Ireland Since Parnell Part 11

But Mr Redmond and his friends missed the tide of the war opportunity as they missed all other tides. They were neither one thing nor the other. Mr Redmond spoke in Ireland in halting and hesitating fas.h.i.+on, publicly asking the National Volunteers to stay at home, and again made half-hearted speeches in favour of recruiting. Mr Redmond's supporters in Cork were not, however, as politically obtuse as he appeared to be, or perhaps as his a.s.sociations with Mr Dillon compelled him to be. Through the writer they asked Mr O'Brien to set forth a plan of united action. Mr O'Brien did so in a memorandum which suggested that Mr Redmond should take the initiative in inviting a Conference with the Irish Unionists to devise a programme of common action for the double purpose of drawing up an agreement for Home Rule on a basis beyond cavil in the matter of generosity to the Irish Unionists, and, on the strength of this agreement, undertaking a joint campaign to raise an Irish Army Corps, with its reserves, which was Mr Asquith's own measure of Ireland's just contribution. Mr O'Brien was in a position to a.s.sure Mr Redmond, and did in fact a.s.sure him, that if he took the initiative in summoning this Conference, he would have the ready co-operation of some of the most eminent Irish Unionists who followed Lord Midleton three years afterwards. To this Memorandum Mr O'Brien never received any reply, and I have reason to believe that all the reply received by Mr Redmond's own supporters in Cork, who submitted the Memorandum to him with an expression of their own approval of its terms, was a mere formal acknowledgment.

I am confident that Mr Redmond's own judgment favoured this proposal, as it did the policy of Conference and Conciliation in 1909, but that he was overborne by the other bosses, who had him completely at their mercy and who had not the wisdom to see that this gave them a glorious and honourable way out of their manifold difficulties.

There were, meanwhile, differences at the headquarters of the National Volunteers over Mr Redmond's offer of their services "for the defence of the sh.o.r.es of Ireland," which was made without their knowledge or consent. They, however, pa.s.sed a resolution declaring "the complete readiness of the Irish Volunteers to take joint action with the Ulster Volunteer Force for the defence of Ireland." The Prime Minister promised in Parliament that the Secretary for War would "do everything in his power after consultation with gentlemen in Ireland, to arrange for the full equipment and organisation of the Irish Volunteers." But the War Office had other views in the matter, and though a scheme was drawn up by General Sir Arthur Paget, Commanding the Forces in Ireland, "by which the War Office may be supplied from the Irish Volunteers with a force for the defence of Ireland," this scheme was immediately rejected by the War Office authorities who, in their efforts to gain Irish recruits--and I write with perfect knowledge of the facts--were guilty of every imaginable blunder and every possible insult to Irish sentiment and Irish ideals.

The Ulster Volunteers, on the other hand, were allowed to retain their own officers and their own tests of admission, and were taken over, holus-bolus, as they stood; were trained in camps of their own, had their own banners, were kept compactly together and were recognised in every way as a distinct unit of Army organisation. All of these privileges were insolently refused to the Nationalists of the South--they were for a time employed in the paltry duty of minding bridges, but they were withdrawn from even this humiliating performance after a short period.

Meanwhile an Irish Division was called for to be composed of Southern Nationalists, and with the Government guarantee that "it would be manned by Irishmen and officered by Irishmen." I had my own strong and earnest conviction about the war and the justice and righteousness of the Allied cause. I felt, if service was offered at all, it should not be confined to "defence of the sh.o.r.es of Ireland," but should be given abroad where, under battle conditions, the actual issue between right and wrong would be decided. I made my own offer of service in November 1914, and all the claim I make was that I was actuated by one desire and one only--to advance, humbly as may be, in myself the cause of Irish freedom. For the rest, I served and I suffered, and I sacrificed, and if the results were not all that we intended let this credit at least be given to those of us who joined up then, that we enlisted for worthy and honourable motives and that we sought, and sought alone, the ultimate good of Ireland in doing so. Mr Redmond's family bore their own honourable and distinguished part in "The Irish Brigade," as it came to be known, and Major "Willie" Redmond, when he died on the field of France, offered his life as surely for Ireland as any man who ever died for Irish liberty.

Faith was not kept with "The Irish Brigade" in either the manning or the officering of it by Irishmen, and the time came when, through failure of reserves, it was Irish more in name than in anything else, and when the gaps caused by casualties had to be filled by English recruits. A disgusted and disappointed country turned its thoughts away from const.i.tutional channels; and the betrayals of Ireland's hopes, and dignity and honour, which had gone on during the years, were fast leading to their natural and inevitable Nemesis.

CHAPTER XXV

THE EASTER WEEK REBELLION AND AFTERWARDS

A world preoccupied with the tremendous movements of mighty armies woke up one morning and rubbed its eyes in amazement to read that a rebellion had broken out in the capital of Ireland. How did it happen?

What did it mean? What was the cause of it? These and similar questions were being asked, and those who were ready with an answer were very few indeed. The marvellous thing, a matter almost incredible of belief, is that it caught the Irish Government absolutely unawares.

Their Secret Service Department might as well not have been in existence. For the first time probably in Irish history an Irish movement had come into being which had not a single "informer" in its ranks. This in itself was a remarkable thing and to be noted. The leaders and their officers had accomplished the remarkable achievement of discriminating against the Secret Service agent.

Although everything was clouded in a mist of conjecture and obscurity at the time, the causes of the Rebellion of Easter Week are now fairly clear, and may be shortly summarised. From the moment that the Redmondite Party had imposed their conditions on the Committee of the Irish Volunteers the vast bulk of the Volunteers who were not also "Mollies" were thoroughly dissatisfied with the arrangement. This discontent increased when the recruiting campaign in Ireland was conducted with calculated offence to Nationalist sentiment and self-respect, and eventually developed into a split. The members of the original Committee as a result summoned a Volunteer Convention for 25th November 1914, at which it was decided to declare: "That Ireland cannot with honour or safety take part in foreign quarrels otherwise than through the free action of a National Government of her own; and to repudiate the claim of any man to offer up the blood and lives of the sons of Irishmen and Irishwomen to the service of the British Empire while no National Government which could act and speak for the people of Ireland is allowed to exist."

The new body, or rather the old, resumed the original t.i.tle of the Irish Volunteers. There were also a number of other bodies entirely out of harmony with the policy of the Parliamentary Party, such as Sinn Feiners, the Republicans, and the Citizen Army of Dublin's workers organised in connection with Liberty Hall. These were all opposed to recruiting, and the extremists amongst them advocated total separation from England as the cardinal article of their faith. A new Separatist daily newspaper was published in Dublin under the t.i.tle _Eire--Ireland_. Its att.i.tude towards the war was that Ireland had no cause of quarrel with the German people, or just cause of offence against them; and it was not long before the Irish Volunteers came to be regarded by the British authorities as a "disaffected"

organisation. Its organs in the Press were promptly suppressed, only for others as promptly to take their place. Its officers began to be deported without charge preferred or investigation of any sort. Fenian teachings became popular once more and "the Old Guard" of Ireland, who had remained ever loyal to their early Fenian faith, must have felt a pulsing of their veins when they saw the doctrines of their hot youth take shape again. The eyes of a small but resolute minority of Irish Nationalists began to see in red revolution the only hope of Irish freedom. Physical force may appear a hopeless policy but it was at least worth preparing for, and it may be also it would be worth the trial. This was their creed and this the purpose that animated them.

There can be no doubt that through the medium of the old Irish Republican Brotherhood, which had never quite died out in Ireland, communications were kept up with the Clan-na-Gael and other extreme organisations in the United States, and through these avenues also probably with Germany. Indeed the German Foreign Office, quite early in the war, at the instigation of Sir Roger Cas.e.m.e.nt had declared formally "that Germany would not invade Ireland with any intentions of conquest or of the destruction of any inst.i.tutions." If they did land in the course of the war, they would come "inspired by good will towards a land and a people for whom Germany only wishes national prosperity and freedom."

The avowedly revolutionary party gained a great accession of strength when Mr P.H. Pea.r.s.e and Mr James Connolly composed certain differences and united the workers in the Citizen Army with the Irish Volunteers.

Mr Pea.r.s.e was now the leader of the latter organisation--a man of high intellectual attainments, single-minded purpose, and austere character. "For many years," writes Mr Henry, "his life seems to have been pa.s.sed in the grave shadow of the sacrifice he felt that he was called upon to make for Ireland. He believed that he was appointed to tread the path that Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone had trodden before him, and his life was shaped so that it might be worthy of its end."

Separation as the only road to independence was the burden of Pea.r.s.e's teaching. It was his definite purpose to do something which, by the splendour of the sacrifice involved, would rouse Ireland out of its national apathy and national stupor. He and his a.s.sociates believed, as a writer in _Nationality_ declared: "We have the material, the men and stuff of war, the faith and purpose and cause for revolution.... We shall have Ireland illumined with a light before which even the Martyrs' will pale: the light of Freedom, of a deed done and action taken and a blow struck for the Old Land." It was in this faith they went forth to their sacrifice. "On Palm Sunday 1916,"

writes Mr Henry, "the Union of Irish Labour and Irish Nationality was proclaimed in a striking fas.h.i.+on. In the evening of that day Connolly hoisted over Liberty Hall, the headquarters of the Citizen Army, the Irish tricolour of orange, white, and green, the flag designed by the Young Irelanders in 1848 to symbolise the union of the Orange and Green by the white bond of a common brotherhood. On Easter Monday the Irish Republic was proclaimed in Arms in Dublin."

Now there are many considerations that could be usefully discussed in relation to the Easter Week Rebellion, but this is not the time or place for them. Let it be made clear, however, that the Rising was not the work of Sinn Fein, but of the leaders of the Irish Volunteers and the Citizen Army. It would be a pretty subject of inquiry to know how Sinn Fein got the credit for the Rising and why the t.i.tle was given to the new movement that came into being afterwards. My own view is that the British journalists who swarmed into Ireland are chiefly responsible for the designation. _Sinn Fein_ was a fine mouthful for their British readers to swallow, and so they gave it to them. Be this as it may, the Rebellion came to be referred to as the Sinn Fein Rebellion, and the movement to which it gave birth has ever since a.s.sumed the same name. It is not my intention to dwell on the grave incidents that followed, the prolonged agony of "the shootings of the Rebel leaders," the a.s.sa.s.sination of Mr Sheehy-Skeffington, the indecent scenes in the House of Commons when the Nationalist members behaved themselves with sad lack of restraint--cheering Mr Birrell's prediction that "the Irish people would never regard the Dublin Rebellion with the same feelings with which they regarded previous rebellions," cheering still more loudly when, in response to Sir Edward Carson's invitation to Mr Redmond to join him in "denouncing and putting down those Rebels for evermore," Mr Redmond expressed, to the amazement of all Nationalist Ireland, his "horror and detestation"

of Irishmen who, however mistaken they may be--and history has yet to decide this--at least "poured out their blood like heroes--as they believed and as millions of their countrymen now believe for Ireland"

(Mr William O'Brien). Mr Dillon, needless to say, flung his leader overboard on this occasion without the slightest truth. He declared he had never stood on a recruiting platform (which was not true!) and that he never would do so, and accused the Government and the soldiers of was.h.i.+ng out the life-work of the Nationalists in "a sea of blood."

The Government were at their wits' end what to do. Mr Birrell, the amiable and inefficient Chief Secretary, had to go. Mr Asquith went over to Ireland on a tour of investigation and returned to Westminster with two dominant impressions: (1) the breakdown of the existing machinery of Irish Government; (2) the strength and depth, almost the universality, of the feeling in Ireland that there was a unique opportunity for the settlement of outstanding problems and for a combined effort to obtain an agreement as to the way in which the government of Ireland was to be carried on for the future. He announced that Mr Lloyd George had undertaken, at the request of his colleagues, to devote his time and energy to the promotion of an Irish settlement.

Undoubtedly "the machinery of Government had broken down." But the Government of England had taken no account of what was happening in Ireland--of the veritable wave of pa.s.sion that swept the country after, the "executions" of the Rebel leaders, of the manner in which this pa.s.sion was fanned and flamed by the arrest and deportation of thousands of young men all over the country, who were believed to be prominently identified with the Volunteer Movement, of the unrest that was caused by the reports that a number of the peaceable citizens of Dublin were deliberately shot without cause by the troops during the military occupation of the city. What wonder that there was a strong and even fierce revulsion of feeling! And this was not reserved altogether for the Government. The Irish Parliamentarians had their own fair share of it. The process of disillusionment now rapidly set in. That portion of the country that had not already completely lost faith in the Party and in Parliamentary methods was fast losing it. It only required that the Party should once again give its unqualified a.s.sent, as it did, to Mr Lloyd George's "Headings of Agreement," which provided for the part.i.tion of Ireland and the definite exclusion of the six counties of Down, Antrim, Londonderry, Armagh, Monaghan and Tyrone, to send it down into the nethermost depths of popular favour and the whole-hearted contempt of every self-respecting man of the Irish race. The collapse of Parliamentarianism was now complete. There was no Nationalist of independent spirit left in Ireland who would even yield it lip service. Irish public bodies which a year or two previously were the obedient vehicles of Party manipulation were now unanimous in denouncing any form of part.i.tion. The proposals for settlement definitely failed, and the machinery of Irish Government which had "broken down" was set up afresh and the discredited administration of Dublin Castle fully restored by the appointment of Mr Duke, a Unionist, as Chief Secretary for Ireland.

The war was not going at all well for the Allies. America was still hesitating on the brink as to whether she would come in or remain steadfastly aloof. The Asquithian Ministry had been manoeuvred out of office under circ.u.mstances which it will be the joy of the historian to deal with when all the doc.u.ments and facts are available. That interesting and candid diarist, Colonel Repington, under date 3rd December 1916, writes:

"Last Friday began a great internal crisis, when L.G. [Lloyd George]

wrote to the P.M. [Asquith] that he could not go on unless our methods of waging war were speeded up. He proposed a War Council of three, including himself, Bonar Law and Carson. The two latter are with him, which means the Unionists too."

Asquith resigned, the Coalition Ministry was formed, and it is probably more than a surmise that the part played by Sir Edward Carson in bringing about this result and in elevating Mr Lloyd George into the Premiers.h.i.+p explains much of the power he has exercised over him ever since. Mr Redmond and Sir Edward Carson were both invited to join the Coalition. The former declined, the latter accepted, and from his position of power within the Cabinet was able to torpedo Home Rule at will.

And thus came to an end in Ireland as gross a tyranny perpetrated in the sacred name of Nationality as ever disgraced our annals. The Party which had so long held power had destroyed themselves by years of selfish blundering. The country was growing weary of the men who killed land purchase, const.i.tuted themselves the mere dependents of an English Party in exchange for boundless jobbery, intensified the alarm of Ulster by transferring all power and patronage to a pseudo-Catholic secret organisation, and crowned their incompetence by accepting a miserably inadequate Home Rule Bill (with Part.i.tion twice over thrown in). The country which had been shackled into silence by the terrorist methods of the Board of Erin (which made the right of free meeting impossible by the use of their batons, bludgeons and revolvers) was emanc.i.p.ated by the Dublin Rising. And in the scale of things it must be counted, for the young men who risked their lives in Easter Week, not the least of their performances that they gave back to the people of Ireland the right of thinking and acting for themselves. How well they used this right to exact a full measure of retribution from the Party that had betrayed them the General Election of 1918 abundantly shows.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE IRISH CONVENTION AND THE CONSCRIPTION OF IRELAND

The time had now come when the Irish Party had to taste all the bitterness of actual and antic.i.p.ated defeat. Several Irish newspapers had gone over to Sinn Fein. _The Irish Independent_ had been previously a fearless critic of the Party, and the defeat of the Part.i.tion proposals was largely due to the manner in which they had denounced them and exposed their real character.

A bye-election took place in North Roscommon. There was a straight fight between the Parliamentary Party and Sinn Fein and the former were defeated by an overwhelming majority. Another trial of strength came soon afterwards, and the Party again bit the dust. The Coalitionists had now turned a cold shoulder to the Party. They could get along very well without them. They had got all they could out of them for war purposes. They foresaw their approaching defeat, and they did not, therefore, count on their scheme of things as a force to be conciliated or to be afraid of. And as if to ensure the complete downfall and overthrow of the Party the Government continued their arrests and deportations.

The Party had to "demonstrate" in some way and they hit upon the device of withdrawing from Parliament and sending a Manifesto to the United States and the self-governing dominions. But whilst they paid _Sinn Fein_ the compliment of adopting their policy of Parliamentary abstention, they neither honestly kept away nor openly remained--asking questions and sending amba.s.sadors from time to time. _Sinn Fein_ was not inactive either. It summoned a Convention to meet in Dublin to a.s.sert the independence of Ireland, its status as a nation and its right to representation at the Peace Conference.

The Government was still faced with a reluctant and undecided America, and it became essential for "propaganda purposes" to do something of fair seeming on the Irish Question. The Prime Minister accordingly revived the old Part.i.tion proposals, but these were now dead and d.a.m.ned by all parties, the Roscommon, Longford and East Clare victories of Sinn Fein having brought the Irish Party to disown their twice-repeated bargain for Part.i.tion. He then proposed as an alternative that an Irish Convention, composed of representative Irishmen, should a.s.semble to deliberate upon the best means of governing their own country.

The All-for-Ireland Party were asked to nominate representatives to this Convention, as were also Sinn Fein. In reply Mr O'Brien stated four essential conditions of success: (1) a Conference of ten or a dozen persons known to intend peace; (2) a prompt agreement, making every conceivable concession to Ulster, with the one reservation that part.i.tion in any shape or form was inadmissible and unthinkable; (3) the immediate submission of the agreement to a Referendum of the Irish people (never before consulted upon a definite proposal); (4) if any considerable minority of irreconcilables still uttered threats of an Ulster rebellion a bold appeal of the Government to the British electorate at a General Election to declare once and for all between the claims of reason and justice and the incorrigibility of Ulster.

One panel of names which Mr O'Brien submitted to the Cabinet at their request was: The Lord Mayor of Dublin, the Protestant Primate, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, the Marquess of Londonderry, the Marquess of Ormonde, General Sir Hubert Gough, Major "Willie" Redmond, M.P., the Earl of Shaftesbury, the Earl of Dunraven, Viscount Northcliffe, Mr William Martin Murphy, Mr Hugh Barrie, M.P., and two representatives of Sinn Fein. Mr O'Brien was in a position to guarantee that at a Conference thus const.i.tuted Sinn Fein would not be unrepresented. Instead of setting up a Conference of this character, which it is now clear would not have separated without coming to an agreement, the proposal was set aside--whether by Mr Lloyd George or by Mr Redmond's advisers has yet to be revealed--and an Irish Convention composed of nominated representatives was const.i.tuted, which had no possibility of agreement except an agreement on the lines of Part.i.tion and which was doubtless planned and conceived for the purpose of fooling Ireland and America and keeping the Convention "talking" for nine months until America was wiled into the war.

The Convention could by no possibility succeed, and my belief is it was never intended to succeed. It was numerically unwieldy.

Nine-tenths of its representation was drawn from the Ulster Party's and the Irish Party's supporters, both of whom were pledged in advance to the Part.i.tion settlement, and as far as the Irish Party representation was concerned the last thing that could be said of it was that it was representative. Of the seventy-five Redmondites who composed three-fourths of the Convention only one escaped rejection by his const.i.tuents as soon as the electors had their say! The Convention laboured under the still further disadvantage of being at the mercy of an Orange veto, which makes one wonder how it was that Mr Redmond or his party ever submitted to it. The Ulster delegates to the Convention were under the control of an outside body--the Ulster Orange Council.

They could decide nothing without reference to this body, and hence the Convention was in the perfectly humiliating position of carrying on its proceedings subject to an outside Orange veto.

Neither the All-for-Ireland Party nor Sinn Fein was represented at the Convention, although Mr Lloyd George made a second appeal to Mr O'Brien to a.s.sist in its deliberations. It says something for the wisdom of Mr O'Brien's proposal for a small Conference that after debating the matter for months the Convention decided to transmit their powers to a Committee of Nine to draw up terms of agreement.

This Committee did actually reach agreement, only to have it squelched instantly by the veto of the Ulster Council when the Ulster nominees reported the terms of it to them. Lord MacDonnell, in a letter to _The Times_, dated 2nd November 1919, makes the following disclosure regarding Mr Redmond's view of this matter:--

"In regard to this episode I well remember the late Mr Redmond saying in conversation that if he had foreseen the possibility of a proposal made there being submitted for judgment to men who had not partic.i.p.ated in the Convention's proceedings, and were removed from its pervading atmosphere of good will, he would never have consented to enter it."

Mr O'Brien, however, saw this danger in advance and drew public attention to it. In a speech in the House of Commons he also foretold what the failure of the Convention meant: the destruction of the const.i.tutional movement and the setting up of "the right of rebellion, whether from the Covenanters or Sinn Feiners as the only arbiter left in Irish affairs. You will justly make Parliamentary methods more despised and detested than they are at the present moment by the young men of Ireland."

The Convention failed to reach unanimity. It presented various reports, and the Government, glad of so easy a way out, simply did nothing. The Convention served the Ministerial purpose, and there was an end of it. The proceedings were, however, notable for one tragic incident. Mr Redmond sought to rally the majority of the Convention in support of a compromise which, whilst falling short of Dominion Home Rule, avoided part.i.tion and would have been acceptable to Southern Unionist opinion. Mr Devlin and the Catholic Bishops opposed Mr Redmond's motion and the Irish leader, feeling himself deserted at the most critical moment, did not move, and withdrew from the Convention to his death, adding another to the long list of tragic figures in Irish history.

The only practical outcome of the Convention was the acceptance of Dominion Home Rule by a minority, which included Mr Devlin. As if to make matters as impracticable as possible for the Parliamentarians, Mr Lloyd George introduced a Bill to conscript Ireland at the very time the Convention proposals were before Parliament. A more callous indifference to Irish psychology could scarcely be imagined. A series of Sinn Fein victories at the polls had decided the fate of Part.i.tion once and for all. But the war exigencies of the Government were so great, the military situation on the Continent was so hazardous, they seemed determined to risk even civil war in their resolve to get Irishmen to serve. They must have fighting men at any cost. The menace was very real, and the whole of Nationalist Ireland came together as one man to resist it. The representatives of the Irish Party, of Labour, of Sinn Fein and of the All-for-Irelanders met in Conference at the Mansion House, Dublin, to concert measures of Irish defence.

The Mansion House Conference, at its first meeting, on 18th April, issued the following declaration:--

"Taking our stand on Ireland's separate and distinct nationhood, and affirming the principle of liberty, that the Governments of nations derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, we deny the right of the British Government or any external authority to impose compulsory military service in Ireland against the clearly expressed will of the Irish people. The pa.s.sing of the Conscription Bill by the British House of Commons must be regarded as a declaration of war on the Irish nation. The alternative to accepting it as such is to surrender our liberties and to acknowledge ourselves slaves. It is in direct violation of the rights of small nationalities to self-determination, which even the Prime Minister of England--now preparing to employ naked militarism and force his Act upon Ireland--himself announced as an essential condition for peace at the Peace Congress. The attempt to enforce it is an unwarrantable aggression, which we call upon all Irishmen to resist by the most effective means at their disposal."

The Irish Catholic Bishops on the same day received a deputation from the Mansion House Conference, and, having heard them, issued a manifesto, in the course of which they said:

"In view especially of the historic relations between the two countries from the very beginning up to this moment, we consider that Conscription forced in this way upon Ireland is an oppressive and inhuman law, which the Irish people have a right to resist by every means that are consonant with the law of G.o.d."

The Irish Labour Party called a one-day strike on 23rd April as "a demonstration of fealty to the cause of labour and Ireland."

The Government went on with its preparations for enforcing Conscription. The Lord-Lieutenant, who was known to be opposed to the policy of the Ministry, was recalled, and Field-Marshal Lord French was put in his place. A "German plot," which the late Viceroy declared had no existence in fact, was supposed to be discovered, and in connection with it Messrs de Valera and A. Griffith, the two Sinn Fein members of the Mansion House Conference, were arrested and deported.

The Sinn Fein, the Gaelic League and allied organisations were declared to be "dangerous a.s.sociations." Concerts, hurling matches, etc., were prohibited, and Ireland was frankly treated as an occupied territory. A bye-election occurred in East Cavan and Mr Griffith--England's prisoner--was returned, defeating a nominee of the Irish Party. This gave the death-blow to Conscription, though Ireland still stood sternly on guard.