on
the 24th of September, and the Council by resolution delegated its
powers to the Standing Committee, while the Commission of Five was at
the same time appointed to act as an Executive. Carson, in accepting the
chairmanship of the Central Authority, used the striking phrase, which
precisely epitomised the situation, that "Ulster might be coerced into
submission, but in that case would have to be governed as a conquered
country." The Nationalist retort that the rest of Ireland was now being
so treated, appeared forcible to those Englishmen only who could see no
difference between controlling a disaffected population and chastising a
loyal one.
At the same meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council on the 24th of
September a guarantee fund was established for providing means to
compensate members of the U.V.F. for any loss or disability they might
suffer as a result of their service, and the widows and dependents of
any who might lose their lives. This was a matter that had caused Carson
anxiety for some time. He was extremely sensitive to the moral
responsibility he would incur towards those who so eagerly followed his
lead, in the event of their suffering loss of life or limb in the
service of Ulster. His proposal that a guarantee fund of a million
sterling should be started, met with a ready response from the Council,
and from the wealthier classes in and about Belfast. The form of
"Indemnity Guarantee" provided for the payment to those entitled to
benefit under it of sums not less than they would have been entitled to
under the Fatal Accidents Act, the Employers' Liability Act, and the
Workman's Compensation Act, as the circumstances of the case might be.
The list was headed by Sir Edward Carson, Lord Londonderry, Captain
Craig, Sir John Lonsdale, Sir George Clark, and Lord Dunleath, with a
subscription of £10,000 each, and their example was followed by Mr. Kerr
Smiley, M.P., Mr. R.M. Liddell, Mr. George Preston, Mr. Henry Musgrave,
Mr. C.E. Allen, and Mr. Frank Workman, who entered their names
severally for the same amount. A quarter of a million sterling was
guaranteed in the room before the Council separated; by the end of a
week it had grown to £387,000; and before the 1st of January, 1914, the
total amount of the Indemnity Guarantee Fund was £1,043,816.
It gave Carson and the other leaders the greatest possible satisfaction
that the response to this appeal was so prompt and adequate. Not only
was their anxiety relieved in regard to their responsibility to loyal
followers of the rank and file who might become "casualties" in the
movement, but they had been given a striking proof that the business
community of Belfast did not consider its pocket more sacred than its
principles. Moreover, if there had been doubt on that score in anyone's
mind, it was set at rest by a memorable meeting for business men only
held in Belfast on the 3rd of November. Between three and four thousand
leaders of industry and commerce, the majority of whom had never
hitherto taken any active share in political affairs, presided over by
Mr. G.H. Ewart, President of the Belfast Chamber of Commerce, gave an
enthusiastic reception to Carson, who told them that he had come more to
consult them as to the commercial aspects of the great political
controversy than to impress his own views on the gathering. It was said
that the men in the hall represented a capital of not less than
£145,000,000 sterling,[54] and there can be no doubt that, even if that
were an exaggerated estimate, they were not of a class to whom
revolution, rebellion, or political upheaval could offer an attractive
prospect. Nevertheless, the meeting passed with complete unanimity a
resolution expressing confidence in Carson and approval of everything he
had done, including the formation of the Ulster Volunteer Force, and
declaring that they would refuse to pay "all taxes which they could
control" to an Irish Parliament in Dublin. This meeting was very
satisfactory, for it proved that the "captains of industry" were
entirely in accord with the working classes, whose support of the
movement had never been in doubt. It showed that Ulster was solid
behind Carson; and the unanimity was emphasised rather than disturbed by
a little handful of cranks, calling themselves "Protestant Home Rulers,"
who met on the 24th of October at the village of Ballymoney "to protest
against the lawless policy of Carsonism." The principal stickler for
propriety of conduct in public life on this occasion was Sir Roger
Casement.
While the unity and steadfastness--which enemies called obstinacy--of
the Ulster people were being thus made manifest, the public in England
were hearing a good deal about the growth of the Ulster Volunteer Force
in numbers and efficiency. As will be seen later, the anniversary of the
Covenant was celebrated with great military display at the very time
when the newspapers across the Channel were busy discussing Lord
Loreburn's letter, and at a parade service in the Ulster Hall, Canon
Harding, after pronouncing the Benediction, called on the congregation
to raise their right hands and pledge themselves thereby "to follow
wherever Sir Edward Carson shall lead us."
The events of September 1913--the setting up of the Provisional
Government, the wonderful and instantaneous response to the appeal for
an Indemnity Guarantee Fund, the rapid formation of an effective
volunteer army--were given the fullest publicity in the English Press.
Every newspaper of importance had its special correspondent in Belfast,
whose telegrams filled columns every day, adorned with all the varieties
of sensational headline type. The Radicals were becoming restive. The
idea that Carson was "not to be taken too seriously," had apparently
missed fire. It was the Ministerial affectation of contempt that no one
was taking seriously; in fact, to borrow an expression from current
slang, the "King Carson" stunt was a "wash-out."
_The Nation_ suggested that, instead of being laughed at, the Ulster
leader should be prosecuted, or, at any rate, removed from the Privy
Council, and other Liberal papers feverishly took up the suggestion,
debating whether the indictment should be under the Treason Felony Act
of 1848, the Crimes Act of 1887, or the Unlawful Drilling Act of 1819.
One of them, however, which succeeded in keeping its head, did not
believe that a prosecution would succeed; and, as to the Privy Council,
if Carson's name were removed, what about Londonderry and F.E. Smith,
Walter Long, and Bonar Law? In fact, "it would be difficult to know
where to stop."[55] It would have been. The Privy Council would have had
to be reduced to a committee of Radical politicians; and, if Carson had
been prosecuted, room would have had to be found in the dock, not only
for the whole Unionist Party, but for the proprietors and editors of
most of the leading journals. The Government stopped short of that
supreme folly; but their impotence was the measure of the prevailing
sympathy with Ulster.
FOOTNOTES:
[50] _Annual Register_, 1913, p. 205.
[51] Ibid., p. 209.
[52] Ibid., p. 220.
[53] _Annual Register_, 1913, p. 225.
[54] _Annual Register_, 1913, p. 225.
[55] _Liverpool Daily Post and Mercury_, September 22nd, 1913.