Six days of the Irish Republic Part 15

Another contributory cause was undoubtedly Castle rule, and the fear that with the holding up of Home Rule it might continue for ever, unless some effective protest were made.

The Chief Secretary was himself the foremost in admitting this to be one of the contributory causes of the rebellion.

"There are a number of contributory causes, which lately have created antipathy to const.i.tutional methods and tended to increase in numbers.

First--growing doubts about the actual advent of Home Rule. If the Home Rule Bill had not been placed on the Statute Book there must have been in Ireland and the United States a great and dangerous explosion of rage and disappointment, which when the war broke out would have a.s.sumed the most alarming proportions in Ireland. All (outside parts of Ulster) would have joined hands, whilst our reports from Washington tell us what the effect in America would have been. Still, even with Home Rule on the Statute Book, the chance of its ever becoming a fact was so uncertain, the outstanding difficulty about Ulster was so obvious, and the details of the measure itself were so unattractive and difficult to trans.m.u.te into telling platform phrases, that Home Rule as an emotional flag fell out of daily use in current Irish life. People left off talking about it or waving it in the air.

"Second, in Ireland, whenever Const.i.tutional and Parliamentary procedure cease to be of absorbing influence, other men, other methods, other thoughts, before somewhat harshly snubbed, come rapidly to the surface, and secure attention, sympathy, and support. The sneers of the O'Brienites, the daily naggings in the Dublin _Irish Independent_, also contributed to the partial eclipse of Home Rule, and this eclipse foretold danger."

Another point is worth noting in this connection, and that was the growing power, first of the Coalition and then of the Unionist clique who were capturing it. Thus says Mr. Birrell:--

"The Coalition Government, with Sir Edward Carson in it--it is impossible to describe or overestimate the effect of this in Ireland.

The fact that Mr. Redmond could, had he chosen to do so, have sat in the same Cabinet with Sir Edward Carson had no mollifying influence. If Mr.

Redmond had consented, he would, on the instant, have ceased to be an Irish leader. This step seemed to make an end of Home Rule, and strengthened the Sinn Feiners enormously all over the country."

A general desire for peace and a sort of Socialistic feeling of brotherhood, I should say, were two further contributory causes.

"The prolongation of the war and its dubious end," as Mr. Birrell observed, "turned many heads. Criticism was not of the optimistic type prevalent in Britain, and consequently, when every event had been thoroughly weighed, there was always a chance of Germany lending a hand."

As to the general att.i.tude of Sinn Fein and Larkinite Ireland, it might be described as one of benevolent neutrality where, as in many cases, it was not one of actual hostility.

True, recruiting figures had reached a total quite unprecedented in Irish history (150,000), and loyalty had received an official stimulus when the Irish leader and the Lord-Lieutenant toured the provinces together; but this was discounted in the country districts by the deliberate plans of the Sinn Feiners, and in the towns, or rather in Dublin, by a sense of the futility of all war, and in particular this war, whose aims were vague enough to the statesmen, and appeared almost illusory to the worker. Hence anyone reading the _Workers Republic_ could have noticed whole pa.s.sages that might have been taken direct from the German Socialist Liebknecht.

One very significant leader (Sat.u.r.day, February 5, 1916) on "The Ties that Bind" is well worth quoting in parts as an example of this feeling:--

"Recently we have been pondering deeply over the ties that bind this country to England. It is not a new theme for our thoughts; for long years we have carried on propaganda in Ireland, pointing out how the strings of self-interest bound the capitalist and landlord cla.s.ses to the Empire, and how it thus became a waste of time to appeal to those cla.s.ses in the name of Irish patriotism.

"We have said that the working cla.s.s was the only cla.s.s to whom the word 'Empire,' and the things of which it was the symbol, did not appeal; that to the propertied cla.s.ses 'Empire' meant high dividends and financial security, whereas to the working cla.s.s that meant only the things it was in rebellion against.

"Therefore from the intelligent working cla.s.s could alone come the revolutionary impulse.

"Recently we have seen the spread of those ties of self-interest binding certain cla.s.ses and individuals to the Empire--we have seen it spread to a most astonishing degree until its ramifications cover the island, like the spread of a foul disease.

"It would be almost impossible to name a single cla.s.s or section of the population not evilly affected by this social, political, and moral leprosy....

"For the sake of 400 a year our parliamentary representatives become Imperialists; for the sake of large travelling expenses and luxurious living they become lying recruiters....

"There is n.o.body in a representative position so mean that the British Government will not pay some price for his Irish soul. Newspaper men sell their Irish souls for Government advertis.e.m.e.nts paid for at a lavish rate. Professors sell their souls for salaries and expenses, clergymen sell theirs for jobs for their relatives, business men sell their souls and become recruiters lest they lose the custom of Government officials. In all the grades of Irish society the only section that has not furnished even one apostate to the cause it had worked for in times of peace is that of the much hated and traduced militant labour leaders.

"But if the militant labour leaders of Ireland have not apostatized, the same cannot be said of the working cla.s.s as a whole....

"Perhaps some day the same evil pa.s.sions the enemy has stirred up in so many of our Irish people will play havoc with his own hopes, and make more bitter and deadly the cup of his degradation and defeat.

"But deep in the heart of Ireland has sunk the sense of the degradation wrought upon its people--our lost brothers and sisters--so deep and humiliating that no agency less potent than the red tide of war on Irish soil will ever be able to enable the Irish race to recover its self-respect, or establish its national dignity in the face of a world horrified and scandalized by what must seem to them our national apostasy."

Now the strange thing about Ireland is her definition of "loyalty." It is not with her a species of sentimental altruism but a plain, business-like, common-sense view of her own interests, and nothing can make her change that view, for she has through centuries of disillusionment become chronically suspicious.

"I dare say I don't take the same view as you would were you in my place," wrote Mr. Birrell to the Prime Minister on January 25th.

"Loyalty in Ireland is of slow growth, and the soil is uncongenial. The plant grows slowly. Landlords, grand juries, loyalist magistrates, have all gone; yet the plant grows, though slowly."

Her patriotism, on the other hand, is almost necessarily a matter of internal administration; and for this she fights with all the spirit that animated her in the past against Dane and Saxon. Hence it is quite easy for an economic grievance at once to a.s.sume the proportions of a national movement, and once it becomes resisted as such, the spirit of nationality becomes rekindled again, and it was this latter that prompted the final efforts in the evolution of the Republic.

America and Germany both contributed to intensify the spirit of nationality and gave material a.s.sistance that made the attempt at "Separatism" a practicable ideal, but it was only made possible because of the internal troubles in Ireland herself.

So long as a const.i.tutional outlet is not afforded for such grievances, so long must unconst.i.tutional means be appealed to; but the question which the breakdown of the old regime suggests seriously to all thinkers is whether there are not ample means within the Const.i.tution, and I think it is the universal opinion of the more moderate that there is; and it is just these moderates whose views will be the more welcome because of the failure not merely of the Sinn Feiners to establish a Republic, but of Sir Edward Carson and John Redmond to come to an understanding that would have placed them in a position to have controlled it in time, and, which is more important still, to be able to deal with any repet.i.tion of a similar character in the future.

Probably no a.n.a.lysis of the remoter causes of the rebellion, however, is more accurate than the psychological origin given by George Bernard Shaw in a letter to the _Daily News_ on May 10th.

"The relation of Ireland to Dublin Castle is in this respect precisely that of the Balkan States to Turkey, of Belgium or the city of Lille to the Kaiser, and of the United States to Great Britain.

"Until Dublin Castle is superseded by a National Parliament and Ireland voluntarily incorporated with the British Empire, as Canada, Australasia, and South Africa have been incorporated, an Irishman resorting to arms to achieve the independence of his country is doing only what Englishmen will do if it be their misfortune to be invaded and conquered by the Germans in the course of the present war. Further, such an Irishman is as much in order morally in accepting a.s.sistance from the Germans in this struggle with England as England is in accepting the a.s.sistance of Russia in her struggle with Germany. The fact that he knows that his enemies will not respect his rights if they catch him, and that he must, therefore, fight with a rope round his neck, increases his risk, but adds in the same measure to his glory in the eyes of his compatriots and of the disinterested admirers of patriotism throughout the world. It is absolutely impossible to slaughter a man in this position without making him a martyr and a hero, even though the day before the rising he may have been only a minor poet. The shot Irishmen will now take their places beside Emmet and the Manchester Martyrs in Ireland, and beside the heroes or Poland and Serbia and Belgium in Europe; and nothing in heaven or on earth can prevent it."

FOOTNOTE:

[3] I give the well-known letter in its entirety, but I cannot vouch for such pa.s.sages, and I know that in many cases officers were particularly distressed at having to fight Irishmen instead of Germans.

CHAPTER THE NINTH

REFLECTIONS TOWARDS RECONSTRUCTION

One of the most gratifying things about the terrible catastrophe through which we have been pa.s.sing during the last few weeks is the spirit of hope which has taken the place of the spirit of despair which immediately followed the outbreak.

Ireland has ever been more of a problem suited to statesmen than to soldiers; indeed, the soldier has more often than not come in to spoil the work of the statesman, and Mr. Asquith's hurried visit to Dublin, Cork, and Belfast after John Dillon's speech was chiefly undertaken in order to prevent any repet.i.tion of the old mistake.

The need for conciliation, everybody will admit, was exceedingly urgent, for it was the admitted intention of the Sinn Feiners to put the matter to the test as to whether England held Ireland by her own free const.i.tutional consent, or whether it was merely a permanent military occupation, like Belgium and Poland. "England is not the champion of small nations," they said. "She never was and never will be, and while she is masquerading before the world as such it is our intention, in Ireland's name, to give her the lie--yes, even though it be in our own blood."

Indeed, as I have already said, there appears to have been a belief among the Sinn Feiners that if only they could hold the capital for twelve days by force of arms they would have a sort of claim to be mentioned at the Peace Conference along with Poland and Belgium.

Now, it matters very little whether such a suggestion came from Berlin or Washington, or whether the whole thing was a fable, for the grand fact remains that England now stands before Europe with the point of Ireland's loyalty openly questioned, and she has only two courses open: she must either neglect Irish opinion and proclaim that she holds the sister isle by right of conquest--when, of course, the fate of Belgium is sealed as far as England's ethical pleading is concerned--or she may make such a final compact with Ireland that she can afterwards maintain before the whole world, without fear of contradiction, that Ireland is freely one with England without the help of a single soldier.

It's really more important than winning the war, if Englishmen could only realize it--for the psychology of Ireland is the psychology of every one of the const.i.tuent nations of our common Empire; and the late Mr. Stead used to say to me, "A blunder in Irish government is a blunder in Imperial government"; but I never realized this so much as when I learnt with what an intense interest the Indian students present in Dublin had followed the whole case.

When the Irish leader, therefore, in the acuteness of the moment expressed the hope that no party would be allowed to make capital out of the event, he expressed a hope which was re-echoed in every Irish breast; but it would have been far more effective if he had instead expressed the hope that each party should bear its proper share in the guilt of the catastrophe.

For the danger is the making of the Sinn Feiners into a national scapegoat for the faults of all.

For in a sense all were responsible. True, neither Redmondites nor Carsonites took any part in it--and it is very lucky they did not, for it would have meant civil war and fearful bloodshed from one end of the country to the other--but in neither case was it out of any love for England, for both of them fully realized that they might have been in the position of the Sinn Feiners themselves, and both were equally determined to rid Ireland of English meddlers.

It might almost be called a "tragedy of errors," for there was nothing but blundering all round. England should never have allowed Carson to arm, nor should Redmond have followed suit if he wished to play the const.i.tutional game to the end; but once both had appealed to the principle of physical force, neither had a right to censure the methods of a third party which had arisen out of their own incapacity to keep the country in hand.

England was in principle perfectly justified in employing force against the whole three of them, and hastened to take full advantage of the situation by handing the reins of government over to the military--but that was the greatest blunder of the lot.

For there can be no doubt that to the rank and file of the Sinn Feiners, as to the rank and file of the Orangemen, physical force was not an end in itself: it was only the protest of conscientious objectors which was being lashed into activity under continual provocation--the provocation of being threatened with the loss of everything they held most dear in life, and eminently admired by Englishmen for that very fact.

Normally Sinn Feiners and Orangemen were men of peace, the one economists, the other business men, who might indeed have been easily pacified had they been openly and sympathetically treated with, instead of being galled into fury by the taunt of bluff or cowardice, and such epithets as insignificant, negligible minorities.