John Redmond's Last Years Part 3

"We shall not a.s.sume office and we shall not hold office unless we can secure the safeguards which experience shows us to be necessary for the legislative utility and honour of the party of progress."

This was universally taken to mean that he would obtain a guarantee that the King would, if necessary, consent to the creation of sufficient new peers to override the hostile majority. But as the election progressed, uncertainties developed and an alternative policy of attempting to reform the Upper House was advocated in certain quarters. The question arose also as to whether the first business of the new House should be to pa.s.s the Budget which the Lords had thrown out or to proceed with the attack on the power of veto.

Redmond's view on this was not in doubt. At a meeting in Dublin on February 10, 1910, he declared in the most emphatic manner that to deal with the Budget first would be a breach of Mr. Asquith's pledge to the country, since it would throw away the power of the House of Commons to stop supply. This speech attracted much attention, and the memory of it was present to many a fortnight later when Mr. Asquith was replying to Mr. Balfour at the opening of the debate on the Address. The Prime Minister dwelt strongly on the administrative necessity for regularizing the financial position disturbed by the Upper House's unconst.i.tutional action. He indicated also the need for reform in the composition of that House. But, above all, he disclaimed as improper and impossible any attempt to secure in advance a pledge for the contingent exercise of the Royal prerogative.

"I have received no such guarantee and I have asked for no such guarantee," he said.

The change was marked indeed from the moment when he uttered in the Albert Hall his sentence against a.s.suming office or holding office without the necessary safeguards--an a.s.surance at which the whole vast a.s.sembly rose to their feet and cheered. Every word in his speech on the Address added to the depression of his followers and the elation of the Opposition. Redmond followed him at once. In such circ.u.mstances as then existed, it was exceedingly undesirable for the Irish leader to emphasize the fact that his vote could overthrow the Government: and the least unnecessary display of this power would naturally and properly have been resented by the Government's following. No one knew this better than Redmond, yet the position demanded bold action. His speech, courteous, as always, in tone, and studiously respectful in its reference to the position of the Crown, was an open menace to the Government. He quoted the Prime Minister's words at the Albert Hall, he appealed to the House at large for the construction which had been everywhere put on them; and it was apparent that he had the full sympathy not only of his own party and of Labour, but of most of Mr.

Asquith's own following. He concluded in these words:

"If the Prime Minister is not in a position to say that he has such guarantees as are necessary to enable him to pa.s.s a Veto Bill this year, and if in spite of that he intends to remain in office and proposes to pa.s.s the Budget into law and then to adjourn--I do not care for how short or how long--the consideration of the Bill dealing with the veto of the House of Lords, that is a policy which Ireland cannot and will not support."

The effect on the House was such that no one rose to continue the debate. Next day it was resumed, and not only Labour speakers, but one after another of the Liberals, including some of the Prime Minister's most docile, old-fashioned supporters rose and declared that Redmond and not the Leader of the House had expressed their views. So began a remarkable struggle in which the combined forces of the private members--Liberal, Labour and Irish--united by a common desire to destroy the domination of the Peers, contended against the Cabinet's policy of attempting not merely to limit the power of veto but to reconst.i.tute the Upper House. In such a process men saw that the driving force of the majority would waste away and that the composite character of their alliance would lead to certain disruption.

Before the debate on the Address concluded it was plain that Redmond had won. From that period onwards his popularity, and, through him, the popularity of the party which he led, was immensely increased in Great Britain. He was regarded as one of the men who had rendered best service to democracy against privilege. He himself believed that in this first contest Ireland had decided the victory--had decided the overthrow of the House which had so long opposed its liberties. Labour had then neither the essential leader nor the necessary parliamentary strength: Liberalism was confused and uncertain at the critical moment.

Yet in the very process of achieving this success Redmond laid himself open to attack. The Budget was regarded with dislike by a very large section of Irishmen, and apart from considerations of political strategy the Irish members would certainly have voted against it. Now, the power was in their hands to defeat it finally. By so doing they would, of course, justify to some degree the unconst.i.tutional action of the Lords; but this consideration did not weigh with Mr. O'Brien and Mr. Healy.

They accused Redmond of selling the real interests of Ireland to keep a Government in office which could offer nothing in return but a gambling chance of limiting the veto of the Lords. Mr. O'Brien was firmly confident that no such measure would ever pa.s.s. He denounced the bargain, not merely because it was a bargain in which Redmond accepted what was in his view a ruinous injustice to Ireland, but because it was a bargain in which the Irish had been outwitted. This line of argument was to be dinned into the ears of Ireland during all the remaining years of Redmond's life. The only conclusive answer to it was to gain Home Rule. If, in the long run, it came to appear that the attackers had been right in their contention, and that Ireland had never received the expected return, the fault for that result lay with Ireland itself no less than with England; it most a.s.suredly did not lie with John Redmond.

A great weight of responsibility rests on those who from the first hour of Ireland's opportunity ingeminated distrust to an over-suspicious people.

For the moment, however, the attack made no headway. Irishmen have a shrewd political sense, and they felt that in the struggle to pin Liberal Ministers to the true fighting objective Redmond had won. They were also delighted to see the Irish party openly exert its power--not quite realizing that such exhibitions were against the interest of the democratic alliance, which had to undergo a grave test. The Government's vacillation had rendered another general election necessary if the Veto question were to be fought out.

On April 29th the House adjourned for the Whitsuntide recess, after which the crisis was to come with the decision of the House of Lords whether to accept or reject the Veto Resolution, which had then pa.s.sed the Commons. On May 7th, after a short and sudden illness, King Edward died. Both the great English parties were unwilling to renew the most acute political struggle of modern times at the opening of a new reign, and means of accommodation was sought through a Conference which sat first on June 16th and held twenty-one meetings. No representative of Ireland was on this body. On November 10th it reported that no result had come of its efforts, and a new general election was fixed for December 1st.

When the Conference finally broke down Redmond was on his way back from America, whither he had gone accompanied by Mr. Devlin. Mr. T.P.

O'Connor at the same time undertook a tour in Canada. The success of these missions showed that the interest and the confidence of the Irish race were higher than at any previous period: the amba.s.sadors brought back a contribution of one hundred thousand dollars to the election funds, and the ship on which they came was saluted by bonfires all along the coast of Cork. Ireland, too, was subscribing as Ireland had not subscribed since Parnell's zenith: and this was an Ireland in which the land-hunger had been largely appeased. The theory that Ireland's demand for self-government was merely generated by Ireland's poverty began to look ridiculous.

It was the cue of the Tory Press at this moment to excite prejudice against the Liberals by representing them as the bondslaves of the "dollar dictator"--ordered about by an Irish autocrat with swollen money-bags from New York. This line of argument did us little harm in Great Britain; in Ireland it improved Redmond's position, for it was a useful answer to Mr. O'Brien's representation of him as the abject tool of Liberal politicians. The election, on the whole, strengthened our party. Mr. Healy was thrown out; and Mr. O'Brien, though he retained the seven seats held by his adherents in Cork, failed in two out of three personal candidatures.

In Great Britain the second election of the year 1910 had the surprising result of reproducing almost exactly the same division of parties: and this added greatly to the strength of the Government. The Tory leaders now, instead of insisting on a maintenance of the old Const.i.tution, went into alternative proposals--including the adoption of the Referendum.

This was their constructive line; the destructive resolved itself largely into an endeavour to focus resistance on the question of Ireland--the purpose for which alone, they said, abolition of the veto was demanded. As has often happened, action taken by the Vatican gave the opponents of Home Rule a useful weapon. The _Ne Temere_ decree, promulgated in the year 1908, laid down that any marriage to which a Roman Catholic was a party, if not solemnized according to the rites of the Church of Rome, should be treated as invalid from a canonical point of view. Although legally binding, it should be regarded as no marriage in the eyes of an orthodox Roman Catholic until it was regularized in the manner provided by the Church, The case of an unhappy mixed marriage in Belfast was exploited with fury on a thousand platforms. Another decree, the _Motu Proprio_, was construed as seeking to establish immunity for the clergy from proceedings in civil courts. This, however, was of less platform value, because no instance could be found of a practical application; whereas the McCann case unquestionably gave Tory disputants a formidable instrument for evoking the ancient distrust of Roman Catholicism which is so deeply ingrained in the Protestant mind.

In spite of all, the English democracy remained steady in its purpose.

Party feeling, however, ran to heights not known in living memory. In July 1911 the Parliament Bill went to the Lords, where it was altered out of all recognition. On July 20th Mr. Asquith sent a letter to Mr.

Balfour stating that the King had guaranteed that he would exercise his prerogative to secure that the Bill should be pa.s.sed substantially as it left the Commons. On the 24th the extreme section of the Tory party, headed by Lord Hugh Cecil, refused to allow the Prime Minister a hearing in the House of Commons.

From an Irish point of view the episode was noteworthy. At the outset of this critical session Redmond had cautioned his party to abstain from giving provocation and from allowing themselves to be provoked. The counsel was the harder to follow because some of the most vehement of the younger Tories sat below the gangway, almost in physical contact with Irish members, and hot words pa.s.sed. Still, it was grounded into all that we should not allow the great issue then at trial to be represented as an Irish quarrel. Our cause was linked with the whole cause of democracy as against privilege: it was an issue for the whole United Kingdom; and that was never plainer than on this day of July.

English, Scottish and Welsh members hurled interruptions and taunts at each other across the floor of the House, while Irish members sat watching. Something older and more far-reaching than the opposition to Ireland's demand now was felt itself a.s.sailed; and a force in which the Irish movement was only one stream of many swept against it. Anger in the Tory party was not directed against Ireland's representatives; and an odd chance made this plain. The fierce scene in the House reached its culmination when Ministers withdrew in a body from the Treasury Bench and the two sides of the House stood up, one cheering, the other hooting, in opposite ranks. For a moment it seemed as if the affair would come to blows, till Mr. Will Crooks, with a genial inspiration, uplifted his voice in song: "Should auld acquaintance be forgot?" The tension was relaxed and members moved out in groups--we Irishmen necessarily among the Tories. In the movement I saw Willie Redmond go up to one of the fiercest among the Ulstermen, whose face was dark with pa.s.sion. Colloquy began: "Isn't it a hard thing that you wouldn't let us speak?" The Ulsterman turned: "Not let you speak? My dear fellow, we'd listen to you for as long as you liked--it's only these accursed English Liberals." And upon this mutual understanding the two Irishmen walked down the floor into the Lobby exchanging expressions of mutual goodwill and possibly of mutual comprehension.

This little piece of by-play, so full of Irish nature, struck me at the time as something more than amusing--as having in it a ray of hopeful significance. But the most sanguine imagination would never have foreseen the series of events which brought it to pa.s.s, not merely that these two men should wear the same uniform, on a common service, but that the same Gazette should publish both their names as enrolled on the same day in the French Legion of Honour. On that day Mr. Charles Craig was a prisoner in Germany, wounded in a famous fight; and Willie Redmond was in a grave towards which Ulster comrades had been the first to carry him. There is an Irish saying, "Men may meet, but the mountains stand apart." In July 1911 such an a.s.sociation as the Gazette of July 1917 ill.u.s.trated would have seemed hardly more possible than the meeting of the everlasting hills.

The dramatic crisis of the parliamentary struggle between the two Houses of Parliament did not, and could not, come in the House of Commons. Its place was in the final citadel of privilege, and privilege surrendered on August 10th, when the Bill pa.s.sed the Lords after the most exciting and uncertain division that is ever likely to be known. But there were elements in the Tory party which did not accept defeat, though they had not yet clearly decided on what battleground to renew their efforts. For the moment, however, men were disposed to pause and take stock of the new situation.

But at such a time events cannot stand still, and almost at the same moment as the Parliament Act was carried, the Government took a step which gravely affected the Irish party. Payment of members was established by a resolution of the House of Commons.

Irish Nationalist members had always been paid from the party fund, that is to say, by their supporters. Payment was conditional, not of right, and it was not made except when the member was in attendance: it amounted only to twenty pounds a month. The new payment came from the British Treasury; it was made irrespective of the desire of const.i.tuents, or of any other consideration; and it amounted to a sum which in a country of small incomes sounded very imposing.

Unquestionably the receipt of it weakened the position of the party in the eyes of Ireland, and gave a new sting to the charge of a bargain.

All this was clearly discerned in advance, by no one more than by Redmond; and an amendment was moved to strike Irish members out of the application of the resolution. But the situation was hopelessly involved, the Irish party having repeatedly voted for payment of members as part of the Radical programme which they supported as affecting any normally governed country; and Government refused to make the exception.

As a result, Redmond's following lost much of the prestige which had resulted from scrupulous observance of the understanding that no Nationalist member should take office under Government. To join the Irish party had been, in effect, for most men, to make a vow of poverty. Now, on the contrary, it involved acceptance of what was in Ireland's eyes a well-paid and unlaborious office. The Irish are no less p.r.o.ne than any other nation to take a cynical view of these matters.

Yet a.s.suredly no man ever gave more service for less pay than the Nationalist leader, and it was the harder because he was a man who liked comfort and had no ambition. If at the time of the great "split" he had stood down from politics, success would have been a.s.sured to him at the Bar in Ireland, or, more surely still, and far more profitably, at Westminster itself. There never was anyone so well-fitted for the work of a parliamentary barrister who has to deal with great interests before a tribunal largely composed of laymen. No one had the House of Commons tone more perfectly than Redmond, and no one that I ever heard equalled his gift for making a complicated issue appear simple. When he was thrown out of Parliament at the Cork election, he thought of retirement, mainly for one reason: it would be better for his children. Yet, first by personal loyalty to Parnell, later by his loyalty to Ireland, he was held firm to his task--always a poor man, always knowing that it lay in his power, without the least sacrifice of principle, to become rich by a way of work less laborious and infinitely less hara.s.sing than that which he pursued.

The effect upon the Irish situation produced by the payment of members was slow to develop, and obscure. But an obvious and grave complication was introduced into both British and Irish politics at the moment when the democratic alliance had achieved its first great objective.

Parliament had been in session almost continuously since the beginning of 1909, with the added strain of two general elections thrown in. There was a widespread desire to clear the autumn of 1911, so that members might have some breathing s.p.a.ce, and, not less important, devote themselves to propagandist work in their const.i.tuencies for the new struggle of carrying measures under the hardly won Parliament Act. Each of these measures must involve a fight prolonged over three years.

But this desire ran against the purposes of Mr. Asquith's chief lieutenant, whose power and popularity were now at their height. Mr.

Lloyd George in the course of the session had introduced his Insurance Bill, and it was welcomed with astonishing effusion from both sides of the House. As discussion proceeded, however, the complexity and difficulty of its proposals, and the number of oppositions which they provoked, became so apparent that it was not in human nature for politicians at such a crisis to forgo the opportunity. Most of the Liberal party would have preferred to drop the Bill temporarily and refer it to a Committee of Enquiry. Mr. Lloyd George was convinced that this would be fatal to his measure, concerning which he was possessed by a missionary zeal. Probably when his career comes under the study of impartial history it will be perceived that never at any moment was he so pa.s.sionately and so honestly in earnest as upon this quest. But it is certain that by pursuit of it he created enormous difficulties in the way of those reforms which the democratic alliance at large most desired to achieve. He carried his point; an autumn session followed, in which the mind of the electorate was diverted from the Irish question and all other questions except that of Insurance, and Parliament itself was jaded to the brink of exhaustion.

The matter was difficult for us in Ireland because, owing to the different system of Public Health Administration, many of the most important provisions could not apply, and because the Bill as a whole was framed to meet the needs of a highly industrialized and crowded community. Broadly speaking, it was less desired in Ireland than in Great Britain; and even for Great Britain Mr. Lloyd George was legislating in advance of public opinion rather than in response to it.

Mr. O'Brien and his following vehemently opposed the application of the Bill to Ireland; and the Irish Catholic Bishops, by a special resolution, expressed their view to the same effect. The Bill, however, had a powerful advocate in Mr. Devlin, and the Irish party decided to support its extension to Ireland, subject to certain modifications which they obtained.

Apart from the new unsettlement of public opinion which it created both in Great Britain and in Ireland, the Insurance Act added to our difficulties on the Home Rule question. It was clear already that the question of finance lay like a rock ahead. Up to 1908 the proceeds of Irish revenue had always given a margin over the cost of all Irish services, though that margin had dwindled almost to vanishing-point. Old Age Pensions completely turned the beam and left us in the position of costing more than we contributed. Now the outlay on Insurance added half a million a year to the balance against us.

Still, difficulties and perplexities were not limited to one side. The Tory party were much divided since the crisis on the Parliament Act. A section, and the most active section, had been violently opposed to the surrender on the critical division, and these men were profoundly discontented with Mr. Balfour's leadership; so Mr. Balfour, yielding to intimations, suddenly resigned. Somewhat unexpectedly, Mr. Bonar Law was chosen to succeed him, Mr. Long and Mr. Chamberlain waiving their respective claims.

This choice was of sinister augury. Mr. Law did not know Ireland. But, Canadian-born, he came from a country in which the Irish factions and theological enmities had always had their counterpart; his father, a Presbyterian Minister, came of Ulster stock. All the blood in him instinctively responded to the tap of the Orange drum. As far back as January 27, 1911, he had urged armed resistance to Home Rule.

This was a line which Mr. Balfour did not see his way to take, and probably here rather than elsewhere lay the reason for the choice of Mr.

Bonar Law. The most active section of the Tory party--probably a minority, for in such cases minorities decide--regarded the pa.s.sing of the Parliament Act as an outrage on the Const.i.tution, which should be resisted by any means, const.i.tutional or unconst.i.tutional. But no possibility existed of mobilizing a force in Great Britain to fight for the veto of the House of Lords, nor again did the resistance to a new Franchise Act, or even to Welsh Disestablishment, promise to be desperate. In one part only of these islands was there material for a form of struggle in which the ballot-box and the division lobby might be supplemented, if not replaced, by quite other methods of political war.

The Tory party saw in Ulster their best fighting chance. There was no use in telling them that they jeopardized the British Const.i.tution; from their point of view the British Const.i.tution--as they had known it--was already gone; it was destroyed in principle and must be either restored or refashioned according to their mind.

This temper, with the att.i.tude towards parliamentary tradition which it produced, rendered the political history of the next two and a half years unlike any other in the history of these countries. The main purpose of this book is to record and ill.u.s.trate Redmond's action during the period which began with the opening of the Great War. But since that action was conditioned by the circ.u.mstances preceding the war--since in two notable ways it aimed at a solution of the fierce political struggle which the war interrupted--the political history connected with the pa.s.sage of the Home Rule Bill through Parliament must be outlined in detail, with avoidance, so far as may be, of a controversial tone.

V

It is however necessary, before closing this preliminary review, to take some account of Redmond's relation to his party, and, in general, of the working of the parliamentary machine. Difficulties were imposed on him and on the party from 1910 onwards by our very success.

Electoral chances had placed us apparently in the position of maximum power. From January 1910 onwards we had a Government committed to Home Rule, yet so far dependent on us that we could put it out at any moment.

Yet this was by no means an ideal state of affairs. The Government's weakness was our weakness, and they were liable to the reproach that they never proposed a Home Rule measure except when they could not dispense with the Irish vote. Still, from this embarra.s.sing position we achieved an extraordinary result. Right across our path was the obstacle of the House of Lords. It was not an impa.s.sable barrier for measures in which the British working cla.s.ses were keenly interested--for it let the Trades Disputes Bill go through; but it was wholly regardless of Irish and of Welsh popular opinion. Under Redmond's leadership we smashed the House of Lords. The English middle cla.s.s instinct for compromise was a.s.serting itself, when he took hold and gave direction to the great ma.s.s of popular indignation which the hereditary chamber had roused against itself.

Yet guiding action in an alliance of which he was not the head was delicate work. A clumsy speaker in debate might do infinite mischief.

When a party is in opposition, all its members can talk, and are encouraged to talk, to the utmost; little harm can be done to one's own side by what is said in criticism of measures proposed. Support and exposition is a much more ticklish business. Add to this the fact that under the fully developed system of parliamentary obstruction--that is, of using discussion to prevent legislation from being put through--the best service that a member can render to Government is to say nothing, but vote.

The tactics of limiting discussion to chosen speakers in important debates and of discouraging sharply any intervention which might help to delay a division were pushed further in the Irish party than elsewhere.

We were there under different conditions from the rest; our objective was as clearly defined as in a military operation: and we all understood the position. We recognized also that negotiation must be a matter for Redmond and his inner cabinet of three, and that many things could not be usefully discussed in a body of seventy men. But the net result was that the bulk of the party lost interest in their work, and, which was worse, that Ireland lost interest in the bulk of the party. It followed, not unnaturally, that the const.i.tuencies held one voting machine to be as good as another, and they did not generally send any men who could have been of service in debate. They did not any longer see their members heading a fiery campaign against rents, or flamboyant in attack on the Government; they heard very little of them at all. They knew little and cared less about the work of education in British const.i.tuencies, which had to be carried on through the mouths of Irish members.

Redmond has often been blamed, but quite unjustly, for failure to attract men of talent into his ranks. Parnell had that power. He had, and used, the right of suggesting names. But under the const.i.tution of the United Irish League (originally the work of Mr. William O'Brien when reunion was accomplished in 1900) the machinery of local conventions was set up and no interference with their choice was permitted to the central directorate--which could only insist that a man properly selected must take the party pledge. Whether this machinery was inevitable or no, cannot be argued here; but Redmond himself complained repeatedly in public that it worked badly. Candidates were often chosen purely for local and even personal considerations, and seldom with any real thought of finding the man best fitted to do Ireland's work at Westminster.

This evil, for it was an evil, resulted from the political stagnation in a country where one dominant permanent issue overshadowed all others.

There being no Unionist candidature possible in the majority of const.i.tuencies, any contest was deprecated--and from some points of view rightly--as leading to possible faction between Nationalists. The choice of a member really fell into too few hands; the electorate as a whole was not sufficiently interested. Nevertheless, several able men came into our ranks, and under the conditions it was not possible to utilize their talents fully, as they would have been utilized had we been in opposition, not in support of the Government. More could have been done, however, to give them their opportunity, and the responsibility for not varying the list of speakers rests on Redmond. It was his policy to avoid personal intervention, and to leave such choices to be settled by proposals from the party itself. This was a real limitation to his excellence as leader--for leader he was.

There was, however, an even more important limitation arising out of his personal temperament. As chairman, I never expect to see his equal. He had the most perfect public manners of any man I have known, whether in dealing with some vast a.s.sembly or small confidential gathering. The latter type of meeting is the more difficult to handle, and nothing could exceed his gift for presiding over and guiding debate. He could set out a political situation to his party with extraordinary force and lucidity. He could also, when he chose, so present an issue as to suggest almost irresistibly the conclusion which he desired--and this was how he led. Where he came short in the quality of leadership was in the personal contact.

His relations with all his followers in the party were courteous and cordial; yet without the least appearance of aloofness he was always aloof. He did not invite discussion. It needed some courage to go to him with a question in policy, and if you went, the answer would be simply a "Yes" or "No." He lacked what Lord Morley attributed to Gladstone, "the priceless gift of throwing his mind into common stock." No one thought more constantly, or further ahead; but he could not, rather than would not, impart his mind by bringing it into contact with others. Men like being taken into their leader's confidence, and he knew this and, I have reason to believe, knew the disability which his temperament laid upon him. Yet he never made an effort to combat it, partly I think from pride, for he hated everything that savoured of earwigging; he was not going to put constraint upon himself that his following might be more enthusiastic. There was no make-believe about him, and he was never one who liked discussion for discussion's sake.