“I MET WITH NAPPER TANDY”

New Zealand Tablet, 23 October 1919, Page 9

“I MET WITH NAPPER TANDY”

(By J. C. Walsh, Staff Correspondent of America in Ireland.) . . Ireland at this moment is a rather exciting place to visit. One is conscious that a struggle is going on. There are British troops at all the important strategic points, and Dublin, the most important of all, is the daily scene of military movements. On the other hand, there exists a national organisation, duly elected, which has affirmed Ireland's desire for independent political status under the republican form, and the members of this organisation, though under continual threat of arrest, go on with their work quietly and courageously. The Irish National Assembly, as we would call it, but which is invariably spoken of as "The Vail" An Dad Eireann, has its offices in Harcourt Street, in an old house once used as a residence by Cardinal Newman. As head officers of a nation they would be considered by efficiency experts as open to criticism, but perfection in office equipment is difficult to attain where, as happens in* this case, an office manager is exposed to being carried off to gaol just as soon as he has become valuable, and where the archives are forever being removed by an over-zealous police. ' Notwithstanding theso limitations the national headquarters functions surprisingly well, well enough to provide Dublin Castle, the seat of the government of Ireland direct from London, with occasion for annoyance which The Castle authorities make no attempt to conceal. At the time I reached Ireland the Vail (pronounced DhoU) leaders were living in hourly expectation of arrest. And yet they went as quietly about their work as though interruption was the least thought on their minds. Ascension Thursday, as I was calling at tho Knights of Columbus Club for mail, I saw three armored cars speeding along Bagot Street, a hundred yards away. Half an hour later, three whippet tanks, going at full speed, passed me on Leeson Street. A moment after I noticed an airplane circling overhead. I made up my mind that tho blow long expected had fallen, and that there had been a round-up of the leaders. Yet five minutes later I met Mr. de Valera carrying his little docu-ment-bag, walking along Leeson Street in company with a friend who trundled a bicycle, both apparently quite unconscious of the existence of tanks or motor-cars or airplanes anywhere in the world. I mention this incident because it brought home rather strikingly -the fact that here are two governing bodies in Ireland, each sensitively aware of the presence of the other, and" each taking its own course independently of the other. Of these, the one is definitely English, the other as definitely Irish. They both carry on. Behind the one are all the manifestations of force, behind the other all the evidences .of popular approval. Manifestly there can be no adequate appreciation of the possibilities inherent in such a situation as this, unless an effort) is made to set values to the factors which control it. So far as I have been able to gauge their importance, the elements upon which the J)ail Eircann leaders base their plans for future guidance are these: (1) Improved economic status, as compared with the incipient stages of earlier phases of the struggle this indestructible nation has made towards preserving its existence. (2) Increased intellectual resources, resulting from the graduation of hundreds of laymen and women from tho new University every year. (3) Formation of a definitely Irish character, in following upon the Gaelic movement begun about 1893, various developments of which have bound practically the whole of the younger generation in support of a common aspiration. (4) Organisation of the young men of the country so effective that reliance can bo placed upon the aggregate of militant virtues, the more so as there has been achieved a discipline, military in value, of which there has been no parallel in Ireland for more than two centuries. (5) Confidence and understanding developed in many hundreds of young men with marked gifts of leadership by their association in English prisons. (6) The completeness of Mr. Redmond's sacrifice, from which it results that nobody in Irish Ireland is willing to take any Englishman's word for anything, thus removing what might have been the most considerable doubt as to the expediency of the policy of self-reliance. 'What occurs at once to any student of the history of the two peoples is that what we see going on is a continuance in the process of the overturn .of all the policies by whose enforcement Ireland was to be, and to some extent has been, kept in subjugation by England. The process of subjugation began, about -1600, ; with the of

Irish shipping. Then, with the fall of >Ulster, the Englisl shire plan was substituted for the Irish ' federal system! Next, ■ the land was taken from ' its Irish owners and given to English planters (1650), the, Irish v becoming tenants At will and little better than serfs. Then, following the jWilhamite wars (1691), the disarming act, destroying the power of military resistance, ! the Penal Laws against the Catholic religion, plans designed further to debase the economic situation of the Irish people. In the 18th century ■England's consistent and successful policy was to destroy Irish industry and to prevent Ireland acquiring a direct exterior commerce. When the planters of 1650 resisted and sought not only to make Dublin a capital but as well to make Ireland prosperous, their Parliament was taken away from them. Finally, around 1850, the people were forced off the land, which was given over to the production of flocks and herds from which might be derived the meat needed for the dinner tables of industrial England The banished Celt fled to America. When tho wave of emigration had spent itself, the Irish language had almost disappeared. Systematic use of the .opportunity presented by the control of the school-system' eliminated tho Irish tongue from all but the most uneconomic areas, in which, however, numbers somehow contrived to subsist. ■ The process of recovery has been by stages equally well defined: Catholic emancipation (1829), Church disestablishment (1870), extension of the franchise (1885), re-possession of the land (1880-1903), local government and officially promised return of the Parliament (1886-1914). In 1893 ,'there wero the beginnings of the Gaelic movement for the restoration of the distinctive Irish character, and the familiar use of the Irish language. In 1913, thanks to Carson, the door was opened to a nullification in practice of the disarming Acts. Since 1916, under the guidance of two teachers, Padraic Pearse and Woodrow Wilson, there has been proclaimed the return of Ireland to the company of independent States. The next intensive effort is to be devoted, and that immediately to the development of Irish industry and the cultivation of exterior trade. The wheel has come full circle. There is not much use trying to comprehend what is going on in Ireland unless one has these basic and governing facts in mind. On the other hand, once their bearing is realised, it is as easy to understand the calm courage of the Vail and its supporters as it is to account for the presence of army corps, tanks, and machine-guns where their appearance can be believed to produce the maximum of intimidation. Along about 1350, if I remember aright, as Mr. Eoin Mac Neill claimed in one of his lectures on Irish history I was privileged to attend, there was set up in Dublin, alongside all the more visible elements of government, a permanent official class, whoso members are directly controlled from London, and whose function it has been through five centuries and more to maintain in Ireland the real English policy, which has been constant through all changes in the outward form of government in England, and adhered to in Ireland regardless of rivalries between Irish, Anglo-Irish, Deputies, Viceroys, Justiciaries, Parliaments, - Cabinets, and all other ostensible depositories of power. To-day the government of Ireland is altogether in the hands of men of . this class, and hardly anybody knows who they are. They are mere officials, but they are more powerful than their supposed superiors, whose policies, when the least liberal looking, they wreck with ease and in security. Since I came to Dublin the English Government of Ireland was supposed to have held a council on a yacht in Kingston -Harbour, at which Lord French, Mr. Walter Long, and Mr. lan Macpherson were present. Nothing happened. The real Government is established at Dublin Castle, not at the Vice-regal Lodge, and the present business of that real Government is to prevent tho . realisation of the projects of Dall Eireann. Its ultimate reliance is upon force, ■ but, as has been shown many times before, it has at its service all the experience of a trained and resourceful statecraft, and in the game it has played so long there are no rules that may not be broken to the end that success may be - gained. The young men of Vail know all this, know that in the struggle for their ideals they have an everpresent, an implacable and if necessary an unscrupulous opponent, but they have discounted the unpleasant possibilities and have elected to persevere. Old Admiral Fisher commented in an expansive moment after dinner the other evening that if it had not been ■ for Washington America ■might have been another Ireland. This order of moralising finds much acceptance in England a hundred and fifty years after the event. It commands none at all in Dublin Castle in the year in which every nationality in Europe is being confirmed in its right to existence as a State. When one sees what it is the present Irish leaders are trying to do, and sees clearly that the problem they are facing. is only to carry over to their generation a work which has been going steadily, and painfully forward for

ttt ai ° y T\ Xt is not difficult to account for their - attitude towards the Peace-Conference. Primarily, their ■ task faces them at home, and the difficulties there are inescapable, but wherever } they can see the possibility of an advantage to be gamed it is plainly both their right and their duty to make the most of their opportunity. The . unequivocal language of Mr. Wilson it was impossible for them to ignore They had shaped their conduct in Dublin to conform to it and had assumed all the consequent risks. They could not have stopped there. They had to present their demand to Paris. They would rightly have been blamed had they not done so. But just as their action in making independence the issue in the general election, in abstaining from attendance at Westminster, and in holding their own meetings, was dictated by the situation of Ireland in the new world-order rather than by a desire to gratify Mr. Wilson, so the failure of the Peace Conference to carry out, in respect to Ireland, the Wilson declarations left them unmoved. Self-reliance after all is the key to their action. Mr. do Valera has been criticised for giving expression to this view, but he spoke only tho truth, refrained altogether from useless bluster of protests, and with quiet good-humor accepted the reverse if reverse it was, after every effort had been made to achieve a more favorable result. There is a simple honesty of mind united with seriousness of purpose and strength of character in the new leader of the Irish people which are strongly akin to the traits we praise in Lincoln, if I am any judge. And Ireland is in no mood for pretending it has gained that which it has been openly denied. The question for. him and , his associates, therefore, as for all who are interested in Ireland's fortunes, is as to' the security of the foundations upon which the building of the next few years has to be done in face of difficulties and perplexities already present or readily foreseen. I think it may be said at once that men who are in possession of the best materials for forming a judgment, and whose experience gives warrant of their capacity for weighing the actualities and also the imponderables, are at one in certain main conclusions. First, they are agreed that the economic strength of Irish Ireland is immeasurably better fitted to maintain a serious struggle than it was, say, when O'Connell fought to remove the political disabilities from Catholics, or even when Davitt started the movement against the landlord system, which seemed to be entrenched and fortified beyond possibility of successful assault. One index is worth noting. In this last general election the necessary funds were all subscribed by the Irish people themselves, and there was always plenty. It was the first election in 40 years in which American financial assistance was neither received nor asked for. It has been suggested that those who have got' their land have lost interest in the present issues. Perhaps there are some. No community is perfect in such matters. Newspaper visitors to Ireland, if they are men without knowledge of old essentials, and apt to judge by surface appearances, are invariably asked tb believe that the Irish are a prosperous people, and ought to be, and probably will be, content with their prosperity, and careful not to endanger it. This involves a low estimate of the spirit of the Irish people, which cannot very well hold after the recent deliberate and overwhelming vote in favor of national independence. And it is also stated, and for my part I have no doubt accurately stated, that among those whose patriotic activities carry them to gaol there is a sufficient percentage of men of property as well as of men who have given other hostages to fortune. The great fund that was raised a year ago, for instance, to aid in resisting conscription by England, must have been derived mainly from those who were best able to subscribe to it. Second, it would be difficult to overrate the importance of having spread, all over Ireland men and women of university training. In the old days the priest had to shoulder alone that heavy share of the burden the intellectual must bear if there was to be hope of success. Now he has a corps of assistants and counsellors of his own calibre within easy reach, if, indeed, it is any longer necessary for him to participate as actively as in earlier days he was obliged to. Third, the solidarity and discipline of the young men of Ireland have been brought to such a state that an efficient and easilyfunctioning organisation has. been effected, adequate: for all purposes necessary to the carrying on of the self-reliance policy. The control by the military authorities of all the mechanical agencies of communication does not deprive the: leaders ;of speedy access to their friends in any i and every parish in Ireland. Finally, Ireland is not only conscious of itself, for it was always that, but sure of itself, in a way it never was before. It has become accustomed to the once strange idea of the Gaelic leaders. Not that everybody speaks Irish, though surprisingly large and continuously increasing numbers do, but many men who feel that the effort to learn the old tongue is not worth while

for their lifetimes are enthusiastic supporters of those who mean to" see that the children shall have the chance to learn. Twenty, years I of' playing Irish games, and. refusing to play garrison games, have done much to form a generation whose fibre now begins to harden. Ireland is undoubtedly well on the way to the time when it can be predicated of the first Irishman one meets, just -as it can bo now of the first Englishman, the first American, the first Frenchman one meets, precisely what his reaction will be to any suggestion involving the welfare of his country or a possible injury to it. ;.-■.. | To-day no Englishman thinks of English problems with concern for Ireland either consciously or subconsciously included in his field of thought. The Irishman, on the contrary, thinking on Irish problems, has always had England in mind, always with the consciousness of hostility, but always with the hope of fellowship. That is now by way of disappearing. Lloyd George gave it the coup clc grace when, with the report of the Irish Convention unread before him, he undertook to conscript Ireland and carried his measure through the English Parliament with tho minimum of delay required by the rules of procedure. Irishmen are studying their problems now, and feel they must study them as Irish problems, not problems for the English overlord, to solve with his money, but for themselves to work out with intelligence, patience, fortitude, and whatever other resources maybe drawn upon in Ireland's interest. As an example of this tendency may be cited the statement made to me the other day that a Dublin publisher of Irish books used to have 75 per cent, of his market outside Ireland, and that; now 80 per cent, of his sales are in Ireland. Ireland is thinking interiorly, and thinking hard . It is in this spirit that the new men, with, their new method, address themselves to what is perhaps the most pressing of their immediate tasks, the removal of that industrial and commercial encirclement in the interest of England by which the natural development of the resources of Ireland has been artificially retarded. This is as obviously the task of to-day as the overthrow of the landlord tyranny was the task of 50 years ago. Not by choice alone are they moved to this endeavor. They are forced to it. For the first time since the famine a generation has grown to manhood in Ireland without emigration. Mr. Macphcrson recently scandalised an Irish Unionist by stating that the remedy for the present ills was to open the ports and let a hundred thousand or more young men go where they would naturally have gone. They do not want to go. They want to stay. Ireland wants them to stay. But if they stay there must be work for them, and that work must be arranged for by Irishmen. English policy is against its being arranged at all. The road that must be travelled is not an easy one. Before Ireland has gone very far upon it questions will arise concerning the collection and application of taxes. Those are matters of great interest to England. That is what Sir Horace Plunkctt, Lord Macdonnell, and others have in the hack of their minds when surveying the state of Ireland, and they are affrighted by what they see. They advocate Dominion Home Rule as the one possible policy for Ireland consistent with maintenance of the British connection. They, and those who are a little amazed to see them advanced so far, find themselves under the unpleasant necessity of asking people to assume that there is possibility of some arrangement being made in good faith and of being carried out in good faith. Unfortunately for them, few people who count on Ireland are able to believe either the one or the other. Mr. Dillon and his friends, who went with Mr. Redmond down the slippery inclined plane upon which Lloyd George and Asquith set them with the first proposals for partition, are in no trustful mood. Many, of them feel that the conduct of the British Parliament since the passage of the Homo Rule Act has not alone deprived them of authority in Ireland, but has enlarged the field of action under which the newer men must carry on the work. They are in no position to contest the mandate given by the people to the Sinn Fin leaders, many of them concede the correctness of the popular decision, and probably none will permit themselves to be used to make trouble in the rear while the country's elected spokesmen of Ireland are facing bitter and resourceful opposition from England. While there are some lengths to which these older men cannot go, some items of present declared policies to which they cannot adhere, in presence of the struggle about to open, they do not hesitate to proclaim themselves Irish and accept the consequences. I think, indeed, that this summary might very well close with the statement made" to me by one who sees the more for standing a little apart, that the greatest security of all for Ireland in her present difficulty rests in the ability of her people, at need, to meet any great menace by the presentation of a united front by the whole people, and

to db it by all orders simultaneously and if need be impromptu. To that’- pitch has the solidarity of • the people been brought by % the events and grievances of the ’ last three years. The summary would not be complete, however. if it did : not include:mention- of - one attitude of mind never absent wherever in. Ireland the present and the near future are patiently and anxiously considered. Self-reliant towards England, with clear conception of all the disquiet adherence to that ideal may bring in its train, there is yet always the hope, sometimes expressed, never out of mind, that in some way or in many ways free America will stand by them, will never withdraw its countenance from them in their effort to secure for a self-reliant people the free ordering of its national existence. They feel they are entitled to what sustaining influence there may prove to be, in the difficult times ahead, in the indulgence of that hope.