CONSTITUTIONAL AGITATION

New Zealand Tablet, 23 January 1919, Page 10

CONSTITUTIONAL AGITATION

(By D. Macdonnell, in the Catholic Bulletin.) We are constantly told by politicians that many and great victories have been gained by Ireland over England by what is known as ‘constitutional agitation.” They produce a record of such victories, generally beginning with Catholic Emancipation and winding up with the Laborers’ Cottages, When a doctrine is acceptable to a large number of people, though acceptable perhaps for widely different reasons, it is extraordinary what easy credence it obtains : and this theory of the success of constitutional agitation in Ireland is pleasant to many people. The honest but timid patriot is pleased to believe such is the case, while the man who finds it his interest to uphold the British connection is delighted to point out how the country has only to make known her grievances and declare her wishes by constitutional means to have the one redressed and the other supplied. It is a doctrine which justifies the apathetic, brands the more passionate as irrational, and has the special advantage of placing England in the position of a just judge, only needing that the case should be clearly stated to command that justice be done. No wonder that such a doctrine has been accepted with little inquiry. Now no one can, nor desires to, deny that concessions, beneficial to the bulk of the Irish people, have been frequently extorted from reluctant British Governexits by the moral pressure of organised Irish opinion : but there is one point which is, I think, habitually overlooked: every concession so gained (with one exception to which I will refer later) has been gained by one section or class of the Irish _ people over, and at the expense of, another section or class of the nation; with the one exception, England has not paid. The solitary exception, the bright, -particular star in the dark sky of Ireland’s history, was the national legislative independence wrested in 1782, by Grattan and the Volunteers, wrested when England was exhausted by her unsuccessful struggle with America and filled with fears at the possibility of a French invasion. In no international treaty would guarantees be required more ample than those then given by England as to the permanence of this independence, yet 18 years later it was torn to pieces. We have, however, numerous instances of agitations, organised for some local or national (not international) object, winning their way when they had grown powerful enough to cause disquiet or inconvenience to our British rulers ; or even when two organisations in Ireland are struggling in rivalry, whichever party is the stronger, better equipped or better organised, is fairly safe to gain the support of England always assuming that it is a question which affects Ireland exrluxivehf. If the transfer of the mail service from Queenstown, which, occurred just before the outbreak of the present war, had been a question between two Irish ports—let us say, between Queenstown and Galway—England would have stood aloof until she had seen which town had the larger measure of popular support, then thrown her vote on that side; and the triumphant seaport 'would have hailed it as “another constitutional success.” In the question of the mail transfer English interests were affected, so England took another course. In spite of the overwhelming legal rights of the Irish town, in spite of the incontrovertible and practically uncontradicted evidence of naval experts, England carried off the “unconstitutional” victory by the primitive, disavowed but still secretly loved method that “ ... they shall take who have the power, And they shall keep who can.” ■ Of the “ Constitutional "triumphs” oyer which Ireland is so often bidden to rejoice, one of the greatest was the Catholic Emancipation Act. It was a . triumph gained from a bitterly hostile Government, • a bigoted Ascendancy party and an opposing native aristocracy.

It has always been cited as the crown of legal" and j con- . stitutional agitation, and one that no leader less gifted than O'Connell could have gained. It changed the position of the Catholic portion (which was the far greater portion) of the Irish population towards the Protestant portion, but it did not change the position of either with regard to England. It set the Irish Catholic on an equality (theoretically, at any rate) with the Irish Protestant in the eyes of the laws which England had made, but it did not give either - power to change or modify any of those same laws. The Irish Catholic could compete with his fellow-countrymen of any creed in trade or profession, but should his competitions in either clash with English interests England had not yielded an iota of her power to trample down such competition. And in after times, whenever it has so clashed, she has used that power. O'Connell brought constitutional agitation to a degree of perfection which has never been surpassed by this country at any other period, or by any other country at any period. Lecky, an historian with no love for O'Connell, acknowledged that for leading and controlling a political organisation, no leader in the world's history surpassed him. During his gigantic agitation for Repeal it is computed that at Tara and other monster meetings the assembly numbered, not thousands nor tens of thousands, but hundreds of thousands j yet so orderly were the proceedings, so well controlled those vast crowds, that there was afforded no pretext for military interference. By such tactics O'Connell had won Catholic Emancipation. Through the constitutional mouthpiece of the ballot box had an awakened Ireland spoken and her voice had been heard and obeyed, and the penal laws blotted from thepages of her law books. Fifteen years had passed between the decisive election of Clare in 1828, and the monster meeting called to meet at Clontarf m 1843; 15 years which might reasonably be thought to have made for the progress of freedom and justice even in British minds. The same men— and Wellington—whom O'Connell had conquered before were the men whom he had to confront again. Little wonder that O'Connell believed that the methods by which he had won his glorious fight could not fail him now. He forgot that the victory he had won was the victory ol the Irish Catholic over the Irish Protestant; the victory which he had set out to win would have been the victory of the Irish over the English nation the later organisation, far stronger and more completely organised than that which had won Catholic Emancipation, proved powerless to win national freedom. O Lonnell showed no less prudence and restraint than he had done during the previous struggle. Lawyer as well as statesman, acts of violence appealed neither to his character nor his judgment, so he would not permit any course of action which would give the Government a legal justification for interference. To suit her own purpose England defied her own laws: she declared O'Connell's lawful acts illegal. The events of that time do not. need to be recalled to Irish readers: the proclaimed meeting at Clontarf, which but for O Connell s exertions would have been a massacre, his subsequent arrest and release with one foot in the grave—ma word, the ruin of himself and his constitutional agitation by unconstitutional methods. The Land Acts are the more modern monuments of renewed constitutional agitation. The triumph of the Irish tenant farmer involved the rum of the Irish landlord. latter, as a class, did so little good to Ireland that there is no need to drop tears over his ; grave: but the fact remains that in the Irish land struggles, whichever side lost or gained, England was not Sled on to suffer; she was the judge, but not the paymaster. In the land question Parnell triumphed—a nara struggle auu «* g^ o,j '"""'J , ~ t . i struggle between class and class, between the Irish oppressed and the Irish oppressor: it let the question of nationhood alone. The agitation for self-government was proceeding when the cloud which had darkened Parnell's life-path deepened and blackened his political sky and burst in thunder over startled Ireland. We have been told,

and told again, that only for that catastrophe and the consequent “split” Ireland’s legislative freedom had been achieved. This is, and must ever remain, mere supposition. Had Parnell never loved unwisely Ireland’s story would perhaps have beerl the same. He had come within sight,°of the-goal— had O’Connell; the might-have-beens of history are a sealed book. If Parnell had not given a weapon against himself we have no assurance but that some other weapon as fatal would have been found or forged for his destruction before he had been allowed to snatch the prize. One, indeed, had been forged previously, and failed, in the Times Commission. Had his unscrupulous accusers not then failed ignominiously to attach any degree of guilt to Parnell there can hardly be a doubt that he and probably his lieutenants would have suffered the extreme penalty. The subsequent divorce proceedings which eventuated in his undoing would not have been necessary, and the story through them unfolded would have been heard only in connection with some mysterious Diary such as was whispered .about in relation to Roger Casement when he was not in a position to disprove the characteristic concoctions by which it was sought to sully his good name. Slander is a familiar means of discrediting, or attempting to discredit, Irish leaders, living and dead. O’Connell did not escape it. Even in our own day men and women very dear to the Irish heart have been slandered most persistently, and one deplores having to complain that it is not the work of England’s agents alone, but that Irish Catholics, and not always lay Catholics, lend themselves to the dissemination of the slander. Future historians will find it hard to convince their readers that the Ministry which ruled Great Britain at the commencement of the present war ever intended that any form of self-government should come into operation in Ireland. It is sufficient to review mentally the delays at every stage, the connivance of Carson’s illegalities, and finally the transparently engineered Curragh strike. To sum up: no permanent concession of Irish freedom, however logically incontestable, however morally undeniable, will be yielded by a British Government in normal times. All the eloquence, reasoning, and moral force of Irish feeling are as waves spending themselves on the rock of English interests. This seems a dispiriting doctrine, but there is no wisdom in ignoring a truth because it is unpleasing; and in ignoring this lies a special danger. As has been already said, when Irish interests are alone concerned the moral, force of constitutional agitation has proved strong enough not only to win but to hold : the penal laws have never' been renewed; the Land Acts have never been repealed. When British interests are touched we need a surety stronger than our moral strength to guard our rights; the national freedom won by Grattan was shamelessly withdrawn when England was strong enough to break her pledge. '