From a Hurler on the Ditch

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 21, 25 May 1922, Page 9

From a Hurler on the Ditch

“Avis” once assigned to me the honorable post of “a hurler on the ditch” (writes “Irish-American” in the Dublin Leader). It is a detached position, which docs not assume that my sympathies are entirely neutral, but that, not taking active part in the fray, I can take a somewhat dispassionate view of the contest. It may interest the reader to know what is the view of a person in such position at present. Unlike Dr. MacCartan, in the debate, I agreed with both parties, and still sympathise with both. The real arguments on both sides were conclusive, but they did not aim at proving the same thing. Ireland is a nation and has a right to complete freedom, which the Treaty does not give. That was proved conclusively on one side. The Treaty gives domestic freedom, and opens the best possible road, in the circumstances, to the ultimate goal. That was shown conclusively by the other side. I agree with both. I remain in the old conviction that nothing short of independence will ever satisfy the Irish people. In his admirable review of Irish history since the “Conquest,” Professor Mitchel Henry says; “It cannot be said that the Irish nation ever abandoned its right to independence.” And it never will. But, so far as I have seen from all the discussion of the past three months, in and outside the Dail, that view has not been challenged by a solitary Irish Nationalist. Past Unionists even, like-Lord Dunraven, accept it. This is also the impression of observant foreigners. The only Spanish correspondent at the Dail debate — too, who has taken a thoroughly English view of the situation at the beginningon the night the Treaty was ratified, wrote to his paper, El Debate, of Madrid : “This Treaty does not establish final peace between England and Ireland. The very deputies who pleaded for ratification declared unanimously that they accepted it, not even as the lesser of two evils, but as an inevitable evil. . 1 . Not a symptom of applause, not a cheer of triumph. All seemed crushed beneath the weight of an inevitable fatality.” This question, therefore, is not in controversy. When I first saw the text of the Treaty I thought the delegates should not have signed. I thought that England could not renew the war right off, and that refusal to sign would have preserved Irish unity. But even then I believed that, the Treaty once signed, the only thing to do was to ratify it. The position lost could not be recovered, either in Ireland or in England, or in foreign opinion. Whether this was due to an astute and clever manipulation of cables and wireless and Press did not matter. It was a fact.

But from the discussion that ensued, and from the revelations since made, I have become convinced that it was not only well to ratify the Treaty, but that the delegates were, in the circumstances, well advised in signing the pact originally. I have been impressed especially by Mr. Collins’ speech in the Bail, and by his admirable and statesmanlike first article to the New York American. It was almost certainl believe it was certainthat war in some form, and on some pretence, would have finally resulted. Let us admit that by war England could not succeed in conquering the nation, and that her government of it would still remain impossible. But she could do two things: She could cause such devastation as to render reconstruction impossible in this generation and perhaps in the next; and in the end she could impose a settlement which would certainly be no better, and perhaps would be much worse, than that afforded by the Treaty. The hope that she would be deterred by foreign opinion I did not, and do not, share. The Treaty does not give independence, the ultimate goal and.right of every nation, nor external association. 1 ' But it does certainly give internal freedom. By virtue of it the Irish people, instead of having to face another generation of subjection, strife, and devastation, with very doubtful results, can go to work immediately and build up a strong, prosperous, united Irish Ireland. That is now most certainly possible, without let or hindrance from without; and, if it is not done, I cannot see.how the blame can be placed anywhere but on themselves. When that Ireland, which is rendered possible by the Treaty, becomes ah actual fact, tbo Irish people of that day can

obtain what they want, and obtain it without further bloodshed; They will have made good and removed the English libel on their political capacity; England, or at least the world at large, will bo more democratic; there will be no “Ulster” and no Southern Unionists; the nations that are trading with Ireland will bo more interested in her fateand we will be still alive and active in America. Nor can such an Ireland say justly that the present generation had betrayed it; nor will it need to say so;, no more than the present generation can say, or need to say, that they were betrayed by Owen Roe, who fought for Irish freedom and an English King, or Grattan and O’Connell, who fought for the same while accepting the Crown, or Parnell, who fought for less in his generation, leaving us free to fight for more in ours, as they all did.

The Treaty gives internal freedom and what is now needed is internal peace. This docs not mean that the ultimate goal must be lost sight of, nor, that there cannot be two. parties in Ireland. It does, however, mean that there can be but one government in Ireland, and that that government, being Irish and the organic, co-operate representative of the Irish nation, it will be the duty of every patriotic Irishman to respect, support, and defend it. As in the past there was room for only one National Party, so now there can be room for but one National Government.

Of course, I have faith in the Irish people. I cannot conceive how a people who have stoood for an ideal for seven and a half centuries at the cost of everything material, in the unwavering faith and hope that, being immortal, it must survive and finally triumph over everything material, will now lose sight of that ideal because an English.figurehead, subject to an Irish Parliament, resides in Dublineven if he keeps “his ear to the Downing Street telephone.” If that were the Irish people of the future, it would hardly be worth while to sacrifice the present generation for their sake.

I believe, finally, that for some years some kind of Truce of God between parties, such as that suggested by Father Kavanagh, should be entered into in order to give the people an Opportunity to apply themselves without distraction or strife to the work immediately at hand — to re-construct the national forces; “to bind up the nation’s wounds,” in the immortal words at Gettysburg of the great Re-constructionist, Abraham Lincoln, when the Civil War was drawing to its close; to build up a strong, peaceful, prosperous, more populous, united Irish Iceland. It will then be time enough to formulate a programme of finality and I believe such programme will then meet with little opposition. Unity is still the Supreme Necessity. W—