THE EXAMPLE OF IRELAND

New Zealand Tablet, 12 October 1916, Page 45

THE EXAMPLE OF IRELAND

AN OPEN LETTER TO MR. ASQUITH. The events of the past few months laid upon your shoulders a burden which it is the duty of all loyal subjects of these islands to share (says the Rev. Vincent McNabb, 0.P., in an open letter to the Prime Minister, published in the rlcisc/ow Observer'). As our suffrage has given you the charge which you are honorably fulfilling, we should not be doing our duty towards our democratic forms of government and towards you if we did not venture to offer you the help of facts and points of view which the present crisis may obscure. In the confused thought almost necessarily begotten by this crisis it may easily be concluded that the people of Ireland’" are so prone to revolution that they are not enamored or capable of the stable forms of government. Therefore it behoves you to remember that the Irish Catholic peopleto speak of those with whom by birth and faith lam allied—far from being of this revolutionary and uncivilised character, have shown the nineteenth century an example of law-abid-ing agitation perhaps unparalleled in the history of the century. The first example of this arose at the time of the Fenian Movement. A body of Irishmen, goaded to madness by the callousness that had led to the crime of the Famine, formed themselves into a secret society. Everywhere the society was joined by active members or passive well-wishers. So strong did it become that England’s danger would have been Fenian Ireland’s opportunity. Now, although coercion was used with an unsparing hand by the governing authorities, it was not _ coercion but the Catholic Church that killed Fenianism. You will remember that the Church and all loyal subjects of the Church condemned Fenianism as being a society with a secret oath which no Catholic could take. Irishmen who became Fenians found themselves cut off by the stern justice-dealing hand of the Church from Absolution and Communion. To the men and women whom their country’s woes had driven to Fenianism the Church said with almost callous peremptoriness: ‘ If you join a Fenian society you will be outlawed from God’s Sacraments. You must try to right your country’s wrongs through the lawful channels which God has given you ; and these are Parliamentary agitation.’ It was a hard command either to give or to obey. But the spiritual leaders of the people gave it; and their loyal flock nobly obeyed it. Many years after the death of Fenianism, when Parliamentary agitation had done little or nothing and the country’s manhood was still bleeding to death by emigration, the people clutched for a time the social weapon of ‘ Boycotting.’ It was a less glaringly criminal expedient than Fenianism. Moreover, judged from the purely political standpoint it was evidently allowable, since the belligerents on both sides of this war are already planning an after-war boycott of their enemies. But what the nations seem to consider lawful the Church of God considered unlawful. Boycotting was condemned by the Catholic Church, and boycotting ceased to exist. In issuing this condemnation to their flocks the Catholic bishops and clergy of Ireland reminded them that whilst there were means of Parliamentary action the Irish people must not fly to other means for their political ends.' It was not this end, but the adopted means to this end, which fell under the Church’s condemnation. Once again it was a hard matter for those that commanded and those that obeyed; but both alike gave Europe an example of abiding by law. Some few years had passed when a third, and, we may hope, a last, outbreak of indiscreet political ’zeal prompted the Irish people and the National Party to the Plan of Campaign. Judged by mere canons of political ethics, the Plan of Campaign, like boycotting, was a lawful,- if extreme, political device. But the

authorities in Rome, urged, it is said, by the party then in power at Westminster, condemned the Plan of Campaign., The blow was all the more unbearable because the men and women of Ireland were told that it was struck in opposition to the opinion of the Irish Catholic Hierarchy. But the Catholics of Ireland had received so many priceless gifts from the* See of Peter that after the first moment of dismay they gathered themselves to obedience; and the Plan of Campaign followed Fenianism and boycotting into the region of unavailable political methods. Seldom in the history of Christianity had a hierarchy put their flock’s loyalty to such a strain; seldom had a flock risen to such heights of loyal obedience. The plea that had been urged twice before was once more urged to the dismayed flock. Irishmen were beckoned into the lawful ways of political agitation; and in those lawful ways they have abode with a political unity which has been the envy and dismay of the other Parliamentary parties. In a few years, by the blessing of God and by the enlightened statesmanship of the Government which you had called into being, the lawful political action of the Irish Nationalist. Party placed a Home Rule Bill upon the Statute Book of the British Parliament, without the shedding of a single drop of English or Irish blood. Roma locuia est; causa finita est. Rome had spoken to guide the Irish people into ways of peace.; and Ireland had won the victory of obedience. From this picture of lawful political • action commanded by a high religious motive, I ask you, Sir, to turn to another less pleasing picture. There was, and is, another small minority of Irishmen, chiefly in the North of Ireland, who had never known any hardships except those of an ascendancy; and to whom for the most part a spiritual over-lordship was unthinkable. The passing of the Home Rule Bill was not for them a grievance, but a mere threat of grievance. Yet what happened ? Did this little minority gladly welcome the decision of the nation s ultimate voice Did their spiritual authorities copy the peace-loving commands of their Catholic fellow-ministers and counsel the minority to seek redress only through lawful Parliamentary action ? You know, Sir, how futile these questions seem. Instead of appealing loyally to Parliamentary action, for a term of years, as their Nationalist fellowcountrymen had done, they appealed at once to the sword ! They organised. They armed. They drilled. Our papers were full of pictures showing these sturdy fellow-countrymen of mine at summer manoeuvres, perfect in personnel and equipment down to hospital nurses and machine-guns ! Moreover, appeal was made to that great nation which has almost brought about our country’s downfall ; and Germany generously responded by sending arms and ammunition into one of these islands. You, Sir, know who it was that made that appeal, which sent the first German war material into one of these islands. It seems but yesterday that these men, many of whom have received the nation’s honors, sowed the wind. To-day not Ireland only, but the trembling Empire is reaping the whirlwind. Thus for the first time the religious elements of Irish Nationalism were unable to restrain the sword. If anything could have endangered the obedience which Catholic Ireland has given to its religious teachers, it was this appeal of the Northern minority to the Sword. For, strange to say, the appeal to the sword was successful. At once there arose amongst the minority and the friends of the minority what was little less than treason ,and arose where treason should least appear. Things reached such a pass that we had the exaggerated bee-innings of the Conscientious Objector, within the Army itself. The climax was reached when the Com-mander-in-Chief, Lord Roberts himself, publicly urged his friends to disobey the ultimate tribunal of the ; country, the Parliament. Such action has been called

by the sacred name of loyalty. But if this is loyalty, why has any subject of these islands, been shot as a traitor ? Then, and only then, it became impossible to restrain the Nationalist feeling. In times past they had been restrained by the thought that their desires would be granted if - they remained faithful to Parliamentary action. Half a century of Parliamentary action had given them a Billwhich the Northern minority were showing to be but a scrap of paper. But a few months of sword-action had given the minority almost everything they wanted ! It was the grim logic of facts; which to-day is written in the ruins of Dublin. But, Sir, it will be part, and a consistent part, of your statesmanship to recognise that in spite of the small group of desperate thinkers, whom the sight of sword-victory had driven to folly, the faithful people of Ireland have set the highest example of law-abiding political action to .the Empire and the world. And God grant that it may be the crowning act of your political life, not unfruitful in deeds of national worth, to calm the startled steeds of Irish national life and to yoke them once more with their fellow-Gaels across the seas in the vast empire which is largely the harvest of their force of mind and soul. Vincent McNabb, O.l*.