The Irish Convention--and After
THE most important fact in our history for one hundred and fifty years is the meeting of an Irish Convention to draw up a plan for the government of the country. During that time the rulers of Ireland have maintained a strong policy of repression, alternating in the last fifty years with concessions to meet emergencies of material distress. Now for the first time there is the recognition of a spiritual necessity. ‘They loved Ireland insanely; they loved the very name’; so a girl proudly said of the ‘rebels’ shot in 1916. Henceforth an honorable way must be opened to this devotion which for eight hundred years has been poured out for a country without a flag. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so far is this new hope higher than all the material doles which have till now been given as a substitute for, or as a means of extinguishing, the spiritual need of Ireland. The country has at last been set on the right road. However imperfect the Convention admittedly is as a representative body; whatever difficulties or failure may lie before it, there can be no going back from the great principle now accepted by both countries, that the destiny of Ireland must be determined on Irish soil by Irish people.
We must avoid deceptive terms. For us in Ireland there is no ‘Irish question.’ It is the ‘English question’ that rises before us. Here we are confronted with a problem which is in effect unique in history. There is no real parallel to it. A great Frenchman one hundred and fifty years ago wondered that the world had not forever condemned the most evil of all forms of government — the rule of a nation by a nation. Such a rule is of all others the most tyrannous and the most intolerable, and leaves the people under it more helpless for resistance and more emptied of hope than any other system.
Government by a nation is, so to speak, eternal in its monotony. Emperor or king may die, and his authority pass to a successor of other views; a nation never dies, or departs from its fundamental character. There can be no change of outlook on its special interests, which have been created by its situation; and from age to age its preoccupations remain the same, only increasing in intensity. A single ruler and his personal advisers may hear an appeal to reason; it is another matter to convince a nation made up of millions of private wills and of thousands of jealous interests, not to speak of ignorance and prejudices. The passions of the crowd rise in floods to a torrent uncontrollable and irresistible. Even tyrant kings are compelled for their own safety to follow and yield to public opinion in reasonable time. There is no such necessity for a nation, which in its long collective life can afford to turn away from appeals of a subject race — in prosperity with indifference and disdain, in adversity with pain. It can neglect the verdict of mankind; for the greater its representation the less it cares to court the good opinion of the external world. In the rule of one nation by another all natural safeguards for the governed are in effect swept away.
After the English invasion of Ireland English rule was carried on for four hundred and fifty years by King, Lords, and Commons in Parliament. The decisive change came with Cromwell, when dominion passed to the people of England as represented in their Parliament, which now took control of the Irish houses of Lords and Commons. Its authority increased under the foreign kings, William of Orange and the Hanoverian house, who, having seen one king beheaded, and another deposed, were gradually subdued to the new constitutional system. The Irish Parliament was cast into abject submission. Its revolt and brief revival were crushed out by the Union, and from this time the rule of the English nation became absolute. Of its three estates the Crown and the entire House of Lords were frankly determined on Irish subjection; in the Commons the Irish, with one hundred votes against five hundred and fifty, — a position of permanent inferiority, — were for the most part held by the dominant partner as a negligible quantity.
The island was tossed like a football from one English party to another in the game of politics. English interests were inevitably the supreme concern at Westminster. No one doubted t hat Ireland must take a second place and subserve the welfare of the ruling nation. ‘How will it affect England?’ was the invariable question of the Engish people, of their House of Commons, their ministers, and the rulers they sent to Dublin Castle. These officials, with their eyes fixed on the London Parliament and the shifting balance of votes there, could give little attention to the realities of Irish life. As the power of the British Parliament advanced and that of the king decayed, so much the heavier fell the weight of its authority on Ireland. When the colonies with one accord refused to submit to the unnatural control of one nation by another, Ireland was left alone as a monument to the evils of such a form of government.
The experiment was given a long and complete trial. The result was inevitable. Where there was no appeal to reason, and no hope of change in the governing mind, violence proved the only means of obtaining reforms essential to the very existence of the Irish people. No demand for remedy was even listened to till it was enforced by leagues of desperate men driven to extremity, by outbreaks of popular fury, threats of revolution, risings in arms. Every advance had to be won by prison and the scaffold — even to this latest reform of an Irish Convention. It was a dreary and gloomy road, but there was no other.
We can all remember the hurricane of indignation that swept over Great Britain a little over a dozen years ago at the saying of an Irish under-secretary that Ireland ought to be governed by Irish ideas. When Major Redmond died with such gallantry a while ago, t he English partiesat Westminster vied with one another in his praise. No one whispered that each party in its turn had flung him into prison. The tragic tale of disturbance in Ireland is not a revelation of Irish crime and madness. It is the final judgment on a system of government which is against reason and is doomed to bring disaster and failure.
The Irish Convention has been charged to find a remedy for the discontents of the present rule. Under the Defence of the Realm Act it is impossible to discuss the assembly and its procedure, while in any case it is too early to measure its character and prophesy its success or failure. A very large proportion of the members are ‘moderate,’ usually synonymous with conservative. The fervors of youth are forbidden by the weighty average of age. It might be thought desirable that young men who have to live out their life under a new government should have their share in shaping it, rather than those whose traditions are of the past, and who have gathered in the harvest of their activities; but the two members under thirty-five who found admission are confronted by a vast solemnity of years.
It is not claimed that the assembly is in the usual sense representative. The Covenanters of Belfast and northeast Ulster are represented far beyond their numbers, in a proportion calculated on the extent of their alleged perils, their fears, their much-praised virtues, and, above all, their influence in Great Britain. It is the same with the whole body of Protestant Unionists, who by long tradition have been regarded as the safeguards of British order in this country. The right wing of the avowed Constitutional reformers, of all religions, is represented by the Nationalist members, and by a group of chairmen and members of county councils and other public bodies, elected many years ago to their offices. The rest of the nation does not appear at all.
The left wing of reformers, the Sinn Feiners, refused to enter an assembly which had been constituted and in part nominated by a government they profoundly distrusted — chiefly because they held it to be already, even before its creation, nullified by a pledge which was required by a minority, the Northern Covenanters, and given to them in the British Parliament by Mr. Bonar Law, that they should have the final word in its decisions. The Sinn Feiners made open protest against such a degradation of the freedom and the dignity of a convention as was involved in this privileged position of the Orange group, and against the surrender of government to anti-representative and anti-national claims. It must be observed, however, that the refusal to join a convention distrusted because of its origin and limited freedom does not bind the external reformers to refuse any liberal and satisfactory settlement which it might propose to the Irish people.
What such an assembly will accomplish no one can foretell. The Catholic Home Ruler, A. M. Sullivan, used to say some forty years ago that to escape from the British Parliament he would accept any body of rulers whatever so long as they were of Irish birth and established in Ireland — ‘ the Protestant Synod would do.’ A convention in Ireland is bound to feel the impact of Irish feeling around it. Already the very summoning of such a body has brought an extraordinary development of political thought. Once the old moorings are cut, a universal tide has carried men far. Unionists who by an evil tradition had been alienated from their fellow citizens, and as supposed guardians of British interests had suffered the vacancy of having no country, begin to look forward to a new allegiance, when they may have an active and honored share in the fortunes of their own land, which in fact they love. Others who fought a battle almost of despair in England find spiritual revival on their native soil and among their own people. There is a general shaking off of the idea that English control is necessary for security, and of a sudden the words ‘Dominion government,’ are on every tongue. By a sort of miracle the ‘impossible’ of a few months ago has become the commonplace of today. It is strange to see how freely and how far, when shackles have been hacked away, liberated men will walk.
If this growing good-will is to produce any permanent settlement, the moderates as well as the Covenanters must needs get clear of the mists and illusions which hidden powers, like the gods of old, have thrown among the combatants to protect their friends and defeat their enemies. A cloud of abuse has covered the Sinn Feiners. There has been no real effort to understand and interpret their purpose and aims. The whole mass of them have been pictured as one body of evil by Unionists of the Northeast in order to destroy Home Rule; by party politicians in the strife for power; by police trained in a traditional service; by certain groups sensitive to panic and on the watch for ‘protection’; by the English Press, partly under the influence of dense prejudice, partly under the excitement of a formidable war.
In spite of all this, however, the Sinn Feiners have fast advanced in the sympathy and respect of Irishmen. Drawn from all classes, races, and religions, they constitute in fact the left wing of constitutional reformers. They urge, not a party programme, but the National idea. The young Ireland which they represent believes in education, recognizing the present system as the scandal of the British Empire. They uphold temperance, and in the last East Clare election they maintained their principle with astonishing determination. Under great provocation they kept order and refused to be driven into violence. With the Irish Volunteers arose a habit of self-respect and discipline. Among the Gaelic Leaguers there developed a sense of national dignity and desire fora civilization and culture worthy of their historic tradition.
In the last years the Sinn Feiners have learned many political lessons, notably the value of a real as opposed to a sham self-government, and the necessity for a definite settlement which shall not be torn up in the agitations of revision every few years. A sharp experience has taught them some economic truths, and that the care of their material well-being must be taken entirely into their own hands. They understand that friendship with Britain will be possible only when the theory of a governing and an inferior race has been swept aside, and when the two islands stand on equal terms of dignity and self-reliance.
It may be that, as the Convention gets to fundamental facts, it will find that the Sinn Feiners have but cried aloud, in however confused or blunt a manner, thoughts that were passing through the whole community. They, like the rest of the country, aim at constitutional reform. The Republican group is strong in the high character and enthusiasm of its members. Their position must be understood and met. With Irishmen the question is not an abstract matter of the relative values of two forms of government: the whole problem in their minds is how to secure a government at home which shall be clearly free of English interference. Their attitude is based on a just perception of the character of English rule as it is now constituted.
In the history of the Irish people the monarchy has never stood as their protector. It is not only the British legislature, but the British sovereigns, who through the centuries have looked on them with indifference, if not with hostility. The desperate effort of O’Connell to overcome a chilling disapproval by lavish faith and loyalty to the sovereign as ruler of Ireland is remembered by the Irish for its utter failure.
But there is a deeper trouble. The independence of the British king is so circumscribed by actual practice, that for the king one must in effect substitute the prime minister. Loyalty to the king passes into loyalty to the dictates of successive British premiers. It is not surprising that, given the British relations of king and ministers, along with the habit of political interference in Ireland, there should be men who cannot see a ready way either of enlisting a royal sympathy with Irish interests for the first time in eight hundred years, or of safeguarding the king’s relations to Ireland so as to avert the Cabinet control of Irish affairs which wrecked Grattan’s Parliament. If the Convention desires a permanent peace between Great Britain and Ireland it must meet this trouble of the Sinn Feiners, not by mere abuse of Republicans, but by securing to Ireland the exercise of a genuine selfgovernment, and a new relation of the Crown and the people.
The success, in fact, of the Convention will depend upon its sensitiveness to the real character of the public emotion which is transforming the country. Outside its walls is an Ireland passionate with excitement as it has not been for generations. Some late events have awakened in the people a vivid consciousness of their history and their present state. A few illustrations will serve to explain.
The shooting and hanging of ‘ rebels5 in 1916 had an effect which the British imagination did not foresee. The dark remembrance of the cruelties which caused and followed the rebellion of 1798 had in long lapse of time begun to die down; there was a general assuaging of bitterness, as the years marked their slow reconciliation. But now, at the call of the dead, a century was blotted out, and old memories rose from their graves bearing passion and terror and unquenched affections. The press was silent, and there was stillness in the streets, but the churches were filled with solemn crowds in tense emotion. A new situation had been created, the power of which was enduring.
Already excitement had been stirring among the people. The lessons of Sir Edward Carson’s campaign during the last half-dozen years had sunk into their minds: the intrigues with British Conservatives; the mutiny at the Curragh; the appeal to force followed by the surrender of the administration and the government, and the final distribution of the spoils of state to Sir Edward and his agents. They heard his words to the Covenanters, that he and they cared nothing for what was done in a little place called Westminster. But we must note that the revival of Protestant bigotry fell on a new Ireland, which no longer looked on this as the main issue. The dominant question for the Irish was now political freedom, and it called out a new answer, not of hostility to the Northern Covenanters, but in the shape of an outburst of personal vigor, self-reliance, and independence.
A third and most powerful impulse to the demand for Irish control of their own affairs has been given by the political record of the governing ministries and the official bureaucracies. Great Britain in the mass of her prosperity can survive many mistakes of her rulers with little apparent injury. Ireland in her depressed and critical situation suffers from errors incomparably greater evils. It is natural that her observation of wrong should be more acute and her indignation more genuine. Her suspicion has been acutely alert in watching the tortuous policy of British ministers and officials in the conduct of the Home Rule Act, and in the levy of Irish troops for the war. Ireland knew, long years before Mr. Asquith made public announcement of it, how completely ‘ the machinery of Irish government has broken down.’ The age-long distrust of English officials gathered a force never before known. No doubt cases of deliberate wrong, of political craft, and of honest effort betrayed by an evil system of rule, became rightly or wrongly confounded in men’s minds. But in any attempt to weigh the forces which will determine Irish action, suspicion of the candor of English officials will be one of the strongest. The refusal of volunteers for the British army, the rejection of a system which allowed a half-hearted Home Rule to be so insecurely poised on the statute-book, are the immediate manifestations of Irish resentment at the methods of a British government in which they have ceased to believe. There lies behind them a fixed determination to stand clear of such dangers for the future.
The British government was doubtless quite unaware of the state of Irish feeling, when, without even informing Ireland of its intention, it suddenly canceled the contract of the Cunard Company to send its steamers to Queenstown — a contract made on behalf of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The excitement at this announcement, the remonstrances of public bodies and of all the chambers of commerce, showed how the Irish had noted a new illustration of English power in its absolute control of Irish interests, It came at a time when Irishmen had begun to realize more clearly than ever before the undeveloped resources that lay in their soil and underneath it, and in the manhood of their race, its intelligence and capacity. A new spirit of self-confidence and pride in their people and their land had arisen; and if one incident may be singled out as having hardened this new confidence into a fixed purpose no longer to allow their country to be subordinated to English interests, or their people exploited for English advantage, it was the dramatic story of the Cunard steamers. Their vigilance was quickened when English motor-car manufacturers united in urging the government (though in vain) to take action against the establishing of a Ford factory of motors in Cork.
A young Ireland in fact is coming to its full age. The demands of the Sinn Feiners are based on principles not unworthy. They desire intensely the union of all Irish citizens, and that all should share in the full responsibilities of free men. The one thing they seek — Republicans and Constitutionalists alike — is a definite deliverance from British interference in Irish affairs. All Irishmen believe that this is the only way to assure the lasting friendship of the peoples. The English have many great qualities, and no one admits their fine attributes more readily than Irishmen. Friends of Ireland have arisen in Britain who have labored to redress evils, and whose labors have been warmly recognized by the Irish. But where the whole system of government is false, English friends must ultimately prove as helpless to find redress as the Irish people.
To the Irish view the British have utterly failed in the imperial temper. Their statesmanship has not been such as to mark them as an imperially minded race. The time has come for a new beginning. The creation of an alliance which the old methods have failed to produce now depends on the insight and the courage of the Convention. In building up that alliance the old words ‘Empire’ and ‘Imperialism’ need no longer be a dividing cry inherited from the past. For the imperialism of old days — the government of possessions by a ‘ superior ’ people — is gone, and with it the word itself is fast disappearing. The character and the history of the Irish prove that in a new Commonwealth of nations none will be found of greater generosity and fidelity than the people of Irish race and nation.