Janus-Headed Ireland

IRELAND has always had two heads — one in Ulster and the other in the South; but to-day there is a Janusheaded nation of Sinn Feiners. Why should a little country like Ireland have so many heads?

Last summer, when the fate of Ireland and the peace of the British Empire hung by a thread, three travelers from three corners of the earth arrived in London. From South Africa came Premier Jan Smuts, a delegate to the Imperial Conference; from New York, Martin H. Glynn, former governor and one of the silent leaders of the Irish campaign in the United States; while from the Antipodes, via Rome, came Archbishop Mannix of Australia.

Although Smuts and Glynn did not meet, they laid the foundation for the peace conference between the British Cabinet and official representatives of the Dàil Eireann, which created the Irish Free State.

How and why did they succeed when there had been so many previous failures? Why, after Ireland had obtained a republic in everything but name, did the heads of Ireland begin to quarrel among themselves?

I

In twp earlier papers I have related the checkered course of the peace negotiations in 1920 and the early months of 1921, strewn with the wreckage of good intentions and hard work. There had been many stumbling-blocks in the way of a reconciliation, the most important being the unconquered determination of the Irish in the United States ‘to see it through’; the blunt refusal of Mr. Lloyd George to recognize De Valera, Griffith, and Collins as representatives of the de facto Irish Parliament; Ulster’s burning passion for self-government; and, finally, Collins’s cool, calculating confidence in an Irish victory.

In mid-April, 1921, the British Prime Minister issued to the Irish ‘Extremists’ his ultimatum, based upon Collins’s uncompromising declaration in an interview with me, in which he declared:—

‘When I saw you before, I said that the same effort which would get us dominion home rule would get us a republic, and I am still of that opinion. We have got the British beaten, practically so, and it is only a question of time until Ireland will be cleared of Crown forces.’

To this Lloyd George replied, in a letter to the Anglican bishops: —

‘So long as the leaders of Sinn Fein stand in this position and receive the support of their countrymen, a settlement is, in my judgment, impossible.’

This was the situation in England and Ireland on the eve of my last journey from London to Dublin prior to the peace conference.

It is no exaggeration to say that the British Empire was never in greater danger than it is to-day [the Liberal Manchester Guardian wrote]. If you picture the flames we are lighting, or those that Irishmen are lighting, you will realize that the status of Ireland places us as a governing power in a category in which no apologies can help us.

Expressing the opinion of the Conservatives and denouncing the ‘orgy of murder’ the Spectator exclaimed: —

No fewer than 33 innocent persons were murdered within two days. . . . We imagine that the Irish Republican Brotherhood, who work in secret even as they kill in secret, are alarmed by all the rumors of peace that are in the air. They do not want peace, they want human life.

‘We don’t want a united Ireland,’ they were shouting in Belfast; ‘we want a United Kingdom.’

‘The British Government will let us down to-morrow if they think they can get anything out of it,’ Sir James Craig, the Ulster Prime Minister, was warning Orangemen.

At a big political rally, an old Belfast laborer evoked applause by saying bluntly, ‘We want no more meetings with De Valera, and we ’ll have no more. We cannot go further at present with t he assassins and murderers of the loyal people of Ireland.’ Another candidate ended his speech with the words: ‘I believe that, if we win this fight, we ’ll be striking a fatal blow to the Roman Catholic faith. We ’re not tired of the Union Jack. Let ’s keep the flag flying over the North of Ireland.’

That declaration was, and still is, the danger-note in Ulster.

Returning to Dublin during the Reign of Terror which preceded the peace conference, I learned that all my Sinn Fein friends were in prison or ‘on the run.’ At the homes and schools where, on former visits, I had left messages for them, so that they could arrange to communicate with me ‘when the coast was clear,’ the servants replied that Griffith was in Mount joy jail; that De Valera was ‘away’; that Collins had not been in Dublin, and they did not know where Fitzgerald, Brennan, or Childers could be found. Even Mrs. J. R. Green, widow of the historian and ‘Grandmother of the Rebellion,’ whose spacious Georgian house in St. Stephen’s Green was the terminal of the Sinn Fein ‘underground railway,’ was not in!

That night I met the members of the American Commission for Relief in Ireland — young men who had been sent from the United States to investigate reports of starvation and suffering among the Irish people. As this was the first ‘intervention’ of any American organization, it created a week-end tempest in British official circles. The British condemnation of America’s ‘mixing in’ in the Irish question was in sharp contrast to the joy of the Irish leaders and people. At this time nine tenths of the Sinn Feiners believed that it was only a matter of weeks before the American army and navy would be fighting on the side of Ireland. Someone had had lithographs printed in New York, for distribution in Ireland, of the ‘first. Irish battleship,’ the Emerald Isle. It was an imposing poster of a giant warship, painted green, with the name in gold letters on the bow. This was to have been used in Ireland to advertise the Irish ‘navy’! Thousands had been struck off and shipped to Ireland, only to fall into the hands of Scotland Yard before they could be distributed. This was only a mild example of Irish enthusiasm. Propaganda in Ireland led the public to believe that the sympathy of the world could be, and would be, mobilized into foreign intervention.

After the long and expensive campaign in America, De Valera and the Dail sent Dr. McCartain to Soviet Russia, where he arrived on March 20, 1921, to negotiate a treaty, ask for recognition, and obtain ammunition and commercial rights. Only a few weeks before, Scotland Yard obtained copies of secret Sinn Fein correspondonce with Irish leaders in the United States, showing that many Irishmen here as well as in Ireland believed that the United States would soon be at war over Ireland’s freedom.

The first time I discussed this question with Griffith and Collins, they were convinced, ‘from their reports from De Valera,’ that American intervention was imminent; and when the Commission for Relief began its difficult task, they considered it the first step toward official coöperation. Whenever I talked with the Irish leaders, they were hopeful of American aid. At this time Griffith, Collins, Mulcahy, Barton, and Fitzgerald had absolute faith in De Valera’s promises of American aid. Had not the Dàil Eireann, at his request, appropriated $1,500,000 for the campaign in the United States, prior to the Presidential election, for t he purpose of obtaining this assistance? Had not Scotland Yard intercepted correspondence from De Valera, when he was still in New York, reporting on the political preparations which he was making for the recognition of Ireland and all that that embodied? Had not the Irish leaders in America split on this very question, even before De Valera returned to his native heath?

In the United States, as in Ireland, there was the Janus-headed leadership of the Irish cause. This was the situation which complicated the ‘Irish question.’ Ireland’s fight was as dangerous a political issue in the United States as in England; and the appearance of the American commission had buoyed the hopes of the Irish as it had crystallized the fears of the British.

Before coming to Dublin, I had lunched at the United Service Club in London with officials of the War Department, Admiralty, and Air Service, where the difficulties of financing the Brit ish military campaign in Ireland were debated with great earnestness. The Government was finding it increasingly hard to obtain funds from the Imperial Exchequer; and when it was reported that the American Commission expected to raise ten million dollars for relief, the British had visions of this money finding its way into the hands of Sinn Fein and prolonging their ability to ‘hold out.’ Without questioning the intentions of the Americans, they cited one of the financial tricks of Sinn Fein which had caused no end of distress.

In Dublin one day word was passed to the Sinn Feiners to withdraw their money from the local branch of an Ulster Bank. As fast as the depositors withdrew, they deposited their money in the Royal Postal Savings Bank at the General Post Office; and as it came in, the Postmaster took it around and redeposited it in a Sinn Fein bank!

Under these conditions, the British asked, what would happen to ten million dollars from the United States?

II

The United States was both the thorn and the rose of the Irish problem. Brilish officials, including Sir Hamar Greenwood, General Macready, Sir Basil Thomson, and Philip Kerr, were pricked too often by the thorns of American criticism to forget the influence of American opinion in Irish circles. De Valera, Griffith, Collins, and Fitzgerald, while admitting the value of assistance from across the Atlantic, were staunch supporters of the ideal that the Dàil Eireann was supreme overall Irishmen, here, there, and everywhere.

Being convinced, personally, that there were three parties to the Irish question, and that there could not, be a settlement, between the British Cabinet and the Dàil without the support of the Irish in the United States, I urged a meeting of the three principals, in the hope that out of such a conference peace could be made. Up to this time, however, there had been few influential American friends of Ireland in England, and no opportunity for an exchange of views. In the hope that the American Commission might serve that purpose, I talked with the British and Sinn Fein officials; but the Commission was considered too partial. The very fact that it was coöperating with the Irish White Cross was sufficient to veto the suggestion. Was not Michael Collins, the arch-leader of the 1 Extremists,’ one of the directors? Thus the British retorted, never losing an opportunity of emphasizing the division among Sinn Feiners; but the schism in Sinn Fein was clastic. At that time Griffith and Collins were held the leaders of the Irish ‘die-hards.’ To-day they are the staunchest supporters of the treaty; and De Valera, whom Lloyd George considered the apostle of conciliation, is the champion of the militarists. Why?

We need not probe deep for the root cause. Griffith and Collins, while ‘Extremists,’ were practical politicians. De Valera was the dreamer and promisor. He led them to expect American intervention. When it. came, finally, only in the form of relief, they began to lose confidence in his reports. Furthermore, they were in intimate touch with the Irish people. They knew that the public was demanding peace, that reports were being circulated among the women that children were being born insane because of the reign of terror. Griffith and his associates and De Valera and his followers, despite their differences, maintained a solid front from this day to the final peace conference, because of their mutual hatred and suspicion of England. The fundamental difference, however, between the two factions was and is the same. The one hates Britain more than it loves Ireland, and the other is so much more devoted to Ireland that the spirit of hate is secondary. This is what divides Sinn Fein and makes it to-day a Janus-headed party.

When Griffith and Collins discovered that they could obtain everything they had been fighting for under another name, they accepted the Free State and fought for it. De Valera insisted upon the label. In this way the ‘Extremists’ became ‘Moderates’ and tried to save Ireland, while the ‘Moderates’ became uncompromising rebels and brought Ireland to the verge of civil war, justifying the pessimistic predictions of scores of British observers that once peace was concluded between England and Ireland, the Irish would fight among themselves. But, as an Irish woman, who acted as a confidential messenger for Collins and Griffith, remarked one day, ‘Ireland smiles behind her tears.’ There have been many black days in Ireland’s fight for freedom, but none so dark as those which preceded the peace conference in Downing Street last summer.

Continuing my search for Sinn Fein friends, after failing to bring the British into a conference with Americans through the American Commission, I encountered, in the streets of Dublin, where a British pat rol had just passed, Robert Brennan, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs and a member of the Dàil. He was on his way to the ‘President’s’ with the morning mail. Scotland Yard and Dublin Castle had been hunting him for months; but here he was, alone and free! Think what the British would have given to seize him with his priceless mail-pouch! I told him what and whom I wanted.

This unexpected meeting with Brennan led to a long series of interviews and communications with all the leaders of Sinn Fein.

Being in a prison camp, Fitzgerald was under General Macready’s jurisdictions. I hurried a jaunting-car driver to the British Headquarters at Parkgate, and asked for permission to interview Fitzgerald.

Sir Nevil Macready, who had assisted me on previous occasions, dictated a letter which unlocked the gates of the camp, and within an hour Fitzgerald was brought to the conference room, the door was closed, and for the first time in months he was free to talk and smoke and ask questions.

As I always put my ‘cards’ on the table while conversing with both parties, I told Fitzgerald what I believed to be the situation in England, and expressed the belief that there could be a settlement on the original terms of Irish control of Irish affairs, including everything from finance to an army, if Sinn Fein would waive the demand for a republic.

Sinn Fein, Fitzgerald replied, would not give up the idea of a republic, or surrender arms, or make any concession to England, so long as Lloyd George maintained his policy of attempting to split Southern Ireland, so long as British troops remained in Ireland; and that, until the Prime Minister publicly agreed to negot iate with the Dàil Eireann, without exacting any conditions or promises, there would be no possibility of peace. Ireland was defending herself from aggression of a ‘foreign enemy.’ When that aggression ceased, Ireland would be independent and free!

That was his message! That was the attitude of Sinn Fein. It was the sentiment of Ireland!

Before Fitzgerald was taken back to his cell, he gave me a note to Collins and a secret address where he could be found. As I was leaving, the prison commander asked me to luncheon. Such was the irony of life in Ireland in 1921. I could interview Sinn Feiners, dine with British officials the same day, and leave a military prison with the address of an Irish leader whom the British would have given a king’s ransom for, dead or alive.

III

Dublin, in these days, was a murderer’s paradise and the hangman’s stage. Through the vigilance of the Blackand-Tans, members of the Irish Republican Army were tracked to their hiding-places and arrested. Ambushes were daily occurrences, and the captives were considered assassins. Those who were found guilty, and whose cases were given every possible judicial consideration, were sentenced to be hanged. Before the executions, thousands of women and children would march through the main thoroughfares of Dublin to the prison walls, kneel, pray, and chant the rosary, while the hangings were taking place inside. This black-clad throng would remain outside the jail until the guard appeared with a small typed piece of paper, which he would post on the gates, announcing the name of the lad whose life had been snuffed out on the scaffold. For long hours afterwards hundreds of women would remain at the prison gates, praying and gossiping.

During every rebellion, as in every war, there are sown, with the seeds of patriotism, the seeds of disorder and moral laxity. That Ireland was not an exception is proved to-day. While the inhabitants of Southern Ireland were fighting for their freedom from Great Britain, a phrase that an Irish editor used, ‘Killing is not murder,’ was generally accepted as a political motto. To kill a British official was not considered murder; and, as a natural consequence, scores of men and women were killed to satisfy personal grudges. Sinn Feiners themselves suffered; but as there was little semblance of law and order, it was possible to kill and escape all the consequences. The murder campaign spread like wildfire, and the murders which occur so frequently even to-day, in Ulster as well as in the South, are but evidences that the fire of the rebellion had not been extinguished by t he peace treaty. When we look at Europe’s struggles since the Armistice, and witness the desperate efforts that, the nations and people are spending to restore ‘normalcy,’ we should not be surprised if in Ireland some lawlessness remains for many months, if not years. Peace, like freedom, cannot be made: it must evolve as time moulds a new public opinion and national consciousness.

As De Valera and Collins were in hiding, I had to await an opportune moment to see them. A majority of their ministerial associates were already in prison, and the British were saying that the Dàil could meet now at any time behind the bars, as there would be a quorum present!

While awaiting messages from De Valera and Collins, the two officials who, as President and Minister of Finance, respectively, of the Irish Republic, shared with Austin Stack and Richard Mulcahy the burdens of the de facto government, I went to Dublin Castle and General Headquarters, to urge permission to interview Griffith. Sir John Anderson was at the time acting for the Chief Secretary who was in London. General Boyd, the youngest general in the British army and the most popular officer in Ireland, was in command of the Dublin district. As they alone could issue a pass to Mountjoy, I explained the object of my conversations with Sinn Fein leaders, adding that I expected to see Collins, but that the success of this meeting depended upon how free I was from surveillance. Should they grant me freedom of action in prison and without, I would have the basic peace-terms of Sinn Fein to place before Sir Basil Thomson of Scotland Yard, and the Cabinet.

They were more than willing to cooperate. Sir John went so far as to acquaint me with the latest reports from London, in order that they might be laid before the Sinn Fein ministers.

Leaving the courtyard of that great British stronghold in Ireland, with the ‘key’ to Mountjoy, which Sir John had given in the form of a letter to the superintendent, I passed a Black-and-Tan patrol which was being armed and equipped for a raid, jumped aboard one of the high jaunting-cars, and rode from Dublin Castle to the old prison where the cells and corridors were packed with ‘rebels.’ The narrow street leading to the main entrance of Mountjoy was blocked by a group of excited women. At the gate a guard was arguing with a poor, hysterical creature who was demanding permission to see her only son. The guardsman let me inside the wall and closed the solid iron gates with a bang — the only sound that broke the monotony of muffled prayers. The courtyard between the brick wall and the main buildings was covered with a tangled mass of barbed wire. Through this was a narrow passage guarded by Tommies in field uniform.

It had been several months since I had last interviewed the man who acted as President of Sinn Fein during Mr. De Valera’s long stay in America. Then he was the guest in one of the century-old mansions of Dublin. Today he was in prison.

Dublin that day was blanketed with mist, and the prison was damp and dark. The superintendent, sent my card to Griffith and invited me to his private office where a soft-coal fire was smouldering and a gas-light burning. Heaped upon a long table were several thousand letters to prisoners, which had been censored and confiscated. Adjusting his monocle and inhaling a cigarette, the superintendent asked if I had any idea how Griffith had smuggled a statement to the press two days before. How any Sinn Feiner in his prison could communicate with the outside world through barbed-wire entanglements and a high wall, when he was not permitted to have any visitors, was beyond his comprehension. As I could throw no light on that, he was curious about the influence I had to get into Mount Joy when everyone else was excluded. Some things the Government did, he said, were, ‘by Jove, unexplainable!’

It seemed an endless wait for Griffith. I was expressing a doubt about his willingness to be interviewed, when the door was thrown open and the guard stepped in, announcing prisoner No. —. The founder of the Sinn Fein movement entered cautiously, looked coldly at the superintendent, who was leaning against the white-marble mantel. As he stood near the door, studying the situation, I could not believe that prison life could make such a change in any man. He had not shaved for days. His black hair hung over his ears. Gold-rimmed spectacles rested unevenly on the bridge of his nose, his clothing and shoes adding to the general appearance of a man who is down and out. I greeted him as warmly as I could, thanking him for coming; but he was obviously not glad to see me. Why should I be favored above his relatives and friends, unless I was serving some motive of Lloyd George?

When the superintendent and guard left, we sat before the fire. Griffith could not believe that we were alone. Guards had been dogging him day and night. Now there was not a uniform in sight, and doors and windows were closed. He was reserved and cautious while I told him of my activities during the past three months. I added that, although I had no proposals this time, I believed peace could be made on almost any terms if Sinn Fein would accept the status of a free state within the British Commonwealth of Nations; and I recalled the terms which Collins, De Valera, and he had frequently enunciated. The stumbling-block was the ‘republic.’ I concluded by telling him whom I had seen in Dublin.

Griffith listened with great patience and restraint. Then he spoke of the routine of life in jail; of the terrible strain of bidding good-bye to his fellow prisoners as they were led away to be executed; of the prayers, songs, and cries of the women outside — all due to the presence of an ‘enemy army of occupation.’ Remove the Crown forces, and Ireland would be free, peaceful and happy; but so long as the army remained, the Irish Republic would thrive under persecution. Griffith did not believe Lloyd George was, or would be, sincere. He had no confidence in anything he promised. Griffith’s terms to-day were the same as they had always been. ‘It is inconceivable that a free Ireland can interfere with any of the rights of a free England.’ That was the platform, formulated by Collins, approved by De Valera, upon which they all stood.

Peace? It could be concluded whenever Mr. Lloyd George acknowledged the failure of his campaign of reprisals and aggression, by inviting the Dàil Eireann to a conference. That was Mr. Griffith’s message. The initiative rested with the Prime Minister.

Before the interview ended, I had convinced him that my only interest in seeking conversations with both the British and Irish was to learn the possibilities of a settlement ; and as we parted, he gave me messages to his colleagues, which enabled me later to write a symposium expressing the fundamental terms of peace.

IV

There was always great mystery about ‘Mick’ Collins and ‘Dick’ Mulcahy, the commander and the chief of staff, respectively, of the Republican army. All that the military officials knew about them was learned from their correspondence and orders, which were captured here and there in Ireland. Mulcahy was considered by the British a military genius. General Boyd told me one day to tell Mulcahy that, if he wished to join the British army, he could make him his chief of staff, because he knew more about organizing and directing forces than anyone he knew.

On my return to the hotel, after interviewing Griffith, I received one of Collins’s typically mysterious messages. A courier would meet me at three o’clock, and I was to follow her instructions — which I did. After a wild ride about Dublin in a taxicab for nearly an hour, I was ordered to enter a deserted house within a stone’s throw of the hotel. Here I met Collins, who smiled and said that he might have come to the hotel to see me, but he thought I would enjoy a drive! And, of course, the place at which we met was not the address given by Fitzgerald!

After an hour’s conversation, the kernel of Collins’s message was this: If Mr. Lloyd George wishes to make peace, all he has to do is to invite the Dail to send an official and representative delegation of Irishmen to a peace conference.

With these messages I left Kingstown on the night mail-boat for England, without awaiting an interview with De Valera. His opinions had been communicated to me by Major Erskine Childers, who was, and still is, De Valera’s confidential adviser.

Interviews in London the following days with Lord Derby, Sir Hamar Greenwood, and his associate Sir John Anderson, at. the Irish Office, Sir Basil Thomson at Scotland Yard, and Philip Kerr at No. 10 Downing Street, furnished the climax to my investigations. The Earl of Derby, who was so disturbed over Irish propaganda in France, where he had served as British Ambassador, had gone to Ireland on a mission of his own, and returned convinced that the ‘greatest service’ he could render his country was to assist in an Irish settlement. He had concluded, after talks with Lloyd George, De Valera, and others, that, if Craig and De Valera would hold anot her conference and agree to a programme for all of Ireland, England would accept the joint proposals.

As Lord Derby knew that I had paved the way for the first meeting between the leaders of Ulster and Sinn Fein, he asked if I would go to Ireland again, and invite the two men to meet at his house in Liverpool or Paris, and draw up a proposal to the Prime Minister.

Greenwood said that the government’s policy now was ‘peace and settlement.’ He emphasized the importance of the appointment of a Catholic viceroy—Viscount FitzAlan, who ‘belonged to the oldest Roman Catholic family in written history.’ ‘Another Catholic will be appointed Chief Justice of Ulster,’ he added, ‘to show there is no religious bigotry among British officials.’ Greenwood asked whether Collins would agree to a settlement within the Empire. Sir John remarked that he, personally, had never agreed with the government policy of singling out Collins as a ‘murderer,’ for now it was evident that the British would have to talk peace with him, if they were to have any conference at all.

As these were the views of responsible British statesmen, I went to Downing Street and Scotland Yard, to learn the Prime Minister’s attitude. One of his closest associates called Lord Derby a ‘stuffed shirt,’ and said, ‘For God’s sake don’t give the Sira Feiners the impression that Lord Derby speaks for the P. M.’

The net result of all the conversations was the same: no one knew what Mr. Lloyd George would do, but evidently he was not yet convinced that the initiative lay in his hands. He was still playing his lone hand, offering peace to the ‘Moderates,’ while denouncing the ‘Extremists.’ So far as anyone knew, at this time he had no intention of inviting official representatives of Sinn Fein and the Dàil Eireann to discuss the terms of a settlement with the British Government. In brief, Mr. Lloyd George’s Irish education was not yet complete! The ‘war’ would have to continue until the Irish asked for peace!

V

At the Gaiety Theatre, May 2, as I was leaving the stalls, I recognized in the audience a man whom I had not seen for several years. I pushed my way through the aisles until I had greeted Martin H. Glynn, of Albany, former governor, newspaper editor, the man who delivered the famous oration in St. Louis, and who gave the Democratic party the slogan, ‘He kept us out of war,’ which reelected Woodrow Wilson in 1916.

He accepted my invitation to the American Club for the following day, and at that meeting, which lasted nearly three hours, I told him of the experience I had had in Ireland and London, while he related the results of his work in America and his meetings in Rome with Archbishops Mannix and Hayes, and high officials of the Vatican. He spoke of the plans for a great boycott of British goods in the United States, of the difficulty of concluding peace on the basis of a free Ireland unless Ireland were a republic, because the idea of a republic was gaining strength every day throughout the world. We debated the attitude of the Vatican, the attempts which had been made to persuade the Pope to intervene, and to urge the Irish to stop the fight and accept Sir Horace Plunkett’s Dominion-Home-Rule plan, with whatever modifications were necessary to ensure a settlement within the Empire.

‘I do not believe the Vatican can be drawn into this dispute,’ said Governor Glynn.

While discussing the attitude of the Irish in the United States, I spoke of the conversations I had had with the Irish leaders, and of the number of times the American correspondents had told the members of the Dàil that the United States would not intervene. I added that former Secretary of State Colby had told me that ‘neither Wilson nor the Harding administration would interfere in Anglo-Irish affairs.’

Although I had no authority to do so, I asked Mr. Glynn whether he would meet Mr. Lloyd George and talk as frankly to him as he had to me, if the Prime Minister could be persuaded to receive him. Mr. Glynn replied that, while he was working for no conference with the chief of state on Irish affairs, as mi American citizen traveling through London, he should be glad to meet him.

For nearly two days I spent most of my time between Scotland Yard and Downing Street. Sir Basil Thomson was enthusiastic over the suggestion that Lloyd George and Glynn get together. Philip Kerr acted as the spokesman to the Prime Minister, who was attending sessions of the Allied Supreme Council, then meeting in London. At five o’clock in the evening of May 4, I was in Sir Basil’s office when Kerr telephoned that the Premier could not see Governor Glynn, because the Government had invited De Valera, before, to come to London and he had refused. Mr. Lloyd George did not wish to repeat the invitation. Kerr was sorry, but that closed the incident.

Although temporarily blocked, Sir Basil had no intention of giving up. He had tried for more than a year to convince the Cabinet that peace coidd be made only with the Sinn Fein officials, and through or with the consent of the Irish in the United States. Here was an opportunity for Lloyd George to ‘get down to business.’ At Sir Basil’s suggestion, I drafted a long letter to the Prime Minister, presenting reasons why he should reconsider his decision, and hurried with it over to Downing Street. It was seven o’clock by the time I reached Kerr’s office. I told him what had been done, handed him the letter, which he promised to show the ‘P. M.’ that night, and left for my office to write a dispatch, as guardedly as possible, giving the latest developments in the Irish situation.

Early next morning, Kerr telephoned that. Governor Glynn would be given a ticket to the House of Commons for that afternoon, and that he was asked to wait in the distinguished strangers’ gallery until Kerr called for him. Mr. Lloyd George intended to speak, and when he had finished, Kerr thought there might be an opportunity to bring the two men together without raising a diplomatic point as to whether or not the interview had been sought by either. Glynn wished to meet Lloyd George as an equal, not as one asking a favor or expecting one; while the Prime Minister did not wash to be in the position of having sought an interview with the American editor. Kerr, being an experienced diplomat, was so successful that, the conversation, which was expected to be brief and formal, continued for nearly three hours.

This interview was one of two really decisive interviews throughout the secret negotiations of 1921. Governor Glynn impressed upon the Prime Minister the seriousness and earnestness of the Irish, the power of the Irish movement in America, the importance of an Anglo-Irish peace as the basis for an Anglo-American understanding. Between sips of tea and puffs of cigars, they debated an Irish settlement, Lloyd George, as the head of a great, government and Glynn as the advocate of Ireland, with the result that the Premier asked Mr. Glynn to convey an invitation to Mr. De Valera to come to London for a conference, adding that he ‘made no stipulations and expected no promises.’ ‘ When Mr. De Valera and I meet,’ the Prime Minister said in substance, ‘he will demand a republic. I will answer that it is impossible. Then there will be a basis for negotiations!'

As Governor Glynn had to return to the United States at once, he asked me to carry the invitation to Mr. De Valera; but as I had to leave for Paris, Mr. John McH. Stuart, another London correspondent, was entrusted with the historic invitation to the ‘President of the Irish Republic.’ ‘Other offers I have received,’ said De Valera, ‘but none so propitious as this.’ On the other hand, both Mr. Kerr and Sir Basil Thomson said that the Prime Minister had expressed himself as being more satisfied, after his talk with Glynn, that peace with Ireland was possible, than he had ever been during the years in which he had carried the responsibility for the Irish policy of the British Government.

During the succeeding days I made strenuous efforts to have the British Government lift the ban on the movements of Archbishop Mannix, so as to permit, him to visit Ireland. Someone, was needed to convince the Irish Republican leaders that this was their opportunity, as it was Lloyd George’s, to enter into a conference as official representatives of Dàil Eireann. I had many conversations with the archbishop, whose addresses in the United States, only a few months before, had kindled fires of indignation throughout two hemispheres. Although hitherto one of the most uncompromising of Republicans, he believed that the Sinn Fein leaders should negotiate.

I pleaded with Scotland Yard and Downing Street, until the matter was finally taken up by the Cabinet. The Viceroy, Viscount FitzAlan, was asked to make inquiries in Ireland as to whether the archbishop would be welcome; but word came on the eve of his departure from Australia, that his fellow churchmen in Ireland did not wish him to come over!

VI

‘Can Governor Glynn deliver the goods?’

This was the British Government’s query, in substance. Mr. Lloyd George had stated repeatedly that he wanted to deal with a representative of Sinn Fein who could get results.

At the time of the interview between Lloyd George and Glynn, the Prime Minister had all the advantages. He had been advised by Scotland Yard that Mr. De Valera had cabled to the United States, and had asked the Sinn Fein leaders there whether he should make peace. The reply had not yet come. What would be the effect, of Glynn’s recommendations in Dublin and New York? Peace rested for the time being in his hands.

Until he received Glynn’s message, De Valera was uncertain about the Irish in America. To learn their views, he sent a secret letter to the diplomatic agent of Sinn Fein in Paris, requesting him to cable to a private code address in Philadelphia a business telegram which he enclosed. A copy of this letter reached Scotland Yard. Attempts were made to interpret it. Mr. De Valera stated that the ‘firm’ needed a million dollars to ‘carry on’ under the ‘present management.’ He asked whether there should be a change in the ‘board of directors.’ The cable itself bore no evidence of politics or peace, as it was signed ‘Godfather.’ The American, however, was asked to cable ‘ Donnelly, Bacon-Curer, Dublin.’ This made it easy for Scotland Yard; and for five days the British Secret Service watched every message consigned to that address.

De Valera’s letter, with Scotland Yard’s interpretation, was placed before the Prime Minister. Sir Basil Thomson believed that in this cable De Valera was informing his Irish associates in the United States that one million dollars was needed to carry on the war, and that, if the Americans cabled that the ‘board of directors’ was to be changed, it meant that De Valera was to make peace.

The fatal reply came on March 14. The Philadelphian had sent it to Montreal, to be dispatched to Ireland. The cable was signed ‘Daddy,’ and in the form of a business message it said that only twenty thousand pounds were available immediately, and added that ‘a change in the board of directors now will wreck the firm. Carry on with present officials.’

Scotland Yard interpreted this to mean that the Irish in the United States did not want to make peace. The British Cabinet came to the same conclusion, and all confidential British advices from Ireland indicated that the peace movement would collapse.

It was in this way that the decision shifted from London to Dublin, and here it remained until the third pilgrim whom I mentioned at the beginning of this paper arrived in England from South Africa.

The whole world knows the story of events, from the day when General Smuts made his first journey to Ireland until the peace treaty was finally signed. With two exceptions, these negotiations are already a matter of history, and no attempt will be made now to review them.

Suffice it to add that Mr. Glynn was the first to convince Mr. Lloyd George, and General Smuts was the peacemaker who persuaded De Valera and Collins.

Upon the foundation of secret interviews and meetings which had extended over more than fifteen months, these two men built the skeleton structure for the Irish Free State. Both continued their good work, — Governor Glynn in the United States, and General Smuts with the Imperial Conference, — with the result that the final treaty met with the approval of the whole world, until De Valera bolted his own party.

The secret history would not be complete, however, without further reference to the patient efforts of John S. Steele, another American correspondent. He was in Dublin during that crisis which came on the eve of the truce between the British Army and the I.R.A. Patrick Moylett, a business man of Galway, and a Sinn Fein friend of Steele’s, joined hands with him when he negotiated the final truce with A. W. Cope, Assistant. Undersecretary in Dublin Castle. Thus, throughout the entire period of negotiations which brought about the Irish Free State, American correspondents and other American citizens were bringing the enemies of seven tragic centuries toget her.

And Michael Collins, the hero of the Irish rebellion, whom the British would have executed two years ago, lived to act as one of the leading Irish plenipotentiaries.

Throughout the negotiations with the British Cabinet, he sat at the table as an equal of any; but he never forgot, although he long ago forgave, Mr. Lloyd George’s repeated denunciation of him as a ‘gunman.’ When the London conferences ended, and the Irish delegates left the conference room in Downing Street, Collins walked over to a comer where there was an American rifle, the first manufactured in the United States for the World War, presented to Mr. Lloyd George by President Wilson. This he picked up, while the Cabinet watched in amazement. Walking over to Mr. Lloyd George’s chair, he sat down and said to the ministers : —

‘Now, the Prime Minister can take a photograph of a gunman! ’

Afterwards, for the first time during the long conference, the British and Irish statesmen shook hands! Peace had been signed.

When I went to England early in 1920, I met in Sir William Tyrrell’s office, in the Foreign Office, a British civil servant, Mr. C. J. Philips, Lord Curzon’s chief assistant in Irish affairs, who predicted that ‘within three years Ireland will be a republic in everything but name. Within less time than that all the British troops will be out of Ireland.’

It was a bold prophecy, but to-day it is fulfilled. Ireland is a republic in everything but name. She may still be Janus-headed, but as the slow forces of economic life bring the North and South together, and as a new national consciousness evolves in the South, Ireland will become a compact, industrious nation, united in peace as she was in war.