The Crime Against Europe Part 9

For it is a necessary corollary to the fundamental maxim already stated, that Ireland, if not owned by England, must necessarily be "owned" by someone else than her own inhabitants.

The British view of the fate of Ireland in the event of British defeat may be stated as twofold. Either Ireland would remain after the war as she is to-day, tied to Great Britain, or she _might_ be (this is not very seriously entertained) annexed by the victor. No other solution, I think, has ever been suggested. Let us first discuss No. I.

This, the ordinary man in the street view, is that as Ireland would be as much a part and belonging to Great Britain after a war as before it, whatever the termination of that war might be, she could not fail to share the losses defeat must bring to a common realm. The partnership being indissoluble, if the credit of the house were damaged and its properties depreciated, all members of the firm must suffer. In this view, an Ireland weaker, poorer, and less recuperative than Great Britain, would stand to lose even more from a British defeat than the predominant partner itself. Let us at once admit that this view is correct. If on the condition of a great war Ireland were still to remain, as she is to-day, an integral portion of a defeated United Kingdom, it is plain she would suffer, and might be made to suffer possibly more even than fell to the share of Great Britain.

But that is not the only ending defeat might bring to the two islands.

We must proceed then to discuss No. 2, the alternative fate reserved for Ireland in the unlikely event of a great British overthrow. This is, that if the existing partnership were to be forcibly dissolved, by external shock, it would mean for Ireland "out of the frying pan into the fire." The idea here is that I have earlier designated as the "bogey man" idea. Germany, or the other victor in the great conflict, would proceed to "take" Ireland. An Ireland administered, say, by Prussians would soon bitterly regret the milder manners of the Anglo-Saxon and pine for the good old days of "doles" from Westminster. I know many Irishmen who admit that as between England and Germany they would prefer to remain in the hands of the former--on the principle that it is better to keep the devil you know than fall into the hands of a new devil.

German rule, you are asked to believe, would be so bad, so stern, that under it Ireland, however much she might have suffered from England in the past, would soon yearn to be restored to the arms of her sorrowing sister. a.s.suming, for the sake of argument, that Germany "annexed"

Ireland, is it at all clear that she would (or even could) injure Ireland more than Great Britain has done? To what purpose and with what end in view? "Innate brutality"--the Englishman replied--"the Prussian always ill-treats those he lays hands on--witness the poor Poles." Without entering into the Polish language question, or the Polish agrarian question, it is permissible for an Irishman to reply that nothing by Prussia in those respects has at all equalled English handling of the Irish language or England land dealings in Ireland.

The Polish language still lives in Prussian Poland and much more vigorously than the Irish language survives in Ireland.

But it is not necessary to obscure the issue by reference to the Prussian Polish problem. An Ireland annexed to the German Empire (supposing this to be internationally possible) as one of the fruits of a German victory over Great Britain would clearly be administered as a common possession of the German people, and not as a Prussian province. The a.n.a.logy, if one can be set up in conditions so dissimilar, would lie not between Prussia and her Polish provinces, but between the German Empire and Alsace-Lorraine. What, then, would be the paramount object of Germany in her administration of an overseas Reichsland of such extraordinary geographical importance to her future as Ireland would be?

Clearly not to impoverish and depress that new-won possession but to enhance its exceeding strategic importance by vigorous and wise administration, so as to make it the main counterpoise to any possible recovery of British maritime supremacy, so largely due as this was in the past to Great Britain's own possession of this island.

A prosperous and flourishing Ireland, recognizing that her own interests lie with those of the new Administration, would a.s.suredly be the first and chief aim of German statesmanship.

The very geographical situation of Ireland would alone ensure wise and able administration by her new rulers had Germany no other and special interest in advancing Irish well-being; for to rule from Hamburg and Berlin a remote island and a discontented people, with a highly discontented and separated Britain intervening, by methods of exploitation and centralization, would be a task beyond the capacity of German statecraft. German effort, then, would be plainly directed to creating an Ireland satisfied with the change, and fully determined to maintain it.

And it might be remembered that Germany is possibly better equipped, intellectually and educationally, for the task of developing Ireland than even 20th century England. She has already faced a remarkable problem, and largely solved it in her forty years' administration of Alsace-Lorraine. There is a province torn by force from the bleeding side of France and alien in sentiment to her new masters to a degree that Ireland could not be to any changes of authority imposed upon her from without, has, within a short lifetime, doubled in prosperity and greatly increased her population, despite the open arms and insistent call of France, and despite a rule denounced from the first as hateful.

However hateful, the Prussian has proved himself an able administrator and an honest and most capable instructor. In his strong hands Strasburg has expanded from being an ill-kept, pent-in French garrison town to a great and beautiful city. Already a local Parliament gives to the population a sense of autonomy, while the palace and constant presence of an Imperial prince affirms the fact that German Imperialism, far from engrossing and centralizing all the activities and powers of the empire in Berlin, recognizes that German nationality is large enough and great enough to admit of many capitals, many individualities, and many separate State growths within the sure compa.s.s of one great organism.

That an Ireland severed by force of arms from the British Empire and annexed to the German Empire would be ill-governed by her new masters is inconceivable. On the contrary, the ablest brains in Germany, scientific, commercial, and financial, no less than military and strategic, would be devoted to the great task of making sure the conquest not only of an island but of the intelligence of a not unintelligent people, and by wisely developing so priceless a possession to reconcile its inhabitants through growing prosperity and an excellent administration, to so great a change in their political environment. Can it be said that England, even in her most lucid intervals, has brought to the Government of Ireland her best efforts, her most capable men, or her highest purpose? The answer may be given by Li Hung Chang, whose diary we have so lately read. Recording his interview with Mr. Gladstone, the Chinese statesman says: "He spoke about ... Ireland; and I was certain that he hoped to see that unhappy country governed better before he died. 'They have given their best to England,' he said, 'and in return have been given only England's worst.'" It is certain that Germany, once in possession of Ireland, would a.s.suredly not give to that country only Germany's worst.

In a score of ways Ireland would stand to gain from the change of direction, of purpose, of intention, and, I will add, of inspiration and capacity in her newly-imposed rulers.

Whether she liked them or not, at the outset, would be beside the question. In this they would differ but little from those she had so long and wearily had measure of, and if they brought to their new task a new spirit and a new intellectual equipment Irishmen would not be slow to realize that if they themselves were never to rule their own country, they had, at least, found in their new masters something more than emigration agents.

Moreover, to Germany there would be no "Irish question," no "haggard and haunting problem" to palsy her brain and miscredit her hand with its old tags and jibes and sordid impulses to deny the obvious.

To Germany there would be only an English question. To prevent that from ever again imperilling her world future would be the first purpose of German overseas statesmanship. And it is clear that a wise and capable Irish Administration, designed to build up and strengthen from within and not to belittle and exploit from without, would be the sure and certain purpose of a victorious Germany.

I have now outlined the two possible dispositions of Ireland that up to this British opinion admits as conceivable in die improbable event of a British defeat by Germany. Only these two contingencies are ever admitted. First that Ireland, sharing the common disaster, must endure with her defeated partner all the evils that a great overthrow must inflict upon the United Kingdom. Second, that Ireland, if Great Britain should be completely defeated, might conceivably be "taken" or annexed by the victor and held as a conquered territory, and in this guise would bitterly regret the days of her union with Great Britain.

I have sought to show, in answer to the latter argument, that were annexation by the victor indeed to follow a British defeat Ireland might very conceivably find the changed circ.u.mstances greatly to her advantage.

But there is a third contingency I have nowhere seen discussed or hinted at, and yet it is at least as likely as No. 1, and far more probable than No. 2--for I do not think that the annexation of Ireland by a European power is internationally possible, however decisive might be the overthrow of England. It is admitted (and it is upon this hypothesis that the discussion is proceeding) that Great Britain might be defeated by Germany, and that the British fleet might be broken and an enemy's sword might transfix England. Such an overthrow would be of enormous import to Europe and to the whole world. The trident would have changed hands, for the defeat of England could only be brought about by the destruction of her sea supremacy. Unless help came from without, a blockaded Britain would be more at the mercy of the victor than France was after Sedan and Paris. It would lie with the victor to see that the conditions of peace he imposed were such as, while ensuring to him the objects for which he had fought, would be the least likely conditions to provoke external intervention or a combination of alarmed world interests. Now, putting aside lesser consideration, the chief end Germany would have in a war with England would be to ensure her own free future on the seas. For with that a.s.sured and guaranteed by a victory over England, all else that she seeks must in the end be hers. To annex resisting British colonies would be in itself an impossible task--physically a much more impossible task than to annex Ireland.

To annex Ireland would be, as a military measure, once command of the seas was gained, a comparatively easy task. No practical resistance to one German army corps even could be offered by any force Ireland contains, or could of herself, put into the field. No a.r.s.enal or means of manufacturing arms exists. The population has been disarmed for a century, and by bitter experience has been driven to regard the use of arms as a criminal offence. Patriotism has been treated as felony.

Volunteers and Territorials are not for Ireland. To expect that a disarmed and demoralized population who have been sedulously batoned into a state of physical and moral dejection, should develop military virtues in face of a disciplined army is to attribute to Irishmen the very qualities their critics unite in denying them. "The Irishman fights well everywhere except in Ireland," has pa.s.sed into a commonplace: and since every effort of government has been directed to ensuring the abiding application of the sneer, Englishmen would find, in the end, the emasculating success of their rule completely justified in the physical submission of Ireland to the new force that held her down. With Great Britain cut off and the Irish Sea held by German squadrons, no power from within could maintain any effective resistance to a German occupation of Dublin and a military administration of the island. To convert that into permanent administration could not be opposed from within, and with Great Britain down and severed from Ireland by a victorious German navy, it is obvious that opposition to the permanent retention of Ireland by the victor must come from without, and it is for this international reason that I think a German annexation of any part of a defeated United Kingdom need not be seriously considered. Such a complete change in the geography of Europe as a German-owned Ireland could not but provoke universal alarm and a widespread combination to forbid its realization. The bogey that Ireland, if not John Bull's other island, must necessarily be somebody else's other island will not really bear inspection at close quarters.

Germany would have to attain her end, the permanent disabling of the maritime supremacy of Great Britain, by another and less provocative measure. It is here and in just these circ.u.mstances that the third contingency, and one no Englishman I venture to think, has ever dreamed of, would be born on the field of battle and baptized a Germanic G.o.dchild with European diplomacy as sponsor. Germany, for her own imperial ends and in pursuit of a great world policy, might successfully accomplish what Louis XIV and Napoleon only contemplated.

An Ireland, already severed by a sea held by German warships, and temporarily occupied by a German army, might well be permanently and irrevocably severed from Great Britain, and with common a.s.sent erected into a neutralized, independent European State under international guarantees. An independent Ireland would, of itself, be no threat or hurt to any European interest. On the contrary, to make of Ireland an Atlantic Holland, a maritime Belgium, would be an act of restoration to Europe of this the most naturally favoured of European islands that a Peace Congress should, in the end, be glad to ratify at the instance of a victorious Germany. That Germany should propose this form of dissolution of the United Kingdom in any interests but her own, or for the _beaux yeux_ of Ireland I do not for a moment a.s.sert. Her main object would be the opening of the seas and their permanent freeing from that overwhelming control Great Britain has exercised since the destruction of the French navy, largely based, as all naval strategists must perceive on the unchallenged possession of Ireland.

That Ireland is primarily a European island inhabited by a European people who are not English, and who have for centuries appealed to Europe and the world to aid them in ceasing to be politically controlled by England, is historic fact. And since the translation of this historic fact into practice European politics would undoubtedly effect the main object of the victorious power, it is evident that, Great Britain once defeated, Germany would carry the Irish question to a European solution in harmony with her maritime interests, and could count on the support of the great bulk of European opinion to support the settlement those interests imposed. And if politically and commercially an independent and neutral Irish State commended itself to Europe, on moral and intellectual grounds the claim could be put still higher. Nothing advanced on behalf of England could meet the case for a free Ireland as stated by Germany. Germany would attain her ends as the champion of national liberty and could destroy England's naval supremacy for all time by an act of irreproachable morality.

The United States, however distasteful from one point of view the defeat of England might be, could do nothing to oppose a European decision that could dearly win an instant support from influential circles--Irish and German--within her own borders.

In any case the Monroe Doctrine cuts both ways, and unless at the outset the United States could be drawn into an Anglo-Teutonic conflict, it is clear that the decision of a European Congress to create a new European State out of a very old European people could not furnish ground for American interference.

I need not further labour the question. If Englishmen will but awaken from the dream that Ireland "belongs" to them and not to the Irish people, and that that great and fertile island, inhabited by a brave, a chivalrous and an intellectual race (qualities they have alas! done their utmost to expel from the island) is a piece of real estate they own and can dispose of as they will, they cannot fail to perceive that the Irish question cannot much longer be mishandled with impunity, and that far from being, as they now think it, merely a party question--and not even a "domestic question" or one the colonies have a voice in--it may in a brief epoch become a European question.

With the approaching disappearance of the Near Eastern question (which England is hastening to the detriment of Turkey) a more and more pent-in Central Europe may discover that there is a Near Western question, and that Ireland--a free Ireland--restored to Europe is the key to unlock the western ocean and open the seaways of the world.

Again it is Mr. Gladstone who comes to remind Englishmen that Ireland, after all, is a European island, and that Europe has some distant standing in the issue.

"I would beseech Englishmen to consider how they would behave to Ireland, if instead of having 5,000,000 of people, she had 25,000,000; or if instead of being placed between us and the ocean she were placed between us and the Continent." (Notes and queries on the Irish Demand, February, 1887.) While the geographical positions of the islands to each other and to Europe have not changed, and cannot change, the political relation of one to the other, and so the political and economical relation of both to Europe, to the world and to the carrying trade of the world and the naval policies of the powers may be gravely altered by agencies beyond the control of Great Britain.

The changes wrought in the speed and capacity of steam shipping, the growth and visible trend of German naval power, and the increasing possibilities of aerial navigation, all unite to emphasize the historian Niebuhr's warning, and to indicate for Ireland a possible future of restored communion with Europe, and less and less the continued wrong of that artificial exclusion in which British policy has sought to maintain her--"an island beyond an island."

Chapter IX

THE ELSEWHERE EMPIRE

Every man born in Ireland holds a "hereditary brief" for the opponents of English sway, wherever they may be. The tribunal of history in his own land is closed to him; he must appeal to another court; he must seek the ear of those who make history elsewhere. The Irishman is denied the right of having a history, as he is denied the right of having a country. He must recover both. For him there is no past any more than a future. And if he seeks the record of his race in the only schools or books open to him he will find that hope has been shut out of the school and fame taken out of the story.

The late John Richard Green, one of the greatest of English historians, was attracted to Ireland by a n.o.ble sympathy for the fallen which he shared with very few of his fellow-countrymen. We are told that he sympathized with the spirit of Irish nationality. "A State," he would say, "is accidental; it can be made or unmade; but a nation is something real which can be neither made nor destroyed."

He had once planned a history of Ireland, "but abandoned the idea because the continuous record of misery and misgovernment was too painful to contemplate." All pleasure lies in contrast. The history of Ireland offers no contrast; it is a tale of unmitigated wrong.

It is too full of graves and the ghosts are not laid yet. As well write the history of a churchyard. Forty years before John Richard Green thus explained why he had abandoned the plan of the graveyard, Victor Hugo lashed the front of England with this very thong. "Ireland turned into a cemetery; Poland transported to Siberia; all Italy a galleys--there is where we stand in this month of November, 1831!"

The history of Ireland remains to be written, because the purpose of Ireland remains yet to be achieved. The widow of John Richard Green has laid the foundations of that temple of hope in which the youth of Ireland must enter and be sworn to the task that yet remains for Irishmen to accomplish.

And so in closing the days of 1913 I bring, with a message of hope, these scattered thoughts upon the British Empire and its approaching dissolution to lay before the youth of Ireland. I say approaching dissolution advisedly, for the signs are there to be read. "Home Rule"

will not save it. The attempt now being made to bribe Ireland and the greater Ireland beyond the seas, to the side of the Elsewhere Empire by what has been aptly termed a "ticket-of-leave" bill, will not suffice. The issue lies in stronger hands. Even could the two Irelands be won by the dole now offered, of a subordinate Parliament in Dublin, its hands tied so that it must be impotent for any national effort, "a Parliament" as Mr. Herbert Samuel says, "for the local affairs of Irishmen," there are other and more powerful agencies that no measure of conciliation within the Empire can permanently win to that system of world exploitation centred in London.

"I would let the Irish have Home Rule," said recently Mr. Winston Churchill, "for their own idiotic affairs." But the last word came from Lord Morley, the "father of Home Rule." "Give it them," he said, in friendly, private counsel, "give it them; let them have the full savour of their own dunghill civilization."

But the last word of all will come, not from Lord Morley, or "Home Rule," but from the land and the myriad peoples whose ancient civilization, Lord Morley, like every preceding Viceroy, has striven to bury under the dunghill of British supremacy in India, and to hide the very outlines of the ancient body of the set designs of a new purpose. The capital of British India is to be the "new Delhi,"

planned in Whitehall, but paid for in India--the apotheosis of dung.

The new India will make short work of "the new Delhi."

"An unplumbed, salt, estranging sea" of moral and spiritual separation sets between the imperial conception as nourished in Britain and the growing hope of the great millions of mankind who make up the greatest realm of her empire.

Ireland _might_ be bought or bribed, at any rate in this generation, to forfeit her national ideals and barter the aspiration that six centuries of contact with England have failed to kill; but the 350,000,000 of Indian mankind can never be, or bought, or bribed in the end.

Even if Ireland forgot the deathless words of Grattan, delivered in the subordinate Parliament of 1780, those words will find a response in the hearts of men who never heard of Grattan. For the voice of the Irish patriot was, in truth, a world voice--a summons to every audience wherever men gather in quest of freedom. The prophesy Grattan uttered in the name of Ireland a.s.suredly will be fulfilled, and that in the life time of many of us, in that greater Ireland England holds in the eastern seas by the very same tide of raid, conquest and spoliation that has given her our own land.

Subst.i.tute India for Ireland and the Grattan of 1780 becomes the Indian patriot of to-day.

"I will never be satisfied so long as the meanest cottager in Ireland has a link of the British chain clanking in his rags; he may be naked, he shall not be in irons; and I do see the time is at hand; the spirit has gone forth, the declaration is planted; and though great men should apostasize, yet the cause will live; and though the public speaker should die, yet the immortal fire shall outlast the organ which conveyed it, and the breath of liberty, like the word of holy men, will not die with the prophet, but survive him."

Were Ireland to accept the bribe now offered she would indeed justify the reproach of Wilfred Blunt; but she would become some thing else than a "weapon of offence in England's hands against the freedom of the world elsewhere;" she would share, and rightly share the fate of the parasite growth that, having gripped her trunk so tightly, has by that aid reached the sunlight. The British Empire is no northern oak tree. It is a creeping, climbing plant that has fastened on the limbs of others and grown great from a sap not its own. If we seek an a.n.a.logy for it in the vegetable and not in the animal world we must go to the forests of the tropics and not to the northland woodlands.

In the great swamps at the mouth of the Amazon the naturalist Bates describes a monstrous liana, the "Sipo Matador" or Murdering Creeper, that far more fitly than the oak tree of the north typifies John Bull and the place he has won in the sunlight by the once strong limbs of Ireland.