mmmsaBmum: Th e IRISH CASE ^^i^smsmmssmmm l^it#^WOscwri y IJfe Peter W. Collins ^ tco. -From The New YorTc Tribune NO EUROPEAN ENTANGLEMENTS" THE IRISH CASE Before the Court of Public Opinion BY P. WHITWELL WILSON Special Correspondent of The London Daily News ^- -H^uL, Mass. New York Chicago Fleming H. Revell Company London and Edinburgh Copyright, 1920 by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 41 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street FOREWORD THIS book has been written at the urgent request of numerous Ameri- can Citizens who have heard me speak upon Ireland. Numbers of these Ameri- can Citizens tell me that they want to know the facts about Ireland but do not know where to find them. And they ask me why I do not write the facts for the press in the United States. I tell them that I was asked to do this by a leading agency and that in response I supplied the material, with figures and statis- tics. The agency circulated the articles, and if only a few journals printed what I had to say, I can scarcely be blamed for that! I happened to call on an editor and saw my work reposing in his waste paper basket. We had a hearty laugh over the matter and he explained to me that the best plan at these poHtical seasons is to leave the Irish severely alone. The whole business was simply politics 3 4 FOREWORD and the less said about it the better. I am sure that my friend was wholly sincere in his desire for good relations between his country and mine, but of course his theory means in effect that much may be said against Britain without being answered. To give my editorial friend his due, I must add that his practice has been often broader minded than his preaching. But the Ulster Deputation, when over here, left with a sense that they had not been given a full hearing in print. I do not know whether they were right or wrong. One New York daily gave them a good half page in the Sunday Edition and there were doubtless others. But their general complaint is on record. On the other hand, I have just had in my office a Sinn Feiner, a most delight- ful personal friend, who says that the news- papers are very unfair to De Valera, men- tioning him as little as possible ! He felt this to be a distinct grievance. One little incident may perhaps be worth re- calling. During the War, the American Y. M. C. A. issued a book or pamphlet for the American Army telling the troops what had FOREWORD 5 been accomplished by the British Forces. The object was, I take it, to help the soldiers to realise the situation in Britain where many of them would be stationed. In crossing the At- lantic in a boat full of "Y" workers, I was asked to give addresses on the same lines, as few of these crusaders had ever seen Europe. What happened? An attempt was made by direct appeal to Mr. Newton D. Baker to have the book suppressed by military order. In a letter to the State Department, Mr. Joseph C Pelletier, District Attorney of Boston, makes onslaught on Dr. John R. Mott and compli- ments my own country in this vivacious fashion: Your Honor— that is Mr. Baker — knows full well the interpretation which our Doughboys gave the initials ''A. E. F."--'*After England Failed." Again: God preserve us from England's treat- ment of labour, of the poor, of the sick. 6 FOREWORD Again: We need no French, no English, no Italian propaganda to stimulate us to just regard for your European brethren. The American people want facts. This, I confess, interested me very much. Anything a Frenchman or an Italian or an Enghshman may say in the United States is "propaganda.'' But anything about the Irish Republic is ''facts." This monopoly claimed for anti-British writing is of course repudiated with indigna- tion by the more reputable journals throughout the United States. It is, however, sufficiently serious to warrant a word of genial warning before things drift any further. This morn- ing, I have cabled to Britain the information contained in the following announcement: ASKS PRESIDENT TO RECEIVE IRISH ENVOY Special to The New York Times Washington, May 6. — Representative James A. Hammill of New Jersey offered FOREWORD 7 to-day in the House of Representatives a joint resolution seeking to have Congress '^suggest" to President Wilson that he refuse to receive Sir Auckland Geddes as ''Ireland's diplomatic representative." The resolution suggests that the President receive, instead, Dr. Patrick McCarton, "the Minister named by the duly elected Government of the Republic of Ireland." No action was taken on the resolution, v/hich was referred to committee. The Hammill resolution read: "Whereas, Sir Auckland Geddes is about to present his credentials as Ambassador from Great Britain and Ireland to the United States; and, "Whereas, the President of the United States, in Paris, on January 20, 19 19, said, 'we are here to see that every people shall govern themselves, not as we wish, but as they wish' ; and, "Whereas, the people of Ireland, in December, 19 18, by a vote of 3 to i, elected to live under a republican form of government; and. 8 FOREWORD Whereas, the Senate of the United States, on March i6, 1920, reaffirmed its allegiance to the principle of self de- termination and applied that principle di- rectly to the Republic of Ireland in the Gerry reservation; "Now, therefore, be it resolved, That the Congress of the United States respect- fully suggest to the President of the United States that, in consonance with Americans repeated declaration of prin- ciples during the World War, he refuse to receive the said Sir Auckland Geddes as Ireland's diplomatic representative, but receive, instead Dr. Patrick McCarton, the Minister named by the duly-elected Government of the Republic of Ireland." Now let us get right away from all camou- flage and excuses in this business. This reso- lution, introduced seriously into Congress, means neither more nor less than a proposal to let a second British Ambassador go home without presenting his credentials. In other words, it is a demand in Congress for the FOREWORD 9 severance of diplomatic relations between the United States and the United Kingdom, with all that this implies. In view of this resolution and of what I must call the candid handling of British af- fairs which has preceded it, Americans them- selves have desired this book. They feel that to tear apart the English speaking nations at this grave moment in the history of the world is simply incendiarism over an uncovered pow- der magazine. Certain of the features in the Appendix are taken with permission from Current History. Also Cartoons are included by courtesy of the New York Tribune and Life. To these pub- lications I tender my acknowledgments. CONTENTS Foreword I. The Grievances of Ireland II. Is Ireland Plundered? . . III. The Verdict of Ulster IV. The Fight for Home Rule V. The Lloyd George Settlement . VI. Is Independence Conceivable? . VII. Irish Propaganda in the United States PAGE 3 13 19 29 37 56 65 90 103 no VIII. The Disorders in Ireland . . IX. The Argument on Secession . . Appendices a. The Home Rule Bill — Summary OF its Provisions . . . .133 b, Mr. Lloyd George's Statement 143 c, Ex-Premier Asquith's Criticisms 151 d. Mr. Bonar Law's Reply . . .155 II THE GRIEVANCES OF IRELAND THE citizens of the United States are to-day self-constituted into a jury of one hundred million persons, sitting in solemn judgment on the great case of Ire- land versus England. The Court of Public Opinion rings with the eloquent plea of the Irish Prosecutor against the Prisoner at the Bar. Be the Prisoner guilty or be he innocent, it is clear that by the process of Law, he is entitled to present to the Jury any facts which may be necessary to a fair verdict. To this Suit, Ireland and England are both parties. All the more important is it that the United States should maintain an attitude completely free from bias. In the following few pages, I purpose fur- nishing the Jury with facts not at the 13 14 THE IRISH CASE moment easily available in the United States. It is no part of my purpose to deny that Ire- land has suffered from many and lamentable grievances. In so far as England was to blame for this state of things, I shall not attempt to excuse her. In so far as she is still to blame, I shall not defend her, except by remarking that no nation is perfect and that every nation, therefore, in passing judgment on its neigh- bour should remember its own peccadilloes. I see no reason why the Cause of Ireland should not be handled with good humour and sanity. All that we need is the truth about it and Truth seldom loses her temper. If we analyse the grievances of Ireland, we shall find that they fall into four main cate- gories : (i) Religious (2) Agrarian (3) Financial (4) Parliamentary What is the first broad fact to be faced? It is that of these four grievances, the first three have entirely passed away leaving only the fo Tth to be dealt with. In Ireland to-day THE GRIEVANCES OF IRELAND 15 — as I shall show — there are no religious, no agrarian, and no financial grievances seriously alleged, and the whole discussion is concen- trated upon the best way of remedying the Parliamentary grievance. What is the next broad fact to be faced? It is that all the grievances developed at a remote period when in Britain herself the people were still struggling for their liberties. This was not a quarrel between England and Ireland. It was a quarrel in both England and Ireland between the unrepresented people and their despotic rulers. In England, the Suffrage only dates from the Year 1834. It was then a suffrage about as generous as that enjoyed by colored folk in the Southern States to-day in the United States. All the grievances of Ireland had been inflicted before the year 1834. The penal laws had done their worst. The land system had been in full swing since the days of King Henry II who brought it over from feudal France. Overtaxation and the exclusion of Irish prod- ucts were already on record. And thirty years had passed since Pitt had destroyed the Irish i6 THE IRISH CASE Parliament. The fundamental miscalculation of the Irish extremists is to treat the England which sends scores of Labour members to the House of Commons as if she were still the England of Cromwell and Elizabeth and James I and George III. Since the great Reform Bill of Eighty years ago, the Franchise has been frequently extended until it is actually in advance of the United States in respect of Women's Suffrage. A's the people obtained power, they dealt more and more firmly with the Irish as with their own grievances. De Valera is not attacking aristocratic England. He is attacking the England of the Trade Union, of the Baptist Chapel, of the Methodist Class Meeting. He is attacking the England that chose Lady Astor, an American girl, to be the first sitting member of the House of Commons — a woman. This England has made proposal after proposal to the Irish nation. It has invited Irishmen to bring forward their own proposals. There is not a party in Britain and there is not a statesman in Britain who does not to-day want Ireland to accept her full liberties. THE GRIEVANCES OF IRELAND 17 It would be absurd for me to describe once again what was meant by the Penal Laws. They were iniquitous — indeed, nearly as iniq- uitous as the attempt to suppress my own Quaker ancestors. But after all, they were only the inevitable reaction of the Protestants against the terrible persecutions which the Roman Church had inflicted on their fore- fathers in Spain, Britain, France and other countries. From my own college, Latimer, though a Bishop, was led out to be burnt alive, and being burnt alive is not pleasant, whether for others or for Latimer. Moreover, many of these laws were inflicted also on Puritans. That was why three centuries ago, the May- flower set sail for Plymouth, Massachusetts. The point here is, however, that whatever may have been the case in the past, there is to-day perfect religious liberty wherever the English language is spoken. As a rule, Roman Catholics are in a minority. But they are none the less free. In London, they are decorating the most resplendent cathe- dral in the Metropolis. In Ireland, they have their own schools maintained out of the Im- 1 8 THE IRISH CASE perial Exchequer and their own Universities similarly supported. The Hierarchy in Ireland has a far more rigid grip over education than would be allowed to any clergy in the United States. Under these circumstances, I do not see that anything further need be said about the Religious Grievances of Ireland. If Eng- lishmen were omnipotent, they could not alter the past. There is nothing to atone for that past which, in matters of religion, they have not done. If there is any country where the Clergy have more power than in Ireland, one would like to know of it. II IS IRELAND PLUNDERED? I WILL now deal with the accusation that Britain is to-day plundering and robbing Ireland. If this is the fact, then, I admit that it is a very shocking affair but the question to be decided first is whether it is a fact. Broadly, the charge is twofold in character. First, Ireland is being taxed out of existence. And secondly, her industries are being strangled. Let us take these allegations in turn. It is admitted that, fifty years ago, Ireland was overtaxed. This was shown on the records not of Ireland merely but of the British Treasury and the verdict was based on com- parative wealth as well as population. When the case was thus made clear, the grievance 19 20 THE IRISH CASE was dealt with. The last financial year of peace was from March, 1913 to March, 19 14. If you take the whole of the Revenue raised in Ireland during that twelve months, you will find that it was fifty-five and a half million dollars. If you take the money spent on Ire- land and in Ireland for the sole benefit of Irishmen, you will find that it was sixty-one and a half million dollars. In other words, Ireland was asked to pay not one penny to the Army, the Navy, the National Debt, the Dip- lomatic Services, the Court, or any other Im- perial or as Americans would put it. Federal purpose. She was more fortunate in this re- spect than any of the forty-eight states in the American Union, and this at a period when, even before the war, the rest of Europe was groaning under military burdens. As a coun- try defended free of charge to her taxpayers, Ireland was unique. I am, of course, well aware that in saying that Ireland was defended free of charge, I am using a fact which has no terrors for Mr. De Valera. Sinn Fein regards the Germany of the Kaiser as a friend, not as an enemy. In IS IRELAND PLUNDERED? 21 Berlin, the emissary of Sinn Fein was Sir Roger Casement, who had drawn a British pension and received with gratitude a British knighthood. Owing to long residence in trop- ical climates, he had become a moral pervert and was a suitable instrument for the treachery which he perpetrated. Years before, I had had a conversation with him in which he had de- nounced the Monroe Doctrine and the foreign policy of the United States as an iniquitous and selfish reservation of South America from German enterprise. In Berlin, he tried to se- duce Irish prisoners of war who stood firm against his bribes and his threats, and he then sailed for Ireland on a submarine belonging to the fleet that sank the Liisitania with American citizens and the Tuscania with American troops. Casement's action may be compared with the position of De Valera, as reported in the American press: As far as England is concerned, the Irish people wished and hoped that Germany would win the war. 22 THE IRISH CASE In presenting this quotation, I must make it clear that I do not make myself responsible for so cruel a slander on the gallant Irish dead. I am merely allowing Sinn Fein to speak for itself. Different folk approach this question from different standpoints. Sinn Fein wanted the Germans in Ireland. Sinn Fein prefers the fate of Belgium under the Germans to the fate of Ireland under the British. They do not apparently take Cardinal Mercier's view of the outrages committed by the German Armies on Catholic Churches and Catholic nuns. Therefore when I say that Ireland and her Churches and her nuns were defended from similar outrages by a British Fleet maintained without charge to Ireland, Sinn Fein is doubt- less unstirred. But I have as yet greatly understated the case. We have seen that fifty-five million dollars was raised in Ireland and sixty-one millions spent in Ireland. This means that Ireland was not even meeting the cost of her own education, old age pensions, health insur- ance and similar services. She was accepting from England a steadily rising subsidy of six IS IRELAND PLUNDERED? 23 millions a year and this was how England ''plundered" her. The war then broke out and taxation was increased throughout the United Kingdom and indeed throughout the world. The question is whether Ireland is now paying an unfair pro- portion. I will put the answer in the form of a table, based on the official returns for the year 19 18-19 19. First, we shall see how much each country, England, Scotland and Ireland, paid altogether into the Treasury. Next, we shall see how much of this came back to the country in question as pensions school grants and so on. Finally, we are left with the balance which each country handed over to the cost of the war and imperial or "federal" purposes. Totai Spent Balance for Im- Country Taxes Locally perial Purposes England and Wales . •.• $3455,310,000 $739,237,500 $2,736,072,500 Scotland 486,605,000 97,635,000 388,970,000 Ireland . 186,375,000 110,807,500 75,567,500 What do these figures mean? The popula- tion of Scotland and Ireland is about the same, 24 THE IRISH CASE Yet Scotland has to pay in imperial taxation about three hundred and eighty-nine million dollars while Ireland has to pay only seventy- live and a half million dollars or one fifth the sum. Roughly, England and Wales pay sixty- eight dollars a year, Scotland pays eighty-eight dollars a year and Ireland pays eighteen dol- lars. So much for overtaxation. I live in New York State and am ready at any time to com- promise with the authorities who collect my taxes, by exchanging the American basis for the Irish basis of finance. You cannot strike a balance between Ireland and Britain without taking into the account the fact that the Irish tenants are buying their farms with money lent by Britain and raised in London. This scheme represents a liability to Britain of £150,000,000 or according to the usual reckoning, seven hundred and fifty mil- lion dollars. More than two-thirds of this money has actually been found. The interest paid upon it including the sinking fund which settles the debt in 68 years is only 3^% or taking interest alone less than half of the rate that I am paying on a house mortgage in New IS IRELAND PLUNDERED? 25 York. And during the war, Britain, while lending money to Ireland at under 3^0 has been glad to raise money in Wall Street at the equiv- alent of 6%, as every American knows. Even that is not the whole story. The Bill proposed by Mr. Lloyd George adds nothing to Ireland's contribution to Imperial funds as estimated at the present time. But the Bill does hand back to Ireland the whole of her debt to the United Kingdom in respect of Land Purchase. In other words, the annuities will go to the Irish Exchequer and Britain must repay her Irish liability out of her own pocket This is a gift of 500 million dollars or more than 100 dollars for every man, woman, and child in Ireland, whether Sinn Fein or Union- ist, for we draw no distinction on ground of loyalty. Of course, it may be said that the Irish landlord is entitled to nothing at all. And I for one hold no brief for landlords. But if that argument be advanced, how far are you going to carry it? There are Irish land- lords in New York City. There are other holders of all kinds of property. Lenin and Trotsky would have simply taken that prop- 26 THE IRISH CASE erty. That was the naked Bolshevism which has been tried in Russia and is being abandoned even by its parents. Is that also to be among the methods of Sinn Fein? Does ^'Ourselves Alone" mean a general confiscation? As a matter of fact, the Irish people have been here misrepresented by their alleged spokesmen. They pay their dues on the Land Purchase Scheme with strict fidelity to the law and the equity of the case. Secondly, I come to the question whether Irish industries are being strangled. I will take two years, 1904 and 191 4. Both these were in the main years of peace. Here in a table is exactly what Ireland bought and sold in those years: 1904 1914 Irish Imports £55,345,000 i73,995,ooo Irish Exports 49,785,000 77,311,000 These figures show that while England was "strangling Irish industries," both exports and imports were rising by substantial percentages. The war then broke out and Ireland was surrounded by the submarines of the German allies of Sinn Fein. Yet thanks to the Allied IS IRELAND PLUNDERED? 27 Navies, Ireland could, in a year of war, im- port goods to the value of £105,205,000 and export goods to the value of £107,171,000, or practically double the value of her trade in 1904. Let us suppose that Great Britain and the United States had not kept open the seas for Ireland. Where v^ould this trade have been? And Ireland got good prices for what she sold. The money that she received was as we have seen £107,171,000. At the prices of 1904, this figure would only have been £58,858,000. Even in Ireland the excess profits tax was leviable. One complaint of the Sinn Feiners is that Ireland markets her goods in Great Britain. Frankly, I do not quite understand where the grievance here lies. In the old bad days before the Englishman had the vote our rulers put on tariffs against Ireland and there was a howl. Then we got the vote and took off the tariffs admitting all Irish goods, including whiskey and stout, free of customs, and again there is a howl because apparently we buy what Irish- men wish to sell. Some of the biggest ship- 28 THE IRISH CASE building plants in the world are situated in Belfast which is an Irish town. Vessels can be ordered to-morrow and used to transport Irish goods to other countries as for instance the United States, which does put a tariff on them. The reason why this is not done is that Britain is Ireland's best customer. Our money is detested but it is received. Ill THE VERDICT OF ULSTER IF Britain be really crushing out Ireland's industries, the first protests should surely come from the part of Ireland which de- pends on such industries. Why is it that Ulster is in that event so resolute for the British con- nection? Most of the businesses in Ulster are run by Scotsmen in blood, the Celts of Cale- donia, and they are not as a rule indifferent to what injures their prosperity. We are told that England is preventing the development of Ireland's coalfields. Where is coal more needed than in the shipyards of Belfast? The truth is of course that there is nothing whatever to prevent Irishmen or Americans or anybody else digging in Ireland for coal or iron or diamonds if the operation is profitable. With the price of coal in Europe 29 30 THE IRISH CASE three and four times what it was before the war and France fighting for the Saar Valley and Italy cutting down her forests, the idea that some ill-disposed Englishman is saying to Irishmen "Thou shalt not hew" is ridiculous. In fact, there are some Irishmen who might be better employed mining coal for the benefit of their neighbours than they are at present. What is the opinion of industrial Ulster on these matters? I have often discussed things in that quarter and this is what I have been told. Asked why he fears a Parliament at Dublin, the Ulster business man answers: We are Protestants and the majority in the south and west are Catholics. We are manufacturers and they are farmers. They do not understand us and they like us still less. When it comes to taxation, where should we be? To relieve the farmers, they would put a tariff around Belfast and levy customs on our raw materials. Everything that Belfast makes, is first imported in crude form. There can be no ships without wood and metals THE VERDICT OF ULSTER 31 and there can be no linen without flax. All these things must come in free if we are to retain our position in neutral mar- kets. To break the fiscal unity between England and Ireland means our ruin. It is not for me to say whether the argument is good or bad. Some of the economic rubbish talked by Sinn Feiners who presumably would have power in an Irish Republic is not exactly calculated to reassure the more nervous Ulster- men. But the point is that these Ulstermen are as much Irish as De Valera himself. They say that they are prepared to fight for their independence against the proposed Republic. And they have certainly voted pretty decisively on the subject. At the last General Election, the results for Dissentient Ulster were as follows: Nation- Sinn Unionist alist Fein Majority Antrim North 9,621 2,673 6,948 Mid 10,711 2,791 7,920 East 15,206 861 14,345 South 13,270 2,313 10,957 32 THE IRISH CASE Armagh North 10,238 2,860 7,378 Mid 8,431 5,688 2,743 South 4,345 78 4,266 Down Mid 10,639 707 9,932 East 6,077 3,876 2,201 North 9,200 9,200 South 8,756 33 8,723 Londonderry North 10,530 3,951 6,579 South 8,942 3,425 5,517 Belfast Queens University 1,487 118 1,369 Cromac ii,459 997 10,462 Duncairn 11,637 271 11,366 Falls 8,488 3,245 5,243 Ormeau 7,460 388 7,072 Pottinger 8,574 393 8,181 St. Anne's 9,155 i,34i 7,8i4 Shankhill 11,840 534 ii,3o6 Victoria 9,309 395 8,904 Woodvale 12,232 1,247 10,985 Look for a moment at these figures. In two of these constituencies, De Valera himself was the defeated candidate. In South Down he only polled 33 votes. And the plurality against Sinn Fein in this area would be the more strik- ing if I had included third candidatures, many of which polled far more votes than the Sinn THE VERDICT OF ULSTER 33 Feiner, who was away at the bottom of the record. Yet in face of this almost unanimous verdict by the industrial area of Ireland, Sinn Fein — knowing that the above facts are not readily available to the public in the United States — comes here and talks as if an Irish Republic were a perfectly simple proposition, on which everybody in Ireland is entirely agreed except an insignificant minority. It is true that Sinn Fein swept the rest of Ireland and I shall in due course admit frankly that the fault must be shared by England and others. But time will show whether the vic- tory was a gesture of irritation with the wor- ries of war or a permanent verdict. If the verdict is permanent, then it is clear that if the South and West of Ireland has a right to go off by herself, the North and East has a right to live in continued association with England. But is the verdict permanent? Since the General Election, there has been a municipal contest in Ireland. The one issue was Republic or no Republic and the voting was very re- 34 THE IRISH CASE markable. The number of electors in the coun- try was 474,992. Of these, 322,244 — which is a very high proportion for a Local Govern- ment Vote — went to the polls. The method was proportional representation. And the first preferences were as follows: Sinn Fein 87,311 Labour 57,626 Independents and Constitutional Nationalists 91.375 Unionists 85,932 Look carefully at those figures. They mean that of the first preferences, Sinn Fein only obtained about one fourth. If you add the Sinn Fein and the Labour vote together, you still get only a minority as against the Union- ists and the Constitutional Nationalists who still want the Union Jack to fly over Ireland. The total Republican vote put at its very high- est is only 145,000 out of 322,000 or a good deal less than half. But many of the Labour votes were cast in North East Ulster where it is fairly safe to assume that they were not Republican. As for the seats they were distributed as follows : THE VERDICT OF ULSTER 35 OS Provinces o c o .2 o a '3 'S .S *S "^ t^ '2 o p CO J ^ p^ ^5 H Ulster 308 114 109 94 5 33 663 Leinster 57 206 151 69 62 45 590 Munster 7 207 no 60 37 66 487 Connaught ... 2 44 24 15 4 17 106 Total... 374 571 394 238 108 i6i 1846 What do these figures show? Explain it how you will, Sinn Fein has carried only 571 seats out of 1846 seats in the Local Govern- ment of the country, or fewer than a third. Two out of three of the men actually doing the work of Ireland to-day have not accepted De Valera's authority. All those men are elected by the free votes of the people. And it has to be remembered that the intimidation in the south and west of Ireland is all on the side of the Sinn Feiners. The United States has had a touch of the kind of thing that is going on in the famous terrorism of the Molly Maguires in Pennsylvania when, for many years, police were threatened by men disguised as women and the public outraged by offences 36 THE IRISH CASE against life and property. That had to be stopped and was ultimately stopped by the American authorities and the phenomenon bears a family likeness to some more shocking crimes in Ireland to-day. IV THE FIGHT FOR HOME RULE I BEGAN by explaining that Ireland has suffered from four main grievances. These grievances have been first religious, secondly agrarian, thirdly financial, and fourthly Parliamentary. We have seen that of these grievances, all save the last have dis- appeared. There is no persecution of the Catholics in Ireland. There are no landlords to speak of left in Ireland. And there is no overtaxation in Ireland. We are therefore free to discuss the one and only grievance which has yet to be removed and this is the need for a Parliament in Ireland. It is no part of the British case to deny the facts of history. When William Pitt destroyed the old Parliament of Ireland, using for the purpose the disgraceful weapon of bribery, he 37 38 THE IRISH CASE committed a high crime against the Hght. The mitigating promise of CathoHc Emancipation was not fulfilled and the offence may fairly be ranked with the folly which provoked the American Revolution. In both instances, a mad king was a contributory cause. And in both cases, the people were too ignorant and too ill-represented in their own Parliament at Westminster to make protest against what was being done in their name at a distance, as it then seemed, in days when travelling was dif- ficult. The Irishmen of our own time do doubtless idealise the Parliament that used to be. It was elected mainly by Protestants and on a franchise which we should consider absurdly narrow. But instead of being broken to bits, it should have been reformed and democratised. There are many people, I dare say, who criti- cise the British House of Commons or Con- gress but there are none who would seriously advocate abolishing these august institutions. No American State would tolerate the loss of its Legislature and I remember with what sur- prise I watched in Canada the reverence in a THE FIGHT FOR HOME RULE 39 Provincial capital like Toronto for Parlia- mentary forms. There you see the Speaker in his gown, the Sergeant at Arms with his sword, and all the panoply of the High Court of Parliament at Westminster, simplified m- deed but essentially reproduced. Yet the Legislature of Ontario is only one of many such subordinate bodies in the Dominion of Canada. Not only in Ireland but in England also, the destruction of the parliament in Dublin has been hated as an unpardonable sacrilege against the very shrine of Liberty. What the devout Moslem feels at hearing that some famous Mosque has been desecrated, that was what I was taught to feel as a boy about Pitt's blasphemous offence. The first political speech that I ever heard was by T. P. O'Connor and that speech was about Home Rule. It left on my mind an indelible impression. As a boy, I would walk for miles to catch one glimpse of Gladstone as he passed by in the train on his immortal campaigns on behalf of a restored Parliamentary system in Ireland. My boyish diaries are full of newspaper cut- 40 THE IRISH CASE tings and pictures illustrating the early debates on Home Rule and the disclosures of the Par- nell Commission. I have fought three elec- tions — ^^all of them as a Home Ruler, and for twelve years I heard every important debate in the Imperial Parliament and — what is more — described them. The Parliament House at Dublin is now the headquarters of the Bank of Ireland and it was with a peculiar sense of indignation that one watched as it were the money changers in the temple. With cynical ingenuity the statesmen of a hundred years ago ordained that the chamber of the Irish Commons should be so completely recon- structed into bank parlours that the very fabric of it should cease to remind the people of what they had lost. But they did leave the Irish House of Lords, which they thought less dangerous and there I had a seat in the first political meeting ever held in that august as- sembly room since it ceased to be the Senate of the Irish Nation. The occasion was eight years ago and a speech on the history of Par- liamentary customs in Ireland was delivered by that great authority, Professor Swift Mc- THE FIGHT FOR HOME RULE 41 Neill, who is by ancestry related to Dean Swift, the author of Gullive/s Travels. If these were my feehngs towards Ireland — and they were shared by millions of other Englishmen — you may imagine how deep are the sentiments of Irishmen themselves towards the events of the year of grace or to them of disgrace, 1800. It must be borne in mind, however, that under her Parliament, Ireland had shown little content. Two years before the blow fell, the country had been in rebellion. The Act of Union was a desperate alternative to what British statesmen had come to regard as a constitutional failure. They were, I be- lieve, profoundly wrong but the fact remains that they did not take action without serious reason. The British Dominions were at death- grips with Napoleon. Even in the Navy, there had been mutinies. And the troubles in Ire- land had aggravated the strategic situation, then as during the insurrection of Easter 191 5. Moreover, that very House of Lords, of which I have spoken, illustrated the passion of the period. Still on the walls you may see two tapestries, showing not St. Patrick or any 42 THE IRISH CASE romance of Tara's Halls but very different and far bloodier dramas. The Battle of the Boyne is on one side of the room and the Siege of Londonderry is on the other. The Parliament House itself is thus eloquent witness of the fact that Ireland is still a divided country as historically she always has been. It was in 1885 that Gladstone began his fight for Home Rule in Ireland. In our recent political history, there has been no fight more bitter and desperate. The first difficulty that had to be faced was British Unionism. This consisted of the Protestant Liberals who fol- lowed Joseph Chamberlain and John Bright. These formed an alliance with their natural enemies, the Conservatives under the late Lord Salisbury. In the year 1886 the first Home Rule Bill was defeated at the polls. In the year 1893 the second Home Rule Bill was vetoed by the House of Lords. And twenty years elapsed before the third Home Rule Bill received the Royal Assent. It was a wearisome struggle lor those of us who were for so long on the losing side but we were convinced that in the end the predominant partner, as Lord THE FIGHT FOR HOME RULE 43 Rosebery called Great Britain, would be con- vinced of the justice of the Irish cause and in this we were justified. There is no party and there is no statesman in any British Dominion who does not to-day desire Ireland to have a Self Determining Parliament with an autonomous Cabinet responsible to it. The difficulties have been reduced to Ireland her- self. Since the year 1885, this fight has gone on. The delay has been infinitely wearisome and disastrous but it has not been entirely lost time. In this generation of struggle, some of the thorniest of Ireland's problems have been soundly settled. Her Land system was the worst and is now the le: ! 'n Europe. Catholics and Protestants are satisfied with the provision of Universities. And not less important has been the establishment of Local Government, as completely free of British control as the City of San Francisco is free of the control of Congress or of the State of New York. If there is bad housing in Dublin, it is not the business of Great Britain. It is because the City of Dublin wishes to have it so. Every city 44 THE IRISH CASE in the United Kingdom, like every City in the United States has the housing that it de- serves. Land, Local Government and Univer- sities — these have all been provided for and any one of these questions might have wrecked an Irish Parliament at the outset of its career. Also all these problems have been settled with British credit and British cash, in addition to the resources of Ireland herself. The change in the attitude of Britain towards Ireland is due in part to a broader and freer franchise. Until recent years, several votes were allowed to persons in Britain who owned a particular kind of property and these people used Ireland as a convenient obstacle to reform. The plural voter has disappeared. So great is the change in public sentiment that many people who were before plural voters and Conserva- tive are now supporting Labour candidates. This means that there is now no longer any political combination in England against the claims of Ireland. Even the Unionist Party, whose very name means adherence to the Act of Union, has come to advocate the fullest measure of self determination in the sister isle. THE FIGHT FOR HOME RULE 45 The House of Lords is crippled and can, under the Parliament Act, offer no effective re- sistance to an Irish settlement even if the peers wanted to do so. Not that they any longer desire to obstruct the claims of Ireland. In the first place, they have got the cash for their land which was their main anxiety in past years. And in the second place they see what harm an unsettled Irish Question is doing to British prestige abroad. Therefore we may take it that the old obstacles in the way of Ireland getting a Parliament have vanished. Even Mr. Balfour has surrendered and occupies a prominent seat on the penitent form. I can well understand that Ireland, accus- tomed to the loose and inaccurate abuse of '"England" which has been common political coinage for so many years, should fail to ap- preciate that the England of the late Lord Salisbury and the late Mr. Chamberlain has disappeared. The constant insistence on past wrongs, which lose nothing in the telling, has been the worst possible mental food for an impressionable and poetic people. There is not a country in Europe that does not envy 46 THE IRISH CASE Ireland her present prosperity and Ireland de- serves that prosperity. By refusing to go to Westminster and playing at revolution instead of at straight politics, the Sein Fein members of Parliament have cut themselves off from the facts at a time in the world's history v^^hen facts are irresistible elements in framing policy. Let us then consider simply and briefly the efforts that have been made in the last ten years to secure for Ireland a Parliament. The position in July, 19 14, was entirely clear as far as England was concerned. Her Tories might rage furiously together as indeed they did, but the Home Rule Act was on the Statute Book and had received the Royal Assent, which I inyself heard given in the House of Lords. There were then three leaders of the Irish Party, John Redmond, John Dillon and Joseph Devlin. These were the men who obviously would have to govern Ireland under the new measure. Two of them, I think, had served terms of imprisonment as political offenders. But all of them were now in intimate touch with Augustine Birrell, the Chief Secretary THE FIGHT FOR HOME RULE 47 and the best Chief Secretary that Ireland ever has had. Were these men prepared to accept office under the Home Rule Act and administer it for the whole of Ireland? It is an open secret that they or one or two of them were not. And the reason of their hesitation was the open opposition of Ulster. They agreed that a settlement with Ulster was essential. If they had said that they were prepared to go forward with the bill and enforce it on Ulster, they could have had it in 19 14. And I was one of the many Liberals who wanted that word to be said. A Conference was then called at Bucking- ham Palace and it was opened by King George himself. Mr. Redmond attended and so did Sir Edward Carson. The whole situation was reviewed and the one object of British states- men of all parties was to overcome in some way the still fierce animosities of the two Irish factions. In the end, it was decided that the only plan was to cut from the Bill or more accurately the Act the dissentient counties of north east Ulster until the time should come when they .would enter the scheme of their 48 THE IRISH CASE own accord. Many people believed that the minority would not stay out long. With a Parliament sitting in Dublin, they would, as combative Irishmen, want to be in the show. But in everyone's interests, it was a good thing that Ulster should adopt the new arrangement of her own free will and without a sense of defeat. It will be seen that the entire problem to be faced now concerned Ireland and Ireland alone. British statesmen only appeared in it as conciliators. Conciliation failed. It failed solely for an Irish reason. The question arose what was to be regarded as the true definition of dis- sentient Ulster. It was the kind of question that has disturbed the statesmen of Europe a score of times during the formulation of the Peace Treaty. Was Fiume to be an Italian or a Jugo-Slav city? Was Dantzig to belong to Poland or to Prussia? And what about certain areas in Schleswig-Holstein? Indeed, we have the same kind of discussion in the case of Tacna and Arica in South America. The Conference broke up in the main over the Counties of Fermanagh and Tyrone. Both THE FIGHT FOR HOME RULE 49 sides claimed them. In agreeing to exclude even temporarily any part of Ireland, Mr. Red- mond had strained the loyalty of his party to breaking point and he dared go no further. On their side, the Orangemen were openly desirous of wrecking the whole Act. It is doubtless a fact that the Ulstermen were assisted by allies in England among the older Conservatives. Just as the Nationalists were using the Liberal and Labour parties, so the Orangemen were using whatever friends they could find. But the root fact in the situation was the division. It was a division not in England but in Ireland. The arming of Ulster may have been right or wrong, it may have been mere bluff or a serious threat. I will say something more about it a little later. But it was at least an evidence that politically Ulster was as zealous on one side as the other parts of Ireland were zealous on the other side. Those conflicting zeals were not England's fault. John Knox who founded the Presby- terianism of Ulster as of other countries was not an Englishman. St. Patrick who founded the Catholicism of Ireland was also not an 50 THE IRISH CASE Englishman, at any rate of recent extraction. The sermons on one side and the other which rent Ireland in twain were not preached by Englishmen. Addressing audiences as I am sometimes asked to do, I never touch on Ireland without having some Irishmen on one side or the other coming up to me and telling me that I have failed to express his feelings as a partisan. Catholics and Protestants say this to me, and for this reason — my attitude is the detached attitude of the great body of the British people. In August, 1914, the Irish Parties were so utterly at variance that by common consent, it was decided to suspend the Home Rule Act until the war should be over. This was no perfidy on the part of Britain. The Irish dif- ferences were carried into the Army itself and it was held that you could not ask soldiers to go into battle and die together, when bitter controversies were raging among their friends at home. Of course this argument did not move the Sinn Feiners who wanted Germany to win the war and said so openly. But the rest of us may be permitted to take the view THE FIGHT FOR HOME RULE 51 that the urgency of the war justified an ar- rangement of pohtlcs in Ireland which country- lay safe behind the guns of the British fleet and would take no kind of harm from a delay during which no Irishman was compelled to strike a blow for freedom except by his own free will. It is sometimes said that the Home Rule Act was a failure. From the Nationalist stand- point, this is untrue. They accepted the Act and were satisfied with it. They agreed that Britain had done the just and right thing. They said so everywhere. The Act redeemed every promise that had ever been made whether to Parnell or to Redmond. If the Act was postponed, it was merely to prevent civil trouble within Ireland herself. For the moment I will only record the fact that in the Easter of 191 5 the Germans suc- ceeded in stirring up what has been called somewhat excitedly the Easter Rebellion, which continued for a day or two but was not more serious intrinsically than certain negro riots of a recent date elsewhere. Immediately after the Rebellion, Great Britain came forward 52 THE IRISH CASE again as conciliator and sought to gather the various factions of Ireland into one family. An Ireland, united and peaceful under her own institutions, was the British policy, then as at any time for many years. A Convention was therefore called. It was to be a purely Irish Convention. It was to sit in Ireland. It was to be presided over by an Irishman, Sir Horace Plunkett, whose life had been devoted to restoring the industries and the agriculture of Ireland. The British Chief Secretary was only to have a seat in the Convention as the medium for giv- ing information on the many constitutional and economic points that would arise. The whole main task of getting Irishmen to sit in the same room together was performed by British peacemakers. When the Convention was called, the Sinn Feiners were not only invited to attend, but they were begged to come and put their ideas into the common stock. They were not asked to deal with the tyrannical Englishman but with their fellow Irishmen. When they were invited, it was known perfectly well that they THE FIGHT FOR HOME RULE 53 had been plotting with the Germany of the Kaiser which was at that very moment behav- ing with inconceivable cruelty in Belgium and other countries. Yet this damning fact was overlooked and the right hand was extended to these men who had been asking all along for the Irish question to be settled in Ireland rather than at Westminster. In calling the Convention, Britain was taking the Sinn Feiners at their word, and with what result? The friends of De Valera were not out for settlement. It was their business to get up trouble and they stood as completely aloof from the Convention in Dublin as they are now standing aloof from the Parliament at West- minster. They wanted to talk and agitate, conspire and plot and boycott, but they did not want to take responsibility. They were part of a larger game. That game would have been spoilt if the Convention had succeeded. Ireland was merely a pawn in that game. The extremists on one side were answered by the extremists on the other. Sinn Fein and Orangemen each played into the hands of the other. While Sinn Fein was pulling every 54 THE IRISH CASE wire, both in Ireland and in the United States, to wreck the Convention, the Orangemen were gradually mobilising their forces. The Report of the Convention was not unanimous and the dissentients appealed to British Toryism. Mr. Asquith was then at the head of a Coalition Government and he was confronted by the most appalling crisis that humanity has ever had to face. Thinking of themselves alone, it did not matter to the Sinn Feiners at all if Rumania was overrun and Serbia struck down and Russia convulsed and Armenia cleared of Christians. Paris might have fallen and Rome been sacked, but Sinn Fein would have been true to her motto "Ourselves alone." Be that as it may, Mr. Asquith undoubtedly saved his Cabinet from breaking up by sur- rendering the partial settlement that had been reached, to the clamours of the English Tories who were acting for and with the North East- ern Ulstermen. The Nationalist Party re- ceived thereby a grave blow. But what com- plaint has Sinn Fein to make ? It was exactly the situation for which they had planned and plotted and organised. THE FIGHT FOR HOME RULE 55 If the Convention had succeeded, Ireland would have been peaceful to-day, and one result would have been that the Anti-British agitation in the United States would have been deprived of its main sustenance. There was thus a strong trans-Atlantic reason why it must not succeed. The Parliamentary grievance had become for many people more valuable than any conceivable remedy. The very generosity of the Imperial Parliament meant that there was no longer any pressing material reason for a change. Taking the benefits while con- tinuing the grumble was like getting the best of both worlds. On Saturday night the old people receive their pensions on every note of which is the head of King George and the rest of the week is available for discussing Ireland's wrongs. Nor does the pension in any way interfere with Presidential contests elsewhere. There is thus a certain unreality in the position. I have been much impressed by the curious perplexity of American journalists who visit Ireland and are unable to find any solution for the paradoxes which they encounter. THE LLOYD GEORGE SETTLEMENT I "V T E are now in a position to consider W W how the Irish Question stands to- day. From all the medley of often unreal emotions that have been aroused, there emerges the one obvious fact that Britain has every reason whether of self-interest or of im- perial necessity to settle the matter here and now. If the problem is not settled, it is because powerful political forces are working in Ire- land and elsewhere to prevent a solution being reached. It is not a question of Britain ob- stinately refusing to give Ireland what Ireland wants. The position is reversed and we now see Britain thrusting on Ireland liberties and responsibilities which Ireland finds less allur- ing, the nearer she approaches to them. In the British House of Commons, there are two political Coalitions confronting each 56 Sam: if you need assurance, sir, you may like to know THAT you have THE LOYAL FRIENDSHIP OF ALL DECENT PEOPLE IN OUR COUNTRY. THE LLOYD GEORGE SETTLEMENT 57 other. The one is led by Mr. Lloyd George and the other is led by Mr. Asquith. Each of these statesmen has his own plan for dealing with the Irish situation. One plan may be better than the other but the point here is that Ireland may have either. It is really no use for the Irish extremists to criticise out of ex- istence first the Asquith and then the Lloyd George policy unless they have a plan of their own. Nor is it any use for them to criticise details. The details can be altered and have been altered times without number. If the spirit is not right, the details will always seem wrong. It is no use for the critics to play off the Asquith Plan against the Lloyd George Plan. Mr. Lloyd George is the kind of man w^ho would change one plan for the other if thereby he could get a settlem.ent. I will begin with the Asquith Plan. He says that the Home Rule Act being on the Statute Book should be brought into operation. He admits that it cannot be applied to Ulster without modifications. He would therefore give to each Irish county an option to remain out of the Scheme until it wants to come Into 58 THE IRISH CASE it. Or he would discuss a proposal to establish in Ulster a Council for purely Ulster Affairs. Broadly, then, Mr. Asquith wants Home Rule on Gladstonian lines with concessions to Ulster. Mr. Lloyd George prefers a new measure entirely. He would give to Ireland not one Parliament but two. The first would sit in Dublin and the second in Belfast. The first would represent the South and West of Ireland which is mainly agricultural and Catholic while the second would represent the Protestant in- dustries of the North. These two Parliaments would each select ten men who Avould sit to- gether on a central body and adjust matters between the neighbouring legislatures. The Parliaments would have liberty to unite and establish the one and indivisible Ireland which is the aim of modern British statesmanship. The plans have been called two Councils under a Parliament or two Parliaments under a Council. The advantage enjoyed by the Prime Minister is that he is in power with a solid Parliament at Westminster behind his policy of pushing through his scheme without delay. THE LLOYD GEORGE SETTLEMENT 59 If Britain lived under a written Constitution like that of the United States, these plans might be open to grave objection as a permanent set- tlement. But they are not to be regarded as the last word on Ireland, if ever there will be such a last word. They can and they will be amended as experience reveals improve- ments which may be made. The mere fact that Ireland is to have two Parliaments of her own does not mean that her voice is to be silenced at Westminster. She will still enjoy the right in the Imperial Parliament to more than forty seats. Her statesmen will still be eligible for and invited into the inner counsels of the Brit- ish Empire. No grievance of Ireland will lack ample ventilation. Ulster has accepted the Lloyd George Plan. She has reached this decision reluctantly but she has at last got there. This means that with the Bill on the statute book, there is, as a matter of course, a Parliament in Belfast. In the South and West of Ireland, it is hoped that a similar result will follow. Given a Parliament actually in being at Dublin, it is scarcely conceivable that the Nationalist areas 6o THE IRISH CASE as they used to be called will stand aloof. They vote for their County Councils and their City Corporations and they also vote for their mem- bers to sit in the House of Commons at West- minster. It is a fair prophecy that they will vote for the Dublin Parliament. When the Parliaments meet, each will dis- cover that there are many other problems in Ireland beside the old and outworn quarrel with England. It is very unlikely that we shall see a solid body of Catholics confronting a solid body of Protestants. Both in Ulster and in the rest of Ireland, there will be cer- tainly a Labour Group. In the recent municipal elections, that group as we have seen had al- ready become formidable. At present it is divided. When the Irish Trade Union Con- gress called out the entire organised trades of the country on a general strike in favour of the Sinn Fein prisoners in Dublin, not a man in Belfast downed tools. With all the authority of the Federation behind the strike, Ulster stood aside because Ulster utterly disapproved of the reason for the stoppage. But when the issue of independence is out of the way, the THE LLOYD GEORGE SETTLEMENT 6i influence of Labour will tend in the direction of the united Ireland which Britain is working to secure. Again, the old division will be mitigated by a common postal and pension system and by the common system of land purchase. Just as the middle western states in America sell food to the eastern states and receive manufactures in exchange, so do the agricultural parts of Ireland trade with Belfast. Not alone do Dub- lin Banks serve the South and West; Belfast Banks also have branches all over Ireland and thus form another link. Ulstermen fear that the Parliament at Dub- lin will simply set up a Republic and make more trouble than ever. I doubt whether this will be the case. The old Nationalists were divided into Liberals under Dillon and Clericals under Healy. There will be similar divisions in the days to come. And they will be healthy in every way. The chief issue will be the control of the common schools about which we must expect a lively controversy among Catholics themselves. In the case of the United States, there was 62 THE IRISH CASE great difficulty at first in the way of getting the original thirteen colonies to form one federal government. But in the end, it was done. Canada also had her troubles and to this day, New- foundland stands outside the Dominion which includes nine provinces every one of which joined the others by its own free consent. In the case of South Africa, also, the Union was threatened by the dissent of Natal, which was the Ulster of that great country. But even Natal was won for the Union and came in, moved by no force save the force of persua- sion. In Australia the dissentient was New South Wales. But here once more the great argument prevailed. I do not doubt that, under the present scheme, we shall see before long Ireland united. But of course the majority must recognise that there can be no question of paying off old scores against the minority. There must be a general amnesty to the ancient feuds. For myself, I say frankly that I see no rea- son in the world why Ireland should not be included in the League of Nations. England and Scotland and Wales have one vote between THE LLOYD GEORGE SETTLEMENT 63 them and the United States has no vote at all, so that if Ireland has two votes, one for the South and West and the other for Ulster, I should think that this grievance at any rate should be removed. And lastly, I really don't very much mind if in parts of Ireland they fly a more or less green flag. Wales has a big red dragon on her flag and so has Scotland and these dragons seem expressly designed to insult St. George, the Patron saint of England, who I understand was once prosecuted for profiteering, though afterwards he received, as was most justly due, a title. My feelings about the Union Jack are those of Stalky and Co. in Kipling's story. I w^ould as soon wave it about anywhere and everywhere as I would wave my marriage cer- tificate or my wife's last love letter. When I see the Union Jack, it does not make me want to cheer. I would as soon cheer and applaud the Holy Communion. So that if Irishmen do not want to wave this flag, it is their loss, not mine. I am glad to know that there are few homes in England where the Stars and Stripes are not welcome. But one thing is 64 THE IRISH CASE clear. The Sinn Fein extremists must not try to force the flag which they have adopted upon Ulster. That is the real issue to-day. Let them advocate Secession for themselves if they will. The answer will be found in these pages. But to try to force Secession on Ulster would be as unreasonable as it would be for the United States to try to force Secession on the Dominion of Canada. VI IS INDEPENDENCE CONCEIVABLE? STANDING at the Court of Public Opin- ion in America, I have dealt hitherto only with the grievances of Ireland. My submission has been First, that Catholic Disabilities under the Penal Laws have been transformed into Catholic privileges in the Schools and Universities; Secondly, that the worst Land System in Europe has been transformed into the best and at the cost of the British investor; Thirdly, that the overtaxation of Ire- land has been reversed into undertaxation ; And fourthly, that the refusal by Bri- tain to restore the Parliamentary institu- tions of Ireland has been changed into a determination that such institutions shall 65 66 THE IRISH CASE be set up in Ireland, whatever be the hos- tiHty of those who wish to keep the old quarrels alive. But I admit that the Case is still incom- pletely handled. Ireland has not only griev- ances but hopes, and while the removal of grievances is much, there can be no tranquillity until her hopes are satisfied. We often hear it said that the trouble with Ireland is spiritual and this is true. The trouble with Mexico is also spiritual. Yet Mexico is not oppressed by Britain. There is a trouble of the spirit that goes far beyond the region of politics. And sometimes, I have thought that Irishmen have expected of Britain what they can only get from God. A man*s happi- ness, after all, depends on other circumstances than the sovereignty under which he lives. Even in the United States, which is guided by the wisdom of Congress, men and women sometimes talk as if they were not entirely happy. The expression of di^scontent in Ireland is called Sinn Fein. The origin of this move- IS INDEPENDENCE CONCEIVABLE? 67 ment was literary and artistic rather than political, one object being to restore the use of the Erse language. The movement was particularly popular with young College men, educated in Ireland's developed universities, who saw no reason for emigrating to the United States. No one will, I think, deny that the lapse of languages like Gaelic and Welsh and Erse and Breton and Red Indian dialects, is a sacrifice of the picturesque to the practical. But in the United States, what is called Ameri- canism means in the main the insistence of the authorities upon the knowledge by all citizens of a common language and while in Canada, the use of French is guaranteed to Quebec, it is by no means certain that the French Cana- dians have been wholly benefited by their linguistic severance from the rest of North America. Be that as it may, no objection of any kind has ever been made by Britain to Irishmen talking or teaching any language they like, whether any one understands it or not. This toleration left Sinn Fein with nothing to protest against. But when Mr. Redmond accepted the Home Rule Acts of Mr. Asquith, 68 THE IRISH CASE an issue was provoked by the Clan-na-Gael of the United States which cabled over the strongest messages of dissent. Gradually, the Sinn Fein Movement which had been an asser- tion of Ireland's independence of the mind, developed into a political association, leagued with the relics of Fenianism and with the most violent section of Labour, as led by men like Jim Larkin, now sentenced in the United States for criminal Anarchy. The phrase Sinn Fein means "ourselves alone" and this is one of the few occasions in history, and perhaps the only one in which a movement professing to be generous and democratic has adopted as its slogan the watch- word Selfishness. The demand for an Irish Republic is confined to the group which has thus proclaimed Selfishness to be the supreme virtue. Pursuant of their policy of thinking only of themselves, the Sinn Fein leaders threw themselves, as we have seen, heart and soul into the work of securing the triumph of Ger- many over any small nation like Belgium or Serbia or Rumania or Poland which did not IS INDEPENDENCE CONCEIVABLE? 69 happen to be Ireland. The Irishmen who were dying for the cause of liberty — men like Tom Kettle and Willie Redmond — were denounced and misrepresented and hounded as far as pos- sible out of political life, for no other reason except that they were fighting a noble and un- selfish battle instead of fighting for Sinn Fein or themselves alone. In the Election of 19 18, many Sinn Feiners were elected to the British House of Commons. That was the tribunal where first they should have advanced their claim for an Independent Irish Republic. In the forms of the House, there was nothing to prevent the proposition being debated. The Independence of Ireland could have been expressed in the terms of a Resolution and if that had been approved em- bodied in an Act of Parliament. But of course the Sinn Feiners would have had to lay their cards on the table. They would have had to meet the millions of Irishmen at home and abroad who do not accept their leadership. And they therefore decided that it would be more prudent to assemble at Dublin all by themselves and adopt a Declaration of Independence, 70 THE IRISH CASE which would do admirably for American con- sumption. On the 2 1st of January, 19 19, the Dail Eireann or Parliament of Ireland approved the following document: "Whereas the Irish people is by right a free people, and whereas for seven hundred years the Irish people has never ceased to repudiate and has repeatedly protested in arms against foreign usurpation; "And whereas English rule in this country is, and always has been, based upon force and fraud and maintained by military occupation against the declared will of the people; "And whereas the Irish Republic was pro- claimed in Dublin on Easter Monday, 191 6, by the Irish Republican Army, acting on behalf of the Irish people ; "And whereas the Irish people is resolved to secure and maintain its complete inde- pendence in order to promote the common weal, to re-establish justice, to provide for future defence to insure peace at home and good will with all nations, and to constitute IS INDEPENDENCE CONCEIVABLE? 71 a national policy based upon the people's will, with equal right and equal opportunity for every citizen; "And whereas at the threshold of a new era in history the Irish electorate has in the General Election of December, 1918, seized the first occasion to declare by an overwhelming majority its firm allegiance to the Irish Re- public ; "Now, therefore, we, the elected Representa- tives of the ancient Irish people, in National Parliament assembled, do, in the name of the Irish Nation, ratify the establishment of the Irish Republic and pledge ourselves and our people to make this Declaration effective by every means at our command; "We ordain that the elected Representatives of the Irish people alone have power to make laws binding on the people of Ireland, and that the Irish Parliament is the only Parliament to which that people will give its allegiance; "We solemnly declare foreign government in Ireland to be an invasion of our National Right, which we will never tolerate, and we 72 THE IRISH CASE demand the evacuation of our country by the English garrison; "We claim for our national independence the recognition and support of every free na- tion of the world, and we proclaim that inde- pendence to be a condition precedent to inter- national peace hereafter. "In the name of the Irish people we humbly commit our destiny to Almighty God, who gave our fathers the courage and determination to persevere through centuries of a ruthless tyranny, and strong in the justice of the cause which they have handed down to us, we ask His Divine blessing on this the last stage of the struggle which we have pledged ourselves to carry through to Freedom." This document refers inaccurately to Eng- lish Rule in Ireland. When it was issued, the Viceroy of Ireland was Viscount French, an Irishman. The Chief Secretary for Ireland was Mr. MacPherson, a Scotsman. His suc- cessor is Sir Hamar Greenwood, a Canadian. And the Prime Minister under whom thes^ IS INDEPENDENCE CONCEIVABLE? 73 men were serving was David Lloyd George, a Welshman. With regard to force and fraud, I can best answer the Declaration by quoting from the speech which Mr. John Redmond delivered in Australia in 19 15, when the friends of Sinn Fein were trying to help Germany by dis- couraging recruits from enlisting. Mr. Red- mond referred to his previous Australian visit, and said: "I went to Australia to make an appeal on behalf of an enslaved, famine-hunted, despair- ing people, a people in the throes of a semi- revolution, bereft of all political liberties and engaged in a life and death struggle with the system of a most brutal and drastic coercion. Only thirty-three or thirty-four years have passed since then, but what a revolution has occurred in the interval. To-day the people, broadly speaking own the soil; to-day the labourers live in decent habitations; to-day there is absolute freedom in local government and the local taxation of the country; to-day we have the widest parliamentary and munici- 74 THE IRISH CASE pal franchise ; to-day we know that the evicted tenants, who are the wounded soldiers of the land war have been restored to their homes or to other homes as good as those from which they had been originally driven. We know that the congested districts, the scene of some of the most awful horrors of the old famine days, have been transformed, that the farms have been enlarged, decent dwellings have been provided, and a new spirit of hope and inde- pendence is to-day amongst the people. We know that the towns legislation has been passed facilitating the housing of the working classes. So far as the town tenants are con- cerned, we have this consolation, that we passed for Ireland an Act whereby they are protected against arbitrary eviction, and are given compensation not only for disturbance from their homes, but for the good will of the business they had created, a piece of legis- lation far in advance of anything obtained for the town tenants of any other country. We know that we have at last won educational freedom in university education for most of the youth of Ireland, and we know that in IS INDEPENDENCE CONCEIVABLE? 75 the primary and standard education the thirty- four years that have passed have witnessed an enormous advance in efficiency and in the means of bringing efficiency about. To-day we have a system of old age pensions in Ire- land whereby every old man and woman over seventy is saved the workhouse, free to spend their last days in comparative comfort. "We have a system of national industrial insurance which provides for the health of the people and makes it impossible for the poor hard- working man and woman, when sickness comes to the door, to be carried away to the work- house hospital, and makes it certain that they will receive decent Christian treatment during their illness." Born and bred as they are under a Declara- tion of Independence, which declaration freed them from British interference, I am not sur- prised that many Americans, seeing the Irish so stirred up, should assume as a matter of course that there ought to be a Republic with a capital at Dublin. I can well understand why it should be difficult here to draw a distinction 76 THE IRISH CASE between President Paderewski of Poland, and President Masaryk of Czecho Slovakia on the one hand and President De Valera of Ireland on the other. If one-tenth of what is said about misrule in Ireland were true, I should say myself that a Republic was the only path- way to deliverance. But neither one-tenth nor one-hundredth, as I have shown, is approxi- mating to the truth. The first objection to a Republic is Ulster. If Ireland secedes from the United Kingdom, it follows as the night follows the day that North East Ulster will secede from the United Ireland. Every Irishman knows this to be a fact and it is mere chicanery to blink the busi- ness. I have shown how the Dissentient vote in South Down for De Valera was only thirty out of about nine thousand. A Republic in Dublin means two Irelands, as distinct from one another as Sweden is distinct from Nor- way or as Belgium is distinct from Holland. If Ireland splits from England, Ireland splits herself. The main object of any statesmanlike policy for Ireland should be surely to draw all sec- IS INDEPENDENCE CONCEIVABLE? 77 tions of the people together and not to drive them yet further asunder. Sinn Fein has pro- ceeded on the opposite principle. By adopting a flag which is not merely green but also Papal in its colouring, a challenge to the death has been issued to Belfast and the North. And never has Ulster been more thoroughly aroused. The second objection to the Irish Republic is Canada. Ireland lies clean between the Dominion and Great Britain. If De Valera were to cross the Dominion frontier, he would be immediately arrested. Between the Irish and French Catholics of the Dominion, there is, I am assured, no political association. The United States is doubtless aware that the cam- paign against Britain which is raging here has had the effect of drawing the Dominion of Canada closer to the Mother Country, as al- ways, when she is attacked. The third objection is fiscal. If Ireland Is to be independent, then England must also be allowed her independence. If Ireland is to put on tariffs against Great Britain, then it follows that Great Britain must have the right to put on tariffs against Ireland. I do not suggest 78 THE IRISH CASE that Britain would ever treat Ireland as Serbia and her swine and pork were treated by Aus- tria Hungary. But Ireland has everything to lose and nothing to gain by seeking to be put outside the customs union which gives her a free market at her very doors. It is all very well to think only of the sentimental side of these questions, but even in the case of Cuba, there were some very pointed negotiations over the admission of sugar into the. United States. And the Irish farmer would soon be complain- ing in real earnest if Britain were to take the Sinn Feiners at their word and were to compel Ireland to depend on ''herself alone." The wording of the Declaration is precise as to the Independence claimed. It is to be COMPLETE INDEPENDENCE with power to provide for future defence. In other words, Ireland claims the right to main^ tain her own Army and Navy and to enter into her own relations with Foreign Powers, which, as in the case of Germany, may be at the moment in conflict with Great Britain and the United States. Ireland is thus to be more IS INDEPENDENCE CONCEIVABLE? 79 free in her Foreign Relations than Belgium under her Treaty Guarantees. There is not a small nation in Europe that in fact enjoys such isolation and there is not a nation any- where that has adopted Selfishness like this as its national virtue. Nor has Ireland en- dorsed the Sinn Fein Claim. Ireland merely regards it as an amusing gesture of impatience. When a man says damn, he does not really want a fellow creature to go to the nether re- gions. He wishes to relieve his feelings. The reason why Britain will never consent to such a Declaration of Independence is that Ireland lies between the Old World and the New. She holds the key to the trade routes which connect the whole of Europe with the whole of America both north and south. The best argument possible against the demand of Sinn Fein is the conduct of Sinn Fein in in- viting German submarines into Irish harbours at a time when those submarines were being employed against the shipping of every mari- time power in both hemispheres and not least against American Shipping. When Sinn Fein hooted American troops and sailors and the 8o THE IRISH CASE American flag in the streets of Cork, we saw a symbolic act which will never be forgotten. The American Flag was at that time being flown over the British Houses of Parliament. No Power, with a sense of responsibility would be worth the respect of its neighbours if it were to surrender the strategic centre of the modern world on the ocean to a small and divided nation in which there was an active movement afoot to employ that position as a means of pursuing a policy of confessed Selfishness and disregard for others. No one knows this better than Sinn Fein. The object of the Declaration of Independence is not to win assent. It is a document drafted for re- fusal. It is intended to create a new grievance in place of the others that have been removed. The world is being told that Ireland will never be content until she is placed in a position on the high seas to starve out England. This is the plain truth of the matter and the only reason for the demand is potential revenge. We have seen how openly the Declaration flouts the sensibilities of Ulster and we now see how IS INDEPENDENCE CONCEIVABLE? 8i it Is a calculated threat against Britain, France and Western Europe. In the case of the Commonwealth of Aus- tralia, the People insisted that no Islands should be in the hands of Germany which might and therefore would be used in the future to cut off the Commonwealth and New Zealand from the rest of the world. In the case of the Philippines, there was only the other day a discussion of the rumour that Japan was fortifying Islands which lie between the United States and her Dependency. That dis- cussion was short and sharp. Some little time ago, De Valera indicated his readiness to discuss some form of Cuban Home Rule or independence. He was promptly disavowed by his Irish-American friends whose aims did not include a settlement of the Irish Question on any lines until a new President had been elected to the United States. But I wish to say at once that British Statesman- ship does not exclude any path to conciliation however unlikely its route. Even Independence as defined by Sinn Fein was carefully con- 82 THE IRISH CASE sidered by the British Cabinet before it was laid aside. Cuban Independence is defined by what is called the Piatt Amendment passed on the I2th of June, 1901. I think it well to give the terms of this important instrument in full: (i) The Government of Cuba shall never enter into any Treaty or other com- pact with any foreign Power or Powers which will impair or tend to impair the Independence of Cuba, nor in any way authorise or permit any foreign Power or Powers to obtain by colonisation or for naval or military purposes, or other- wise, lodgment or control over any por- tion of said island. This clause would have been broken in the case of Ireland by the invitation to Casement and others to land with arms. The Clause is manifestly incompatible with the terms of the Irish Declaration of Independence. (2) That said Government shall not assume or contract any public debt to pay IS INDEPENDENCE CONCEIVABLE? 83 ' the interest upon which, and to make rea- sonable sinking fund provision for the ultimate discharge of which the ordinary revenues of the Island of Cuba, after de- fraying the current expenses of the Gov- ernment, shall be inadequate. This clause gives to the United States an ultimate control over the finances of Cuba. (3) That the Government of Cuba con- sents that the United States may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban Independence, the maintenance of a Government adequate for the protec- tion of life, property, and individual liberty, and for discharging the obliga- tions with respect to Cuba imposed by the Treaty of Paris on the United States, now to be assumed and undertaken by the Gov- ernment of Cuba. This clause gives to the United States the right and indeed the obligation to fulfil pre- cisely those duties to the individual which are fulfilled to-day in Ireland by the British au- 84 THE IRISH CASE thority. If the Island of Cuba were to break up into two factions as Ireland is broken up, American intervention would follow as a mat- ter of course. (4) That all the acts of the United States in Cuba during the military occu- pancy of said island shall be ratified and held as valid, and all rights legally ac- quired by virtue of said acts shall be main- tained and protected. In other words, Cuba must not complain if the United States finds it necessary or ex- pedient to declare and administer martial law, as in Ireland. The next clause deals similarly with the duty of Cuba to apply sanitation in her cities, and therefore gives the United States a locus standi in the municipal affairs of the Island. Clause VI cuts out the Isle of Pines and so defines the boundaries of Cuba and Clause VII is in these terms: To enable the United States to main- tain the independence of Cuba, and to IS INDEPENDENCE CONCEIVABLE? 85 protect the people thereof, as well as for its own defence, the Cuban Government will sell or lease to the United States the lands necessary for coaling or naval sta- tions, at certain specified points, to be agreed upon with the President of the United States. In respect of Cuba, therefore, the United States has thus not only the right of military intervention, virtually when she pleases, but the right of permanent naval occupation where she pleases. These rights are exercised by the United States and would be continued as rights, even if the Cubans objected. Rights essentially similar are imposed by the naval and military forces of the United States on the Island of Haiti and Santo Domingo. For a considerable period, the Haitians have been under arms against the marines of the United States and the acting President of the Haitian Republic is an Admiral of the United States Navy. In the attitude of the United States there has been no trace of hypocrisy. When Panama 86 THE IRISH CASE was wanted, Panama was taken. The Canal was fortified and there was the end of it. And in the terms of the Piatt Amendment, the United States makes it perfectly plain in the very wording that the object of the military and naval provisions is ''its own defence/' Whose defence? Cuba's? Not at all. The phrase, its own defence, means the defence of the United States. Cuba is part of the strategic system on which the United States is to base what will be in a year or two the largest Navy in the world. But Cuba does not lie on any essential trade route to or from the United States. If Cuba were in hostile hands, not a family in any American city would have to go on the rations that my family suffered in Britain, owing to the depredations of the Irish — or rather the Sinn Fein — assisted submarines. Cuba does not lie at the throat of North America. If the United States is so nervous over Cuba, VN^hat would she feel, if one night, Cuba were super- imposed suddenly on Long Island and were then to start a claim for absolute independence ? And what would be the feelings — I will add the IS INDEPENDENCE CONCEIVABLE? 87 language of American statesmen — if with the Catholics of Cuba, just outside New York so agitating, Great Britain were to receive the President of the Cuban RepubHc officially, were to supply his friends with funds and with rifles, were to give him honorary degrees at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and the Freedom of the City of London, and were finally to pass a Resolution in the House of Lords, with the assent of the Foreign Secre- tary, corresponding in that body to Senator Lodge in Congress, recognising the Republic of Long Island? Would the language be any the less severe if it were shown in addition that the Sinn Feiners of Long Island had been arranging with Germany a combined operation in which they were to run a rebellion, while German battleships were to raid Atlantic City as they raided the East Coast of England and while German aircraft were to raid New York and drop bombs on the homes of the people? That was what happened in Easter 19 16 and in face of it, Britain is seriously asked by representa- tive bodies in this country to surrender her 88 THE IRISH CASE Long Island with the adjacent waters to an Alliance with — which would mean the Su- zerainty of — any foreign Power who at the moment might be most anxious to starve our people into submission. If the United States were entirely blockaded, she would not be vitally inconvenienced. She has within her own borders all the food and materials essential to her existence. But if Britain were blockaded, she would cease to be. The parallel of Long Island is only valid to a full extent if you assume further that New York State and Pennsylvania and Massachu- setts also form an island, with the rest of the American mainland in the hands of foreign and possibly hostile Powers. But the United States goes further. It is not for any Englishman to object to the Monroe Doctrine. That Doctrine was sug- gested to the statesmen of the New World by a British Minister, Canning, and was defended in Manila Bay by a British Fleet, at what risk we now know. But what is that Doctrine ? It is the assertion of what is no less a principle than an ultimate political suzerainty by the IS INDEPENDENCE CONCEIVABLE? 89 United States over the entire South American continent. If North Americans do not realise this, they may be assured that South American RepubHcs are fully aware of the position. Of this we have evidence in their sensitive vigilance when the United States intervenes however gently and beneficently to ward off trouble between Peru, Chile and Bolivia over Tacna and Arica. If there is to be a Monroe Doctrine to link Alaska with Cape Horn, is there to be no Monroe Doctrine to link Belfast with Glasgow? That concludes my main argument on the question of Irish Independence but I think that possibly a few words should be added in a new chapter on the right of a population to secede. VII IRISH PROPAGANDA IN THE UNITED STATES I BEGAN this book by admitting — I hope with due humiUty — that the great case of Ireland versus England was before the Jury of Public Opinion in the United States. Following the lead of Viscount Grey and his successor at the British Embassy in Washing- ton, Sir Auckland Geddes, I did not attempt to challenge the Jurisdiction of the Court. I took it for granted that Ireland is an inter- national question and that the United States, containing as it does many millions of Irish American citizens, would be particularly in- terested in its solution. All that I have asked is that the United States, as a High Court of Conscience on the conduct of Great Britain should hear the evidence before delivering the Verdict. 90 IRISH PROPAGANDA IN U. S. 91 As a detached observer, it has sometimes seemed to me that the Irishman who becomes an American citizen enjoys especial privileges over others amongst whom he lives. A Ger- man is told that he must be one hundred per cent. American. He must even fight against his fatherland when the call of duty comes. But the Irishman who is naturalised remains an Irishman none the less. He becomes an excellent citizen in the country of his adoption, running the cities in the most approved style and even finding time for charitable organiza- tions like Tammany Hall and the Knights of Columbus. But he is still a part of the Irish political system. So long as this situation helps Ireland on her upward path, I do not object at all. Let us always hope that every small nation will always have hosts of such disinterested friends. If, however, it is a fact that the Irish- American is actually stirring up trouble in the old country, then it does seem as if some ex- planation were required. In the year 191 1, a Home Rule Bill was brought forward by the British Government 92 THE IRISH CASE and what happened? It was accepted by the Irish NationaHst leaders who represented Ire- land, by Mr. Redmond and his colleagues, just as it would have been accepted by Parnell, had he been alive. But the American Clan-Na-Gael at once sent a disapproving telegram, and this was signed by six Judges of the Supreme Courts of New York and New Jersey, by a Governor of Rhode Island, and by other dignitaries. I do not my- self know v/hat is the character of the Clan- Na-Gael as a society for helping on human happiness but I may perhaps quote from The Americana, which is, I believe, the latest thing in Encyclopedias and entirely American in origin. In Volume VII, page 32, I read : ''Clan-Na-Gael, Irish secret society, founded in the United States for the pur- pose of aiding in securing 'Home Rule' for Ireland. The Society has been charged with some grave crimes, said to have been perpetrated for the purpose of intimidating the British government; but so little is IRISH PROPAGANDA IN U. S. 93 really known about the workings of the organisation nothing positive can be as- serted." Now if the Society was formed to help on Home Rule, why did it try to wreck Home Rule r Were there men who feared that their occupation would be gone if Home Rule were granted and is this a reason possibly for the increased outcry about Ireland that arises as the project of Home Rule comes nearer to success? Is it as if the Anti Saloon League were to have asked, "Where shall we be, if and when the Saloons are closed?" Do the Irishmen in the United States really want the Irishmen in Ireland to obtain satisfac- tion? Sometimes, I doubt it. When that Cablegram was sent, Germany was preparing her hardest for war. She was w^ell represented in this country and was doing her utmost to immobilise both Britain and the United States. A settlement of the Irish Question would of course have interfered very much with her plans. The Kaiser was making every possible enquiry how the various parts 94 THE IRISH CASE of the British Empire would stand in the event of war. He was lunching with Sir Edward Carson who represented the Ulster point of view. Was it wholly in the interests of Ire- land and freedom and humanity and the United States that the anti-Home Rule attitude was taken up in the New World by those who had always been Home Rulers? I do not know. But Americans must not be surprised if Eng- lishmen are asking the question. They are puzzled. I suppose that there is no country in the world that has done more than the United States to maintain the dignity of international law. Living under a written constitution, American citizens feel the responsibility of defending scraps of paper whenever these may be torn up by the aggressor. This was why many Americans sympathised with the Cana- dians who without hesitation threw themselves into the fight for outraged and Catholic Bel- gium. The United States was at the time a neutral and the question does arise whether international law applies to American citizens when they happen to be of Irish extraction. IRISH PROPAGANDA IN U. S. 95 Early in the year 191 7, a book was pub- lished here, entitled "History of the Sinn Fein Movement and the Irish Rebellion of 1916," by Francis P. Jones. This book should be legally exact and proper because it is honoured by an introduction by one of the most eminent jurists in the country, that is Judge Goff, understood to be a warm supporter of the extreme Irish claim. From Chapter XXXVIII, I cull the following sentences: Page 239: "Some months before the rising, a message was despatched to Berlin asking for arms, and the German Government made the necessary arrangements to comply with the Irish re- quest." Page 240: "Casement was trusted implicitly and given plenipotentiary powers in Germany where diplomatic relations were concerned." Page 241 : "All that Germany was asked to do, as a matter of fact, was to send a consignment of 96 THE IRISH CASE arms, ammunition, and machine guns, and that German submarines might also be of use." Page 242: "The request for the arms from Germany was, in the first place, brought to New York by messenger, since direct communication be- tween Ireland and Berlin was impossible. The fact that this messenger was one of the signers of the proclamation of the Irish Republic is sufEcient proof of his truthworthiness. This man brought the message to New York, and it was then referred to the officials of the Ger- man Government. By them it was forwarded as a matter of course to Berlin. Some weeks later the officials in New York received a mes- sage from the Imperial Government to the effect that the arms were being sent from Ger- many about April 12th and would be due in Ireland about Easter Sunday." The United States was then at peace with Britain. She was in fact neutral. Hundreds of thousands of Irishmen from all over the world were fighting for Liberty in Belgium and IRISH PROPAGANDA IN U. S. 97 Serbia and in Turkey. What exactly will be the condition of this troubled planet if every country allows its citizens to foment civil strife in its neighbour's territory ? Why should there be one rule for the Irish-American and another rule for the rest of the law-abiding human race? In Britain, we also have judges, and they would have been engaged rather in sen- tencing to punishment any British subject who endeavoured to compass the death of friendly nationals, against whom the country had not alleged any cause of quarrel, much less de- clared any kind of war. No country is more jealous of its sovereignty than is the United States. Is it just that the United States while insisting upon its own rights being respected should give to other and less favoured nations an example of lawless aggression? And how can the United States expect its own laws to be respected if there is held up to the people an object lesson like the above? What dis- tinction can be drawn between the crime com- mitted by Zimmermann when he sought to stir up Mexico against the United States and the irregularity of any American citizen however 98 THE IRISH CASE learned and eloquent trying to stir up civil war in the United Kingdom ? The motive of course was in both cases the same. Germany was to retain Belgium. This is a purely legal matter. If it was right of the Sinn Feiners over here to plot as the above book says that they did, then there is no reason why any Power that is irritated with the United States should not return the compliment. Official life everywhere can be made unbearable. Given money and a secret society and a mind devoted to revenge, it can always be done. You can buy trouble just as you can buy any other commodity. There are always people who will supply it at a price. But what the world would be like when, if ever, the rest of the world behaves as the ex- treme Irish-Americans behave, I can only imagine from my own experience. I remember that Easter. At the time, I was living in England. Our district was crowded with some of the half million Catholic Bel- gians whom we had rescued from a nameless fate. I had one in my house, a woman, broken in health, and separated for years from her IRISH PROPAGANDA IN U. S. 99 husband. We had regarded Easter as a sacred season and although I am a Protestant, I called on the Parish priest and assured him that I would in no way interfere with the devotions of our refugee but would carry out any ar- rangement that the clergy desired. Bombs fell around us that Easter. But it did not occur to me, I confess, that this festival had been selected for our attempted murder by vari- ous peoples speaking our language, also at peace with us, and still less by Catholic friends. The Irish Rebellion, the bombing of London and the shelling of the defenceless watering places on the East Coast, were part of a com- bined offensive, which included ruthless war- fare on the high seas and Verdun. What France thinks of it is shown in the fierce in- dictment of M. R. C. Escouflaire, entitled "Ireland an Enemy of the Allies.'* M. Escouf- laire would doubtless think that my few words on the matter are colourless and inadequate. The fact is that I do not want to indict Ireland. I only wish to suggest that the Sinn Feiners in New York should surely have considered *»very alternative before allowing their cause loo THE IRISH CASE to be stained as it has been by its German association, when Germany was at her very worst. Then as now an election was pending in the United States. Then as now, thoughtless men were, to use one of the many picturesque phrases that we owe to the wit and humour of American writers, "playing politics." Now, playing politics may be as innocent a pastime as playing baseball ; but it depends. No coun- try has a moral right to play politics at the expense of its neighbours. Let American Primaries play politics over Prohibition or over Women's Suffrage or over the Plumb Plan but to play politics over an air-raid on a friendly nation, to play politics on the tor- pedoing of merchantmen on the high seas, to play politics over a rebellion In a sovereign state against which there has been no declara- tion of war or even diplomatic protest, is trans- gressing the rules of international comity and is inviting international anarchy, Germany herself never assumed this latitude. And no interference by Lenin and Trotsky with the internal affairs of other countries has been IRISH PROPAGANDA IN U. S. loi more explicit or irregular, than the proceedings of some American institutions during the past half dozen years. It is no part of my case that the Orangemen have been easy to handle. Britain has had just as much trouble with them as with the other side. It was from Ulster that there came in the first instance an appeal to force. There were Ulstermen who used criminal language about preferring Germany to a Parliament duly constituted at Dublin. There were even German weapons found in Ulster and Ulster did it first. It was the example of Ulster that led Nationalist Ireland to 'Volunteer.'* The treatment of the Catholic recruits, the disin- clination to promote Catholic officers, the blank refusal to mention Catholic Regiments and the silly objection to using Irish Nationalist sym- bols on the uniforms of the Regiments which they manned— all these were blunders which no one has admitted more frankly than Mr. Lloyd George. They were due to the prejudice of the British War Office and they were due especially to the sheer obstinacy of Lord Kitchener who had all the pigheadedness of I02 THE IRISH CASE a very great man. Every one of these matters was dealt with in the British ParHament and the British ParHament was the place where they should be dealt with. But you must remember that we were at war. Has the United States realised in the least what it was for a country of the size and population of Britain to raise, equip and sup- port on distant battlefields armies of six and one-half million men? We could not simply think of Ireland as if Ireland were the only country in the world. VIII THE DISORDERS IN IRELAND I HAVE now to deal fairly and frankly with the charge that Great Britain is com- mitting horrible outrages in Ireland. On this matter, my position is this: I believe that there are only two ways of governing an English Speaking Country. You must either have a Parliament or you m_ust have an Arm.y. I am for a Parliament. And I am against such use of an Army. The American Clan-na-Gael says that no Parliament is possible unless Ireland is totally independent. By imposing such a condition, it makes a Parliament difficult to establish and so prolongs the rule of the Army. The object seems to be to keep Ireland under an Army and therefore discontented. Then there will continue to be a case against England. Now I am prepared to do two things — either 103 104 THE IRISH CASE one or the other. Here on my desk lie the materials for some very lurid writing. Part of this matter comes from the British Press and deals with events in Ireland. The Daily News itself has dealt very faithfully with the Coercion of Ireland by Viscount French. If it is right for Americans to concentrate their minds on these incidents — the searches of dwellings in Fermoy and so forth— -then it is right for English people to concentrate their minds on incidents perhaps more numerous and certainly more sensational, namely the burning alive of American citizens, in broad daylight, and without punishment of the perpetrators. Now, I can tell either of these stories or I can tell both, but I am not going to tell one story without the other. I am not going to tempt Americans into the sad predicament of the Pharisee when looking askance at the pub- lican, who being English had not adopted Prohibition, said: "God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are and especially this British soldier who after a companion had been shot in cold blood going to Church went about the place searching for fire-arms." THE DISORDERS IN IRELAND 105 There is no country in the world where the law is enforced on occasion more fiercely than in the United States. There is no country less inclined to put up with insults to the national flag or to threats on the national unity. There was no war in history in which passion ran higher than in the Civil War which established the union of the American Republic. There are certain problems which every na- tion must solve for itself. Even in the United States such domestic problems are numerous and difficult. Burning down police stations and tearing up income tax returns are not acts which in themselves entitle to sympathy the desperate extremists who, believing themselves immune from punishment, commit them. It may be that such acts imply terrorism over other less vocal and more law-abiding people. There is a contrast between the deeds of the few in Ireland and the votes of the many. As long as Ireland was being denied Home Rule and Land Reform and so on I confess frankly that I was one who had a good deal of secret sympathy with her various cam- paigners, although I suppose that I shall lose to6 THE IRISH CASE what little reputation I still possess by saying so. But that position is now changed. After all, war is war. And De Valera has declared for war. And in this unhappy world you cannot have it both ways. You cannot refuse to sit in the House of Commons after election and announce a Republic and shoot policemen on duty and raise a Rebellion Loan and then whimper because someone searches for revolvers. If De Valera means business, he has to learn that Britain also means busi- ness. If he is merely a charlatan, then, what is to be said of those who are using him for their ulterior purposes? Let us suppose that the Congressmen of Ohio, duly elected by the voters, were to be influenced by the general wave of world unrest and were to refuse to take their seats at the Capitol at Washington. Let us further sup- pose that they met in a room and accused the United States of force and fraud and de- clared their independence. Let us add to the picture the fluttering of their own flag in place of the Stars and Stripes. Then, put in a few attempts at assassination and an Independent THE DISORDERS IN IRELAND 107 Ohio Loan floated in London. Are you quite certain that the American Doughboy would under those interesting circumstances play a more polite part than the British Tommy plays in Ireland? At Albany, Five Members are excluded apparently because they belong to the International Labour Party, whatever that may be. When King Charles tried to exclude five of our members from Westminster, we cut off his head. What would be done here if mem- bers were deliberately raising the country against the Federal Authority? Would there be much worry if in prison they went on hunger strike? And in London, you had the extraordinary spectacle of the police defending an Irish Sinn Fein meeting from the populace on the ground that free speech even against the King's own sovereignty must be safe- guarded ! War is war and I am not surprised that the Irish in the United States or some of them are trying to include in their strategy the battle- fields of India and Persia and Egypt. The British Empire is far too big nowadays to be in a position to complain of the attention de- io8 THE IRISH CASE voted to its problems by the steadily expanding United States. There must be points of con- tact multiplying everywhere. But let me say this. Britain is doing what she can to solve in these countries the most difficult problem ever undertaken by modern statesmanship. This problem is none other than the introduc- tion of western ideas of liberty into the eastern mind and the eastern societies. Millions of men and women, indeed hundreds of millions, who have their own lives to live and care noth- ing for the party politics whether of the United States or of Britain will owe the happiness or the misery of generations to the spirit now dis- played towards their institutions. Let the United States study the question. If Britain fails over it, the United States will have to solve it in years to come. But there is all the difference between study and incendiarism. For responsible American Citizens to aid and abet revolution in Ireland is improper. For them to aid and abet revolution in India in order to force England's hands, as they think, in Ireland, is surely worse than a mere im- propriety. With regard to India and similar THE DISORDERS IN IRELAND 109 countries, there are two consistent policies and only two for the United States to pursue, and the first Is to take a mandate, say, over Turkey ; while the second Is to keep silent while others act as mandatory. To refuse responsibility while continuing to criticise Is merely to add to the dangers and troubles of a perilous time without making a contribution to their amelioration. IX THE ARGUMENT ON SECESSION WHEN a man owes the better part of himself to another country, and all that makes life worth living, it will be readily understood that he has no desire to deal controversially with any little differ- ences that may arise between his own and any section of his wife's people. This is one reason why I have merely proceeded on the path of fact and law, of a fair deal both for Ireland and for England. In the year 1776 the American colonies seceded from the British Empire. This means that there is undoubtedly a right among na- tions of Secession. The Ten Tribes seceded from Judah and Benjamin. The South Ameri- can Republics seceded from the Latin Mon- archies in Europe. And the Austro-Hungarian Empire now consists entirely of Secessions. THE ARGUMENT ON SECESSION in But there is also a right to refuse Secession. Some years ago, a Breton exile in London called on me and I asked him why he did not return to France. The reason was that he belonged to a Party that wants an independent Brittany and he had therefore quarrelled with the French Government. He was in fact the De Valera of the Breton National Movement. Any little compliments paid by Ireland to Eng- land were colourless beside the lurid tributes which this man paid to the tyranny of Paris. Yet no one, I think, would suggest that it would be reasonable to expect France to give inde- pendence to Brittany. The right to refuse Secession like so many other fundamental political principles was es- tablished by the genius and the sacrifices of the United States. The War with Britain in the Eighteenth Century was a serious affair but it was a skirmish compared with the ter- rible Civil War which followed in the Nine- teenth Century. For over four years, the Con- federacy fought to the death for the unre- stricted right of Secession as claimed by Ire- land or rather by a few Irishmen to-day. The 112 THE IRISH CASE Federal authority overcame this revolt by methods fully as severe as, and incomparably more costly than any that have been applied in Ireland since the Union. There were in Britain at that time many men who agreed with Gladstone that Jefferson Davis had created a nation. I can speak with the more freedom on the matter because the paper which I represent in this country, The Daily News of London, which Charles Dickens had just founded with the help of John Bright, supported the policy of Abraham Lincoln through thick and thin, when most journals went the other way. During those four years, we had our elections and the Cotton Famine in Lancashire made the Civil War a grave issue among our people. For the starving operatives who stood loyally by the North when it meant penury to do so, this was no question of speeches. It was a matter of bread and butter. Yet during the whole of that struggle, the diplomacy of Britain was admittedly irre- proachable except in one particular. This was the exploits of the Alabama and for these we afterwards apologised and paid damages, THE ARGUMENT ON SECESSION 113 at the very instance of Gladstone who had at first sympathised most strongly with the South. The .position to-day is that while Great Britain is ready and eager to see Ireland accept all that Ireland has ever asked except sovereign independence, Great Britain says what Lincoln said years ago, that she will fight rather than concede the disunion of the United Kingdom. In other words and for the same reason, the unity of the United Kingdom is as sacred a thing as the unity of the United States is sacred to American citizens. If we «are wrong, then Lincoln was wrong. We simply say what he said that the United Kingdom cannot be a house divided against itself. Indeed, our case is if anything the stronger. There is no doubt that the North was forcing on the South a tremendous social change and without compensation. In every matter except independence we are doing exactly what our Irish friends are asking us to do. So far from im.poverishing Ireland, Britain is as I have shown doing the precise opposite. Under these circumstances, is the case of Ireland sufficiently clear to warrant American 114 THE IRISH CASE intervention? Sinn Fein says "Yes.** At Washington, there was recently a deputation which signalised its wisdom by giving the loud- est cheer of the afternoon to talk about war with England. Of course, it takes two to make a quarrel and Britain does not intend to be one of them. Her answer to this criminal language is to reduce her Navy to a standard which will be below that of the United States when her present programme is complete. ''ndeed, Britain has endeavoured to show courtesies to the great Republic of the West. Over her Parliament House, on the Fourth of July, which has not been regarded hitherto as a specifically English festival, she has flown the Stars and Stripes. In her War Parade, she gave precedence to the American Army. No visitor to our Shores ever was greeted as the President of the United States was greeted, and for the reason that he was President. Americans have responded by a more than usually cordial reception to the Prince of Wales. And from my own experience I can testify to the unwearying hospitality of Ameri- cans of all classes and all racial origins. Kind- THE ARGUMENT ON SECESSION 115 liness to the stranger is as the very air that men breathe in this young and vigorous democracy. The recognition of the Irish Republic seems hardly in tune with the real American note of men like Roosevelt. The right of asylum is one thing. We allowed the right of asylum to Kossuth and to Kropotkin. But it is a very different matter when official bodies add an official sanction to rebellion in another State. It is widely believed in Great Britain that dis- order in Ireland would disappear to-morrow in favor of the Constitutional movement if it were not for the assistance of American sub- sidies. Many British believe that Ireland is being kept in a turmoil by American money (though at the ultimate expense of Britain) until a new President is safely elected to the White House. Then the funds, they think, will cease. Let Americans put themselves for a moment in the position of a man like myself whose duty it is to defend their democratic institutions before the Old World. I believe in popular ^government and want to see others adopt it. ii6 THE IRISH CASE But if popular government is to be extended, it must not be compromised. Under democ- racy, there must be the same courtesy among nations as there once was among kings. In- deed, the courtesy ought to be the more punc- tiHous because of the fact that an offence to hundreds of millions of people is harder to wipe out than an offence to a small and privileged class. The action of Congress towards Ireland is perhaps worth narrating. On March 4th, 19 19, the House of Representatives passed the fol- lowing Resolution: That it is the earnest hope of the Con- gress of the United States of America that the Peace Conference now sitting in Paris and passing upon the rights of the various peoples will favorably consider the claim of Ireland to self-determination. Who would imagine from that form of words that there were two Irelands, equally self-determined and that for years, Great Bri- tain had been seeking a way of reconciling the THE ARGUMENT ON SECESSION 117 said self-determinations with a view to uniting Ireland for absolutely the first time in her his- tory so far as her history can be traced? On June 6th, 19 19, the Senate passed the following Resolution with but one dissentient: That the Senate of the United States earnestly requests the American Plenipo- tentiary Commissioners at Versailles to en- deavour to secure for Eamonn De Valera, Arthur Grifiiths, and Count George Noble Plunkett, a hearing before the said Peace Conference, in order that they may present the case of Ireland, and resolved further, that the Senate of the United States ex- presses its sympathy with the aspirations of the Irish People for a Government of its own choice. Who would suppose from this resolution that the Sinn Feiners mentioned were opposed to the claims of the entire industrial area of Ireland; and if they were to be heard, why did the Senate as representing a nation not devoid of Protestantism forget also and with ii8 THE IRISH CASE impartiality to ask for the same hearing for Sir Edward Carson as was demanded for the other side? And why was it not mentioned that the place where the Sinn Feiners had a right to be heard was the House of Commons, that their seats there were available at any time, and that they had been invited in addition to the Irish Conference and had refused to come ? The interference of the Senate is not so much resented for its own sake as because it was an inequitable interference. It did not hold the balance even. It simply dismissed some mil- lions of Irish as of no importance and it so dismissed them because they happened to be in the main of the Protestant Faith. This is the view of the average level headed English- man. I admit that the Orangemen are being paid back in their own coin. They have ob- stinately resisted a settlement when a settle- ment was possible. They have clung to an indefensible Ascendancy and have refused to give to the Catholics of Belfast the position in the City to which by numbers the Catholics are entitled. There has been bigotry on the one side and there has been bigotry on the other. THE ARGUMENT ON SECESSION 119 But the Senate is one of the most august legis- lative bodies in the world and is it the desire of any far-sighted American citizen, be he Protestant or Catholic, to see the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland succeeded by a clerical Ascendancy of any kind elsewhere ? The aim should be rather to persuade men of all re- ligious convictions to live together as citizens and as friends. Finally, v/e have had on the i8th of March, 1920, a Reservation to the Treaty, proposed by Senator Gerry of Rhode Island, in the fol- lowing terms: The United States adheres to the prin- ciple of self-determination and to the res- olution of sympathy with the aspirations of the Irish People for a government of their own choice and declares that when self-government is attained by Ireland — a consummation it is hoped is at hand — it should promptly be admitted as mem- ber of the League of Nations. This resolution, so it was explained in the I20 THE IRISH CASE press, was really brought in so as to make it easier for certain votes to be given against the Treaty and the other more serious Reserva- tions, which means that it was part of a subtle and complicated political game. Can you im- agine how difficult it was to explain this to Great Britain on the other side? How could the explanation be given without doing infinite damage to the prestige of the Senate and there- fore to the prestige of the great country for which the Senate is privileged to speak? And in Ireland, how could it be supposed by a romantic and enthusiastic people that the Reservation was merely a piece of tactics? It was actually being suggested that a Te Deum should be sung in every Church in Ireland over this ingenious chicanery of the division lobby. I do not feel that I am called upon to ex- press with regard to this matter any opinion of my own. The leading article of the New York Sun, appearing on March 19th, 1920, was as follows; THE ARGUMENT ON SECESSION 121 Self- Determination in Ireland, Alaska and Elsewhere ! One of the last incidents of the long discussion which has resulted in the second refusal by the United States Senate to ratify Mr. Wilson's treaty and covenant, with or without reservations is so dis- creditable to the Senators responsible for it that this newspaper cannot refrain from expressing its opinion on the subject. The Gerry reservation adhering to the principle of self-determination and to the resolutions of sympathy for the Irish na- tionalists passed by the Senate last June was adopted on Thursday by the narrow vote of 38 to 2>^ and thus became part of the treaty and covenant which the Sen- ate rejected on Friday. The attempted injection of the Irish question into the treaty is pure buncombe. This is equally true, whether the purpose was merely political with a view to local exigencies in the case of those voting for 122 THE IRISH CASE the reservation, or strategic on the part of the so-called Irreconcilables in order to make the final rejection of the treaty more certain. We are not criticising the Gerry reser- vation on the ground that it declared sym- pathy for the cause of independence for Ireland. If such sympathy is entertained by the Congress of the United States an expression of it is perfectly legitimate and fully in accord with historic precedent. That was the case with the resolution of June 6, 19 19. But to reiterate that legitimate declaration in the form of a proposed treaty engagement which the British Government was expected either to accept or to reject was to throw to the winds all pretence of non-interference in the domestic affairs of foreign nations and to essay an impertinence of meddling the extent of which can be understood best by a supposition which the news of yester- day suggests. Paris reported yesterday that it had picked up a wireless despatch from Mos- THE ARGUMENT ON SECESSION 123 cow saying in substance that the popula- tion of Alaska is now seeking to break away from the United States and set up a Bolshevist government. It is not neces- sary to inquire too closely into the inherent probability of this announcement from the headquarters of Lenine and Trotzky. Let us assume that it is true, merely for the sake of the illustration. Suppose, then, that the people of Alaska, a Territory of the United States formerly belonging to Russia, were in fact desirous of separating themselves from this Government, and, on the principle of self-determination, aiming to organize and establish a Soviet Republic independent of Washington. Suppose that a treaty shaping interna- tional relations between Great Britain and the United States was in process of con- clusion and that the British Government, with the great interest in the future of Alaska inspired by the contiguity of that American Territory with the Dominion of Canada along a boundary of fifteen 124 THE IRISH CASE hundred miles, should insert in the treaty a demand for the independence of Alaska on the principle of self-determination. What would the United States think of that method of interference with our domestic concerns in the name of self- determination? Would the supposed Alaskan clause in the supposed Anglo- American treaty meet on this side of the Atlantic a calm and philosophic considera- tion on its merits, detached from all na- tional emotions, or would it raise through- out this Republic a storm of patriotic in- dignation imperilling the friendship of the two countries? In self-determination by treaty enact- ment, as in other matters, it is a mighty poor rule that doesn't work both ways. Senator Lodge was quite right in his unsuccessful effort to eliminate from the reservations any general indorsement or approval of the principle of self-de- termination. It is an attractive phrase, worked by Woodrow Wilson for all that it was worth for his own self-determined THE ARGUMENT ON SECESSION 125 purposes, but it will not quite wash in the great American tub. Self-determination in Alaska, for example, as in the case sup- posed? Self-determination in Porto Rico? Self-determination in Panama? Self- determination in Hawaii ? Self-determina- tion, in the Wilsonian sense, in any terri- tory or protected adjunct of the American Government? It is as impossible as self- determination for an American State ; and the right even of sovereign Statehood to set up separately was settled, so far as this Republic is concerned, fifty-five years ago next month. It is not only Haiti and the Philippines that are in question. By far the most serious prob- lem before the American People to-day is after all the Negro Problem. Since I lived in this country I have come to realise the immensity of that quiet but constant racial struggle. I do not consider that I am under any necessity whatever of replying to an American Jury, greatly as I recognise the importance of that tribunal, on the disorders which have occa- 126 THE IRISH CASE sionally broken out in certain areas of Ireland. As long as it is true that within a few years thousands of lynchings have taken place in this country, often accompanied by incidents of indescribable horror, I must tell Americans plainly and I hope courteously that the outcry over hunger-strikes in Ireland or over the Sheehy Skeffington miscarriage of Justice, bad though that was, merely causes the cynic on both sides of the Atlantic to smile. There was a great Teacher Who said : Judge not that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and vnth what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, and considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother. Let me pull out the mote out of thine own eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye ? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see THE ARGUMENT ON SECESSION 127 clearly to cast out the mote that is in thy brother's eye. I have often felt the force of those verses when I have been tempted to magnify such little faults as there may still be in the United States. Between the ist of May, 19 16, and the 31st of December, 19 19, there were reported in Ireland 1529 Sinn Fein outrages. There were 20 murders. There vv^ere 589 robberies. There were 70 incendiary fires. And there was a balance of minor offences. Were these kindly and Christian acts? Was it this sort of thing that Archbishop Hayes intended to encourage when with honest and sincere sympathy for the oppressed he sub- scribed to the De Valera Loan? What about the large body of assassins who lined the road and fired volley after volley of shot into the car where Viscount French was sitting un- moved? What exactly would be said in this country if the Governor of some State, dis- turbed by a strike of angry workers smarting under a sense of grievance, were to be thus 128 THE IRISH CASE fusilladed in broad daylight by men applauded for their policy by the British Parliament and claiming the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury? Once you begin to turn this matter around the other way you see at once how amazing it is. I am quite certain that many persons have subscribed to the Sinn Fein Funds from the most excellent motives and probably under the most explicit guaran- tees. But there is a good deal to be said for countries minding their own business. After all, how can anyone in this country really in- form himself of what is going on behind the scenes on the other side? The St. Patrick's Day Parade in which Gov- ernor Smith and Mayor Hylan and the Arch- bishop and Mr. De Valera reviewed the proces- sion was of course a religious celebration against which no one has a right to take objec- tion. But it must not be supposed that in Ireland the occasion was always an act of spiritual devotion as it is in the United States. I could not help contrasting the scene outside St. Patrick's Cathedral, with the grim realities of Sinn Fein in Ireland, the masked bands of THE ARGUMENT ON SECESSION 129 assassins, sparing not the husband before the wife or the mother before the children. Of course, in the case of the Mayor of Cork, who was done to death, there are two theories. The one is that he met his terrible fate immediately after being turned out with others from the inner counsels of the local Sinn Fein Move- ment. The other is the theory of the Coroner's Jury that the murderer was Mr. Lloyd George. Well, I am content to leave it at that, only adding this suggestion that it is not the height of wisdom for those of us who live at a dis- tance to interfere in a matter so obscure and so desperate. It is no part of my case to deny that the funds raised in the United States for the forces of disorder in Ireland and the rifles of foreign manufacture which are found in Ireland or going there, have somewhat aggravated the anxieties of the British Government at a time when upon no Government in the history of the world has there bee*^ laid under Providence a more tremendous responsibility. Many of us had hoped that the United States with her incomparable colonial record in the Philippines 130 THE IRISH CASE and her simply perfect educative missions in Turkey would have seen her way to undertake the problem which she is best fitted to solve and which she perhaps can only solve — namely the reorganisation of the Ottoman territories and especially of Armenia. That was not ap- parently to be and what happened? Britain was being harassed in Ireland. She was being harassed in India by the Friends of Indian Freedom in the United States which is in close association with the Friends of Irish Freedom. From Armenia, she had in consequence to with- draw her troops. A million Armenians had been slain already. Thousands more were butchered, including scores of girls, rescued from Turkish slavery and domiciled in the American Mission at Marash, which was burnt to the ground. To Sinn Fein, meaning Our- selves alone, what does an Armenian girl in a Protestant orphanage matter ? She matters no more than a Catholic nun in a Belgian Convent. She matters no more than the poor Belgian woman in my house trembling under a rain of German bombs. A murdered Armenian maiden does not vote. THE ARGUMENT ON SECESSION 131 I repeat — the Irish extremists are tre- mendous agitators. I doubt whether in the history of the world there have been such con- summate poHticians. But these are days when we stand, not at the ballot box merely, not at the soapbox either. We stand, every one of us, at the judgment throne of the Almighty. And in the last day, it will be no answer to that tribunal and its questions, for us to say, **But we had to gtt the Irish Vote!'' for ourselves alone. Seldom if ever in the history of nations has there been a spectacle quite like the campaign now being waged in the United States for trouble with the United Kingdom. A great outburst of genuine friendship from Britain to the United States was flung back in her face as a thing of naught. There is however a silent splendid soul in the heart of the United States which tolerates much that it deplores. It is a soul which says that here after all is a nation in the making. Here is a nation the full fruition of whose splendid destiny is fore- shadowed by the very embarrassments of a mingled population. In the making of the 132 THE IRISH CASE nation that is to be, Catholic and Protestant must play their part, each stimulating the other. And Irishmen and Scotsmen must here find at last their common denominator. The gravest aspect of the Irish agitation is not after all the danger that it may prevent, as it is intended to prevent, a settlement in Ireland. What then ? If a settlement in Ireland is prevented, it fol- lows that sectarian differences will be fomented in the United States. They who speak the English language and who should be teaching all that the English language means to those whose parents have had it not, will be working not with each other but in rival camps. There is not a line of this little plea for reason and justice towards Ireland and England which is not also a plea as from a devoted admirer and friend of the United States, for the noble op- portunity of world wide influence that lies be- fore the Republic of the West. APPENDIX A THE HOME RULE BILL— SUMMARY OF ITS PROVISIONS (These Appendices are quoted by permission from the May Number of Current Opinion) The Irish Home Rule bill, which passed its sec- ond reading in the House of Commons by a vote of 348 to 94 on March 31, contains the following provisions : I. Two Parliaments — On and after the ap- pointed day there should be established a Parlia- ment of Soutnern Ireland and a Parliament of Northern Ireland, each consisting of the King and a House of Commons. No Second Chambers. Northern Ireland consists of the Parliamentary counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone, and the Parliamentary boroughs of Belfast and Londonderry. The rest is Southern Ireland. II. The Council — i. The Council of Ireland, to be constituted as soon as may be after the appointed day, to bring about harmonious action between the Parliaments, to promote mutual intercourse and uni- formity in matters affecting all Ireland, and to ad- minister services mutually agreed upon or assigned to it by this act. 133 134 THE HOME RULE BILL 2. The Council, in the first instance, to be the King, as President, and twenty members of each House of Commons, chosen as each house may de- termine; this to be the first business of each House of Commons. 3. The Constitution of the Council may be varied by identical acts of the two Parliaments, which may provide for all or any of its members to be elected by Parliamentary electorate. III. Parliament for All Ireland — i. The two Parliaments by identical acts may establish in lieu of the Council of Ireland a Parliament for the whole of Ireland, consisting of the King and one or two houses. The whole Constitution of this Parlia- ment as to members, mode of election or appoint- ment, and, if there are two Houses, their relations to one another, are to be determined by the Provincial Parliaments. The date at which the Parliament of Ireland is to be established is afterv^^ard referred to as the date of Irish union. 2. On the date of Irish union the Parliament of Ireland receives the powers of the Council, all mat- ters which at that date cease to be reserved under this act and any powers conferred by the Provincial Parliaments. 3. All the powers of the Provincial Parliaments pass to the Parliament of Ireland, except so far as the constituent acts otherwise provide, and, if no powers are reserved, the constituent acts must settle financial relations between the Exchequers. 4. If any powers are reserved at first they may be transferred by identical acts later, when the Pro- vincial Parliaments would cease to exist. THE HOME RULE BILL 135 Legislative Authority IV. Reserved Powers— i. The Provincial Parlia- ments have full powers within their respective areas, except in respect of: (i) Crown succession, &c. (2) Peace or war or matters arising from a state of war, or the regulation of the conduct of subjects toward hostilities between foreign States. (3) Navy, army, pensions, &c. (4) Treaties of foreign relations or rela- tions with the Dominions, extradition, or the return of fugitive offenders. (5) Dignities or titles of honour. (6) Treason, naturalization, aliens, &c. (7) Trade external to the area (except as affected by the powers of taxation given or agencies for the improvement or protection of trade), export bounties, quarantine or naviga- tion, except inland waters. (8) J (9)» (10) ai^d (11) Cables, wireless, aerial navigation, lighthouses, &c. (12) and (13) Coinage measures, trade marks, copyrights, patents, &c., and (14) Any matter reserved by this act. V. Religious Freedom — i. This clause forbids either Parliament to make a law "so as either di- rectly or indirectly to establish or endow any re- ligion or prohibit or restrict the free exercise thereof or give a preference, privilege, or advantage or impose any disability or disadvantage on account of religious belief." 136 THE HOME RULE BILL VL Conflict of Laws — i. The Irish Parlia- ments have no power to repeal or alter any act passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom after the appointed day, though it deal with a mat- ter with respect to which they have power to make laws. 2. Where an act of either Irish Parliament con- flicts with an Imperial act, it is void so far as it conflicts. VII. Provision for Private Bills — This clause assigns to the Council of Ireland power of private bills legislation affecting both areas. VIII. Executive Authority — The executive power and prerogative of the Crown are vested in the Lord Lieutenant, and are to be exercised through such departments as may be established by each Provincial Parliament. "The Lord Lieutenant may appoint officers to administer those departments, and those officers shall hold office during the pleasure of the Lord Lieutenant." The heads of departments and such others as the Lord Lieutenant may appoint are the Provincial Ministers. A Provincial Minister must be a member of the Privy Council of Ireland, must not hold office more than six months unless he is or becomes a member of the Provincial House of Commons, and if he is not the head of a department, holds office during the pleasure of the Lord Lieutenant, in the same manner as the head of a department. The Provincial Ministers form an Executive Com- mittee of the Privy Council of Ireland, called the Executive Committee of Northern or Southern Ire- land, to advise the Lord Lieutenant in the exercise of his executive powers in the province. THE HOME RULE BILL 137 In the exercise of executive power there should be no religious privilege or disability, except where the nature of the case involves it. The seat of government in each province is to be determined by the province, "Irish services" in each province include all civil government, except as restricted or reserved by this act. IX. Police, Appointment of Justices — i. The Royal Irish Constabulary and the Metropolitan Police, and the administration of acts relating thereto, including the appointment and the removal of magistrates, are reserved until transferred by Order in Council to the Provincial Parliaments, but not longer than three years after the appointed day. If transferred after the date of Irish union, how- ever, they go to the Government of All Ireland, unless otherwise provided by the constituent acts. 2. While reserved, these forces are controlled by a representative appointed by each Provincial Gov- ernment and a third appointed by the Crown, "and that body shall have such powers in relation to the maintenance of law and order in Ireland as his IMajesty in Council may by order determine." 3. The postal service, post office, and trustee sav- ings banks, postal or revenue stamps and the Pub- lic Record Office of Ireland are reserved until the date of Irish union, when, so far as they are within the powers of the Irish Parliament, they are to be transferred to the Government of Ireland. They are, however, to be transferred before the date of Irish union to the Council of Ireland if the two Pro- vincial Parliaments so provide by identical acts. 4. The general subject matter of the Land Pur- 138 THE HOME RULE BILL chase act is reserved until transferred by an im- perial act of Parliament, but the reservation does not include the powers of the Congested Districts Board, with a financial exception, nor does it in- clude the powers of the Irish Land Commission as to the collection and recovery of prrchase annuities. X. Powers of the Irish Council — i. The Pro- vincial Parliaments, by identical acts, may delegate any of the provincial powers to the Council. 2. The powers of the Imperial Parliament over railways, including legislation, are transferred to the Irish Council. 3. The Council has various deliberative and ad- visory functions as to the welfare of both provinces, including the recommendation of identical acts to delegate desirable powers from the Provincial Par- liaments to the Council. 4. Orders of the Council of a legislative character are to be presented to the Lord Lieutenant for the Royal assent as if they were bills. The Two Parliaments XI and XII. A Session Every Year — There must be a session every year with less than twelve months between summons, prorogation and dissolu- tion by the Lord Lieutenant. Royal assent to bills is to be given by the Lord Lieutenant subject to instructions from the Crown and reservations, if directed by the Crown, for the direct Royal assent. XIII. Number of M. P.'s : P. R. Elections — The House of Commons of Southern Ireland to have 128 members and that of Northern Ireland to have 52. General elections by proportional representation, single transferable vote. THE HOME RULE BILL 139 The term of each Parliament is to be five years, unless sooner dissolved. After three years from the first meeting each Parliament may alter the whole election law except as to the number of members of Parliament. XIV. Election Laws — All existing election laws apply except as altered by this act or by the Pro- vincial Parliaments under this act. XV. Money Bills — The Provincial Parliaments may not pass money bills, &c., except in pursuance of a recommendation from the Lord Lieutenant in the session in which they are proposed. XVI. Privileges — The privileges of each Par- liament and its members are never to exceed those of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and are to be the same as those until defined by acts of the Provincial Parliaments. Peers may be members of the House of Commons. XVn. Irish M. P.'s at Westminster — Until the Parliament of the United Kingdom otherwise de- termines there are to be forty-two Irish members in the Imperial Parliament. The present members of the House of Commons are to vacate their seats on the appointed day and writs are to be issued for the election of new ones. Financial Provisions XVIII. Finance — There is to be a Consolidated Fund for each of the two areas. The Parliaments have power to make laws imposing, charging, levy- ing and collecting taxes other than customs duties, excise duties on articles manufactured and produced, and excess profits duty and the United Kingdom in- come tax. But, 140 THE HOME RULE BILL The imposing, charging, levying and collec- tion of customs duties and of excise duties on articles manufactured and produced, and the granting of customs and excise drawbacks and allowances, and, except to the extent herein- after mentioned, the imposing, charging, levy- ing and collection of income tax (including super-tax) and excess profits duty, shall be re- served matters and the proceeds of those duties and taxes shall be paid into the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom. The Joint Exchequer Board is to determine what part of the proceeds of these duties are properly attributable to Ireland. Each year Ireland is to make a contribution toward Imperial liabilities. For the first two years this is to be £18,000,000. Of this contribution for the first two years Southern Ireland will provide 56 per cent, and Northern Ireland will provide 44 per cent., after which the proportions will be determined by the Joint Ex- chequer Board. Every year a sum equal to the Irish share of reserved taxes is to be paid out of the United Kingdom Consolidated Fund to the Irish Exchequers, after deducting the amount of the IrisR contribution toward Imperial liabilities, and while any services remain reserved the net cost of these will be deducted. XIX. Income Tax — The Irish Parliaments are to have power to impose an additional income tax or super tax, to be called a surtax. The land pur- chase annuities are to be collected by the Irish Gov- ernments and paid into the appropriate account. Provisions are made against double death duties and so forth. THE HOME RULE BILL 141 A clause enacts that after the date of Irish Union the question of allowing Ireland control over cus- toms and excise may be considered. XX. Supreme Court — The Supreme Court of Ireland will cease to exist and there will be two Supreme Courts, one for Southern Ireland and one for Northern Ireland. All matters relating to these Supreme Courts are "reserved matters" until the date of Irish Union, but here again identical acts passed by bo^h Parliaments might secure their amal- gamation. Existing Judges and civil servants are secured in their office. All existing laws, institutions and authorities are to be continued with the necessary modifications until altered so far as they can be altered within the powers of the Parliaments. The existing exem.ptions and immunities of Dub- lin University, Trinity College and Queen's Uni- versity at Belfast are to continue; £18,000 is to be appropriated by the Northern Parliament for Queens University and £5,000 by the Southern Par- liament for Trinity. Both Parliaments are forbid- den to enact laws prejudicial to Free Masons. The final provisions of the bill are as follows : The Appointed Day — i. This act shall, except as expressly provided, come into operation on the ap- pointed day, and the appointed day for the purposes of this act shall be the first Tuesday in the eighth month after the month in which this act is passed, or such other day not more than seven months earlier or later, as may be fixed by Order of his 142 THE HOME RULE BILL Majesty in Council either generally or with refer- ence to any particular provision of this act, and different days may be appointed for different pur- poses and different provisions of this act, but the Parliaments of Southern and Northern Ireland shall be summoned to meet not later than four months after the said Tuesday, and the appointed day for holding elections for the House of Commons of Southern and Northern Ireland shall be fixed ac- cordingly : Provided that the appointed day as respects the transfer of any service may, at the joint request of the Governments of Southern Ireland and North- ern Ireland be fixed at a date later than seven months after the said Tuesday. 2. Nothing in this act shall afTect the administra- tion of any service before the day appointed for the transfer of that service from the Government of the United Kingdom. Supremacy of Westminster — Notwithstanding the establishment of the Parliaments of Southern and Northern Ireland, or the Parliament of Ire- land, or anything contained in this act, the supreme authority of the Parliament of the United Kingdom shall remain unaffected and undiminished over all persons, matters and things in Ireland and every part thereof. Repeal of 1914 Act — i. This act may be cited as the Government of Ireland act, 1920. 2. The Government of Ireland act, 1914, is hereby repealed. APPENDIX B MR. LLO\D GEORGE'S STATEMENT, 31 MARCH, 1920 Premier Lloyd George in his address in support of the Irish Home Rule bill said that if the people of Ireland were asked what plan they would accept, by an emphatic majority they would reply, "We want independence, and also a republic." The elected representatives of Ireland now, by a definite majority, have declared for independence and seces- sion. But is there a single party in the House of Commons, a single group or fraction of a party, that would accept that solution? Having dramatic- ally asked this question and paused through a brief silence that was an answer, Mr. Lloyd George continued : Therefore, it is no use talking about self-deter- mination. Self-determination does not mean that every part of a country which has been acting with the other parts for hundreds of years shall have the right to say, '"We want to set up a separate repub- lic." That is exactly the very thing that was fought for in the Civil War in America. 143 144 THE HOME RULE BILL If any section in Wales were to get up and say, "We want to set up a Welsh Republic." I should certainly resist it to the utmost of my power; and Britain, in its own interests, including the interests of Wales, would be right to resist it; yet it has as definite and as clear a nationality as any other nationality in this kingdom. The same thing applies to Scotland. If Brittany demanded self-determina- tion, that does not mean that France, which has been in favour of the principle of self-determination, ought to grant a separate republic to Brittany. There must be a limitation to the application of any principle. Otherwise you might carry it to every fragment and every area and every locality in every country throughout the world. When you lay down a principle of that kind you must lay it down within the limitations which common sense and tradition will permit. That is my answer about Ireland. I now ask the leader of the Labour Party, is he speaking on behalf of his party in favour of apply- ing the principle of self-determination to Ireland? Mr. Clynes: If an answer is required, the an- swer is, "Not self-determination as you have de- fined it." Mr. Lloyd George: "That means that the Labour Party is not prepared to give self-determination to Ireland. That is, if Ireland demands a separate Irish Republic, the Labour Party is opposed to it. It only misleads Irish electors, in Ireland and this country, into the belief that the Labour Party means to concede self-determination. Now I come to the suggestion made by Mr. As- quith. He has a plan. Can he name any Irish THE HOME RULE BILL 145 party or any section of a party in Ireland that would say, ''We will accept it?" What is it? The Act of 1914, with Dominion Home Rule added, so far as I can understand, sub- ject to serious limitations. It gives the power to erect a tariff wall against Great Britain, to exclude British goods from Ireland, to give preference to America, or even to Germany. That is the proposal, but with the exclusion of Ulster counties. He says: "I would give an Irish Parliament to the whole of Ireland with county option." He can say what he will about it, that is partition. It may be the parti- tion of four counties instead of six. Nevertheless, it is partition. Disagreement on Everything The speaker sated that the Asquith proposal would be rejected with scorn by Sinn Feiners, Nationalists and Ulsterites, and continued : What is the use of saying, under those circum- stances, that no plan is acceptable unless Irish opin- ion will accept it? I have pointed out that there is no plan acceptable to any British party which is acceptable to any party in Ireland at the moment. That is one of the fundamental facts. You have not a foundation to build on until you accept it. It is no use talking about this bill not being ac- ceptable to Irish opinion. Mr. Asquith's plan is not acceptable. Mr. Clynes would have a conven- tion in Ireland and a constituent assembly, I take it, with legislative powers. There has been a con- 146 THE HOME RULE BILL vention in Ireland and not even Nationalist opinion was agreed there. There is a document signed by twenty-two Nationalists and another signed by twenty-six Nationalists, disagreeing. In speaking of the powers given to the Parlia- ment by the act, Mr. Lloyd George said: These are the powers given by the act, and it is a great mistake, it is unfair, it is misleading, it can do no good to represent to the people of this coun- try, and especially to the people of Ireland that these are not powers of a gigantic kind which are conferred on these Parliaments by these proposals. The position is of a character which makes it absolutely essential that before anything can be done for the whole of Ireland there should be agreement between North and South. We have de- liberately framed it in such a way that no powers beyond those which we have specified should be given over the whole of Ireland, except with the consent, not merely of the North, but of the South as well. The South can veto the North and the North can veto the South, unless there is unity between them. Much will depend, when you try to achieve unity, on the attitude of the Sinn Fein population of the South. They can bring unity nearer by years if they like to make an effort to work this; but if they work for the purpose of inflicting harm on Ulster or on the population of this country they will post- pone union indefinitely. It is for that reason I think it is a misfortune that the population of Ireland has been misled as THE HOME RULE BILL 147 to what the bill really contains, because in that temper they cannot counter it. I know there are many men in Ireland who sincerely desire to see this bill through; men who are just as good Nation- alists as those sitting on that bench. This scheme holds the field because it recog- nizes the facts. It recognizes that you cannot sat- isfy Irish opinion in its present state of exaltation without destroying the essential unity of the United Kingdom. I regret it. The second point is that the demand in Ireland for the moment is a demand for independence, for secession and not self-government. Reminder to America I want to say this to our American friends. Mr. De Valera is putting forward the same claim, in exactly the same language, as Mr. Jefferson Davis ; and the ancestors of some of the men who voted for that motion in the Senate the other day fought to the death against conceding to the Southern States of the United States of America that very demand they were supporting in Ireland. The acceptance of that demand was never con- ceded. It is a demand which, if it is persisted in, will lead to exactly the same measures of repression as in the Southern States of America. We claim nothing more than the United States claimed over these; we will stand no less. The second point I want to put is this : There are certain powers which might be conferred on Ire- land when she settles down and accepts union and works union, vvhich, if given to her in her present 148 THE HOME RULE BILL mood, would only be used for the hurt of the United Kingdom and her own. It would be' placing dangerous weapons in the hands of an infuriated people. Take customs. If you handed them over they would be used inevitably for the purpose of making war on Great Britain. Those are powers we can- not see our way to confer until Ireland settles dov/n, until Ireland establishes union, until Ireland accepts in good faith partnership with the United Kingdom just like any other nationality in this land. The other fact is that referred to by Sir Edward Carson, with regard to Ulster. Ulster has been treated as if it were a minority to be protected. Ulster is not a minority to be safeguarded. Ulster is an entity to be dealt with. It is a different problem. It is a separate and different part of Ireland. It is exactly the problem in Silesia which we were dealing with in the Ftix^e Conference. We might have treated Silesia as a whole, which it always had been; but we felt that that would be unfair. If the majority had been in favour- of the Germans you would put solid blocks of Poles inside Germany; if the majority had been in favour of the Poles you would have put solid blocks of Germans inside Poland. Wrong Idea of Government There is a good deal in Irish government that one regrets, but the real fact is this — that for not loo years but for 700 years the majority of the people have been dissociated from responsibility in their own Government — and the hand that extended good THE HOME RULE BILL 149 government to them was the same hand that ex- tended bad government. It is not that Irishmen sympathize with murder. That is not the point. They say that is the busi- ness of the Government, and the Government is not theirs. The Government belongs to somebody else. My right honourable friend said the teachers were very badly paid in Ireland and he talked as if that was purely a matter with Great Britain. It is not. We rate ourselves heavily. We make our own efforts to pay contributions to our teachers. In Ire- land they say that is the business of the Government. The whole system of government in Ireland is vitiated by the fact that you sever the people from law and government. That has got to be put right. There is no union. There is union between Scot- land, England and Wales. There is union that bear's the test of death. There is no union with Ireland. Her grappling hook was not union. I am sanguine enough to believe that we shall get it through this bill. I do not say you will get it in a year, or two, or three years. You cannot remove misconceptions, misunderstandings, bitterness of centuries in a year or two. Ireland is a country of long memories. In fact the one trouble of Ireland is that it has struck its roots rather too deep into the past and has got into poor soil. Ireland needs root-pruning; but I believe that with patience and with that sort of good humour which Britons under certain conditions display, and not taking too much notice of mere histrionic dis- plays of disaffection, and dealing firmly with all ISO THE HOME RULE BILL real cases of treason and lawlessness, you will gradually arrive at the union of North and South— a union of Protestant and Catholic, a real union of good partners in a great concern, of which all alike equally will be proud. APPENDIX C EX-PREMIER ASQUITH'S CRITICISMS— HIS SUBSTITUTE PROPOSAL Herbert -H. Asquith, the former Premier and present leader of the Opposition, speaking against the Home Rule bill in the House of Commons on March 31, contended that no new scheme of gov- ernment should be imposed upon Ulster. He con- tinued : Ireland is a country so circumstanced that this bill proposes to create two Legislatures, two or per- haps three executives, two judicatures, tvv'o ex- chequers, two consolidated funds, and potentially, at any rate, two systems of taxation. On the face of it that is a costly and cumbrous duplication and mul- tiplication of institutions and offices. From the mere point of view of administrative efficiency and economy, particularly in times like these, there is nothing whatever to be said for such a proposal. It can only be justified as a concession, taking it by considerations of high policy, to a clamorous national demand. Is there such a demand? One thing is certain about this bill, which cannot be disputed by anybody — no section of Irish opinion 151 152 THE HOME RULE BILL asks for it, and no Irish sentiment — at present so sore and mutinous — will be soothed or appeased by it. No one in Ireland wants two Parliaments. No one in Ireland wants to see the judicial bench cut in half. No one in Ireland desires the establish- ment in the administrative sphere of two Dublin Castles, however, reformed, expurgated and regen- erated, in place of one. Every previous Home Rule bill has received the support if not of four-fifths at least of three-quarters of the elected representa- tives of Ireland in this House. It is doubtful when we come to a division on the second reading if one single Irish member of any section will support it. This is the first experiment in the domestic or inter- imperial sphere of the great principle of self-deter- mination. [Cheers and laughter.] That is the bill on its merits — a large, cumbrous, costly, unworkable scheme, which is not demanded or supported by any section of opinion in the country to which it is to be applied. To call this a Home Rule bill, said Mr. Asquith, was a misnomer. He continued: Home Rule has always meant to us Home Rulers the establishment in Ireland of a single Legislature with an Executive responsible to and dependent upon it. We have agreed from the first that you cannot carry out that which is the dominant pur- pose, the governing principle, the aim and goal of our policy, without providing, on the one hand, ade- quate safeguards for the maintenance of imperial supremacy, and, on the other hand, reasonable pro- tection for the rights and possible dangers of Irish THE HOME RULE BILL 153 minorities. But this present bill wholly discards the principle of all previous Home Rule bills. It pro- poses to create two co-ordinate and mutually inde- pendent Legislatures and Executives. He asserted that the proposed Irish Council was "a fleshless and bloodless skeleton" without power, except when given power by identic acts of the two Parliaments. He asserted that there was no hope of the two Parliaments ever uniting. He quoted from an address of a leading Ulster member, Cap- tain Craig of Antrim: There has been a great deal said in this debate about the time when there is to be union between us. It has been said that this bill lends itself to the union of Ulster and the rest of Ireland. It would not be fair to the House if I lent the slightest hope of that union arising within the lifetime of any man in this House. I do not believe it for a moment. Mr. Asquith added: Then he goes on to explain this is going to be frustrated by the machinery provided by the bill itself: "If we had," he says, "the nine counties," that is to say, a Northern Parliament representing the whole province of Ulster, the nine counties Par- liament, "with sixty-four members, the Unionist majority would be about three or four. The three excluded counties contain some 70,000 Unionists and 261,000 Sinn Feiners and Nationalists, and the addition of that large block of Sinn Feiners and 1 54 THE HOME RULE BILL Nationalists would reduce our majority to such a level that no sane man would undertake to carry on a Parliament with it." So you have got to reduce Ulster for this pur- pose from nine counties to six. Here yon are creating a Northern Parliament with co-ordinating powers with a Southern Parliament, and in the con- stitution of the Northern Parliament you except three of the nine Ulster counties, with the result which the honourable and gallant member gloats over — that they will always have a majority and be able to defeat, permanently, every move for the at- tainment of a single Parliament for Ireland. He advocated giving the Irish Legislature the power of imposing customs, excise and income tax. He criticised the bill because it gave no protection to the religious minorities in either Parliament, and favoured county option for the Province of Ulster. He also advocated as a substitute a suggestion made by Sir Horace Plunkett — the summoning of a Con- stituent Assembly with instructions to set up an Irish Legislative Assembly and leave to the Con- stituent Assembly the responsibility for working out the scheme. APPENDIX D MR. BONAR LAW'S REPLY TO ASQUITH Andrew Bonar Law, spokesman for the Govern- ment, in replying to Mr. Asquith, twitted him with his failure to accomplish anything when he was Premier. Accusing him of a short memory, since the Asquith Government in 1916 had tried to carry out proposals almost identical with those of the Lloyd George Government, Bonar Law went on to say that the following were the only possible alterna- tives in dealing with the situation: First, repeal the Home Rule Act. Second, Dominion Home Rule. Third, to give self-determination to the represen- tatives of the Irish people; that is, to create an Irish Republic. Fourth, to give to Ireland the largest measure of home rule compatible with national security and pledges given. That is the object of the bill. It is obvious [he continued] that repeal is not pos- sible to the present Government. I believe in the value to the nation of the continuance of the Coali- tion Government. If the policy of repeal were the 155 156 THE HOME RULE BILL right policy I should say at once the Coalition should come to an end. Another alternati\'e is Dominion Home Rule. Mr. Asquith used that phrase, but did he mean it? The very words he used showed that he did not mean it. What is the essence of Dominion Home Rule ? The essence is that the Dominions have con- trol of their whole destinies, of their fighting forces, and of the amount that they contribute to the gen- eral support and security of the Empire. Does the right honourable gentleman propose to give these things to Ireland? Not at all; he was going to re- serve the armed forces and state the contribution which should be made. There is not a man in the House, least of all the right honourable gentleman, who would not admit that the connection of Do- minions and the Empire depends upon the Domin- ions, li Australia, Canada, or New Zealand chose to say, "We will not remain part of the British Em- pire," we would not force them. Dominion Home Rule means the right to decide their own destinies. The right honourable gentleman says that this is dc*randed by the legal representatives of the Irish people. They are still as much legal representatives when they are Sinn Feiners, and to say he is pre- pared to give Dominion Home Rule means nothing less than that he is prepared to give an Irish Repub- lic. My right honourable friend shakes his head, but that is no answer. Danger in Separation The speaker challenged the labour members to de- clare they favoured an Irish Republic. There was THE HOME RULE BILL 157 no answer to his challenge. He then continued as follows : It is one of the most childish mistakes to assume that because Ireland is separated from us by a sheet of water she is in any degree less essential to the national security than if she were part of this island. All the experience of the growth of nationalities shows that water connections have as much to do with the grouping of peoples as land connections. That is the cause of the difficulty in settling the Adriatic question to-day. Though this water is be- tween us it is no less dangerous to have Ireland out of the orbit of our national defence. The policy of separation has never been adopted under such circumstances by any nation in the history of the world except after defeat and under compulsion. It was against such a policy that a most bloody war was waged in the United States. Let us see clearly where we are going. Those who talk loosely of self-determination should see exactly where it leads, and ask themselves whether they are prepared to follow that road to the end. The speaker argued that the proposed bill was the nearest to self-government that national security would permit. He said that the Ulster Parliament was made up of the six counties instead of the nine, in order to make ultimate union possible. He then added : We wish to keep on the best terms with America. We shall do what is right, and trust to that win- 158 THE HOME RULE BILL ning respect. But it is not merely America, it is our self-governing dominions. I have hardly met an Australian or Canadian who has not said, "Why don't you give them home rule?" To all of these we say that by this bill England ceases to interfere, and that Ireland has the power to govern in her own hands the moment Irishmen can agree among themselves. Why have we taken the six counties? In the first place in the election manifesto of m.y right honourable friend and myself we stated that we in- tended to deal with the matter on the basis of the six counties. In 1916 there was a real attempt to get a settlement for the first time on the basis of recognizing facts as they were. The leaders of the Ulster Party and the leaders of the Nationalist Party met. They decided to try to carry the six counties. If at the time when there was a real desire for settlement both sections thought that a fair settlement, I say that this House has a right to regard it now as a fair settlement. My right honourable friend quoted Captain Craig as saying that in his belief there would be no union in the lifetime of any of us. How can any one forecast the future? If we had kept the whole of Ulster what would have been the position? We would have been told by every Nationalist on the opposite benches that the three Ulster counties were identical in sympathy with the rest of Ireland, and that it was monstrous to exclude them from Southern Ireland. * * * If the whole of Ulster had been in the Parliament the other side would have tried to keep as the whole issue this arrangement with the six counties. THE HOME RULE BILL 159 By this arrangement the six counties will fall into normal lines. If you free these six counties you will free them from this old quarrel and they will take new directions. I have seen something of those sir counties and I think they are the most democratic population in these islands. My right honourable friend said the Central Council is purely humbug. It is exactly the amount of humbug that the honourable member and his friends choose to make it. It gives machinery for the closest co-operation betv/een the two Parliaments if they agree. If they do not agree what is the sense of talking about giving to Ireland control of their own affairs? * * * How Bill Would Work The moment this bill becomes law these tv/o Parliaments are constituted. I think the Plouse has a right to know what will happen if the contingency suggested by Mr. O'Connor really happens, and if the Sinn Feiners were in a majority and refused to work our Parliament. What would happen would be that instantly v/e should revert to the present position and it must be made perfectly plain that until the Parhament is properly constituted and has taken the oath the act cannot come into operation. Mr. Devlin — Does that apply to Ulster? Mr. Bonar Law — Yes. Mr. Devlin — If the rest of Ireland refuses to recognize this Parliament, would the Parliament be put into operation in Ulster? Mr. Bonar Law — Most certainly, and may I point out to the House that, in my view, that gives good i6o THE HOME RULE BILL ground for hoping that this will ultimately succeed? You set up these Parliaments; the Ulster Parlia- ment, I presume, will at once work, the rest of Ireland will see that it is working satisfactorily. There will be before their eyes the evidence that they can have the same self-government the mo- ment they like. Even suppose that for the first Parliament the Sinn Feiners refuse to have any- thing to do with it, or refuse to take the oath of allegiance, we drop back to where we are. If the whole south of Ireland is composed of people who will have nothing but a republic, then no settlement is possible. If, on the other hand, there is, as we are constantly told, a large element among the Nationalist population who are sane, and who look at things with a real desire to do the best for Ireland, I do not believe that when they see these powers working in the rest of Ireland before them they will refuse to accept the situation and take advantage of it. 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