THE SOUL OF IRELAND

NZ Truth, Issue 817, 9 July 1921, Page 5

THE SOUL OF IRELAND

That very able writer, Prank Harris, editor, "Pearson's Magazine," was formerly the editor of London "Vanity Fair," of the "Fortnightly Review," and of the "Saturday -Review." He has written several -works on Shakespeare ("The Man , Shakespeare" and "The Women of Shakespeare"). Like his work, "The. Man- Shakespeare," his "IAtQ of Oscar Wilde" is likely to , be a standard authority for many^years to cattle. His latest journalistic work prior to,. his .leaving the Big Smoke for IMurka, <was the editorship of the "Oandifi Friend," a periodical which he founded. In "Pearson's Magazine", for May,.. there is an artlcleiby the no, fable. Irish littera-, tour* George -jW. Russell, who Is better Known a» "A.E." Harris says of this article: Tfcl»4a thebesVjthe MdSOJ ORICHNAIi 1 AND ' TRUTHTEJLLttta article I have received In my forty years as editor. It is a ■decidedly fine and brilliant literary essay, and throws ,a flood of necessary ligfct on the. great and persistent struggle of the Irish people. for legislative Independence. It is here reproduced: . ■ The genius of a Dostoevsky or N a Balzao may make the character and action of individuals Intelligible to US. but .who can truly illuminate the myriad being of a nation' so that it may be seen mas clear a light. Most thoughtful men approach the. aoul of the individual with awe, but millions light-heartedly attempt to explain the character of a natipri. If batrfteen myself arid Heaven I had to confess about Ireland I would adroit I know nothing truly of its people, though' I am of them. I cannot explain to "myself .how thought quickens m. my brain; and if thought or vision ceased I would not know (how. to kindle them, so far beyond our conscious life are the real eprings of imagination and thought. We know little about ourselves or our race because half the story of life has not yet been told arid only the fool is dogmatic. But, though we may not have understanding or certainty, we must act, and that necessity is also laid upon nations, and it « m this mood of humanity I write about the actions of my countrymen among whom I 'have lived for the 54 years of my life observant of them, as my nature allows. What is the root of the Irish trouble? The Irish people want to be free. Why 'do they desire freedom? I think it is because they feel In themselves a genius which "has riot yet been manifested m a civilisation— as Greek, Roman, arid Egyptian have m the past externalised their genius In a isociety whh a culture, arts, and sciences peculiar to themselves. It is the same impulse which leads an imaginative boy to escape all the traps a conventional family ,set for him, They wish him to be a doctor, to enter one of the moneymaking professions. All reason is with them. But the boy hears MUSIC IN HIS SOUL, Jmd it calls him out of the beaten track. He will say: "I believe the healer's profession is a noble one. I <lo not despise it. But I wish to be a musician." What is it makes the boy cling to music whether his talent be great or little? We surmise .biological orspiritual necessity and his disease is beyond our healing. Force him to attend the wards and he will be a sulky student, a bad doctor, and he will hate With a bitter hatred those who forced on him a profession alien to his nature. If we understand the • passion of the boy to be himself, we can understand the passion of the Irish nation for freedorii. It will not listen to reasonable people who assure it, perhaps truly, that British dulture and civilisation are on the vhole as good as any. It is not a civilisation Irish people desire for themselves. The theory and practice of empire are hateful to them. The mingling of Norman and Saxon with the Gael which "came with the invaBions and plantations has not brought about a change of feeling. The new race made out of the union of Saxon, Dane, Morman, and Gael is still dominated by the last, and It looks back to pure Gael as to an ancestral self. The more complex mentality brdught about by the commingling of .natures is at the service of ..Ireland and not of its conquerors. The Irish have shown by three hopeless rebellions m every century how .loathsome to them is the character to which British statesmen would mould them. I believe that an-, tagonism springs from biological and spiritual necessity. Js it good or evil? I cannot say. The moralist mme will hear of nothing but a brotherhood of humanity, and race hatreds are abhorrent to it.. The artist m me delights m varieties of culture and civilisation, and it tells me it is well worth some bloodshed -to save the world from being "engirdled with Brixton;" the DREADFUL OUTCOME OF IMPERIALISM which George Moore foresaw m one of his Irish and more lucid intervals. I do not believe it is possible to make contented Britons out of Irishmen. The military efforts to effect this are vain as the effort of a madman to rhange a stiamrock into an. oak tree . by pricking it with a needle. In spite of all the proddings of British bayonets the people born m Ireland will still be Irish. The nationality is a real -thing. -They, are one of the oldest races m the world, so old that their legends go back to the beginning of time and they have their own myths of creation. There is m Gaelic a literature with '! epic and heroic tales as im;**ina/ive as any m the world. The fb.-/t that for the past 80. years the majority of Irish people speak English has but superficially modified Irish character. A nation is a long enduring being, and the thin veneer or another culture spread Over it for a couple of generations affects it as little as the Americanism of a young man would be affected who lived m Florence for a year and learned to speak Italian. The Gaelic culture still inspires all that is best Jrt Irish literature anti Irish life. There nre writers like Yeats, Syiige, Hyde, and Stephens who might have won but little repute had they riot turned back and bathed m the Gaelic tradition and their souls been made shining and many-colored by the contact. The hist great Champion of the Gaelic tradition was Padraic Pearse, who led THE ■ ASTONISHING ENTERPRISE of Easter Week,* 191 G. Pearse had made his soul out of the heroic literature of 1 the Gael, and when I think of what he did and how Ireland reeled after him, I recall the words of Standish O'Grady, an earlier prophet of the Gaelic tradition, who wrote of its heroes and demigods: "Not yet lost Js their power to. quicken, to exalt, to purify. Still they live and reign and shall' reign." That national tradition which moved Pearse and his 'associates animates the Sinn Feiners who succeeded him. The average man 'may not guess the thoughts Which move the mightier of liis kind, „and, the same elements are Jn his being and he obeyf^the call when ft is made. The first thing to realise, then, if you would understand Ireland to-day, Is that the Irish people are

THE INNER AND THE OUTER ' NATION

I How the Present Positidß Appears to A Pacifist "1 f.'S" (GEORGE W. RISSELI) "ORIGINAL AND TfiUTH REVEALING ARTICLE "

truly a nation with a, peculiar cultural or sph-itual ancestry; that its genius for hundreds pt years has been denied free national expression, and the. passion f or . f reedom is more intense today than it has been. We- do not expect from Italy, France, Germany, or Britain anything different m character from what they have already given to the world. They are like artists who have accustomed, the public to a certain character m their work. They have done perhaps the best it. was m them to do. But people like. the, lrish, the Russians, and the new n a ti° ns m the new world have yet to . give jto the world the best which is. m them. They are- like the Greeks before Pericles, Phidias, Sophocles, Plato, and all that famous life whose after-coming justified A SMALL CITY STATE m resisting the domination of a great empire. Ireland through Sinn Fein ia fighting for freedom to manifest the Irish genius. I feel this is the root of the matter. If there was not an incorruptible spiritual atom of nationality m the Irishman he. would never have suff er&d and sacrificed for so many centuries*! Wh§n ,1 r stress the spiritual it is not because I # '.am unmindful of material grievances or do not know the economic case', which can be made against the .continuance of British rule, ,The economic case can be better uriderstobd by most,, though I do not think Ireland would have been

troubled by rebellions at all if its peopha had not a distinct national dhafacter, if they did not see a different eternity from the Briton, yet the majority of Irishmen will stress economic grievances, most m conversation. It is ludicrous of British 'advocates to speak of Ireland as. a country grown prosperous, under British rule when it is the only country m Europe whose population has been halved m living memory. Poland or Alsace under their alien rulers increased m population as m wealth.- The population of Ireland has dwindled from 8;0b0,0q0 to a little over 4,000,000 people. Even the /province so dear to British imagination, even Ulster, has lost as high a percentage of its; people by emigration as any other province m the last 80 years. WHY WAS THIS? Because ycajf by year the surplus revenues of Ireland arid. the wealth creaated were sucked by its vampire neighbor and expended on .Great Britain.. At'tlie present time the revenues of "Ireland, over sLnd above expenditure on Irish services, which are retained by the Bratijtfi Government and spent m Britain, helping' to keep Bri-. tons alive, would suffice, without the imposition of an extra penny taxation, to maintain a population of 1,000,000 more people" m Ireland. 'The British Government, according to the last Treasury return, taxes Ireland up to £50,615,000. Of this £29,221,000 on its showing was spent on Irish services which were largely oppressive and unnecessary, and £21,394,000 was retained for British use, Truly, they find Ireland a profitable possession. I ask- Americans to think what would be their economic plight if Germany had conquered the United States and exported half the American revenues yearly to Germany' to be spent there. Would not your economic system decay? If m any country the revenues, are exported the population must also be exported-. "Workmen must go where wages can be paid. The Home Rule which the British GoVernment offers — nay, which it thrusts upon Ireland, for not one single Irish representative, Unionist or Nationalist, has cast a vote m favor of it — is worse for Ireland than the Act of Union. It reduces Ireland to complete economic powerlessress. Instead of 102 members at Westminster to safeguard Irish interests, the number is reduced to 42, yet I Great Britain retains control over trade policy, the imposition and collection of taxation, and a tribute ,to Great Britain OF £18;000,000 a YEAR is a first charge upon Irish revenues. It also takes power to increase this tribute m the future if it finds Ireland has any further surplus of wealth to be appropriated. The British Government is determined, that the Irish export of revenue and population shall continue. The present Viceroy and the last Chief Secretary said all the trouble m Ireland was caused by young men remaining m Ireland who ought to have emigrated. Failing, their duty to Great Britain to clear out of Ireland, the Government last year gathered together some thousands of the more dissolute heroes of the Great War and sent ■ them to Ireland to wreak any unexpended heroism on that country.' The excesses committed by these men have been unfavorably compared, even by British publicists of repute, with, the worst which has bpen done under the Czardom or the old Turks. . The great movement promoted by Sir Horace Plunket for the organisation of the farmers has suffered .by this orgy of militarism. About fifty of the dairy and agricultural societies haA r e had "their premises wrecked or burned-, and the Government .refuses any public inquiry into the acts done by its servants. Has this terrorism effected its ostensible purpose, which was to make

Ireland contentedly accept British rule? 1 believe it has ; ONLY HARDENED IRISH OPINION and the only effect I can see is. a deeper nausea at the thought of union with Great Britain. The Irish character anciently was full of charm. The, people were imaginative, and sympathetic, the best talkers possible, but their power of sympathy , and understanding, their capacity of seeing both sides of a case, made them politically weak. The oppression of the last six years has made a deep, and, I believe, an enduring, change m that character. It ha,s Strengthened the will. The. political rebels I meet to-day are the highest types of Irishmen I have met m my life of 54 years. I think of these young men, so cheerful, so determined, so self-sacrificing, and I grow more and more confident that something great must come out of a race which produces such men m multitude. I think the rank and file are even finer than their ,, leaders. But perhaps I should not say that. The real leaders, are unknown almost. It is not a time when orators can make, their' voices,:, heard. The press publishes a daring. utterance only at the. risk of suppression, and many papers have been suppressed. It is impossible to hold political meetings. Those who lead and inspire are nameless and WORK IN SECRET. They can only "convince, by. their presence." . But I divine ardent and selfless leadership because of the spirit of the rank and file, just as when I see the clouds warm at, dawn I know the glow comes from, a yet -hidden sun. The Paddy of British caricature, based ■on the Handy Andys, Micky Frees, and Charlie Q'Malleys of old novels, if there ever were originals pf this type, have certainly left no successors. I find only a quiet, . determined, . much enduring people, so little given, to speech that it is aliriost impossible, to find among Sinn Feiners an orator who would attract a crowd or speak of Irish wrongs as the Redmonds, Sextonsi O'Briens. and Dillons of the last generation did, Ireland has become for the 'present all will. I have no doubt when a settlement comes that the ancient, charms of imagination and sympathy will be renewed, but they will spring out of a /leeper life, and literature, art, and society will gain, I am trying to explain the" mood .of my countrymen to-day. I, think highly of them, but I, do not think. Ireland is by any means an Island of Saints, and things have been done, by Irishmen which I, at least, will not. attempt' to defend. That may be .because I am a pacifist by nature, arid I preferipto use intellectual and spirituals forces rather than physical, force. But it Is only fair to say that two .years of raids, arrests, and imprisonments, of which there were many thousands, . PRECEDED THE ADOPTION . of their present methods by the Volunteers. If it ever is right to use physical 'forge, which I doubt, because I feel there are other ways by which, right can find its appropriate might, then, when considering , the ' tragic happenings during the past year m Ireland, praise or condemnation can only rightly be awarded when we have decided who have a right to, govern Ireland — the Irish people or the British people. But where does the right of Britain to govern Ireland come from? On what is it based? Not on the will of the Irish people certainly. On ancient 'ipossession? But it is not generally conceded that a burglar who has long had stolen property is the more entitled to it the longer he possesses it. . ' . "Oh," it will be. said, "there is Ulster!" Ulster is Unionist. Even m that province the balance of opinion Is so even that the whole province could not be included m an Ulster Parliament lest it might at once vote itself m with a Southern. Parliament. It is certain that if the Ulster counties were allowed to A'ote freely whether they would unite .with Nationalist Ireland not more than four would remain out, and I think it highly probable that only three would so vote. This would., make the partition of Ireland so ludicrous that free voting was not allowed,, and counties predominantly Sinn; Fein .were included against .their' wish with the Ulster Unionist counties: The British Government which' partitioned Ireland 'ostensibly because the Ulster people desired it, didMiot dare to allow a vote to be taken by the people m the counties included. I think the British Government desired to retain : ' A GARRISON IN- IRELAND. The aristocracy were first its garrison. With the downfall of feudalism the aristocracy lost its power, and a new garrison had to be. found, so Ulster was informed that Nationalist Ireland would tyrannise over it and rob it, and -the "two nation" theory was started m Great Britain, and given effect to m the last Home Rule Bill.' I think, the Government has overreached itself," and m three years Ulster, even the now Unionist Ulster, will be as strongly ailti-British as the rest of Ireland. , If a contented Ulster garrisdn was wanted, the financial provisions of the Act should have been sucH as recommended themselves to Ulster business men. But the six countries, after providing 1 for their own services, have to pay a tribute of £7,920,000 to Great Britain yearly. This sum was' fixed m a time of inflated prices and profits, when shipbuilding and the manufacture of linen for aeroplanes during the war gave Ulster a fictitious and temporary prosperity. Now its textile industry is m a very bad way, and there are thousands of unemployed. The Belfast Chamber of Commerce declared that the whole of Ireland could not rightly pay a larger tribute than £5,000,000. The- fact that six Ulster countries have to find that and more than half as much again will. 'if I know my Ulster countrymen, .work . LIKE MADNESS IN THE BRAIN. They, will see. the wealth they create drained away every year to be spent m Britain to pay British workingmen, while their own are unemployed. No; the Ulster problem is not really serious- If it was the British Government would have let Ulster counties vote according to their desires. Is there any possibility ■ of a settlement? I think Ireland truly desires to be at peace with its neighbor, and once it achieved the freedom it dej sired, it would forget the past. Great Britain is the natural market for Irish products.. All Irishmen recognise that. Irishmen can get along quite well with individual Britons, ' who are good fellows as a rule. But Britain, as represented by* its Government, , they mistrust, and' will have nothing to do witlf. What -is. to be~ the end. of the Anglo-Irish conflict? I do not know. I am inclined to think that as between Ireland and Great Britain there never will be any settlement. The last is too greedy for Irish money and trade to let them slip out of its control, and> too terrified of a powerful Irish nation alongside it to allow Ireland freedom to develop and increase its population to the 10 or 12 millions who might naturally inhabit it. Ireland, as its history shows, will be content with

nothing less than complete freedom over its own affairs. ONLY SOME THIRD FACTOR arising- out of world circumstances can male© that f reedpra jpossible; it is not that British statesmen- could not m the past have made Ireland friendly and contented, inside the. British Commonwealth, but they would not. When they .dealt with- Ireland they co,uld not rise, to the noble.. conception of their empire as a commonwealth of. .free nations, developing- freely .endless varieties of culture and civilisation. They allowed this m . respect of Ca v uada, .Australia, New Zealand, and South, Africa, countries they could not hope toehold long. by. physical force.. in subjection,, to 'Westminster politics. But, where the race was alien, us m Ireland, Egypt, or India, the ideal was not- upheld, and hence it is that these three countries are m a blaze against their oppressors.. I. do not think the democracy of . : one country can rightly rule the democracy, of another country. An autocrat conceivably might rule subject nations with success because the i individual can be appealed to, mpved, or educated. But who could attempt the task of : educating forty million people about the needs of another race. " It would be easier to get the mythical ca»iel througn -the eye of a needie, than to get. into' the brain of one of those forty , -miiliqnSJ&the needs of the four hundred millibars m their -empire. The drop cannot contain the ocean. No democracy, French, German, or Italian, could govern Ireland against its will with moref success, than, the British. They ! would all be forced to adopt the same methods if they Insisted on THEIR RIGHT AS OVERLORDS. I believe the British Government is prepared to Wreck every city m Ireland rather than allow Ireland the freedom it desires; No other nation is going to intervene; A man will prevent a bully kicking a Child m the street, but all nations are licensed by other nations to deal with their subject nationalities as ttiey will. The phrase, "A domestio problem." was invented to express this- license, and is a recognition of the truth Neitzche proclaimed when he said, "The State is the coldest of all cold monsters." In ancient Greece a slave who was illtreated had the right to be sold to another .master, but the subject nation has.no world tribunal to appeal to, nothing but the Master of Life, that indefinable something- we surmise m the government of the' Cosmos. So here m Ireland people endure .grimly, without hope of any other nations intervention, waiting for world circum T stances to enable them to escape from their conquerors, or for the mills of God to come at last m their grinding to the, British, Empire as they.came to the Roman Empire, the Chaldean and other empires whose sins and magnificence have sunk far behind time. I am trying to interpret the mood of my countrymen rather than to express my own -feelings. For myself. I do not care whether I am gbverned from Moscow or P.ekin if my ..countrymen are happy. I atn by profession an artist; and man of 'letters, and I find the consolations of life m things, with which Governments cannot interfere, m the light, and beauty the Earth puts forfh -for her children. The words "republic" or "empire.'.' are opaque words to me. I cannot see through them to any beauty of majesty to which they inevitably lead. But I DO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM. If the universe has any meaning at all, it exists for the purposes of soul, and men or, nations .denied essential freedom cannot fulfil theU* destiny. I do not write wishing Americans to pick a quarrel with Great Britain overIreland. But the more understanding there is, the more will the good which is latent m life become the unconquerable force m human affairs it must become if the golden years are ever to return. We can go on enduring oppression. Personally I believe the complete freedom of Ireland will come surely, and some who are now living will see it. It will come through world circumstance, not because Ireland will have grown powerful by itself to win its independence, or because Great Britain will have become generous enough to allow freedom to, the people who loathe its dominion over them. Perhaps, when Irish people have suffered enough, and paid the price m sacrifice, they will win the truly good things which come from saci-iflce- There may be a Justice which weighs the offering and has power to enforce its decrees.