The Irish Revolution and How It Came About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LI, Issue 45, 12 November 1924, Page 7

The Irish Revolution and How It Came About

(By William O’Bbien.)

CHAPTER XVII— (Continued.) The Six Counties, instead of being “left as at present,” were, in fact to be erected into a separate State, ruled by a separate Secretary of State and an elaborate series of separate Departments, wholly independent of the Home Rule Governments in Dublin. So far from the arrangement only lasting, as the Irish people were jauntily assured “during this war emergency,” the text contained no hint of such a limitation, and the very nature of the complicated and expensive machinery of government proposed to be set up in the Six Counties forbade any assumption of a mere stopgap contrivance to be cast aside after a few months in which the war might be concluded. Not to the country, nor to the Hibernian Convention in Belfast — nor it may be surmised to the rank and file of “the Party” itself, was there any disclosure of this carefully-elaborated apparatus of Partition vouchsafed, until the authorised text of the “Headings of Agreement” was published by Mr. Lloyd George after the breakdown of the bargain. There was another and not less reprehensible concealment of the truth. The Third Article in Mr. Redmond’s summary was; “During that period, the Irish members to remain at .Westminster in their full numbers.” At first sight it might well read as a concession of the first magnitude. It was, in reality, for the politicians, the price of their surrender and it was the subsequent partial repudiation of this Article by the Government on which the Partition bargain was broken off. For what would have been the practical effect of the proviso? It would have established the existing members of the Hibernian Party for the rest of a Parliament which was not to be dissolved as long as the war endured, in the double capacity of members of the Imperial Parliament at Westminster, with the accompanying Treasury stipend of £4OO a year, and in addition as the ipso facto majority of the mutilated Parliament in Dublin, without re-election, and without responsibility to the electors who were already hungering for the opportunity of dismissing them from their 'service. They would thus have obtained the control of an annual patronage of from £2,000,000 to £3,000,000 without the smallest danger of being brought to account by their constituents for a period of at least three years. In the meantime, all the spoils of Dublin Oastle, of the Four Courts, and of the fifty Castle Boards, of the University, and of the ■ Intermediate and Primary School Staffs, and in addition all the offices of profit of the local governing bodies of three provinces from a Co. Secretaryship or a Town Clerkship to the humblest Workhouse portership, would have been available for distribution among the partisans of the ruling politicians in the Dublin Parliament and an army of officials and office-hunters might thus be enrolled to garrison the three provinces in preparation for the inevitable if far distant day, when the Hibernian Bosses would have to seek a renewal of their powers. True, the volcano which was presently to burst was known to be already deeply burning. But the subterranean fires which the corrupt bargaining or incompetence of the Parliamentarians was doing more than Sir John Maxwell's firing-parties to accumulate, might still be held in check a little while longer. It was with this knowledge the tying the hands and gagging the voice of the constituencies while these tremendous changes were being plotted was deliberately organised, in order that honest opinion should have no chance of showing itself, until the country should be confronted with the fait accompli, and the Board of Erin Partitionists installed in sovereign power. All this the only version of the “Headings of Agreement” placed before the country carefully concealed. It was a scheme of political profligacy more widespread in its sweep, more impudent in its defiance of all constitutional right or privilege in the people, than that by which Lord Oastlereagh purchased the life of the Irish Parliament and which Gladstone . thought he was not extravagantly describing as a system of “blackguardism and base-

ness. ’ It is not to be believed that the mass of the Hibernian Party—plain, blunder-headed realised much better than the bewildered people themselves the turpitude of the transaction; the record stands, however, to the shamo of their intelligence, if not of their political morals, that of the 57 members who attended the Party meeting at which the project was disclosed all but two accepted the terms which were to be the price of their assent to the Partition of their country.* Mr. Dillon’s subsequent complaint against the Govern- ' ment was that “they did not rush” the Headings of Agree- > ment “hot-foot” as a War Emergency measure through the' House of Commons as soon as the nominal assent of Ireland had been extorted. Ho. and his confederates were not certainly open to any imputation that they did not for their own part “rush them, hot-foot” through Ireland with a haste as indecent and unconstitutional as the proposals themselves. Under the constitution of the United Irish League, a National Convention was the sovereign authority in all matters of National policy. No National Convention was summoned. It was, of course, because no National Convention, however sophisticated, could have been trusted to examine the text of the “Headings of Agreement” without rejecting them with horror. The leaders refused to hold consultation in any form with the people of the three southern provinces, as though the projected mutilation of their nation , was no business of theirs. The secret organisation of the Board of Erin alone was called into counsel, while the public organisation was ignored. The Party meeting was held on June 10. We have seen already on June 13 a special Convention of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (8.0. E.) was held in Dublin so secretly that the news did not become known until the small hours of the next morning and at this gathering the influence of the Order was pledged in support of the Lloyd George proposals. But even within the ambit of the secret Order, a Convention was only to be risked in he six surrendered counties, where the ascendancy of the Board of Erin was complete. The upshot of the secret proceedings of June 13 in Dublin was the summoning of a secret Convention of the Six Counties on June 23 in Belfast. Although this Assembly was ruthlessly policed by the Hibernian Order, and the admissions so manipulated as to exclude any but a derisory minority . belonging to other organisations, it taxed the most desperate resources of Messrs. Redmond, Dillon, and Devlin to conquer the instinctive repugnance of these Ulster Nationalists to respond to the appeal to stand passively by while their country was being cut up on the dissecting table under their eyes and by their sanction. Mr. Redmond, who presided, found it necessary not so much to offer reasons for the surrender as to threaten the collective resignations of Mr. Dillon, Mr. Devlin and himself, if it were not tamely submitted to. So unnatural was the sacrifice demanded that, even amongst the most fanatical of the Hibernian faithful, the murmurs rose high, until nothing short of the menaces and the tears of the leaders could have prevented them from breaking bounds altogether. Mr. Redmond, whose only sedative for his ,an g l y listeners was the pitiful assurance that the Partition was to bo only of a temporary character, found his only real argument in the solemn threat with which ho concluded : - - - •- - , It is the duty of a leader to lead, but if my own people refuse to follow my lead, I must decline absolutely to accept responsibility for a course of action that is against my conscience. I regard the acceptance of these proposals, in the conditions I have stated, as vital to the Irish cause. As leader I point the way. It is for you to say whether you will follow me or not. If, then, this is the last time that Lever can appeal to the peoule of Ireland, I will have done so in obedience to the dictates of my heart and conscience.” It will be observed that his appeal wa- not “to the. people of Ireland,” but to a secret society in one corner of. Ireland, and at a secret meeting of which the country *The two dissentient members, .to their honor be it remembered, were Mr. P. Doherty (North Donegal) and Mr. P. J. O’Shaughnessy (West J Limerick).

would have heard nothing, had not a patriotic reporter, at the risk of a fractured head, jotted down his words. That the lead was not Mr. Redmond’s lead, the Convention by a sure instinct divined, for it was Mr. Dillon whose speech was half-drowned with taunts and interruptions identifying him as the true author of the unhappy tactics of which Partition was the miserable culmination. Mr. Dillon, however, continued to protest that “these proposals were a necessary measure to safeguard the National Cause” and promised to “execute himself,” like his trusted leader, if the Hibernians thought differently. Even Mr. Devlin — in Belfast he was in a small way Coriolanus in Coriolifound the accustomed pecan of “Up the Mollies!” changed for an underswell of doubt and wrath from Hibernian throats. He, too, discovered that the threat of resignation offered the only chance of turning the tide and concluded with the heroic resolve that “if Mr. Redmond went down, he, too, would go down with him.” Even faced with such an avalanche of leaderless chaos, the most reliable Hibernian Assembly that the Hibernian headquarters could furnish could only be induced to do the unnatural deed and approve the “Headings of Agreement” by a majority of 475 votes against 265. It was actually on the strength of the sulky majority of 210 Belfast Hibernians—-the only body of Irish opinion anywhere that was not sternly denied consultation in any shape—that the Parliamentary Parly hastened to demand that the separation from Ireland of the Six Counties should be “hurried hot-foot through the House of Commons as a war emergency measure.” CHAPTER XVIII.—HOW THE PLOT MISCARRIED. It might well seem there was no further obstacle to be apprehended from Ireland. On the day (June 23) when the Belfast Convention was being coerced by the leaders’ threats of resignation, the only public protest against Par-'' tition attempted in the South—a meeting called by my colleague Mr. Maurice Healy and myself in the Cork City Hall was frustrated by the ludicrous misunderstanding already related. The Lord Mayor of Dublin refused the Mansion House to Nationalists who proposed to make the indignation of the Irish capital heard. But as week followed week and the consequences of the bargain .began to make themselves understood, no machinery of suppression, however feet, could altogether stifle the disquiet which was beginning to stir in * the heart of the bewildered country. On July 20, the indignation of the Nationalists of the North blazed out aha meeting in Derry which struck the stoutest of the Partitionists with dismay. The speeches sounded like the first volleys of an insurrection. They were prefaced by the reading of a letter from the Bishop of Derry (Dr. McHugh) inveighing against “Mr. Lloyd George’s nefarious scheme” and adding; “But what seems the worst feature of all this wretched bargaining that has been going on is that Irishmen calling themselves representatives of the people are prepared- to sell their brother Irishmen into slavery to secure a nominal freedom for a section of the people. . . Was coercion of a more objectionable and despicable type ever resorted to by England in its dealings with Ireland than that now sanctioned by the men whom we elected to win for us freedom?” The Derry meeting came to a series of resolutions condomining “the proposed partition of Ireland whether temporary or permanent” pledging the Nationalists of the North “to oppose by every means any attempt to set up a separate Government for the Ulster counties,” and “to resist the authority of such a Government if set-up,”, and summoned the Hibernian members for Fermanagh and' Tyrone “to oppose exclusion or resign their seats.” The example of Derry was contagious. The Nationalists of Dublin, barred out from the Mansion House, ran the risk of holding a. public meeting in the Phoenix Park—the first attempted since the proclamation: of Martial Law in Easter Week—adopted the Derry resolutions, hooted the name of Mr. Lloyd . George, and cheered to the echo the declaration of their Chairman (Alderman Richard Jones, a man of moderate opinions, who had been a steady supporter of Mr. Redmond) that the idea of the Cabinet appeared to be .to bribe a whole Party, and. that “if. their Parliament

insist on their resignation.” - The rising feeling Of the nation was mirrored in a letter of the Bishop of Limerick (Dr. O’Dwyer) to a Committee belatedly formed in Belfast to resist the Lloyd .George proposals : “I can well understand your anxiety and indignation at the proposals of your own political leaders to cut you off from your own country. I have very little pity for you or yours. You have acquiesced in a kind of political servitude in which your function was to shout the shibboleths of what they call ‘ the Party,’ You have ceased to be men; your leaders consequently think they can sell you like chattels. Our poor country is made a thing of truck and barter in the Liberal Clubs.” . It was this unforeseen outbreak of national anger which frightened “the Party” into running away from its bargain and consigning the “Headings of Agreement” to the waste-paper basket. The nominal excuse for the rupture—a speech of Lord Lansdowne, alleging that the separation of the Six Counties was not to be a temporary onewas, as will be seen in a moment, a wholly untenable one.* The history of the breakdown is a deeply instructive one. On July 10 the .Prime Minister (Mr, Asquith) openly avowed that the negotiations had proceeded “on the basis of immediate Home Buie, with six Ulster counties excluded.” All his colleagues, he declared, were willing to share the responsibility of bringing in a Bill to legalise these proposals. It was then, also, he for the first time divulged the amazing news that ‘the Irish House of Commons was to consist of the persons who were for the time being members returned by the same constituencies in Ireland to serve in the Imperial Parliament.” The Bill was to be a provisional measure, but he added: “A united Ireland could only be brought about with the assent of the excluded area.” This was a sufficiently clear repudiation of the assurances lavished in Ireland during the previous month that Partition was to be “a purely temporary arrangement,” but Sir E. Carson took care to put an end to the last shadow of doubt on the subject. Fastening upon the Prime Minister’s allusion to the arrangement as provisional, he asked if “the six Ulster Counties would be definitely struck out of the Act of 1914?” Mr. Asquith assented and added that “they could not be included hereafter without a new Bill.” *There was a subsidiary complaint—that in order to placate Mr. Walter Long and other Unionist members of the Coalition Cabinet, the proviso, maintaining the Irish Members in full strength at Westminster, was restricted to Irish Members in the existing Parliament only, but as this would still leave the Hibernian Party for three years the masters of the Dublin Parliament and retain them as paid members of the Imperial Parliament as well, the objection was not in itself a serious one. (To be continued.)