NATIONALISTS AND CONSCRIPTION
While the Irish Convention was toilfully bringing to a close its eight
months' career of futility, the British Empire was in the grip of the
most terrible ordeal through which it has ever passed. On the 21st of
March, 1918, the assembled Irishmen in Dublin were discussing whether or
not proportional representation should form part of the hypothetical
constitution of Ireland, and on the same day the Germans well-nigh
overwhelmed the 5th Army at the opening of the great offensive campaign
which threatened to break irretrievably the Allied line by the capture
of Amiens. The world held its breath. Englishmen hardly dared to think
of the fate that seemed impending over their country. Irishmen continued
complacently debating the paltry details of the Bishop of Raphoe's
clauses. Irishmen and Englishmen together were being killed or maimed by
scores of thousands in a supreme effort to stay the advance of the Boche
to Paris and the sea.
It happened that on the very day when the Report of the Convention was
laid on the table of the House of Commons, the Prime Minister made a
statement of profound gravity, beginning with words such as the British
Parliament can never before have been compelled to hear from the lips of
the head of the Government. For the moment, said Mr. Lloyd George, there
was a lull in the storm; but more attacks were to come, and--
The "fate of the Empire, the fate of Europe, and the fate of
liberty throughout the world may depend on the success with which
the very last of these attacks is resisted and countered."
Mr. Asquith struck the same note, urging the House--
"With all the earnestness and with all the solemnity of which I am
capable, to realise that never before in the experience of any man
within these walls, or of his fathers and his forefathers, has this
country and all the great traditions and ideals which are embodied
in our history--never has this, the most splendid inheritance ever
bequeathed to a people, been in greater peril, or in more need of
united safeguarding than at this present time."
Not Demosthenes himself, in his most impassioned appeal to the
Athenians, more fitly matched moving words to urgent occasion than these
two statesmen in the simple, restrained sentences, in which they warned
the Commons of the peril hanging over England.
But was eloquent persuasion really required at such a moment to still
the voice of faction in the British House of Commons? Let those who
would assume the negative study the official Parliamentary Report of the
debate on the 9th of April, 1918. They will find a record which no loyal
Irishman will ever be able to read without a tingling sense of shame.
The whole body of members, with one exception, listened to the Prime
Minister's grave words in silence touched with awe, feeling that perhaps
they were sitting there on the eve of the greatest tragedy in their
country's history. The single exception was the Nationalist Party. From
those same benches whence arose nineteen years back the never-forgotten
cheers that greeted the tale of British disaster in South Africa, now
came a shower of snarling interruptions that broke persistently into the
Prime Minister's speech, and with angry menace impeded his unfolding of
the Government's proposals for meeting the supreme ordeal of the war.
What was the reason? It was because Ireland, the greater part of which
had till now successfully shirked its share of privation and sacrifice,
was at last to be asked to take up its corner of the burden. The need
for men to replace casualties at the front was pressing, urgent,
imperative. Many indeed blamed the Government for having delayed too
long in filling the depleted ranks of our splendid armies in France; the
moment had come when another day's delay would have been criminal. As
Mr. Lloyd George pointed out, the battle that was being waged in front
of Amiens "proves that the enemy has definitely decided to seek a
military decision this year, whatever the consequences to himself." The
Germans had just called up a fresh class of recruits calculated to place
more than half a million of efficient young men in the line. The
collapse of Russia had released the vast German armies of the East for
use against England and France. It was under such circumstances that the
Prime Minister proposed
"to submit to Parliament to-day certain recommendations in order to
assist this country and the Allies to weather the storm. They will
involve," continued Mr. Lloyd George, "extreme sacrifices on the
part of large classes of the population, and nothing would justify
them but the most extreme necessity, and the fact that we are
fighting for all that is essential and most sacred in the national
life."
The age limit for compulsory military service was to be raised from
forty-two to fifty, and Ireland was to be included under the new
Military Service Bill now introduced. England, Scotland, and Wales had
cheerfully submitted to conscription when first enacted by Mr. Asquith
in 1916, and to all the additional combings of industry and extension of
obligation that had been required in the past two years. Agriculture and
other essential industries were being starved for want of labour, and
men had actually been brought back from the sorely pressed armies to
produce supplies imperatively needed at home.
But from all this Ireland had hitherto been exempt. To escape the call
of the country a man had only to prove that he was "ordinarily resident
in Ireland"; for conscription did not cross the Irish Sea. From most of
the privations cheerfully borne in Great Britain the Irishman had been
equally free. Food rationing did not trouble him, and, lest he should go
short of accustomed plenty, it was even forbidden to carry a parcel of
butter across the Channel from Ireland. Horse-racing went on as usual.
Emigration had been suspended during the war, so that Ireland was
unusually full of young men who, owing to the unwonted prosperity of the
country resulting from war prices for its produce, were "having the
time of their lives." Mr. Bonar Law, in the debates on the Military
Service Bill, gave reasons for the calculation that there were not far
short of 400,000 young men of military age, and of "Al" physique, in
Ireland available for the Army.
No wonder that Mr. Lloyd George said it would be impossible to leave
this reservoir of man-power untouched when men of fifty, whose sons were
already with the colours, were to be called up in Great Britain! But the
bare suggestion of doing such a thing raised a hurricane of angry
vituperation and menace from the Nationalists in the House of Commons.
When Mr. Lloyd George, in conciliatory accents, observed that he had no
wish to raise unnecessary controversy, as Heaven knew they had trouble
enough already, "You will get more of it," shouted Mr. Flavin. "You will
have another battle front in Ireland," interjected Mr. Byrne. Mr.
Flavin, getting more and more excited, called out, with reference to the
machinery for enrolment explained by the Prime Minister--"It will never
begin. Ireland will not have it at any price"; and again, a moment
later, "You come across and try to take them." Mr. Devlin was fully as
fierce as these less prominent members of his party, and after many
wrathful interruptions he turned aside the debate into a discussion
about a trumpery report of one of the sub-committees of the Irish
Convention.
It was truly a sad and shameful scene to be witnessed in the House of
Commons at such a moment. It would have been so even if the contention
of the Nationalists had been reasonably tenable. But it was not. They
maintained that only an Irish Parliament had the right to enforce
conscription in Ireland. But at the beginning of the war they had
accepted the proviso that it should run its course before Home Rule came
into operation. And even if it had been in operation, and a Parliament
had been sitting in Dublin under Mr. Asquith's Act, which the
Nationalists had accepted as a settlement of their demands, that
Parliament would have had nothing to do with the raising of military
forces by conscription or otherwise, this being a duty reserved, as in
every federal or quasi-federal constitution, for the central
legislative authority alone.
But it was useless to point this out to the infuriated Nationalist
members. Mr. William O'Brien denounced the idea of compelling Irishmen
to bear the same burden as their British fellow-subjects as "a
declaration of war against Ireland"; and he and Mr. Healy joined Mr.
Dillon and his followers in opposing with all their parliamentary skill,
and all their voting power, the extension to Ireland of compulsory
service. Mr. Healy, whose vindictive memory had not forgotten the
Curragh Incident before the war, could not forbear from having an
ungenerous fling at General Gough, who had just been driven back by the
overwhelming numerical superiority of the German attack, and who, at the
moment when Mr. Healy was taunting him in the House of Commons, was
re-forming his gallant 5th Army to resist the enemy's further advance.
In comparison with this Mr. Healy's stale gibe at "Carson's Army,"
however inappropriate to the occasion, was a venial offence. Carson
himself replied in a gentle and conciliatory tone to Mr. Healy's coarse
diatribe.
"My honourable friend," he said, "talked of Carson's Army. You may,
if you like, call it with contempt Carson's Army. But it has just
gone into action for the fourth time, and many of them have paid
the supreme sacrifice. They have covered themselves with glory,
and, what is more, they have covered Ireland with glory, and they
have left behind sad homes throughout the small hamlets of Ulster,
as I well know, losing three or four sons in many a home."
On behalf of Ulster Carson gave unhesitating support to the Government.
He and his colleagues from Ulster had always voted against the exemption
of Ireland from the Military Service Acts. It was true, no doubt, as the
Nationalists jeeringly maintained, that conscription was no more desired
in Ulster than in any other part of the United Kingdom. Of course it was
not; it was liked nowhere. But Carson declared that "equality of
sacrifice" was the principle to be acted upon, and Ulster accepted it.
He "would go about hanging his head in shame," if his own part of the
United Kingdom were absolved from sacrifice which the national necessity
imposed on the inhabitants of Great Britain.
The Bill was carried through by the 16th of April in the teeth of
Nationalist opposition maintained through all its stages. Mr. Bonar Law
announced emphatically that the Government intended to enforce the
compulsory powers in Ireland; but he also said that yet another attempt
was to be made to settle the constitutional question by bringing in "at
an early date" a measure of Home Rule which the Government hoped might
be carried at once and "without violent controversy."
After the experience of the past this seemed an amazingly sanguine
estimate of the prospects of any proposals that ingenuity could devise.
But what the nature of the measure was to have been was never made
known; for the Bill was still in the hands of a drafting committee when
a dangerous German intrigue in Ireland was discovered; and the
Lord-Lieutenant made a proclamation on the 18th of May announcing that
the Government had information "that certain of the King's subjects in
Ireland had entered into a treasonable communication with the German
enemy, and that strict measures must be taken to put down this German
plot."[98] On the same day one hundred and fifty Sinn Feiners were
arrested, including Mr. De Valera and Mr. Arthur Griffith, and on the
25th a statement was published indicating the connection between this
conspiracy and Casement's designs in 1916. The Government had definitely
ascertained some weeks earlier, and must have known at the very time
when they were promising a new Home Rule Bill, that a plan for landing
arms in Ireland was ripe for execution.[99] Indeed, on the 12th of April
a German agent who had landed in Ireland was arrested, with papers in
his possession showing that De Valera had worked out a detailed
organisation of the rebel army, and expected to be in a position to
muster half a million of trained men.[100]
Such was the fruit of the Government's infatuation which, under the
delusion of "creating an atmosphere of good-will" for the Convention,
had released a few months previously a number of dangerous men who had
been proved to be in league with the Germans, and who now took advantage
of this clemency to conspire afresh with the foreign enemy. It was not
surprising that Mr. Bonar Law said it was impossible for the Government,
under these circumstances, to proceed with their proposals for a new
Home Rule Bill.
On the other hand, no sooner was the Military Service Act on the
Statute-book than the Government began to recede from Mr. Bonar Law's
declaration that they would at all costs enforce it in Ireland. They
intimated that if voluntary recruiting improved it might be possible to
dispense with compulsion. But although Mr. Shortt--who succeeded Mr.
Duke as Chief Secretary in May, at the same time as Lord Wimborne was
replaced in the Lord-Lieutenancy by Field-Marshal Lord French--complained
on the 29th of July that the Nationalists had given no help to the
Government in obtaining voluntary recruits in Ireland, and, "instead of
taking Sinn Fein by the throat, had tried to go one better,"[101] the
compulsory powers of the Military Service Act remained a dead letter.
The fact was that the Nationalists had followed up their fierce
opposition to the Bill by raising a still more fierce agitation in
Ireland against conscription. In this they joined hands with Sinn Fein,
and the whole weight of the Catholic Church was thrown into the same
scale. From the altars of that Church the thunderbolts of ecclesiastical
anathema were loosed against the Government, and--what was more
effective--against any who should obey the call to arms. The Government
gave way before the violence of the storm, and the lesson to be learnt
from their defeat was not thrown away on the rebel party in Ireland.
There was, naturally, widespread indignation in England at the spectacle
of the youth of Ireland taking its ease at home and earning
extravagantly high war-time wages while middle-aged bread-winners in
England were compulsorily called to the colours; but the marvellously
easy-going disposition of Englishmen submitted to the injustice with no
more than a legitimate grumble.
In June 1918, while this agitation against conscription was at its
height, the hostility of the Nationalists took a new turn. A manifesto,
intended as a justification of their resistance to conscription, was
issued in the form of a letter to Mr. Wilson, President of the United
States, signed by Mr. Dillon, Mr. Devlin, Mr. William O'Brien, Mr.
Healy, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, and some others, including leaders of
Sinn Fein. It was a remarkable document, the authorship of which was
popularly attributed to Mr. T.M. Healy. If it ever came under the eye of
Mr. Wilson, a man of literary taste and judgment, it must have afforded
him a momentary diversion from the cares of his exalted office. A longer
experience than his of diplomatic correspondence would fail to produce
from the pigeon-holes of all the Chanceries a rival to this
extraordinary composition, the ill-arranged paragraphs of which formed
an inextricable jumble of irrelevant material, in which bad logic, bad
history, and barren invective were confusedly intermingled in a torrent
of turgid rhetoric. The extent of its range may be judged from the fact
that Shakespeare's allusions to Joan of Arc were not deemed too remote
from the subject of conscription in Ireland during the Great War to find
a place in this amazing despatch. For the amusement of anyone who may
care to examine so rare a curiosity of English prose, it will be found
in full in the Appendix to this volume, where it may be compared by way
of contrast with the restrained rejoinder sent also to President Wilson
by Sir Edward Carson, the Lord Mayor of Belfast, the Mayor of Derry, and
several loyalist representatives of Labour in Ulster.
In the Nationalist letter to President Wilson reference was made more
than once to the sympathy that prevailed in Ireland in the eighteenth
century with the American colonists in the War of Independence. The use
made of it was a good example of the way in which a half-truth may, for
argumentative purposes, be more misleading than a complete falsehood.
"To-day, as in the days of George Washington"--so Mr. Wilson was
informed--"nearly half the American forces have been furnished from the
descendants of our banished race." No mention was made of the fact that
the members of the "banished race" in Washington's army were
Presbyterian emigrants from Ulster, who formed almost the entire
population of great districts in the American Colonies at that
time.[102] The late Mr. Whitelaw Reid told an Edinburgh audience in 1911
that more than half the Presbyterian population of Ulster emigrated to
America between 1730 and 1770, and that at the date of the Revolution
they made more than one-sixth of the population of the Colonies. The
Declaration of Independence itself, he added--
"Is sacredly preserved in the handwriting of an Ulsterman, who was
Secretary of Congress. It was publicly read by an Ulsterman, and
first printed by another. Washington's first Cabinet had four
members, of whom one was an Ulsterman."[103]
It is, of course, true that not all Ulster Presbyterians of that period
were the firm and loyal friends of Great Britain that their descendants
became after a century's experience of the legislative Union. But it is
the latter who best in Ireland can trace kinship with the founders of
the United States, and who are entitled--if any Irishmen are--to base on
that kinship a claim to the sympathy and support of the American people.
FOOTNOTES:
[98] _Annual Register_, 1918, p, 87.
[99] Ibid., p. 88
[100] Ibid.
[101] _Annual Register_, 1918, p. 90.
[102] See Lecky's _History of England in the Eighteenth Century_, vol.
iv, p. 430.
[103] See Lecture to the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution by Whitelaw
Reid, reported in _The Scotsman_, November 2nd, 1911.