The Evolution of Sinn Fein Part 5

The Prime Minister, less than a month after the Rising, spent a week in Ireland prosecuting enquiries: they resulted in two conclusions, one that "the existing machinery of Irish government" had broken down, the other that a unique opportunity had offered itself for a settlement.

Negotiations for the desired settlement were, on the Prime Minister's invitation, begun by Mr. Lloyd George. He contented himself with taking up the first settlement that came to hand, the old proposal for part.i.tion; but during the negotiations he left the idea in the mind of the Nationalist leader that the part.i.tion proposed was only temporary and in the mind of the Unionist leader that it was to be permanent. Each a.s.serted that Mr. Lloyd George had been explicit in his statement, and the unexplained discrepancy wrecked the negotiations. Even had they succeeded between the parties princ.i.p.ally concerned, they would never have led to anything; for the Unionist members of the Coalition when there seemed to be a risk of agreement, declared that they would have no settlement at all. The Prime Minister and his deputy yielded and reconst.i.tuted "the existing machinery of Irish government" by reappointing the former Viceroy and replacing the Liberal Chief Secretary by a Unionist. Apparently their chief object was not so much to make the Government in Ireland acceptable to Irishmen as to make it less objectionable to Unionists. The result in Ireland was what might have been foreseen. Any idea there may have been that the English Government was really desirous of establishing peace and justice in Ireland vanished like smoke. Mr. Redmond warned the Government of the consequences of their "inaction" (if any policy which was steadily producing the most profound revulsion in Irish feeling could be described by that word) but the Government was obdurate. It refused to release the interned suspects, it refused to treat them as political prisoners, it refused to mitigate the application of martial law: and gave as its reason the fact that the state of the country still "gave cause for anxiety." The only party that had no cause for "anxiety" as to its future was Sinn Fein.

The resentment at the execution of the leaders of the Rising had not confined itself to the indulgence of feelings of rage and sorrow. It had led to an eager inquiry into what it was that had caused these men to do what they did. People who had hardly heard of Sinn Fein before wanted to know precisely what it was and what it taught: people who had not known Pea.r.s.e and Connolly when they were alive were full of curiosity about them, their principles and their writings. Much of this curiosity was morbid and led nowhere: but a great deal of it led large numbers of people very far indeed. Sinn Fein pamphlets began to be in demand: a month after the Rising it was hardly possible to procure a single one of them. But if they could not be bought, thumbed and tattered copies were pa.s.sed from hand to hand: their teachings and the doctrines of Sinn Fein were discussed all over Ireland. The (to many) surprising fact became known that the Rising was not an attempt to help Germany or to put Ireland into German possession, but to free Ireland from all foreign influence: that the leaders proclaimed themselves followers of Tone and Mitchel and Davis and Parnell, that they claimed that Irish Nationalism meant according to these exponents (and no man in Ireland ventured to question their authority) Irish independence, nothing less and nothing more. The instinct for freedom, the feeling that the existing Government of Ireland had not for a hundred years fulfilled the primary functions of government, became a reasoned and rooted conviction that something more was needed to mend it than mere Home Rule. The price that Ireland had been asked to pay for Home Rule, that it was still pertinaciously pressed to agree to, the part.i.tion of Ireland, seemed an unforgivable treachery beside the fair prospect of an Ireland one and indivisible, in which Orange and Green, Protestant and Catholic were united in the love and service of a common country. The policies of the past, barren as they now seemed of content and substance, were abandoned for the new promise of a commonwealth in which all Irishmen should be equal, in which the worker saw a prospect of a better and a fuller life than without it he could hope to have. This had been the ideal of the Rising; but it was the bitter truth that the Rising had not brought it any nearer, and that no Rising seemed likely to be any more successful.

Sinn Fein with its policy of self-reliance, of refusing to recognize what it hoped by so doing to bring to nothing, of distrust of all policies of reaching freedom by an acknowledgment of subjection offered the means of realizing what the Rising had failed to bring nearer. But Sinn Fein could not be accepted as it stood: offering the Const.i.tution of 1782 it had failed to carry with it more than a few doctrinaire enthusiasts: agreeing to the const.i.tution which the leaders of the Rising died for it might (and did) carry the country with it.

All this was going on under the operation of martial law. Members of Parliament did not know it: the Competent Military Authority had no suspicion of it. It was believed that all that was required to "appease"

the country, to restore confidence in the Government, to bring back the happy days when Ireland was "the one bright spot" was to release the prisoners and resume negotiations for a "settlement." In December, 1916, the Asquith Ministry fell. According to its successors it had carried the art of doing nothing to its highest perfection: they were going to do everything at once. The new Prime Minister made vague promises of an attempt to settle the Irish question in the immediate future, and finally on Christmas Eve all the interned prisoners except those undergoing penal servitude, were sent back to Ireland. They were received with an enthusiasm which must have proved disquieting to the believers in compromise and negotiation.

Everything began again precisely where it had left off. The prisoners had been requested to give a pledge that, if released, they would cease to engage in political propaganda objectionable to the Government. This they had stoutly refused to do, and they had been released at last without conditions. Apparently it was supposed that the operation of martial law and the promises of the new Government would exercise a moderating influence: but martial law was only a standing challenge, and the sincerity of the Government was no longer believed in. If it had been even moderately sincere it might have rallied to the side of compromise those large numbers of men who in every country have an instinctive dread of new and untried policies and leaders. But it was soon plain that a Prime Minister pledged to everybody was pledged to n.o.body.

By the middle of February, 1917, the Sinn Fein leaders were at work again.

_Nationality_ reappeared as a weekly paper. It appealed no longer to a few enthusiasts but to a wide public eager to learn more of the only movement which promised anything definite. Before the Rising Sinn Fein had seemed to aim at the impossible by means beyond the powers of average human nature: it did not seem possible that any large body of Irishmen should try to secure independence by the hard path of Sinn Fein, when there was a prospect of something (to all outward appearance) nearly as good to be gained by recording a vote for the right man at elections. It was now plain to the average Nationalist that the parliamentary prospect held no promise: that the Irish Parliamentary Party were no longer listened to, and that the sworn enemies of Irish nationality were in the seats of power both in Ireland and in England. Mr. Redmond, confronted alternately in England by the iron insolence of the Tories and the smiling sinuosities of the Prime Minister, manned his guns to the last: but he had no longer the support of the country. The country was beginning to rally to the party which alone seemed to be the party of fixed principles: which had another standard by which to measure national rights than the temporary possibilities, varying from month to month, offered by the difficulties confronting English Ministers: the party which did not entreat but demanded. Sinn Fein did not promise now any more than in the days of its obscurity that national freedom could be won by the anaemic struggles of the division lobbies in the House: it warned its followers that the way would be long and steep, that to shun the steep places was to miss the track, and that the path did not cross the water. It had said this before, but it said it now to ears ready to receive it. If men had died for Ireland (men asked) facing the old enemy, what lesser sacrifice could be called too great? A wave of enthusiasm which no appeal to policy or prudence could withstand swept over the country when the new campaign began.

_Nationality_ with a tenacity of purpose that nothing seemed able to disturb began its new series with the old lesson, the decay of Ireland under the Union. As if there had been no Rising, no imprisonments, no threats of summary repression, the doctrine was again proclaimed with deadly deliberation that the Union had destroyed and was destroying the prosperity of Ireland even in those districts which clung to it with most affection. The population of Antrim, Armagh, Derry and Down was steadily declining under a system which the inhabitants declared essential to their continued existence. It a.s.serted the right of Ireland to prevent food being exported from the country to feed strangers while the country that supplied it was left to starve, and proposed the formation of a Watch Committee for every seaport in the country. The very first number contained a statement of the policy of an appeal no longer to a Government pledged to disregard it, but to the Peace Conference which must be summoned on the conclusion of the war. The advertis.e.m.e.nt of the Irish Nation League, a body independent of Sinn Fein, already showed how far Sinn Fein principles had spread in Ireland. "The Irish Nation League claims the right of Ireland to recognition as a Sovereign State. It a.s.serts too and claims Ireland's right to representation at any International Peace Conference. It offers determined and resolute resistance to any attempt to enforce Conscription.... It calls on the Irish people to rely on themselves alone.... Members elected under the auspices of the Irish Nation League will remain under the control of its Supreme Council and will only act at Westminster when the Council so decides. Never again must power be placed in the hands of a parliamentary party to mislead the country or to sacrifice opportunities." In March _Nationality_ announced the formation of a National Council to support the admission of Ireland to the Peace Conference and "to safeguard the general interests of the nation." But though admission to the Peace Conference was the political objective of Ireland for the moment it was not regarded as its ultimate or only aim. The Peace Conference was an opportunity to be made use of when circ.u.mstances brought it about, a precious and unique opportunity, but Ireland's main and serious work was to develop her own resources and her own powers of resistance. Accordingly, though Sinn Fein declared repeatedly its intention of carrying the Irish case before the Peace Conference, its main work was still to organize and consolidate opposition to the two chief measures now openly proclaimed as in contemplation, the part.i.tion of Ireland and the enforcement of Conscription. Both these measures were in contradiction to the claim that "the only satisfactory settlement of the Irish Question now is the independence of Ireland." And it was not hard to show that the professed objects of the war were incompatible with the policy of refusing self-government to Ireland. "When England declared," wrote _Nationality_, "that she entered this war with the object of a.s.serting the freedom of Small Nations the Lord delivered her into our hands."

There were not wanting signs that the Sinn Fein policy was rapidly becoming the policy of a Nationalist Ireland. By the summer of 1917 at least a dozen Irish newspapers were declared exponents of the Sinn Fein policy. An election for North Roscommon in February had resulted in the return of the Sinn Fein candidate by an overwhelming majority. The next contested election was in May and was by common consent regarded as a test election. It was a straight fight between the Parliamentary Party and Sinn Fein. Each party put its full strength into the contest and Sinn Fein won; the majority, it is true, was a small one but it was more useful than a large one, for it was both an endors.e.m.e.nt and an incentive. The _Manchester Guardian_ frankly declared that the Sinn Fein victory under the circ.u.mstances was equivalent to a serious defeat of the British Army in the field.

The reply of the Government to the result of the North Roscommon election had been the re-arrest and deportation of some of the released prisoners, to whom a number of others, some of them prominent Gaelic Leaguers, were added; the Chief Secretary defended this action by saying that he had decided "although there can be no charge and although there can be no trial" that it was better for these men to be out of Ireland than to be in it. The Parliamentary Party, opposed upon principle to Sinn Fein, saw that measures such as these meant its ultimate and complete triumph, but no arguments could move the determination of the Government to rely upon force. They seemed to feel that force was the only weapon that was left them and that they might as well use it at once; while Sinn Fein could point to the employment of it as evidence of its own reiterated but constantly challenged contention as to the real att.i.tude of all English Governments towards Ireland. And had the Prime Minister and his advisers, whoever they may have been, deliberately set themselves to prove to Ireland that they were not the wise representatives of an enlightened and friendly democracy (which the Parliamentary Party had up to this represented them to be) but the jealous and implacable guardians of a subject and hated race (which Sinn Fein had always a.s.serted that they were) it is very doubtful whether they could have bettered their record in a single detail. The Parliamentary Party, fighting for its life, with the ground in Ireland slipping from under its feet, appealed pathetically to its old services and old friendship, to the memory of the Irishmen who had fallen in the war, to the opinion of moderate men, to prudence and justice; it could not deflect by one hair's breadth the course chosen by the Cabinet. The fact seems to be that the Tory members who had always hated the Parliamentary Party saw the chance of paying back old scores and embraced it regardless of the consequences; while the Liberals, real and so-called, thought the Parliamentary Party's influence was waning in Ireland, and threw them over without remorse: they had got as much out of them as was to be got, and for the rest they might shift for themselves.

It was very difficult to believe that (as the Prime Minister said) the "dominant consideration was the war" and that preoccupation with it was the reason for his refusal to attend to the Irish problem. Everybody knew that Ministers, when they were interested, found time for many other things than the prosecution of the war. What was done and what was not done, and the reasons given both for action and for inaction, only served to deepen the impression of the insincerity of the Cabinet.

Almost simultaneously the Parliamentary Party and Sinn Fein resolved upon an appeal from the English Ministry and the English Parliament to bodies that might be presumed to be less partial. The Irish Party withdrew from Parliament and sent a Manifesto to the United States (now on the verge of its declaration of war) and the self-governing Dominions. Sinn Fein summoned a Convention to meet in Dublin to a.s.sert the independence of Ireland, its status as a nation, and its right to representation at the Peace Conference. This was the first, but it was not to be the only, occasion upon, which the policy of the Parliamentary Party was moulded, against its will, by the pressure of facts, into a tacit acknowledgment of the justice of the Sinn Fein contention, that parliamentary action was useless. The only difference was that while Sinn Fein held that it always was and always would be useless, English policy being what it always had been, the Parliamentary Party held that the Cabinet had by its action since the Rising destroyed the efficacy of the normally useful and legitimate means of reform.

The effect of this joint appeal from the Cabinet to the impartial opinion of English-speaking countries and belligerent nations was to induce the Prime Minister to bring forward "proposals" for the settlement of the question. He proposed the exclusion of six counties of Ulster from the Home Rule Act, if and when it became operative, the exclusion to be subject to reconsideration after five years; the immediate establishment of an Irish Council (in which the excluded counties were to have the same number of delegates as all the rest of Ireland put together) to legislate for Ireland during the war; and a reconsideration of the financial clauses of the Act. Failing the acceptance of this solution, the Prime Minister saw nothing for it but to summon a representative body of Irishmen to suggest the best means of governing their own country.

The Prime Minister's proposals, whether the product of his own or of some equally ingenious but equally uninformed brain, were promptly rejected by everybody: his concluding suggestion was, after some delay, judged worthy of a trial, the Ulster party stipulating expressly for freedom to refuse to submit to any findings of the Convention with which it did not choose to agree. They were practically informed by the Leader of the House of Commons that their dissent was incompatible with "the substantial agreement" which alone would justify the Government in giving effect to the findings of the Convention.

To claim that the setting up of the Convention was a sincere attempt to solve the problem of Irish Government is to make a demand upon faith which it might be n.o.ble, but would certainly be extremely difficult, to grant.

The incorporation in the letter by which the Prime Minister suggested it of an official proposal of heads of a settlement could serve no other purpose than to indicate that a particular solution had found favour with the proposer in advance: and to allow the Ulster Party the right of veto was to perpetuate and sanction the att.i.tude which everybody in the Three Kingdoms knew to be the very obstacle which the Convention was blandly invited to surmount. It says much for the general desire of Ireland for peace and settlement that the outcome of the Convention (compa.s.sed by secrecy which it was declared a criminal offence to violate while it sat) was awaited generally with an anxious and almost pathetic expectation.

Sinn Fein promptly refused to take any part in the proceedings. It had been formally invited to do so, but as five places only were a.s.signed to it, a number far below that to which its actual strength in the country was known to ent.i.tle it, it was not intended that it should have very much weight in the conclusions. Besides, the only solution which it was known to favour, the independence of Ireland, was the only solution which it was not possible for the Convention by the terms of its reference to suggest.

In a leader, declining on behalf of the Sinn Fein Party to partic.i.p.ate in the proceedings, _Nationality_ said, "Ignoring the Convention which is called into being only to distract Ireland from the objective now before her, to confuse her thought, and to permit England to misrepresent her character and her claims to Europe, Sinn Fein summons Ireland to concentrate her mind and energy on preparation for the Peace Conference, where, citing the pledges given to the world by Russia, the United States, and England's Allies, it will invoke that tribunal to judge between our country and her oppressor and claim that the verdict which has restored Poland to independent nationhood shall also be registered for Ireland."

The Executive of Sinn Fein also formally and unanimously declined to enter the Convention unless (1) the terms of reference left it free to decree the complete independence of Ireland; (2) the English Government publicly pledged itself to the United States and the Powers of Europe to ratify the decision of the majority of the Convention; (3) the Convention consisted of none but persons freely elected by adult suffrage in Ireland; (4) the treatment of prisoners of war was accorded to Irish political prisoners in English prisons.

Of these proposals the first would have been rejected by the Government, the second by the Ulster Party, and the third by the Parliamentary Party, which by this time was aware that such a method of choosing representatives would leave it almost without representation. The Government to "create an atmosphere" not merely accepted but improved on the fourth condition: the political prisoners were released unconditionally. It is significant of the way in which "atmospheres" are created in Ireland that though the prisoners were released unconditionally on June 17th, a meeting held in Dublin to demand their release, on June 10th, was prohibited by Proclamation, and an attempt to hold it ended in a riot in which a policeman was killed.

While the Convention was preparing to perform the duties which were to end in nothing, Sinn Fein was engaged in the task of rallying the country to its side. The death of Major Willie Redmond had created a vacancy in East Clare: the Parliamentary Party had selected its candidate to succeed him: but in little over a month after the release of the prisoners Mr. de Valera, who had been sentenced to penal servitude for his share in the Rising, was elected by an overwhelming majority. The leader "To the Men of Clare" in which, the week before the election, _Nationality_ recommended him to the electors, was suppressed by the Censor. During the same month another vacancy occurred by the death of the member for Kilkenny City, and as a preliminary to the election the authorities suppressed the _Kilkenny People_, the editor of which was chairman of the convention called to select a Sinn Fein candidate, who was promptly returned. Some idea of the appeals which Sinn Fein was making to the electors may be gathered from the leader "To the Electors, Traders and Taxpayers of Kilkenny," in which _Nationality_ urged the return of its candidate. It began with a quotation from a memorandum addressed in 1799 to Mr. Pitt by Under-Secretary Cooke, "The Union is the only means of preventing Ireland from becoming too great and too powerful," and by a quotation from another memorandum to the same statesman, "By giving the Irish a hundred members in an a.s.sembly of six hundred and fifty they will be impotent to operate upon that a.s.sembly, but it will be invested with Irish a.s.sent to its authority." Figures were given of the value of the trade between Great Britain and a number of countries in 1914, the trade with Ireland being nearly as valuable as that with the United States, twice that with France and nearly twice that with Germany. It went on: "It will be seen that with the exception of the United States, England has no customer nearly as big as Ireland....

England has had the market to herself for generations; Sinn Fein proposes that England should not continue to monopolise that market longer. Ireland has 150,000,000 worth of trade to do with the world each year, 135,000,000 of which is restricted to England. In return for part of that trade the other countries of Europe would gladly give Ireland facilities in their markets and Ireland would compel England to pay compet.i.tive prices.... So long as Ireland sends members to the English Parliament and relies upon that inst.i.tution, England will plunder Ireland's revenues and monopolise Ireland's trade at her own price."

Meanwhile the growing popularity of Sinn Fein was leading to a revival of the Irish Volunteers. Drilling was resumed and, though frequent arrests were made and the Government declared its intention at all costs of putting it down, it became more and more popular. Irish Volunteers even took possession of the streets of Dublin, in defiance of military orders, and kept the line of the procession on the occasion of the funeral of Thomas Ashe who had died as the result of forcible feeding and inattention in Mountjoy Prison. Though Sinn Fein held itself distinct from the Volunteer Organization it did not refuse to extend some indirect a.s.sistance. It printed a letter of Mr. Devlin's, addressed from the House of Commons in July, 1916, to a correspondent, which was "captured" and read to a Convention of the National Volunteers in Dublin in August, 1917.

In the letter Mr. Devlin had discouraged the importation of arms into Ireland for the National Volunteers, some of whom had a.s.sisted the troops in keeping order during the week of the Rising. This was of course intended to discredit Mr. Devlin in the eyes of the National Volunteers whose continued allegiance to the Parliamentary Party was now open to grave suspicion. In fact the prospect of their junction with the Irish Volunteers, a highly significant indication of the trend of opinion, decided the Government to disarm them. On the morning of the 15th August every place in which the National Volunteers had stored their arms was raided by the military. The only outcome of this action, combined with the steady and obstinate refusal to seize the arms of the Ulster Volunteers (the only political party in Ireland now left in possession of arms), was to alienate any sympathy remaining for the Government in the ranks of the National Volunteers. Had there been the least pretence of impartiality shown it might have been otherwise: but to disarm all Nationalists of any shade of national politics, while designedly and openly leaving the Unionists armed to the teeth, was a proof, now indeed hardly necessary, of the insincerity of official professions. The disarming of all sections of Nationalists gave an excuse for the practice of raiding for arms which now became common and often led to deplorable results. Innocent people were killed, either designedly or by accident, and the blame for the murders was laid upon the shoulders of Sinn Fein. When a return to the policy of physical force seemed threatened some of the ecclesiastical authorities took alarm, and issued warnings against breaches of the law of G.o.d and resistance to const.i.tuted authority. Murder was of course never countenanced by Sinn Fein: but as regards resistance to const.i.tuted authority, there were two sides to the question and Sinn Fein was not at all inclined to allow the ecclesiastical authorities to dictate its policy. Cardinal Logue might declare that the Sinn Fein programme was insane, but it was persisted in without regard to his opinion. Sinn Fein was always jealous of ecclesiastical interference: it welcomed gladly the co-operation of ecclesiastics as Irishmen, but it was determined to keep its own policy in its own hands.

While the Government Convention was sitting behind closed doors Sinn Fein decided to hold a Convention of its own, consisting of delegates freely elected by Sinn Fein Clubs throughout the country, and to lay its proceedings and conclusions before the country. The Convention met on November 1 and unanimously elected Mr. de Valera as the President of Sinn Fein, a position which Mr. Griffith had held for six years. The election was significant: it meant on the one hand that Sinn Fein thus silently and without any formal repudiation of its previous const.i.tutional att.i.tude accepted the Republican programme: it meant on the other hand that the party of the Rising now publicly and officially accepted the Sinn Fein policy and programme as distinct from the policy of armed insurrection.

Mr. de Valera had already in a reply to the warnings of the bishops denied that another Rising was in contemplation: he had also in a speech at Bailieboro' (28th October, 1917), replied to the kindred charge of pro-Germanism: "The Sinn Fein Party were said to be pro-Germans, but if the Germans came to Ireland to hold it those who are now resisting English power would be the first to resist the Germans." The Const.i.tution adopted by the Convention sets out at great length the policy and objects of Sinn Fein: its solution of the const.i.tutional problem is as follows: "Sinn Fein aims at securing the international recognition of Ireland as an independent Irish Republic. Having achieved that _status_ the Irish people may by referendum freely choose their own form of government. This object shall be attained through the Sinn Fein Organization which shall in the name of the sovereign Irish People (a) deny the right and oppose the will of the British Parliament or British Crown or any other foreign Government to legislate for Ireland; (b) make use of any and every means available to render impotent the power of England to hold Ireland in subjection by military force or otherwise. And whereas no law made without the authority and consent of the Irish people is, or ever can be, binding on the Irish people, therefore in accordance with the resolution of Sinn Fein, adopted in Convention, 1905, a Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly shall be convoked, comprising persons chosen by the Irish const.i.tuencies, as the supreme national authority to speak and act in the name of the Irish people and to devise and formulate measures for the welfare of the whole people of Ireland." It will be noticed that the _status_ of an independent Republic is claimed not because Republicanism is the ideal polity, but because such a status will leave Ireland free to choose either that or any other form of government; further that the new movement expressly links itself to the Sinn Fein of pre-war days by a formal recognition of its ident.i.ty with it and by the express adoption of its methods; and lastly that the means by which independence is to be achieved are defined as "any and every means available," the party being pledged neither to nor against any particular method.

One of the methods upon which Sinn Fein now relied to achieve success was not the method of its earlier years. This was frankly acknowledged by its leaders. In an article on the Convention summoned by Count Plunkett to meet in the Mansion House in Dublin after his election for North Roscommon, _New Ireland_ (which was next to _Nationality_ the leading Sinn Fein weekly) wrote as follows: "In the years 1903--1910 the policy of Sinn Fein was a policy of self-reliance in the strictest sense of that term. It directed us away from Westminster and towards Ireland. It was revolutionary inasmuch as it sought to displace existing British inst.i.tutions and subst.i.tute Irish inst.i.tutions to which the Irish people would respond.... The newer Sinn Fein is not quite the same as the old: it varies in one essential characteristic. Whereas the old Sinn Fein directed the Irish people towards self-improvement as a basis of national strength and made it quite plain to us that many sacrifices might possibly be demanded, there is no trace in the newer Sinn Fein of these qualities. The older Sinn Fein deprecated the reliance upon any external source of strength and urged upon us the advantages of self-reliance and pa.s.sive resistance. The new Sinn Fein places some of its faith at least in external bodies and does not inculcate the older doctrine of self-reliance and pa.s.sive resistance. It is not, however, Sinn Fein that has changed so much as the world forces that condition such changes. The old policy flourished in a period of world peace and was in consequence disposed rather towards a long drawn out struggle: the new policy is specially devised to take advantage of the present temporary state of affairs." This may not be very carefully worded, and it is certain that Sinn Feiners as a body would not have accepted it as a complete and accurate statement of the change in the Sinn Fein programme: but it is a statement (although a careless statement) by a Sinn Fein paper of an important fact--that an appeal to the Peace Conference was not an exercise of "self-reliance" but the adoption for the time of a totally different policy. It was in effect an admission, not that the policy of self-reliance was a failure, but that it had not yet been a success and was not so likely to be successful in the immediate future as an appeal for outside understanding and sympathy.

The Parliamentarians had appealed to the sympathy and justice of England: Sinn Fein had declared such an appeal to be futile and had refused to join in it. It was now prepared to issue its own appeal for help and justice not to England but to the Peace Conference. Ever since the Rising the interaction of the two Nationalist parties upon each other's policy had become more and more marked, though they still maintained to one another an att.i.tude of hostility and contempt. If Sinn Fein seemed to change (at any rate for the time) its policy of strict self-reliance into one of an appeal for outside a.s.sistance, the Parliamentary Party had shown a disposition no longer to rely upon appeals to English parties and to the English Parliament but to call upon a wider audience to judge its cause.

While they still differed upon nearly every other point, they were agreed in this, that to appeal to the Government of 1917 was a waste of time. The appeal to the Peace Conference was destined to fall upon deaf ears but this was not at the time believed to be possible. The Allied statesmen seemed to be committed beyond any possibility of denial or evasion to "the rights of small nations," "government by the consent of the governed" and other formulae of national freedom. In reply to cynical suggestions that these formulae might possibly be discovered to be (to the regret of their authors) inconsistent with the "realities" of politics, _New Ireland_ simply answered: "We frankly admit that we have faith and hope in the force of the great moral principle of justice to the nations and in its ultimate power of bringing back order to the chaos and tragedy of Europe and of imposing itself upon reactionaries."

But as a matter of fact, in spite of the energy with which the idea of an appeal to the Peace Conference was taken up and discussed, in spite even of such sweeping statements as that quoted above from _New Ireland_, Sinn Fein had at most agreed to graft a new and temporary policy on to the old stem. It still inculcated self-reliance, the education of the Irish people in questions of national economics, national finance and national policy: it still urged the employment of all the means which could be employed by Irishmen in Ireland to enforce and secure national independence. The columns of _New Ireland_ itself make this perfectly plain; and even in later references in that paper to the appeal to the Peace Conference and the hopes founded upon it, the editorial language is much less sweeping than when the idea was fresh in its fascination. The concentration of thought upon the Peace Conference was also exercising in another direction a modifying influence upon Sinn Fein. The old idea of the independence of Ireland was being gradually enlarged. It was no longer confined to the purely negative idea of freedom from foreign control: it a.s.sumed the more positive form of an Ireland entering its place in a great community of European nations, equally free and mutually dependent, bound to each other for the preservation of liberty and civilization. It was hoped that the appeal to the Peace Conference would result in the recognition of Ireland not merely as a nation to which the Conference was bound to see justice done, but as a brother and comrade in a new European Confederation for the advancement of democratic freedom. In this, Sinn Fein (though the fact is often obscured) merely represents the form, moulded by special conditions, which an aspiration, common to many of the democracies of Europe, had a.s.sumed in Ireland.

The winter of 1917--18 gave Sinn Fein an opportunity to show that the policy of "self-reliance" had not been abandoned entirely. During that winter the shadow of famine hung over Europe and every nation was engaged in the effort to avert it from its own sh.o.r.es by rigid conservation and economy of its food supply. From Ireland, under the final control of the English authorities, food continued to be exported recklessly. Cattle, oats and b.u.t.ter were shipped in large quant.i.ties to England, though it was known that the food supply of Ireland would barely suffice for its own necessities till the middle of summer. The independent and Labour members of the Irish Food Control Committee protested against this: but, being a purely advisory body and subject to the English Food Controller, the Committee found that all their advice was overruled (as one of the members put it) "by the man higher up." The independent members resigned in disgust, leaving the work of the committee to the officials. Sinn Fein began at once to organize an unofficial food census of Ireland: members of the Sinn Fein Clubs were invited to put at the disposal of the central organization their local knowledge of the food supplies of their immediate neighbourhood. It was the first opportunity on a large scale which the Republican organization had to show what its powers and capabilities were and what body of real support it had in the country. The Chief Council (Ard-Chomhairle) of Sinn Fein called upon producers of, and dealers in, necessary foodstuffs to "co-operate in the imperative duty of saving Irish people from starvation by selling only to buyers for exclusive Irish use": it urged the workers in the country, on the railways and at the ports, to refuse to co-operate in the exportation of food and called upon the public to treat food exporters as common enemies. The Food Committee established by the Sinn Fein Council sent circulars to the clergy of all denominations soliciting their help both in conserving the food supply and in making suitable arrangements for its distribution. It was not very easy either to secure a food census or to induce those who made money by the export of food to forego their profits. The princ.i.p.al export of potatoes was from Antrim, Down, Derry and Tyrone, counties in which Sinn Fein had very little prospect either of getting the requisite information from the farmers or of inducing them to forego their profits. English dealers were willing to pay large prices for Irish produce and Irish farmers were apparently willing to go on selling until, as _New Ireland_ put it, there would be nothing left in Ireland to eat except bank notes. The situation was in all essentials what it had been during the closing years of the eighteenth century when (as Arthur O'Connor pointed out) Ireland was supplying the belligerents of Europe with food and leaving her own population to starve, while the traders waxed wealthy. The only difference was that, the inducement then being a bounty paid by Parliament on exported corn, the inducement now was a bounty paid by the purchaser in England in the form of an enhanced price. It was a situation which, as the Labour Party was quick to point out, could not be met by any unofficial organization however energetic, such as the Sinn Fein Food Committee, but required official action. The Labour Party demanded that the Irish Food Control Committee should be strengthened and vested with executive powers, no longer remaining subordinate to the London Controller: until this was done, private or unofficial advice or action was merely playing with the question. Whether Sinn Fein exerted, any but a slight influence on the export of food may be doubted; but it certainly managed the other part of its task--the distribution of the available supplies--with a certain skill. Measures were concerted for purchasing supplies in counties where food was relatively abundant and sending it to agents in districts where it was scarce. The usual abuses which attend attempts to supply food to a poor population could not, of course, be entirely eliminated, but on the whole the experiment seems to have been generally successful. In Ennis, for instance, the local Sinn Fein Club established a Sinn Fein market to which farmers brought their potatoes: the club purchased them at the current price and distributed them to 150 poor families at cost: each family was provided with a card endorsed with the quant.i.ty of potatoes necessary for its needs and on presentation of the card received the potatoes. The scheme was financed by some prominent men in Ennis who advanced the necessary capital, the Sinn Fein Club being at the cost of the working expenses of the scheme: there was "no credit and no charity."

Although this and similar schemes worked fairly well, and undoubtedly relieved the situation appreciably in many districts, they were open to the objection brought by the Labour Party that they were ineffective as compared both with genuine co-operative effort on the part of the people themselves and with official action taken by the County Councils or munic.i.p.al authorities. They were, besides, likely to give rise to the question which _Irish Opinion_ (the Irish Labour weekly) put "Is the object political or economic?" There is no doubt that the fact that Sinn Fein was actively promoting measures of relief, while official action tended to produce a situation approaching to famine, was used as an argument in favour of the Sinn Fein policy in general. It was hardly to be expected either that Sinn Feiners should not use the argument or that the public should not think that there was something in it. The Labour Party's criticisms were, from the economic point of view, perfectly sound. An Irish Food Control Committee with executive powers, authority in the hands of locally-elected bodies to conserve and distribute local supplies of food, was ideally the proper scheme: but the proper scheme was, as usual, unattainable and Sinn Fein was doing what was perhaps the only thing that could be done under the circ.u.mstances. And though the Labour Party urged its criticisms, it did not withhold its a.s.sistance and hearty support to the Sinn Fein scheme.

The result was to increase the growing popularity of Sinn Fein. It was seen that it had another than the purely political aspect, that its principles of self-reliance were capable of being applied with a success limited only by the amount of popular support which they could command. It was, at any rate, plain that if the people who controlled the food supplies were all believers in Sinn Fein principles there need be no prospect of famine in Ireland, and the action of Sinn Fein (inadequate though it may have been) at any rate contrasted favourably with the indifference and inefficiency of the official bodies appointed by the Government and with the helplessness of other political parties.

The popularity of Sinn Fein was further increased by the continued activities of the Irish police authorities against its more prominent or active adherents. If the Cabinet had decided to create an "atmosphere" for the Convention by the release of the prisoners sentenced to penal servitude for their share in the Rising, an opposite "atmosphere" was being systematically generated by the Irish Executive. People were being arrested all over the country for offences incomparably less serious from every point of view than those committed by the people who had been released. The conclusion was drawn that the Government, while anxious to make a display to the world of impartiality and good will by a spectacular act of clemency, was in reality determined to regard the active support of Sinn Fein as a serious offence in the case of men too little before the eyes of the world for their arrest to lead to widespread comment or indignation. Their action was held to be an indication of their resolve to prevent the spread of Sinn Fein principles until the Convention should have presented a report palatable to the Cabinet: and Sinn Fein instead of suffering by this action simply grew in its own esteem and in the eyes of others.

The result of the South Armagh Election early in 1918, in which its candidate was defeated, only spurred Sinn Fein to further exertions. The election indicated more a desire "to give the Convention a chance" than a deliberate judgment of the electorate in favour of the Parliamentary as against the Sinn Fein policy. But a "chance given" to the Convention was in reality an opportunity denied to Sinn Fein. The Convention was to produce a scheme for the government of Ireland "within the Empire." A tolerable and workable scheme produced unanimously (or nearly so) by the Convention would undoubtedly (or so it was thought) have to be accepted by the Cabinet; if such a scheme were accepted and put into operation, the feeling of relief in Ireland would have been so deep and so general as to deal to Sinn Fein, just when it was beginning to gain the ear of the country, a blow from which it might take long to recover, if it should recover it for a generation. It was felt that a Sinn Fein victory in South Armagh would mean that the Convention might for all practical purposes adjourn indefinitely, while a victory for the Parliamentary Party meant that it was given the opportunity, so far as Nationalist Ireland represented by this const.i.tuency was concerned, of producing a scheme of self-government wide enough to win the support of all Irishmen really desirous of a reasonable step in advance.

Sinn Fein decided in the circ.u.mstances to put the real opinion of Ireland on the question of independence to a definite test before the Convention should have time to report in favour of something attractive to moderate men, if offered, but falling short of independence. On St. Patrick's Day "monster meetings" were held all over Ireland, attended by the Volunteers who mustered in force and by crowds which were certainly enthusiastic. At all of these meetings the following resolution was put in Irish and in English and, according to the reports, pa.s.sed everywhere with practical unanimity: "Here on St. Patrick's Day we join with our fellow-countrymen at home and in foreign lands in proclaiming once more that Ireland is a distinct nation whose just right is sovereign independence. This right has been a.s.serted in every generation, has never been surrendered and never allowed to lapse. We call the nations to witness that to-day as in the past it is by force alone that England holds Ireland for her Empire and not by the consent of the Irish; and that England's claim to have given the Irish people 'self-determination' is a lie: her true att.i.tude being shown by the recent ministerial statement that 'under no circ.u.mstances could any English Government contemplate the ultimate independence of Ireland'." In Dublin, Belfast and Clare these meetings were proclaimed and could not be held--at least on the appointed day. In Belfast Mr. de Valera addressed the meeting at 11 o'clock on the night preceding, but when midnight struck the gathering was dispersed by the police. But a "monster meeting" is a thing of varying dimensions: even "monster meetings" held simultaneously all over Ireland may not be attended by more than a fraction of the population. To put the matter beyond doubt it was decided to inst.i.tute a plebiscite in favour of independence and to publish the numbers who in each townland declared themselves in favour of it. While the plebiscite was being taken Sinn Fein had again an opportunity of "testing the feeling of the country" at a parliamentary election. Mr. John Redmond had died on the 6th of March. He had fought for his policy to the last with tenacity and dignity: through a long life he had displayed the courage which once led the small and faithful band who refused to betray Parnell: he had come to accept the limitations imposed upon his policy by English feeling with a pride which preferred to regard them as the dictates of statesmanship: he never lost his courtesy, his confidence or his belief in human sincerity. To Sinn Fein he had opposed an unbending hostility, and the temptation to replace him in the representation of Waterford by a Sinn Feiner was too great to be resisted. Sinn Fein sustained a heavy defeat at the poll, and this second reverse within a few months was taken to indicate the turning of the tide in favour of Mr.

Redmond's policy. It really meant no more than that the electors of Waterford thought, what many other people thought with them, that the attempt to oust Mr. Redmond's son from sitting for his father's const.i.tuency was a breach of the decencies of public life. Certainly the language which some of the party used in speaking of Mr. Redmond was inexcusable and deserved the rebuff which it received.

But the report of the Convention, laid upon the table of the House of Commons early in April, overshadowed plebiscites and the results of contested elections. Upon its reception by the Government the whole future of Ireland seemed to turn. But the report was difficult to master. The Chairman of the Convention claimed that it had "laid a foundation of Irish agreement unprecedented in history," but the actual record of the proceedings seemed at first blush open to a somewhat different interpretation. The Nationalists had, it is true, offered large concessions to the Unionists, but they were themselves divided upon questions of principle of the very first importance; and while some of the Unionists were content to accept what was offered, provided the Nationalists met the concession of this acceptance by a concession infinitely greater, the Ulster Unionists appeared to have succeeded in committing themselves to nothing. If the Government were to attempt to legislate for Ireland on the basis of the report the Ulster Unionists were certain to produce the "pledges" that they would not be "coerced" and too many responsible people had given these pledges to make the prospect of legislation for Ireland a comfortable outlook for anybody. But not only was the report difficult to interpret, not only did its publication put Ministers in an awkward position: it came at a most unfortunate time. The military prospects of the Allies were clouded, and the Government had decided to make a fresh call upon the man-power of the country. It was known that in their perplexity they had considered the possibility of extending Conscription to Ireland, and to do so, equally with refraining from doing so, seemed to be a step of doubtful expediency.

The situation was complicated; but the handling of it by the Prime Minister was more complicated still. He elected to treat the question of Home Rule and the question of Irish Conscription concurrently while he declared that they were not interdependent. He justified the application of Conscription to Ireland on the merits: men were needed in France and there were men to be had in Ireland: the Home Rule Act, accepted by the Parliamentary Party and placed on the Statute Book, had given to Parliament the right to legislate for Ireland upon matters of Imperial concern. As for the Convention, he refused to regard the report as disclosing that there had been "substantial agreement," nevertheless he announced that the Government would bring forward immediately such proposals for the future government of Ireland as seemed to be just. It was common belief that so far as the Convention was concerned a failure to arrive at "substantial agreement" absolved the Government from all obligation to legislate upon its proposals; an intention of legislating all the same appeared to be prompted by the desire to offer something in the way of compensation for the unpalatable proposal of Conscription. But the Premier insisted that any such interpretation of his proposal was erroneous: the two measures had nothing whatever to do with one another: each stood upon its own merits and each must be pa.s.sed regardless of the other. But, having elected to take Conscription first, and having announced his intention of forcing it through Parliament in spite of criticism and of putting it into operation in Ireland in spite of opposition, he indulged himself in a glimpse at the prospects of a conscribed Ireland: "when the young men of Ireland," he said, "have been brought in large numbers into the fighting line, it is important that they should feel that they are not fighting for the purpose of establishing a principle abroad which is denied to them at home." But as if in fear that this might imply some remote connection between Ireland's duty to fight and Ireland's right to be given the benefit of the principle it was asked to fight for, the Premier gave the most convincing proof of his sincerity in saying that Conscription for Ireland and Home Rule for Ireland did not "stand together"--Conscription was pa.s.sed into law and Home Rule was dropped.

It is difficult to conceive a course of action more nicely calculated to demonstrate on a large scale the princ.i.p.al theses which Sinn Fein had been preaching for years. The demonstration was carried into every household in Ireland in a form in which it could no longer be ignored. Conscription had not been a palatable measure in England, and it had not been put into force until the English people had agreed with practical unanimity that they must submit to it: but the choice had been their own and no Government would have ventured even to propose it until the English people had made up their minds beforehand to accept it when it should be proposed. In Australia it had been discussed and rejected; and no one either in England or anywhere else had questioned the right of the people of Australia to decline to conscribe themselves, though the interests of Australia were as vitally involved in the issue of the war as the interests of England. Ireland, on the other hand, while it was opposed to Conscription, had no choice offered to it in the matter. It was decided upon by a Cabinet of which no Irishman was a member and it was to be enforced in spite not merely of the protests of Ireland but of the grave warnings of a large number of Englishmen. To the argument that Ireland, being an integral part of the United Kingdom, must submit to the legislation of Parliament whether it liked it or no, it was pointed out that this argument had not been enforced against Ulster four years before; that when Conscription had first been enforced in England it had been admitted by Parliament that Ireland was a special case; that to a.s.sert that Ireland was an integral part of the United Kingdom was to beg the very question in dispute, since the national claim of Ireland had always been a claim for independence. Again, if the Home Rule Act was relied upon (as the Premier relied upon it) to prove that Ireland had accepted the authority of Parliament in Imperial matters and acknowledged its supreme jurisdiction in all matters pertaining to war and peace, it was pointed out that the Government which now invoked it had persistently refused to put it into operation. Yet the Premier, who, more than any other single man, had shown himself hostile in deed, while friendly in word, to Irish claims, himself admitted that Irishmen serving in the army in the then condition of Irish affairs would be fighting abroad to enforce a principle denied in the government of their own country. The conclusion which Sinn Fein drew was that the English Government was prepared in defiance of public feeling, justice and const.i.tutional practice to enforce Conscription upon Ireland by naked force: that it had no intention of granting Ireland any form of self-government, and that it was the duty of Irishmen to organize "an effective and protracted resistance." But, though prepared to resist, it continued to argue. It pointed out that the Irish Parliament, whose powers had been transferred by the Act of Union to the Parliament of England, had possessed no power of Conscription and could not transfer a power which it did not possess; any power of Conscription, therefore, possessed by Parliament over Ireland must rest upon some other basis, if it existed at all: that there was no legal process by which a man could be deprived of life or liberty except on conviction for a crime: and that this was why, even in the case of Conscription in England, Mr.

Asquith, a good const.i.tutional lawyer, "was careful to declare that he based the conscription of Englishmen on the basis, not of State duty or compulsion, but of the universal a.s.sent of the English people." If this a.s.sent was lacking, as it undoubtedly was, in the case of Ireland, it followed that to enforce Conscription was an act of naked injustice.

But no elaborate argument was needed to rouse a people convinced at last that they were in the vortex of Charybdis. They resented what now appeared as the duplicity with which for months their attention had been deliberately and elaborately focussed upon the alluring mysteries of the Convention while they drifted quietly and securely towards the edge of the whirlpool. They saw the cloudy structure of the Convention melt and float away, disclosing what it had covered; and they prepared for a desperate struggle.

The feeling was not confined to Sinn Fein. The Parliamentary Party left Westminster in a body and crossed to Ireland to help in the national resistance. The Labour Party joined hands with them and with Sinn Fein in the universal crisis. It involved for the Parliamentary Party a tragic and fatal break with the past. It was the end of all their hopes, of all their influence, of their very existence; and as they joined the Sinn Fein and Labour representatives round the table of the Mansion House Conference, summoned by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, they must have felt that they were invited by virtue of what they had once been rather than by virtue of what they were; they were there as the men who had relied on the broken reed, "whereon if a man lean it will go into his hand and pierce him."

After its first meeting on April 18th, the Mansion House Conference issued the following declaration:--"Taking our stand on Ireland's separate and distinct nationhood and affirming the principle of liberty that the Governments of nations derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, we deny the right of the British Government or any external authority to impose compulsory military service in Ireland against the clearly expressed will of the Irish people. The pa.s.sing of the Conscription Bill by the British House of Commons must be regarded as a declaration of war on the Irish nation. The alternative to accepting it as such is to surrender our liberties and to acknowledge ourselves slaves. It is in direct violation of the rights of small nationalities to self-determination, which even the Prime Minister of England--now preparing to employ naked militarism and force his Act upon Ireland--himself officially announced as an essential condition for peace at the Peace Congress. The attempt to enforce it will be an unwarrantable aggression, which we call upon all Irishmen to resist by the most effective means at their disposal." On the same day the Conference decided to ask the co-operation of the Irish Catholic Bishops who had been summoned by Cardinal Logue to meet at Maynooth. The Bishops, after hearing a deputation from the Mansion House Conference, issued at once the following manifesto: "An attempt is being made to force Conscription on Ireland against the will of the Irish nation and in defiance of the protests of its leaders. In view especially of the historic relations between the two countries from the very beginning up to this moment, we consider that Conscription forced in this way upon Ireland is an oppressive and inhuman law, which the Irish people have a right to resist by every means that are consonant with the law of G.o.d. We wish to remind our people that there is a higher Power which controls the affairs of men.

They have in their hands the means of conciliating that Power by strict adherence to the Divine law, by more earnest attention to their religious duties, and by fervent and persevering prayer. In order to secure the aid of the Holy Mother of G.o.d, who shielded our people in the days of their greatest trials, we have already sanctioned a National Novena in honour of Our Lady of Lourdes, commencing on the 3rd May, to secure general and domestic peace. We also exhort the heads of families to have the Rosary recited every evening with the intention of protecting the spiritual and temporal welfare of our beloved country and bringing us safe through this crisis of unparalleled gravity."

Many Sinn Feiners sincerely deplored the step which the Conference had taken in calling upon the Bishops for an official manifesto. Its wording seemed to rule out of existence the section of Irish Nationalists who belonged to the Protestant faith and to identify a national question with a particular creed. Certainly as a mere question of tactics the manifesto was of doubtful wisdom. It was certain to raise, and it did raise, the cry of the "priest in politics." From the mouths of the Ulster Party the criticism might be disregarded, for they had themselves four years before induced the Protestant churches in Ulster to pa.s.s official resolutions against Home Rule. But it was different when the English newspapers began to raise the "No Popery" cry and to write as if Sinn Fein were a purely Catholic party which it had never ceased to protest it was not. But in fact the vexed question of the relation of the Church to the civil power, a question not to be disposed of in a sentence, did not fairly arise from the Bishops' p.r.o.nouncement. The main gist of it was contained in two propositions neither of which was theological: the proposition that Conscription was an oppressive and inhuman law was (whether right or wrong) an ordinary statement of opinion upon a purely mundane matter: the proposition that such a law might be resisted by any means consonant with the law of G.o.d was the statement not of theology, whether Catholic or Protestant, but of ordinary ethics, accidentally theistic. But the concluding sentences of the manifesto threw their light backwards upon the essential statements, and the resistance to Conscription was represented as one more incident in the long struggle between free inst.i.tutions and the power of the Roman Church.

Nationalist Ireland, however, needed no incentive from the Bishops to resist. It was presented with a clear cut issue which could not be evaded, which the Cabinet by its decision had raised in its most acute form. If Ireland submitted quietly to Conscription then it acknowledged that it stood to the British Parliament in exactly the same relation as did Yorkshire or Middles.e.x: if, on the other hand, Ireland were a nation, even if it were a nation within the British Empire, it had the right to decide for itself on a question involving issues so vital to its future. This was the alternative which Sinn Fein put in vehement and pa.s.sionate language before the country and the reply of Nationalist Ireland was practically unanimous. Nearly every Nationalist in Ireland took the anti-Conscription pledge "Denying the right of the British Government to enforce compulsory service in this country, we pledge ourselves solemnly to one another to resist Conscription by the most effective means at our disposal."

But not only was the intention of the Government to enforce Conscription regarded as a challenge to Ireland, as a denial of its nationality; a deeper purpose was supposed to lie behind it. The record of the Government during the war in its dealings with Ireland had not been such as to persuade Nationalists of any section that it was either friendly or sincere. It was believed that, coupled with the desire to obtain recruits, and the intention of treating the Irish claim to a national existence as a thing of no consequence in order to secure them, there was the desire further to deplete Ireland of its Nationalist population and render its government by England easier in consequence. This belief did not always find public expression, but it existed and had much to do with the vehemence of the resistance. Apart from this consideration, the motives of the opposition and the feelings with which it was connected were succinctly given by _New Ireland_. "At the basis of the opposition to Conscription stand the moral rights of Ireland, the very rock as it were of Irish nationality, the rights to choose her own future and to protect her people from the horrors of the European War. If there were any statesmanship left in England to-d