John Redmond's Last Years Part 5

Retrenchment on the vast area of unproductive expenditure which Castle government had created could only be hoped for at a very distant date.

He could not therefore promise substantial economy; nor could he argue for a further increase of subsidy without playing into the Tories'

hands. On all this detail of the measure, the attack in debate was bound to be very powerful.

So far as Great Britain was concerned, the reply of Home Rulers was tolerably effective. In 1886 it had been feasible to propose Home Rule with an Imperial contribution of two and a half millions. By 1893 the possible margin had dropped heavily, and Mr. Gladstone had foretold that within fifteen years Ireland would absorb more money for purely Irish services than Irish taxation produced. This prophecy had been fulfilled to the letter, and everyone saw that to continue the Union meant increasing this charge automatically. It was better to cut the loss and at least say that it should not exceed a fixed figure.

But in Ireland men dwelt always on the Report of the Financial Relations Commission, which had represented the balance as heavily against England and the account for overtaxation of the poorer country as reaching three hundred millions. No man quoted this doc.u.ment oftener than Redmond, and none was a firmer believer in its justification. But he realized, as his countrymen did not, that such a claim could never hope for cash settlement, that its value was as an argument for the concession of freedom upon generous terms. How could he urge that the terms proposed were ungenerous, when Great Britain offered to pay the cost of all Irish services--amounting to a million and a half more than Irish revenue--and to provide over and above this a yearly grant of half a million, dropping gradually, it is true, but still remaining at a subsidy of two hundred thousand a year so long as the finance arrangements of the Bill lasted?

Nevertheless, these arrangements were bad ones, and this was where the Bill was most vulnerable on its merits; for self-government without the control of taxation and expenditure is at best an unhopeful experiment.

But in the public mind at large only one difficulty bulked big, and that was Ulster. Men on both sides began to be uneasy about the consequences of what was happening, and this temper reflected itself in the House. On New Year's Day 1913, at the beginning of the Report stage, Sir Edward Carson moved the exclusion of the province of Ulster. His speech was in a new tone of studied conciliation. But, as the Prime Minister immediately made clear, there was no offer that if this concession were made opposition would cease. It was merely recommended as the sole alternative to civil war. Redmond, in following, let fall an _obiter dictum_ on the position of the Irish controversy:

"No one who observes the current of popular opinion in this country can doubt for one instant that if this opposition from the north-east corner of Ulster did not exist, Home Rule would go through to-morrow as an agreed Bill."

For this reason, he said, he would go almost any length within certain well-defined limits to meet that section of his fellow-countrymen. His conditions were, first, that the proposal must be a genuine one, not put forward as a piece of tactics to wreck the Bill, but frankly as part of a general settlement of the Home Rule question; secondly, that it must be of reasonable character; and thirdly, not inconsistent with the fundamental principle of national self-government. Ulster's present proposal, if accepted, carried with it no promise of a settlement; it was unreasonable as proposing to strike out of Ireland five counties with Nationalist majorities. But finally, on a broader ground, it destroyed the national right of Ireland.

"Ireland for us is one ent.i.ty. It is one land. Tyrone and Tyrconnell are as much a part of Ireland as Munster or Connaught. Some of the most glorious chapters connected with our national struggle have been a.s.sociated with Ulster--aye, and with the Protestants of Ulster--and I declare here to-day, as a Catholic Irishman, notwithstanding all the bitterness of the past, that I am as proud of Derry as of Limerick. Our ideal in this movement is a self-governing Ireland in the future, when all her sons of all races and creeds within her sh.o.r.es will bring their tribute, great or small, to the great total of national enterprise, national statesmans.h.i.+p, and national happiness. Men may deride that ideal; they may say that it is a futile and unreliable ideal, but they cannot call it an ign.o.ble one. It is an ideal that we, at any rate, will cling to, and because we cling to it, and because it is there, embedded in our hearts and natures, it is an absolute bar to such a proposal as this amendment makes, a proposal which would create for all times a sharp, eternal dividing line between Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, and a measure which would for all time mean the part.i.tion and disintegration of our nation. To that we as Irish Nationalists can never submit."

Later in the debate, Mr. Bonar Law admitted quite frankly the argument against treating all Ulster as Unionist, and he proceeded to suggest that any county in Ulster might be given power to decide whether or not it should come into the new Parliament. It was plain, however, and Mr.

Churchill made it plainer, that the Unionist leader did not speak for Ulster; Ulster's intention was still to use its own opposition to Home Rule as a bar to self-government for the whole of Ireland.

Equally was it plain that the plebiscite by counties would not be unacceptable to Mr. Churchill.

The proposal for the exclusion of the entire province was defeated by a majority of 97 and the Third Reading was carried by 110. A few days later the city of Derry returned a Home Ruler, and the Ulster representation became seventeen for the Bill and sixteen against. This dramatic change produced a considerable effect on British opinion.

Redmond, speaking at a luncheon given to the winner, Mr. Hogg, indicated the lines on which he was disposed to bargain. He would be willing to give Ulster more than its proportional share of representation in the Irish Parliament.

The debate in the House of Lords was marked by certain speeches which showed that public opinion had moved considerably. Lord Dunraven declared for the Second Reading, though pressing all the line of objection to the Bill which had been taken by Mr. O'Brien and his party.

He heaped scorn also as an Irishman upon "this absurd theory of two nations which is only invented to make discord where accord would naturally be." Lord MacDonnell, whose administrative experience could no more be questioned than his genius for administration, held that though amendment was needed the framework of the Bill was good, and that urgent necessity existed for the change to self-government. He alluded to the opinion expressed by Mr. Balfour in 1905, that the proper way of reforming Dublin Castle was by increasing the power of the Chief Secretary and his Under-Secretary, and thereby getting a stronger grip on the various departments of the "complicated system" prevailing. "I thought so too," said Lord MacDonnell, who in 1905 as Under-Secretary had tried his hand at this reform. "It was one of the illusions that I took with me to Ireland twenty years ago--but I am now a wiser man....

My observation of the Boards had convinced me before I left Ireland that no scheme of administrative reform which depends on bureaucratic organization for its success, or which has not behind it a popular backing, has the least chance of success in an attempt to establish in Ireland a government that is satisfactory to the Imperial Parliament or acceptable to the Irish people."--This was a repudiation of the Irish Council Bill of 1907 by its main author.

Lord Grey, a vivid and attractive personality, declared strongly for "such a measure of Home Rule as will give the Irish people power to manage their own domestic affairs." It was a conviction that had been forced upon him by his experience of Greater Britain. "Practically every American, every Canadian, every Australian is a Home Ruler." But the settlement must proceed upon federal lines; his ideal for Ireland was the provincial status of Ontario or Quebec, linked federally to a central parliament at Westminster.

The most significant speech, however, came from the Archbishop of York.

Disclaiming all party allegiance, Dr. Lang claimed to express "the opinions of a very large number of fair-minded citizens." He admitted that there was an Irish problem, which could not be solved by "a policy however generous of promoting the economic welfare of Ireland." "Some measure of Home Rule is necessary not only to meet the needs of Ireland but the needs of the Imperial Parliament." This Bill, however, in his opinion, was ill-adapted to the latter purpose. It would be a block rather than a relief to the congestion of business. But these objections were "abstract and academic" in face of the real governing fact.

"The figure of Ulster, grim, determined, menacing, dominates the scene.... We may not like it. Frankly, I do not like it. It carries marks of religious and racial bitterness and suspicion. It uses language about dis-obedience to the law which must provoke disquiet and dislike in the minds of all who care for the good government of the country. I am not competent, because I have not shared in the experience of the history of the Ulster people, to decide whether or not their fears are groundless. All these things seem to me to be beside the point. If Ulster means to do what it says, then the results are certainly such as no citizen can contemplate without grave concern.... I admit, everyone must admit, that there are circ.u.mstances in which a Government is ent.i.tled and bound to run this kind of risk. At the present time I think we all feel that there is a call upon Governments to stiffen rather than to slacken their determination in the presence of threats of dis-obedience or disorder. I will go further and admit that there is one condition which would justify in my mind His Majesty's Government in running the risk of the forcible coercion of Ulster. That condition is that they should have received from the people of this country an authority, clear and explicit, to undertake that risk. It is perfectly true that the Prime Minister gave notice that if his party were returned to power they would be free to raise again the question of Home Rule, but there is a great difference between the abstract question of Home Rule and a concrete Home Rule Bill."

That speech undoubtedly represented the temper prevailing in the cla.s.s of balancing electors which is so largo in England. Some of us who read it at the time recognized how far the long struggle for autonomy had prevailed, but also how strong were the forces which no argument could reach. Men like Dr. Lang might be offended, even shocked by the action of those who claimed to be England's garrison in Ireland; but they would be very slow to use force against such a section, although quite ready to justify coercion of the Irish majority. Yet what impressed Redmond was the advance made, rather than the revelation of what resistance remained. Ho had been more than thirty years an advocate of Ireland's cause; and now by the spokesman of the impartial educated mind of England the justice of that cause was admitted. The argument that a general election was necessary, or would be efficacious in solving the problem, was one with which he felt well able to contend. In that speech the Archbishop of York admitted his impression that in by-elections there had been "much more of Food Taxes and the Insurance Act than of Home Rule."

On the other hand, for Ulster such a speech had the plainest possible moral: Ulster's game was to become more grim, more determined, more menacing. The Home Rule controversy had now resolved itself into a question whether Ulster really meant business. Sir Edward Carson set himself to make that plain beyond yea or nay.

In a speech delivered in Belfast, at the opening of a new drill hall, he asked and answered the question, "Why are we drilling?" He and his colleagues did not recognize the Parliament Act, he said; a law pa.s.sed under it would be only an act of usurpation, a breach of right. "We seek nothing but the elementary right implanted in every man: the right, if you are attacked, to defend yourself."

Ulster was going to stand by its Covenant.

"When we talk of force, we use it, if we are driven to use it, to beat back those who will dare to barter away those elementary rights of citizens.h.i.+p which we have inherited.... Go on, be ready, you are our great army. Under what circ.u.mstances you have to come into action, you must leave with us. There are matters which give us grave consideration which we cannot and ought not to talk about in public. You must trust us that we will select the most opportune methods of, if necessary, taking on ourselves the whole government of the community in which we live. I know a great deal of that will involve statutory illegality, but it will also involve much righteousness."

Some of the questions which needed grave consideration were suggested by happenings that followed hard on this speech. Much ridicule had been poured on the drillings with dummy muskets. Ulster evidently decided to push the matter a step further. A consignment of one thousand rifles with bayonets, in cases marked "electrical fittings," was seized at Belfast on June 3, 1913. Other incidents of the same nature followed. It was argued, by those who sought to represent the whole campaign as an elaborate piece of bluff, that the weapons were useless and that they were deliberately sent to be seized. A feature which scarcely bore out this view was that one consignment was addressed to the Lord-Lieutenant of an Ulster county who was also an officer in the Army. A justice of the peace, or an officer, to whom a consignment of arms had been sent for a Nationalist organization would have been ordered to clear himself in the fullest way of complicity, and even of sympathy, or he would have forfeited his commission. The n.o.ble-man involved, however, made no explanation, and was probably never officially asked to do so.

It was commonly believed in the House of Commons that at some point, if not repeatedly, Government consulted the Irish leader or his princ.i.p.al advisers as to whether measures of repression should be undertaken against Ulster. No such consultation took place. But the opinion prevailing among the leading Nationalists was no doubt known or inferred. Mr. Dillon, speaking on June 16, 1914, when the danger-point had been clearly reached, justified the previous abstinence from coercion.

"I have held the view from the beginning that it would not have been wise policy for a Government engaged in the great work of the political emanc.i.p.ation of a nation to embark on a career of coercion. I knew, and knew well, all the difficulties and all the reproaches that the Government would have to face if they abstained from coercion. It is a difficult and almost unprecedented course for a Government to take, and it is, as the Chief Secretary said, a courageous one. But with all its difficulties and dangers it is the right course. We who have been through the mill know what the effect of coercion is. We know that you do not put down Irishmen by coercion. You simply embitter them and stiffen their backs."

It is therefore unquestionable that the decision to do nothing had Redmond's approval. Whatever may be thought of that policy, one factor was a.s.suredly underestimated--the effect produced on the public mind by the spectacle of highly placed personages defying the law and defying it with impunity. It was possible to argue that a conviction for hypothetical treason would be difficult to secure and that failure in a prosecution would only encourage lawless conduct. But Privy Councillors who made preparations for prospective rebellion and remained Privy Councillors were a new phenomenon. The public thought, and it was apparent that the public would think, that Government was afraid to quarrel with what is called Society. Society shared that belief and began to extend its influence in a new direction. No Government can permit itself to be defied without general relaxation of discipline, and the effects extended themselves to the Army. At a meeting on July 12th in Ulster a telegram was read out from "Covenanters" in an Ulster regiment, urging "No surrender until ammunition is spent and the last drop of blood." In his speech on that occasion Sir Edward Carson declared that every day brought him at least half a dozen letters from British officers asking to be enrolled among the future defenders of Ulster. One officer, he said, having signed the Covenant, was ordered to send in his papers and resign his commission. The officer refused to do so, and after a short time was simply told to resume his duty.

"We have a.s.surance from the Prime Minister," said Sir Edward Carson, "that the forces of the Crown are not to be used against Ulster.

Government know that they could not rely on the Army to shoot down the people of Ulster."

Later events in Ireland furnished a grim commentary as to what the Army would be willing, and would not be willing, to do in the way of shooting down in Ireland; and such words as these of Sir Edward Carson were destined to be among the chief difficulties which Redmond had to encounter when he sought to lead Ireland into the war.

At the meeting of that day, delegates were present from a British League to a.s.sist Ulster in her resistance. Behind this new quasi-military organization stood now the whole of one great party. Sir Edward Carson transmitted a message from Mr. Bonar Law in these words:

"Whatever steps we may feel compelled to take, whether they be const.i.tutional, or in the long run whether they be unconst.i.tutional, we will have the whole of the Unionist party under his leaders.h.i.+p behind us."

Later in the autumn, on the first anniversary of Ulster Day, there was formally announced the formation of an Ulster Provisional Government, with a Military Committee attached to it. A guarantee fund to indemnify all who might be involved in damaging consequences was set on foot, and a million sterling was indicated as the necessary amount to be obtained.

In the meantime signs of distress came from the Liberal camp. Mr.

Churchill, in speeches to his const.i.tuents, renewed the suggestions for part.i.tion. More notable was a letter from Lord Loreburn, who had till recently been Lord Chancellor, and who was known as a steady and outspoken Home Ruler. He appealed in _The Times_ of September 11, 1913, for a conference between parties on the Irish difficulty. Irish Nationalist opinion grew profoundly uneasy, and Redmond at Limerick on October 12th set out his position with weighty emphasis. He referred to the fact that during the summer he himself, a.s.sisted by Mr. Devlin, had followed Sir Edward Carson and other Ulster speakers from place to place through Great Britain, and on the same ground had stated the case for Home Rule. He claimed, and with justice, a triumphant success for this counter-campaign.

"The argumentative opposition to Home Rule is dead, and all the violent language, all the extravagant action, all the bombastic threats, are but indications that the battle is over."

Still, he was too old a politician, he said, not to build a bridge of gold to convenience his opponents' retreat, provided that the fruits of victory were not flung away. Mr. Churchill had told the Ulstermen that there was no demand they could make which would not be matched, and more than matched, by their countrymen and the Liberal party. On this it was necessary to be explicit.

"Irish Nationalists can never be a.s.senting parties to the mutilation of the Irish nation; Ireland is a unit. It is true that within the bosom of a nation there is room for diversities of the treatment of government and of administration, but a unit Ireland is and Ireland must remain.... The two-nation theory is to us an abomination and a blasphemy."

These were carefully chosen words, and they indicated a possible acceptance of the proposal that Ulster should have control of its own administration in regard to local affairs, but that Irish legislation should be left to a common parliament.

This plan Sir Edward Grey described as his "personal contribution" to a discussion of possibilities which had been inaugurated by a notable speech from the Prime Minister. At Ladybank, on October 25th, Mr.

Asquith invited "interchange of views and suggestions, free, frank, and without prejudice." Nothing, however, could be accepted which did not conform to three governing considerations. First, there must be established "a subordinate Irish legislature with an executive responsible to it"; secondly, "nothing must be done to erect a permanent and insuperable bar to Irish unity"; and thirdly, though the process of relieving congestion in the Imperial Parliament could not be fully accomplished by the present Bill, Ireland must not be made to wait till a complete scheme of decentralization could be carried out.

The second of these conditions was plainly the most significant. It was taken to mean that "county option"--the right for each county to decide whether it would come under a Home Rule Government--would not create "a permanent and insuperable" obstacle, since each county could be given the opportunity to vote itself in at any time. Redmond's next important speech in England showed by its emphasis that he felt a danger. He denounced "the gigantic game of bluff and black-mail" which was in progress. The proposed exclusion of Ulster was not a proposition that could be considered. It would bring about, he thought, the ruin of Ulster's prosperity. "For us it would mean the nullification of our hopes and aspirations for the future." It would stereotype an old evil in the region where it still existed. What Ulster really feared, he said, was the loss, not of freedom or prosperity, but of Protestant ascendancy.

This was the truth; Protestant ascendancy, which in his boyhood had existed throughout all Ireland, was in consequence of the Irish party's work dead in three provinces. It remained and must remain in Ulster, where Protestants were a majority, but it would be qualified if that region came under the control of a parliament elected by all Ireland.

That was and is the true reason of Ulster's resistance to national self-government. What he would concede and what he would reject, Redmond indicated in general words: "There is no demand, however extravagant and unreasonable it may appear to us, that we are not ready carefully to consider, so long as it is consistent with the principle for which generations of our race have battled, the principle of a settlement based on the national self-government of Ireland. I shut no door to a settlement by consent, but ... we will not be intimidated or bullied into a betrayal' of our trust."

It was noted at that time that he had said nothing to rule out Sir Edward Grey's proposal, which would have left the local majority predominant in Ulster's own affairs; and on December 4th Sir Edward Grey spoke again, showing a firmness that was the more impressive because of his habitual moderation of tone. One thing, he said, was worse than carrying Home Rule by force, and that would be the abandonment of Home Rule. Two suggestions had been made--a proposal for the temporary exclusion of Ulster and a plan for giving to Ulster administrative autonomy. Neither had been received by Ulster "in a spirit which seemed likely to lead to a settlement.... Was it a settlement by consent they wanted, or was their aim simply the destruction of the Bill?"

This emphasized what Redmond had said a few days earlier at Birmingham, when he declared that the fight against Home Rule was not an honest one, that its real purpose was to defeat the Parliament Act and restore to the Tory party its special control over the legislative machine.

The facts were plain on the surface. The Tories clamoured for a fresh general election, urging that the electors never realized that the Liberal programme involved civil war. But to concede this claim indirectly defeated the Parliament Act, which would then have broken down at the first attempt to apply it. What added to the insincerity of the argument was Ulster's repeated refusal to be influenced by the result of any election. Under no circ.u.mstances, speaker after speaker from Ulster declared, would they submit to Home Rule. The prospect of civil war remained, with only one limitation. Mr. Bonar Law undertook that if a general election took place and the Liberals again came back, the British Unionist party would not support Ulster in physical resistance. They would, however, continue to oppose a Home Rule Bill by all const.i.tutional means.

Nevertheless, the English disposition to compromise was already operating. Mr. Asquith was the last of mankind to make a quixotic stand for principle, and the most disposed to pride himself on a practical recognition of realities. His Government was in rough water. During the summer Mr. Lloyd George's transaction in Marconi shares had been magnified by partisan rancour into a crime. Much more serious was the split with Labour, which led to the loss of seat after seat at by-elections, when the allied forces which stood behind the Parliament Act attacked each other and let the Tories in. The Women's Franchise agitation was also coming to its stormiest point.

Redmond's part was one of extraordinary difficulty. The cause for which he stood was one affecting the interests of only a small minority of the total electorate concerned in the struggle which now spread over both islands. The Irish problem belonged in reality to the Victorian era; those in the British electorate whom it could stir to enthusiasm were stirred by a memory, not by a new gospel. Normally, but for the chance of Parnell's overthrow, it would have been solved in Gladstone's last years. For most Liberals, for all Labour men, the fact that it had pa.s.sed beyond the sphere of argument meant a lack of driving force. It was a part of accepted Liberal orthodoxy; minds were centred rather on those social controversies in which Mr. Lloyd George was the dominant figure, and upon which opinion had not yet crystallized.

Further, the cry of Protestant liberties in danger, the cause of Protestants who conducted their arming to the accompaniment of hymns and prayer, made inevitably a searching appeal to the feelings of an island kingdom where the prejudice against Roman Catholics is more instinctive than anywhere else in the world. Looking back on it all, I marvel not at the difficulties we encountered, but at the success with which we surmounted them; and the great element in that success was Redmond's personality. His dignity, his n.o.ble eloquence, his sincerity, and the large, tolerant nature of the man, won upon the public imagination. His tact was unfailing. In all those years, under the most envenomed scrutiny, he never let slip a word that could be used to our disadvantage. This is merely a negative statement. It is truer to say that he never touched the question without raising it to the scope of great issues. Nothing petty, nothing personal came into his discourse; he so carried the national claim of Ireland that men saw in it at once the test and the justification of democracy.

That is why the Irish cause, instead of being a millstone round the neck of the parliamentary alliance, was in truth a living cohesive force. But in order to keep it so it must be pleaded, not as a question for Ireland only but for the democracy of Great Britain and, in a still larger sense, for the Commonwealth of the British Empire.

Liberal statesmen in their desire to simplify their own task underestimated altogether the difficulty which their professed short-cuts to the goal--or rather, their attempted circuits round obstacles--created inevitably for the Irish leader. They did not realize that his genuine feeling--based on knowledge--for the British democracy at home, and still more for its offshoots overseas, was unshared by his countrymen, still aloof, still suspicious, and daily impressed by the spectacle of those who most paraded allegiance to British Imperialism professing a readiness to tear up the Const.i.tution rather than allow freedom to Ireland. Liberal statesmen did not understand that Redmond could only justify to Ireland the part which he was taking if he won, and that he and not they must be the judge of what Ireland would consider a defeat. In all probability, also, they overrated his power and that of the party which he led. They did not guess at the potency of new forces which only in these months began to make themselves felt, and which in the end, breaking loose from Redmond's control, undid his work.