The Issue Part 1

The Issue.

by Lector.

=INDEPENDENCE.=

Does Ireland wish to be free? Do we alone among the ancient Nations of Europe desire to remain slaves? That, and that alone, is the question which every Irish elector has now to answer. Let us put everything else out of our minds as irrelevant claptrap. Let nothing distract us from this single issue of Liberty. We must turn a deaf ear to sentimental whining about what this or that man did, his length of service, his "fighting on the floor of the House," and so on. Whatever may have been done in the way of small doles, petty grants, and big talk, the =fact= is that we are not Free and the =issue= is, Do we want to be Free?

Why should we be afraid of Freedom? Would any sane adult voluntarily prefer to be a slave, to be completely in the control and power of another? Men do not willingly walk into jail; why, then, should a whole people? The men who are =afraid= of national liberty are unworthy even of personal liberty; they are the victims of that slave mentality which English coercion and corruption have striven to create in Ireland. When Mr. John Dillon, grown tremulous and garrulous and feeble, asked for a national convention this autumn "to definitely forswear an Irish Republic," he was asking Ireland to commit an act of national apostasy and suicide. Would =you= definitely forswear your personal freedom? Will Mr.

John Dillon hand his cheque-book and property over to some stranger and indenture himself as a serf or an idiot? When he does, but not till then, we shall believe that the Irish Nation is capable of sentencing itself cheerfully to penal servitude for all eternity.

It was not always thus. "I say deliberately," said Mr. John Dillon at Moville in 1904, "that I should never have dedicated my life as I have done to this great struggle, if I did not see at the end of it the crowning and consummation of our work--A FREE AND INDEPENDENT IRELAND." It is sad that, fourteen years later, when the end is in sight, Mr. Dillon should be found a recreant and a traitor to his past creed. The degeneration of such a man is a d.a.m.ning indictment of Westminsterism.

Parnell, too save for one short moment when he tried by compromise to fool English Liberalism but was foiled, proclaimed his belief in Irish Independence.

This is what Parnell said at Cincinatti on 23rd February, 1880:--

"When we have undermined English misgovernment, we have paved the way for Ireland to take her place among the nations of the earth. And let us not forget that that is the ultimate goal at which all we Irishmen aim. None of us, whether we be in America or in Ireland, or wherever we may be, will be satisfied =until we have destroyed the last link which keeps Ireland bound to England=."

Were he alive to-day, when the last link is snapping, on what side would Parnell be? Would he forswear an Irish Republic or would he proclaim once more, as he said in Cork (21st Jan., 1885): "No man has a right to fix the boundary of the march of a Nation. No man has a right to say: Thus far shalt thou go and no farther. And we have never attempted to fix the _ne plus ultra_ to the progress of Ireland's nationhood and we never shall."

=IRELAND AND SMALL NATIONS.=

At New York 31st August, 1904, John Redmond declared:--

"If it were in my power to-morrow by any honourable means to absolutely emanc.i.p.ate Ireland, I would do it and feel it my duty to do it. (1904, not 1914!) I believe it would be just as possible for Ireland to have a prosperous and free separate existence as a nation as Holland, Belgium, or Switzerland, or other small nationalities. And if it were in the power of any man to bring that result about to-morrow by honourable and brave means, he would be indeed a coward and a traitor to the traditions of his race did he not do so."

If Holland and Poland and all the other little lands, why not Ireland? Put that straight question to yourself and you must answer it as John Redmond did in 1904. Are we alone among the nations created to be slaves and helots? Are we so incompetent and incapable as not to be able to manage our own country? Is a people of four millions to be in perpetual bondage and tutelage to a solicitor and a soldier? Did G.o.d Almighty cast up this island as a sandbank for Englishmen to walk on? Is it the sole mission of Irish men and women to send beef and b.u.t.ter to John Bull?

Look at the other nations and ask yourself, Why not? Why is not Ireland free? Are we too small in area? We are double Switzerland or Denmark, nearly three times Holland or Belgium. Is our population too small--though it was once double? We are as numerous as Serbia, our population is as large as that of Switzerland and nearly double that of Denmark or Norway.

Does the difficulty lie in our poverty? Are we too poor to exist as a free people? The revenue raised =per head= in Ireland is double that of any other small nation, seven times that of Switzerland! The total revenue of Ireland is ten times that of Switzerland, three times that of Norway, four times that of Denmark, Serbia or Finland. Yet all these countries have their own armies, consuls, etc.; they run themselves as free nations at far below the cost of servile Ireland. Why? Because there is no other country pocketing their cash.

Here are some figures:--

Area Population Revenue (thousands of (Millions) (Millions ) sq. miles) Ireland 32-1/2 4-1/3 30 Belgium 11-1/2 7-1/2 32 Holland 12-1/2 6-1/2 18-3/4 Denmark 15-1/2 2-3/4 7-1/2 Norway 125 2-1/2 10 Switzerland 16 4 3 Rumania 53-1/2 7-1/2 24 Serbia 34 4-1/2 8-1/2 Finland 126 3-1/4 8-1/2

These figures would suggest that Ireland is a strong military and naval power among the small nations. And so we are--only the army and navy we support are not our own; they exist to keep us in slavery, not in freedom.

It is about time we started business on our own.

=DEPENDENT ON ENGLAND?=

The most significant instance of English policy in Ireland is the creation of the widespread delusion that we are economically dependent on England.

An elaborate network of fraud and deceit has been built up to hide the truth from our eyes. We are secretly and systematically robbed and we hardly notice it. The ordinary Irish worker pays at least four shillings a week to England, he is hardly aware of the fact, so nicely is it done whenever he buys tobacco or his wife gets tea and sugar, and so on. Though the average income in England is three times what it is in Ireland, the notoriously underfed Irish workers have to pay more than twice the English proportion of indirect taxes on food, etc. We pay England 1/- on every pound of tea, 1-1/2d. on every pound of sugar, 7d. on every oz. of tobacco. There is no fuss about it: it is accepted as part of the laws of nature that tea should be a shilling a pound dearer than it need be. As for direct taxation--well, even the farmers know what the English income-tax is. Where does it all go? To England as taxes, profits, rents, imperial contributions, and trade. As a going concern Ireland is now worth thirty million a year to its owner, John Bull. There are certain expenses of administration--police, Castle, secret service, prisons, tax collectors--and there are, of course, several items of hush-money, dodges necessary to fool the people, such as "education." But the fact is that a bigger and bigger profit is being made every year out of this island. More agricultural materials and products are shipped to England, more Irish brains are selected for running India, etc., more Irishmen are utilised for gun-fodder. Sometimes, after much beseeching by resolutions and deputations, we are graciously presented with a minute fraction of our own goods. Is it not about time that we recognised in English "grants" our own country's trans.m.u.ted plunder? We are as dependent on England as a factory is on an absentee society lady who is shareholder.

In 1663 began the long series of English laws against Irish trade. Charles II. closed the English markets to Irish cattle, meat, leather, b.u.t.ter, etc. Ireland built ships and opened direct trade with Flanders, France, Spain, the American Colonies. The Navigation Act and the Jacobite War once more destroyed our mercantile marine and ruined our industries. Ireland was practically confined by law to the English market. In 1782, 60,000 Volunteers, with arms in their hands, won Free Trade--i.e., the liberty of Ireland to trade direct with the world. In a few years, bad as our own Parliament was, the country prospered exceedingly. The Union once more destroyed our industries and even our tillage and turned Ireland into a cattle-ranch; our mercantile marine was destroyed. All our trade is in the hands of English middlemen and we have to sell and buy at England's price.

We are dependent on England, not in the sense that we get anything out of her, but in the sense that we have allowed her to capture our trade and cut us off from the world. We have allowed England to become a parasitic bloodsucker. And because we have done so, we fancy that England is our sole customer. As if the whole world is not clamouring for meat and b.u.t.ter and other foodstuffs! In 1912, when England placed her cattle embargo on Ireland, the prices in the markets of Hamburg and Genoa--after deducting import duty and the extra cost of transit--were more than 11/- per cwt.

higher than the price paid in England. Had Irishmen then had enough Sinn Fein spirit, they would soon have discovered who was dependent on whom!

There is no possible argument, moral or economic, against Irish freedom.

"Is Ireland fit to be an independent sovereign nation?" asks Dr. Cohalan, Bishop of Cork. "Why should it not be, if Belgium is fit to be a sovereign nation, if Serbia is so fit, if Montenegro--whose King is not much more than a strong farmer in this country--is fit, all fit to be independent nations? Then, when putting the question as to Ireland, I would really ask everyone, men and women, in this country to cease speaking slightingly of their own race and their own country. I would like every Irishman and woman, Catholic and Protestant, to answer that question in the affirmative." We are fit to be free, we have a G.o.d-given right to be free, we mean to be free. But how are we going to get our freedom?

=HOW TO GET THINGS.=

Let us see how we ever got anything from England. Parnell is much quoted just now. What was his view? This is what he said at Manchester, 15th July, 1877:--

"For my part I must tell you that I do not believe in a policy of conciliation of English feeling or English prejudices. I believe that you may go on trying to conciliate English prejudice until the day of judgment, and that you will not get the breadth of my nail from them.

What did we ever get in the past by trying to conciliate them? Did we get the abolition of t.i.thes by the conciliation of our English taskmasters? No; it was because we adopted different measures. Did O'Connell in his time gain emanc.i.p.ation for Ireland by conciliation? I rather think that O'Connell in his time was not of a very conciliatory disposition, and that at least during a part of his career he was about the best-abused Irishman living."

There is no mistaking the view of Charles Stewart Parnell. Two years later he repeated his a.s.sertion (Tipperary, 21st Sept., 1879):--

"=It is no use relying upon the Government, it is no use relying upon the Irish members, it is no use relying upon the House of Commons.= You must rely upon your own determination, that determination which has enabled you to survive the famine years and to be present here to-day; and, if you are determined, I tell you, you have the game in your own hands."

And at the St. Patrick's Day celebration in London in 1884:--

"I have always endeavoured to teach my countrymen, whether at home or abroad, the lesson of =self-reliance=.... Do not rely upon any English Party; do not rely even upon the great English democracy, however well-disposed they may be to your claims. But rely upon yourselves."

Sinn Fein means self-reliance.

According to Parnell, then, the Irish people secured nothing through Irish talk at Westminster. Whatever they got, they got by direct action. It is easy to convince ourselves that Parnell is right. We got Free Trade and legislative independence in 1782, without any Irish Party at Westminster, with the help of 60,000 Volunteers. In 1829 Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation was won by O'Connell in Clare, before he ever set foot in Westminster, because he had the Irish people and the Catholic a.s.sociation behind him. Yet a few months before the English Government had rejected a Catholic Relief Bill with scorn. Here are Peel's words:--

"In the course of the last six months, England, being at peace with the whole world, has had five-sixths of the infantry force of the United Kingdom occupied in maintaining the peace and in police duties in Ireland. I consider the state of things which requires such an application of military force much worse than open rebellion. If this be the state of things at present, let me implore of you to consider what would be the condition of England in the event of war. Can we forget in reviewing the state of Ireland what happened in 1782?"

The Prime Minister was evidently unmoved by all the eloquent appeals for justice to Irish Catholics; he moved very rapidly when Irishmen showed signs of =doing= something. The Duke of Wellington, in May, 1829, made a similar confession:--

"If you glance at the history of Ireland during the last ten years, you will find that agitation really means something short of rebellion; that and no other is the exact meaning of the word. It is to place the country in that state in which its government is utterly impracticable except by means of an overawing military force."

Not such a far cry after all from the Iron Duke to the Tin Viscount!

t.i.thes were abolished in 1838, again not by a Parliamentary Party, but by the people themselves after a b.l.o.o.d.y seven years' war.

Then came Disestablishment in 1869. How did that come? When in 1868 Gladstone proposed his Church resolution, a hundred Irish members voted--fifty-five for and forty-five against! Obviously Disestablishment was not carried by Irish representation at Westminster. Let Gladstone himself tell us what carried it:--

"Down to the year 1865 and the dissolution of that year, the whole question of the Irish Church was dead. n.o.body cared about it, n.o.body paid attention to it in England. Circ.u.mstances occurred which drew attention of the people to the Irish Church. I said myself in 1865, and I believed, that it was out of the range of practical politics."

In other words, Fenianism secured Irish Church Disestablishment. Lord Derby, writing from the opposite camp, agreed with Gladstone:--

"A few desperate men, applauded by the whole body of the Irish people for their daring, showed England what Irish feeling really was, made plain to us the depth of a discontent whose existence we had scarcely suspected, and =the rest followed, of course=."

Let us hear the same two unimpeachable witnesses concealing the Land Question. "I must make one admission," said Gladstone, "and that is that without the Land League the Act of 1881 would not at this moment be on the Statute Book." "Fixity of tenure," said Lord Derby, "has been the direct result of two causes: Irish outrage and parliamentary obstruction. The Irish know it as well as we. Not all the influence and eloquence of Mr.

Gladstone would have prevailed on the English House of Commons to do what has been done in the matter of Irish tenant right, if the answer to all objections had not been ready: How else are we to govern Ireland?" In plain English, every concession wrung from England has been secured simply by making the English Government otherwise impossible in Ireland.

=THE FAILURE OF PARLIAMENTARIANISM.=

If this be so, what is the use of sending Irishmen over to talk at Westminster? That is the question which we have to face squarely. In the hand of a genius like Parnell, the parliamentary policy secured a temporary success, because, with the help of Joe Biggar, the Fenian, he played the game in his own way--by parliamentary obstruction--and because he secured the co-operation of the anti-parliamentary Nationalists. But even he only looked upon the experiment as a temporary expedient. "Have patience with me," he said to a Fenian in 1877; "give me a trial for three or four years; then if I cannot do anything, I will step aside." He made a very striking declaration in November, 1880, when the freedom of Limerick was conferred on him:--