Ulster's Stand For Union Part 21

In the 750 years during which the stranger sway has blighted Ireland her people have never had occasion to welcome an unselfish or generous deed at the hands of their rulers. Every so-called "concession" was but the loosening of a fetter. Every benefit sprang from a manipulation of our own money by a foreign Treasury denying us an honest audit of accounts.

None was yielded as an act of grace. All were the offspring of constraint, tumult, or political necessity. Reason and arguments fell on deaf ears. To England the Union has brought enhanced wealth, population, power, and importance; to Ireland increased taxation, stunted industries, swollen emigration, and callous officialism.

Possessing in this land neither moral nor intellectual pre-eminence, nor any prestige derived from past merit or present esteem, the British Executive claims to restrain our liberties, control our fortunes, and exercise over our people the power of life and death. To obstruct the recent Home Rule Bill it allowed its favourites to defy its Parliament without punishment, to import arms from suspect regions with impunity, to threaten "to break every law" to effectuate their designs to infect the Army with mutiny and set up a rival Executive backed by military array to enforce the rule of a caste against the vast majority of the people. The highest offices of State became the guerdon of the organisers of rebellion, boastful of aid from Germany. To-day they are pillars of the Const.i.tution, and the chief instrument of law. The only laurels lacking to the leaders of the Mutineers are those transplanted from the field of battle!

Are we to fight to maintain a system so repugnant, and must Irishmen be content to remain slaves themselves after freedom for distant lands has been purchased by their blood?

Heretofore in every clime, whenever the weak called for a defender, wherever the flag of liberty was unfurled, that blood freely flowed.

Profiting by Irish sympathy with righteous causes Britain, at the outbreak of war, attracted to her armies tens of thousands of our youth ere even the Western Hemisphere had awakened to the wail of "small nations."

Irishmen, in their chivalrous eagerness, laid themselves open to the reproach from some of their brethren of forgetting the woes of their own land, which had suffered from its rulers, at one time or another, almost every inhumanity for which Germany is impeached. It was hard to bear the taunt that the army they were joining was that which held Ireland in subjection; but fresh bitterness has been added to such reproaches by what has since taken place.

Nevertheless, in the face of persistent discouragements, Irish chivalry remained ardent and aflame in the first years of the war. Tens of thousands of the children of the Gael have perished in the conflict.

Their bones bleach upon the soil of Flanders or moulder beneath the waves of Suvla Bay. The slopes of Gallipoli, the sands of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Judasa afford them sepulture. Mons and Ypres provide their monuments. Wherever the battle-line extends from the English Channel to the Persian Gulf their ghostly voices whisper a response to the roll-call of the guardian-spirits of Liberty. What is their reward?

The spot on earth they loved best, and the land to which they owed their first duty, and which they hoped their sacrifices might help to freedom, lies unredeemed under an age-long thraldom. So, too, would it for ever lie, were every man and every youth within the sh.o.r.es of Ireland to immolate himself in England's service, unless the clamour of a dominant caste be rebuked and stilled.

Yet proof after proof acc.u.mulates that British Cabinets continue to be towards our country as conscienceless as ever. They deceive frankly nations throughout the world as to their Irish policy, while withholding from us even the Act of Home Rule which in 1914 was placed on the Statute-book. The recent "Convention," which they composed to initiate reform, was brought to confusion by a letter from the Prime Minister diminishing his original engagements.

Such insincere manoeuvres have left an indelible sense of wrong rankling in the hearts of Ireland.

Capitulations are observed with French Canadians, with the Maltese, with the Hindoos, with the Mohammedan Arabs, or the African Boers; but never has the word of England, in any capital case, been kept towards the "sister" island.

The Parliaments of Australia and of South Africa--both of which (unlike our ancient Legislature) were founded by British enactments--refused to adopt conscription. This was well known when the law against Ireland was resolved on. For opposing the application of that law to Irishmen, and while this appeal to you, sir, was being penned, members of our Conference have been arrested and deported without trial. It was even sought to poison the wells of American sympathy by levelling against them and others an allegation which its authors have failed to submit to the investigation of any tribunal.

To overlay malpractice by imputing to its victims perverse or criminal conduct is the stale but never-failing device of tyranny.

A claim has also been put forward by the British Foreign Office to prevent you, Mr. President, as the head of a great allied Republic, from acquiring first-hand information of the reasons why Ireland has rejected, and will resist, conscription except in so far as the Military Governor of Ireland, Field-Marshal Lord French, may be pleased to allow you to peruse his version of our opinions.

America's present conflict with Germany obstructs no argument that we advance. "Liberty and ordered peace" we, too, strive for; and confidently do we look to you, sir, and to America--whose freedom Irishmen risked something to establish--to lend ear and weight to the prayer that another unprovoked wrong against the defenceless may not stain this sorry century.

We know that America entered the war because her rights as a neutral, in respect of ocean navigation, were interfered with, and only then. Yet America in her strength had a guarantee that in victory she would not be cheated of that for which she joined in the struggle. Ireland, having no such strength, has no such guarantee; and experience has taught us that justice (much less grat.i.tude) is not to be wrung from a hostile Government. What Ireland is to give, a free Ireland must determine.

We are sadly aware, from recent proclamations and deportations, of the efforts of British authorities to inflame prejudice against our country.

We therefore crave allowance briefly to notice the insinuation that the Irish coasts, with native connivance, could be made a base for the destruction of American shipping.

An official statement a.s.serts that:

"An important feature in every plan was the establishment of submarine bases in Ireland to menace the shipping of all nations."

On this it is enough to say that every creek, inlet, or estuary that indents our sh.o.r.es, and every harbour, mole, or jetty is watchfully patrolled by British authority. Moreover, Irish vessels, with their cargoes, crews, and pa.s.sengers, have suffered in this war proportionately to those of Britain.

Another State Paper palliates the deportations by blazoning the descent of a solitary invader upon a remote island on the 12th of April, heralded by mysterious warnings from the Admiralty to the Irish Command.

No discussion is permitted of the tryst of this British soldier with the local coast-guards, of his speedy bent towards a police barrack, and his subsequent confidences with the London authorities.

Only one instance exists in history of a project to profane our coasts by making them a base to launch attacks on international shipping. That plot was framed, not by native wickedness, but by an English Viceroy, and the proofs are piled up under his hand in British State Papers.

For huge bribes were proffered by Lord Falkland, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, to both the Royal Secretary and the Prince of Wales, to obtain consent for the use of Irish harbours to convenience Turkish and Algerine pirates in raiding sea-going commerce. The plot is old, but the plea of "increasing his Majesty's revenues" by which it was commended is everlasting. Nor will age lessen its significance for the citizens of that Republic which, amidst the tremors and greed of European diplomacy, extirpated the traffic of Algerine corsairs ninety years ago. British experts cherish Lord Falkland's fame as the sire of their most knightly cavalier, and in their eyes its l.u.s.tre shines undimmed, though his Excellency, foiled of marine booty, enriched himself by seizing the lands of his untried prisoners in Dublin Castle.

Moving are other retrospects evoked by the present outbreak of malignity against our nation. The slanders of the hour recall those let loose to cloak previous deportations in days of panic less ign.o.ble. Then it was the Primate of All Ireland, Archbishop Oliver Plunkett, who was dragged to London and arraigned for high treason. Poignant memories quicken at every incident which accompanied his degradation before the Lord Chief Justice of England. A troop of witnesses was suborned to swear that his Grace "endeavoured and compa.s.sed the King's death," sought to "levy war in Ireland and introduce a foreign Power," and conspired "to take a view of all the several ports and places in Ireland where it would be convenient to land from France." An open trial, indeed, was not denied him; but with hasty rites he was branded a base and false traitor and doomed to be hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn. That desperate felon, after prolonged investigation by the Holy See, has lately been declared a martyr worthy of universal veneration.

The fathers of the American Revolution were likewise pursued in turn by the venom of Governments. Could they have been s.n.a.t.c.hed from their homes and haled to London, what fate would have befallen them? There your n.o.blest patriots might also have perished amidst scenes of shame, and their effigies would now bedeck a British chamber of horrors. Nor would death itself have shielded their reputations from hatchments of dishonour. For the greatest of Englishmen reviled even the sacred name of Joan of Arc, the stainless Maid of France, to belittle a fallen foe and spice a ribald stage-play.

It is hardly thirty years since every Irish leader was made the victim of a special Statute of Proscription, and was cited to answer vague charges before London judges. During 1888 and 1889 a malignant and unprecedented inquisition was maintained to vilify them, backed by all the resources of British power. No war then raged to breed alarms, yet no weapon that perjury or forgery could fashion was left unemployed to destroy the characters of more than eighty National representatives--some of whom survive to join in this Address. That plot came to an end amidst the confusion of their persecutors, but fresh accusations may be daily contrived and b.u.t.tressed by the chicanery of State.

In every generation the Irish nation is challenged to plead to a new indictment, and to the present summons answer is made before no narrow forum but to the tribunal of the world. So answering, we commit our cause, as did America, to "the virtuous and humane," and also more humbly to the providence of G.o.d.

Well a.s.sured are we that you, Mr. President, whose exhortations have inspired the Small Nations of the world with fort.i.tude to defend to the last their liberties against oppressors, will not be found among those who would condemn Ireland for a determination which is irrevocable to continue steadfastly in the course mapped out for her, no matter what the odds, by an unexampled unity of National judgment and National right.

Given at the Mansion House, Dublin, this 11th day of June, 1918.

LAURENCE O'NEILL, Lord Mayor of Dublin, Chairman of a Conference of representative Irishmen whose names stand hereunder.

JOSEPH DEVLIN, JOHN DILLON, MICHAEL JOHNSON, WILLIAM O'BRIEN (Lab.), T.M. HEALY, WILLIAM O'BRIEN, THOMAS KELLY, and JOHN MACNEILL: {Acting in the place E. DE VALERA and A. GRIFFITH, deported 18th of May, 1918, to separate prisons in England, without trial or accusation--communication with whom has been cut off.}

APPENDIX B

UNIONIST LETTER TO PRESIDENT WILSON

CITY HALL, BELFAST, _August 1st_, 1918.

To THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

SIR,

A manifesto signed by the leader of the Irish Nationalist Party and certain other Irish gentlemen has been widely circulated in the United Kingdom, in the form of a letter purporting to have been addressed to your Excellency.[110]

Its purpose appears to be to offer an explanation of, and an excuse for, the conduct of the Nationalist Party in obstructing the extension to Ireland of compulsory military service, which the rest of the United Kingdom has felt compelled to adopt as the necessary means of defeating the German design to dominate the world. At a time when all the free democracies of the world have, with whatever reluctance, accepted the burden of conscription as the only alternative to the destruction of free inst.i.tutions and of international justice, it is easily intelligible that those who maintain Ireland's right to solitary and privileged exemption from the same obligation should betray their consciousness that an apologia is required to enable them to escape condemnation at the bar of civilised, and especially of American, opinion. But, inasmuch as the doc.u.ment referred to would give to anyone not intimately familiar with British domestic affairs the impression that it represents the unanimous opinion of Irishmen, it is important that your Excellency and the American people should be a.s.sured that this is very far from being the case.

There is in Ireland a minority, whom we claim to represent, comprising one-fourth to one-third of the total population of the island, located mainly, but not exclusively, in the province of Ulster, who dissent emphatically from the views of Mr. Dillon and his a.s.sociates. This minority, through their representatives in Parliament, have maintained throughout the present war that the same obligations should in all respects be borne by Ireland as by Great Britain, and it has caused them as Irishmen a keen sense of shame that their country has not submitted to this equality of sacrifice.

Your Excellency does not need to be informed that this question has become entangled in the ancient controversy concerning the const.i.tutional status of Ireland in the United Kingdom. This is, indeed, sufficiently clear from the terms of the Nationalist manifesto addressed to you, every paragraph of which is coloured by allusion to bygone history and threadbare political disputes.

It is not our intention to traverse the same ground. There is in the manifesto almost no a.s.sertion with regard to past events which is not either a distortion or a misinterpretation of historical fact. But we consider that this is not the moment for discussing the faults and follies of the past, still less for rehearsing ancient grievances, whether well or ill founded, in language of extravagant rhetoric. At a time when the very existence of civilisation hangs in the balance, all smaller issues, whatever their merits or however they may affect our internal political problems, should in our judgment have remained in abeyance, while the parties interested in their solution should have joined in whole-hearted co-operation against the common enemy.

There is, however, one matter to which reference must be made, in order to make clear the position of the Irish minority whom we represent. The Nationalist Party have based their claim to American sympathy on the historic appeal addressed to Irishmen by the British colonists who fought for independence in America a hundred and fifty years ago. By no Irishmen was that appeal received with a more lively sympathy than by the Protestants of Ulster, the ancestors of those for whom we speak to-day--a fact that was not surprising in view of the circ.u.mstance that more than one-sixth part of the entire colonial population in America at the time of the Declaration of Independence consisted of emigrants from Ulster.

The Ulstermen of to-day, forming as they do the chief industrial community in Ireland, are as devoted adherents to the cause of democratic freedom as were their forefathers in the eighteenth century.

But the experience of a century of social and economic progress under the legislative Union with Great Britain has convinced them that under no other system of government could more complete liberty be enjoyed by the Irish people. This, however, is not the occasion for a reasoned defence of "Unionist" policy. Our sole purpose in referring to the matter is to show, whatever be the merits of the dispute, that a very substantial volume of Irish opinion is warmly attached to the existing Const.i.tution of the United Kingdom, and regards as wholly unwarranted the theory that our political status affords any sort of parallel to that of the "small nations" oppressed by alien rule, for whose emanc.i.p.ation the Allied democracies are fighting in this war.

The Irish representation in the Imperial Parliament throws a significant sidelight on this prevalent fiction. Whereas England is only represented by one member for every 75,000 of population, and Scotland by one for every 65,000, Ireland has a member for every 42,000 of her people. With a population below that of Scotland, Ireland has 31 more members in the House of Commons, and 89 more than she could claim on a basis of representation strictly proportionate to population in the United Kingdom.

Speaking in Dublin on the 1st of July, 1915, the late Mr. John Redmond gave the following description of the present condition of Ireland, which offers a striking contrast to the extravagant declamation that represents that country as downtrodden by a harsh and unsympathetic system of government:

"To-day," he said, "the people, broadly speaking, own the soil.

To-day the labourers live in decent habitations. To-day there is absolute freedom in local government and local taxation of the country. To-day we have the widest parliamentary and munic.i.p.al franchise. The congested districts, the scene of some of the most awful horrors of the old famine days, have been transformed. The farms have been enlarged, decent dwellings have been provided, and a new spirit of hope and independence is to-day among the people.

In towns legislation has been pa.s.sed facilitating the housing of the working cla.s.ses--a piece of legislation far in advance of anything obtained for the town tenants of England. We have a system of old-age pensions in Ireland whereby every old man and woman over seventy is safe from the workhouse and free to spend their last days in comparative comfort."