Imaginations and Reveries Part 5

Further, the exclusion of all or a large part of Ulster would make the excluded part too predominantly industrial and the rest of Ireland too exclusively agricultural, tending to prevent that right balance between rural and urban industry which all nations should aim at and which makes for a varied intellectual life, social and political wisdom and a healthy national being. Though for the sake of obliteration of past differences I would prefer as little building by legislation of fences isolating one section of the community from another, still I am certain that if Ulster, as the price of coming into a self-governing Ireland, demanded some application of the Swiss Cantonal system to itself which would give it control over local administration it could have it; or, again, it could be conceded the powers of local control vested in the provincial governments in Canada, where the provincial a.s.semblies have exclusive power to legislate for themselves in respect of local works, munic.i.p.al inst.i.tutions, licenses, and administration of justice in the province. Further, subject to certain provisions protecting the interests of different religious bodies, the provincial a.s.semblies have the exclusive power to make laws upon education. Would not this give Ulster all the guarantees for civil and religious liberty it requires?

What arguments of theirs, what fears have they expressed which would not be met by such control over local administration? I would prefer that the mind of Ulster should argue its points with the whole of Ireland and press its ideals upon it without reservation of its wisdom for itself.

But doubtless if Ulster accepted this proposal it would benefit the rest of Ireland by the model it would set of efficient administration: and it would, I have no doubt, insert in its provincial const.i.tution all the safeguards for minorities there which they would ask should be inserted in any Irish const.i.tution to protect the interest of their co-religionists in that part of Ireland where they are in a minority.

21. I can deal only with fundamentals in this memorandum, because it is upon fundamentals there are differences of thinking. Once these are settled it would be comparatively easy to devise the necessary clauses in an Irish const.i.tution, giving safeguards to England for the due payment of the advances under the Land Acts, and the principles upon which an Irish contribution should be made to the empire for naval and military purposes. It was suggested by Mr. Lionel Curtis in his "Problems of the Commonwealth," that a.s.sessors might be appointed by the dominions to fix the fair taxable capacity of each for this purpose. It will be observed that while I have claimed for Ireland the status of a dominion, I have referred solely hitherto to the powers of control over trade policy, customs, excise, taxation and legislation possessed by the dominions, and have not claimed for Ireland the right to have an army or a navy of its own. I recognize that the proximity of the two islands makes it desirable to consolidate the naval power under the control of the Admiralty. The regular army should remain in the same way under the War Office which would have the power of recruiting in Ireland. The Irish Parliament would, I have no doubt, be willing to raise at its own expense under an Irish Territorial Council a Territorial Force similar to that of England but not removable from Ireland. Military conscription could never be permitted except by Act of the Irish Parliament. It would be a denial of the first principle of nationality if the power of conscripting the citizens of the country lay not in the hands of the National Parliament but was exercised by another nation.

22. While a self-governing Ireland would contribute money to the defense of the federated empire, it would not be content that that money should be spent on dockyards, a.r.s.enals, camps, harbors, naval stations, ship-building and supplies in Great Britain to the almost complete neglect of Ireland as at present. A large contribution for such purposes spent outside Ireland would be an economic drain if not balanced by counter expenditure here. This might be effected by the training of a portion of the navy and army and the Irish regiments of the regular army in Ireland, and their equipment, clothing, supplies, munitions and rations being obtained through an Irish department. Naval dockyards should be constructed here and a proportion of ships built in them. Just as surely as there must be a balance between the imports and exports of a country, so must there be a balance between the revenue raised in a nation and the public expenditure on that nation. Irish economic depression after the Act of Union was due in large measure to absentee landlordism and the expenditure of Irish revenue outside Ireland with no proportionate return. This must not be expected to continue against Irish interests. Ireland, granted the freedom it desires, would be willing to defend its freedom and the freedom of other dominions in the commonwealth of nations it belonged to, but it is not willing to allow millions to be raised in Ireland and spent outside Ireland. If three or five millions are raised in Ireland for imperial purposes and spent in Great Britain it simply means that the vast employment of labor necessitated takes place outside Ireland: whereas if spent here it would mean the employment of many thousands of men, the support of their families, and in the economic chain would follow the support of those who cater for them in food, clothing, housing, etc. Even with the best will in the world, to do its share towards its defense of the freedom it had attained, Ireland could not permit such an economic drain on its resources. No country could approve of a policy which in its application means the emigration of thousands of its people every year while it continued.

23. I believe even if there were no historical basis for Irish nationalism that such claims as I have stated would have become inevitable, because the tendency of humanity as it develops intellectually and spiritually is to desire more and more freedom, and to subst.i.tute more and more an internal law for the external law or government, and that the solidarity of empires or nations will depend not so much upon the close texture of their political organization or the uniformity of mind so engendered as upon the freedom allowed and the delight people feel in that freedom. The more educated a man is the more it is hateful to him to be constrained and the more impossible does it become for central governments to provide by regulation for the infinite variety of desires and cultural developments which spring up everywhere and are in themselves laudable, and in no way endanger the State. A recognition of this has already led to much decentralization in Great Britain itself. And if the claim for more power in the administration of local affairs was so strongly felt in a h.o.m.ogeneous country like Great Britain that, through its county council system, people in districts like Kent or Ess.e.x have been permitted control over education and the purchase of land, and the distribution of it to small holders, how much more pa.s.sionately must this desire for self-control be felt in Ireland where people have a different national character which has survived all the educational experiments to change them into the likeness of their neighbors. The battle which is going on in the world has been stated to be a spiritual conflict between those who desire greater freedom for the individual and think that the State exists to preserve that freedom, and those who believe in the predominance of the state and the complete subjection of the individual to it and the molding of the individual mind in its image. This has been stated, and if the first view is a declaration of ideals sincerely held by Great Britain it would mean the granting to Ireland, a country which has expressed its wishes by vaster majorities than were ever polled in any other country for political changes, the satisfaction of its desires.

24. The acceptance of the proposals here made would mean sacrifices for the two extremes in Ireland, and neither party has as yet made any real sacrifice to meet the other, but each has gone on its own way. I urge upon them that if the suggestions made here were accepted both would obtain substantially what they desire, the Ulster Unionists that safety for their interests and provision for Ireland's unity with the commonwealth of dominions inside the empire; the Nationalists that power they desire to create an Irish civilization by self-devised and self-checked efforts. The brotherhood of domimons of which they would form one would be inspired as much by the fresh life and wide democratic outlook of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada, as by the h.o.a.rier political wisdom of Great Britain; and military, naval, foreign and colonial policy must in the future be devised by the representatives of those dominions sitting in council together with the representatives of Great Britain. Does not that indicate a different form of imperialism from that they hold in no friendly memory? It would not be imperialism in the ancient sense but a federal union of independent nations to protect national liberties, which might draw into its union other peoples. .h.i.therto unconnected with it, and so beget a league of nations to make a common international law prevail. The allegiance would be to common principles which mankind desire and would not permit the domination of any one race. We have not only to be good Irishmen but good citizens of the world, and one is as important as the other, for earth is more and more forcing on its children a recognition of their fundamental unity, and that all rise and fall and suffer together, and that none can escape the infection from their common humanity. If these ideas emerge from the world conflict and are accepted as world morality it will be some compensation for the anguish of learning the lesson. We in Ireland like the rest of the world must rise above ourselves and our differences if we are to manifest the genius which is in us, and play a n.o.ble part in world history.

THE NEW NATION

In that cycle of history which closed in 1914, but which seems now to the imagination as far sunken behind time as Babylon or Samarcand, it was customary at the festival of the Incarnation to forego our enmities for a little and allow freer play to the spiritual in our being. Since 1914 all things in the world and with us, too, in Ireland have existed in a welter of hate, but the rhythm of ancient habit cannot altogether have pa.s.sed away, and now if at any time, it should be possible to blow the bugles of Heaven and recall men to that old allegiance. I do not think it would help now if I, or another, put forward arguments drawn from Irish history or economics to convince any party that they were wrong and their opponents right. I think absolute truth might be stated in respect of these things, and yet it would affect nothing in our present mood. It would not be recognized any more than Heaven, when It walked on earth in the guise of a Carpenter, was hailed by men whose minds were filled by other imaginations of that coming.

I will not argue about the past, but would ask Irishmen to consider how in future they may live together. Do they contemplate the continuance of these bitter hatreds in our own household? The war must have a finale.

Many thousands of Irishmen will return to their country who have faced death for other ideals than those which inspire many more thousands now in Ireland and make them also fearless of death. How are these to co-exist in the same island if there is no change of heart? Each will receive pa.s.sionate support from relatives, friends, and parties who uphold their action. This will be a most unhappy country if we cannot arrive at some moral agreement, as necessary as a political agreement.

Part.i.tion is no settlement, because there is no geographical limitation of these pa.s.sions. There is scarce a locality in Ireland where antagonisms do not gather about the thought of Ireland as in the caduceus of Mercury the twin serpents writhe about the sceptre of the G.o.d. I ask our national extremists in what mood do they propose to meet those who return, men of temper as stern as their own? Will these endure being termed traitors to Ireland? Will their friends endure it? Will those who mourn their dead endure to hear scornful speech of those they loved? That way is for us a path to h.e.l.l. The unimaginative who see only a majority in their own locality, or, perhaps, in the nation, do not realize what a powerful factor in national life are those who differ from them, and how they are upheld by a neighboring nation which, for all its present travail, is more powerful by far than Ireland even if its people were united in purpose as the fingers of one hand. Nor can those who hold to, and are upheld by, the Empire hope to coerce to a uniformity of feeling with themselves the millions clinging to Irish nationality. Seven centuries of repression have left that spirit unshaken, nor can it be destroyed save by the destruction of the Irish people, because it springs from biological necessity. As well might a foolish gardener trust that his apple-tree would bring forth grapes as to dream that there could be uniformity of character and civilization between Irishmen and Englishmen. It would be a crime against life if it could be brought about and diversities of culture and civilization made impossible. We may live at peace with our neighbors when it is agreed that we must be different, and no peace is possible in the world between nations except on this understanding. But I am not now thinking of that, but of the more urgent problem how we are to live at peace with each other. I am convinced Irish enmities are perpetuated because we live by memory more than by hope, and that even now on the facts of character there is no justification for these enmities.

We have been told that there are two nations in Ireland. That may have been so in the past, but it is not true today. The union of Norman and Dane and Saxon and Celt which has been going on through the centuries is now completed, and there is but one powerful Irish character--not Celtic or Norman-Saxon, but a new race. We should recognize our moral ident.i.ty.

It was apparent before the war in the methods by which Ulstermen and Nationalists alike strove to defend or win their political objects.

There is scarce an Ulsterman, whether he regards his ancestors as settlers or not, who is not allied through marriage by his forbears to the ancient race. There is in his veins the blood of the people who existed before Patrick, and he can look backward through time to the legends of the Red Branch, the Fianna and the G.o.ds as the legends of his people. It would be as difficult to find even on the Western Coast a family which has not lost in the same way its Celtic purity of race. The character of all is fed from many streams which have mingled in them and have given them a new distinctiveness. The invasions of Ireland and the Plantations, however morally unjustifiable, however cruel in method, are justified by biology. The invasion of one race by another was nature's ancient way of reinvigorating a people.

Mr. Flinders Petrie, in his "Revolutions of Civilization," has demonstrated that civilization comes in waves, that races rise to a pinnacle of power and culture, and decline from that, and fall into decadence, from which they do not emerge until there has been a crossing of races, a fresh intermingling of cultures. He showed in ancient Egypt eight such periods, and after every decline into decadence there was an invasion, the necessary precedent to a fresh ascent with reinvigorated energies. I prefer to dwell upon the final human results of this commingling of races than upon the tyrannies and conflicts which made it possible. The mixture of races has added to the elemental force of the Celtic character a more complex mentality, and has saved us from becoming, as in our island isolation we might easily have become, thin and weedy, like herds where there has been too much in-breeding. The modern Irish are a race built up from many races who have to prove themselves for the future. Their animosities, based on past history, have little justification in racial diversity today, for they are a new people with only superficial cultural and political differences, but with the same fundamental characteristics. It is hopeless, the dream held by some that the ancient Celtic character could absorb the new elements, become dominant once more, and be itself unchanged. It is equally hopeless to dream the Celtic element could be eliminated. We are a new people, and not the past, but the future, is to justify this new nationality.

I believe it was this powerful Irish character which stirred in Ulster before the war, leading it to adopt methods unlike the Anglo-Saxon tradition in politics. I believe that new character, far more than the spirit of the ancient race, was the ferment in the blood of those who brought about the astonishing enterprise of Easter Week. Pea.r.s.e himself, for all his Gaelic culture, was sired by one of the race he fought against. He might stand in that respect as a symbol of the new race which is springing up. We are slowly realizing the vigor of the modern Irish character just becoming self-conscious of itself. I had met many men who were in the enterprise of Easter Week and listened to their spirit their speech, but they had to prove to myself and others by more than words. I listened with that half-cynical feeling which is customary with us when men advocate a cause with which we are temperamentally sympathetic, but about whose realization we are hopeless. I could not gauge the strength of the new spirit, for words do not by themselves convey the quality of power in men; and even when the reverberations from Easter Week were echoing everywhere in Ireland, for a time I, and many others, thought and felt about those who died as some pagan concourse in ancient Italy might have felt looking down upon an arena, seeing below a foam of glorious faces turned to them, the n.o.ble, undismayed, inflexible faces of martyrs, and, without understanding, have realized that this spirit was stronger than death. I believe that capacity for sacrifice, that devotion to ideals exists equally among the opponents of these men. It would have been proved in Ireland, in Ulster, if the need had arisen. It has been proved on many a battlefield of Europe. Whatever views we may hold about the relative value of national or Imperial ideals, we may recognize that there is moral equality where the sacrifice is equal. No one has more to give than life, and, when that is given, neither Nationalist nor Imperialist in Ireland can claim moral superiority for the dead champions of their causes.

And here I come to the purpose of my letter, which is to deprecate the scornful repudiation by Irishmen of other Irishmen, which is so common at present, and which helps to perpetuate our feuds. We are all one people. We are closer to each other in character than we are to any other race. The necessary preliminary to political adjustment is moral adjustment, forgiveness, and mutual understanding. I have been in council with others of my countrymen for several months, and I noticed what an obstacle it was to agreement how few, how very few, there were who had been on terms of friendly intimacy with men of all parties.

There was hardly one who could have given an impartial account of the ideals and principles of his opponents. Our political differences have brought about social isolations, and there can be no understanding where there is no eagerness to meet those who differ from us, and hear the best they have to say for themselves. This letter is an appeal to Irishmen to seek out and understand their political opponents. If they come to know each other, they will come to trust each other, and will realize their kinship, and will set their faces to the future together, to build up a civilization which will justify their nationality.

I myself am Anglo-Irish, with the blood of both races in me, and when the rising of Easter Week took place all that was Irish in me was profoundly stirred, and out of that mood I wrote commemorating the dead.

And then later there rose in memory the faces of others I knew who loved their country, but had died in other battles. They fought in those because they believed they would serve Ireland, and I felt these were no less my people. I could hold them also in my heart and pay tribute to them. Because it was possible for me to do so, I think it is possible for others; and in the hope that the deeds of all may in the future be a matter of pride to the new nation I append here these verses I have written:--

To the Memory of Some I knew Who are Dead and Who Loved Ireland.

Their dream had left me numb and cold, But yet my spirit rose in pride, Refashioning in burnished gold The images of those who died, Or were shut in the penal cell.

Here's to you, Pea.r.s.e, your dream not mine, But yet the thought, for this you fell, Has turned life's water into wine.

You who have died on Eastern hills Or fields of France as undismayed, Who lit with interlinked wills The long heroic barricade, You, too, in all the dreams you had, Thought of some thing for Ireland done.

Was it not so, Oh, shining lad, What lured you, Alan Anderson?

I listened to high talk from you, Thomas McDonagh, and it seemed The words were idle, but they grew To n.o.bleness by death redeemed.

Life cannot utter words more great Than life may meet by sacrifice, High words were equaled by high fate, You paid the price. You paid the price.

You who have fought on fields afar, That other Ireland did you wrong Who said you shadowed Ireland's star, Nor gave you laurel wreath nor song.

You proved by death as true as they, In mightier conflicts played your part, Equal your sacrifice may weigh, Dear Kettle, of the generous heart.

The hope lives on age after age, Earth with its beauty might be won For labor as a heritage, For this has Ireland lost a son.

This hope unto a flame to fan Men have put life by with a smile, Here's to you Connolly, my man, Who cast the last torch on the pile.

You too, had Ireland in your care, Who watched o'er pits of blood and mire, From iron roots leap up in air Wild forests, magical, of fire; Yet while the Nuts of Death were shed Your memory would ever stray To your own isle. Oh, gallant dead-- This wreath, Will Redmond, on your clay.

Here's to you, men I never met, Yet hope to meet behind the veil, Thronged on some starry parapet, That looks down upon Innisfail, And sees the confluence of dreams That clashed together in our night, One river, born from many streams, Roll in one blaze of blinding light.

December 1917

THE SPIRITUAL CONFLICT

Prophetic

I am told when a gun is fired it recoils with almost as much force as urges forward the projectile. It is the triumph of the military engineer that he antic.i.p.ates and provides for this recoil when designing the weapon. Nations prepare for war, but do not, as the military engineer in his sphere does, provide for the recoil on society. It is difficult to foresee clearly what will happen. Possible changes in territory, economic results, the effect on a social order receive consideration while war is being waged. But how war may affect our intellectual and spiritual life is not always apparent. Material victories are often spiritual defeats. History has record of nationalities which were destroyed and causes whose followers were overborne, yet they left their ideas behind them as a glory in the air, and these incarnated anew in the minds of the conquerors. Ideas are things which can only be conquered by a greater beauty or intellectual power, and they are never more powerful than when they do not come threatening us in alliance with physical forces. I have no doubt there are many today who watch the cloud over Europe as we may imagine some Israelite of old gazing on that awful cloudy pillar wherein was the Lord, in hope or fear for some revelation of the spirit hidden in cloud and fire. What idea is hidden in the fiery pillar which moves over Europe? What form will it a.s.sume in its manifestation? How will it exercise dominion over the spirit?

Whatever idea is most powerful in the world must draw to it the intellect and spirit of humanity, and it will be monarch over their minds either by reason of their love or hate for it. It is more true to say we must think of the most powerful than to say we must love the highest, because even the blind can feel power, while it is rare to have vision of high things.

A little over a century ago all the needles of being pointed to France.

A peculiar manifestation of the democratic idea had become the most powerful thing in the world of moral forces. It went on multiplying images of itself in men's minds through after generations; and, because thought, like matter, is subject to the laws of action and reaction, which indeed is the only safe basis for prophecy, this idea inevitably found itself opposed by a contrary idea in the world. Today all the needles of being point to Germany, where the apparition of the organized State is manifest with every factor, force, and ent.i.ty co-ordinated, so that the State might move myriads and yet have the swift freedom of the athletic individual. The idea that the State exists for the people is countered by the idea that the individual exists for the State. France in a violent reaction found itself dominated by a Caesar. Germany may find itself without a Caesar, but with a social democracy.

But, if it does, will the idea Europe is fighting be conquered? Was the French idea conquered either by the European confederation without or by Napoleon within? It invaded men's minds everywhere; and in few countries did the democratic ideas operate more powerfully than in these islands, where the State was a most determined antagonist of their material manifestations in France. The German idea has sufficient power to unite the free minds of half the world against it. But is it not already invading, and Will it not still more invade, the minds of rulers? All Governments are august kinsmen of each other, and discreetly imitate each other in policy where it may conduce to power or efficiency.

The efficiency of the highly organized State as a vehicle for the manifestation of power must today be sinking into the minds of those who guide the destinies of races. The State in these islands, before a year of war has pa.s.sed, has already a.s.sumed control over myriads of industrial enterprises. The back-wash of great wars, their reaction within the national being after prolonged effort, is social disturbance; and it seems that the State will be unable easily, after this war, to relax its autocratic power. There may come a time when it would be possible for it to do so; but the habit of overlordship will have grown, there will be many who will wish it to grow still more, and a thousand reasons can be found why the mastery over national organizations should be relaxed but little. The recoil on society after the war will be almost as powerful as the energy expended in conflict; and our political engineers will have to provide for the recoil. By the a.n.a.logy of the French Revolution, by what we see taking place today, it seems safe to prophesy that the State will become more dominant over the lives of men than ever before.

In a quarter of a century there will hardly be anybody so obscure, so isolated in his employment, that he will not, by the development of the organized State, be turned round to face it and to recognize it as the most potent factor in his life. From that it follows of necessity that literature will be concerned more and more with the shaping of the character of this Great Being. In free democracies, where the State interferes little with the lives of men, the mood in literature tends to become personal and subjective; the poets sing a solitary song about nature, love, twilight, and the stars; the novelists deal with the lives of private persons, enlarging individual liberties of action and thought. Few concern themselves with the character of the State. But when it strides in, an omnipresent overlord, organizing and directing life and industry, then the individual imagination must be directed to that collective life and power. For one writer today concerned with high politics we may expect to find hundreds engaged in a pa.s.sionate attempt to create the new G.o.d in their own image.

This may seem a far-fetched speculation, but not to those who see how through the centuries humanity has oscillated like a pendulum betwixt opposing ideals. The greatest reactions have been from solidarity to liberty and from liberty to solidarity. The religious solidarity of Europe in the Middle Ages was broken by a pa.s.sionate desire in the heart of millions for liberty of thought. A reaction rarely, if ever, brings people back to a pole deserted centuries before. The coming solidarity is the domination of the State; and to speculate whether that again will be broken up by a new religious movement would be to speculate without utility. What we ought to realize is that these reactions take place within one being, humanity, and indicate eternal desires of the soul.

They seem to urge on us the idea that there is a pleroma, or human fullness, in which the opposites may be reconciled, and that the divine event to which we are moving is a State in which there will be essential freedom combined with an organic unity. At the last a.n.a.lysis are not all empires, nationalities, and movements spiritual in their origin, beginning with desires of the soul and externalizing themselves in immense manifestations of energy in which the original will is often submerged and lost sight of? If in their inception national ideals are spiritual, their final object must also be spiritual, perhaps to make man a yet freer agent, but acting out of a continual consciousness of his unity with humanity. The discipline which the highly organized State imposes on its subjects connects them continuously in thought to something greater than themselves, and so enn.o.bles the average man. The freedom which the policy of other nations permits quickens intelligence and will. Each policy has its own defects; with one a loss in individual initiative, with the other self-absorption and a lower standard of citizenship or interest in national affairs. The oscillations in society provide the corrective.

We are going to have our free individualism tempered by a more autocratic action by the State. There are signs that with our enemy the moral power which attracts the free to the source of their liberty is being appreciated, and the policy which retained for Britain its Colonies and secured their support in an hour of peril is contrasted with the policy of the iron hand in Poland. Neither Germany nor Britain can escape being impressed by the characteristics of the other in the shock of conflict. It may seem a paradoxical outcome of the spiritual conflict Mr. Asquith announced. But history is quick with such ironies.

What we condemned in others is the measure which is meted out to us.

Indeed it might almost be said that all war results in an exchange of characteristics, and if the element of hatred is strong in the conflict it will certainly bring a nation to every baseness of the foe it fights.

Love and hate are alike in this, that they change us into the image we contemplate. We grow n.o.bly like what we adore through love and ign.o.bly like what we contemplate through hate. It will be well for us if we remember that all our political ideals are symbols of spiritual destinies. These clashings of solidarity and freedom will enrich our spiritual life if we understand of the first that our thirst for greatness, for the majesty of empire, is a symbol of our final unity with a greater majesty, and if we remember of the second that, as an old scripture said, "The universe exists for the purposes of soul."

1915

ON AN IRISH HILL

It has been my dream for many years that I might at some time dwell in a cabin on the hillside in this dear and living land of ours, and there I would lay my head in the lap of a serene nature, and be on friendly terms with the winds and mountains who hold enough of unexplored mystery and infinitude to engage me at present. I would not dwell too far from men, for above an enchanted valley, only a morning's walk from the city, is the mountain of my dream. Here, between heaven and earth and my brothers, there might come on me some foretaste of the destiny which the great powers are shaping for us in this isle, the mingling of G.o.d and nature and man in a being, one, yet infinite in number. Old tradition has it that there was in our mysterious past such a union, a sympathy between man and the elements so complete, that at every great deed of hero or king the three swelling waves of Fohla responded: the wave of Toth, the wave of Rury, and the long, slow, white, foaming wave of Cleena. O mysterious kinsmen, would that today some deed great enough could call forth the thunder of your response once again! But perhaps he is now rocked in his cradle who will hereafter rock you into joyous foam.