John Redmond's Last Years

THE CONVENTION AND THE END

I

The Longford election had in reality been not merely a symptom, but an event of great importance. It was a notice of dismissal to the Parliamentary party. There was no reason to suppose anything specially unfavourable to us in the local conditions. Neither candidate made a special appeal to the electors; nor was the constituency in any sense a stronghold of Sinn Fein. The fact was that the country as a whole had ceased to believe in the Parliamentary party as an efficient machine for obtaining the national ends. The organization of the United Irish League had lost touch with the young; the main support we had lay in the Ancient Order of Hibernians, which many Nationalists disliked on principle because it was limited to Catholics. What had riot yet disappeared up till July 1916, though it was threatened, was belief in the principle of constitutional action as against revolutionary methods.

This proposal never came before the party. But after Longford had given its decision, it was proposed that we should accept the verdict in general and resign in a body. Those who put forward the suggestion felt that some drastic action was needed to force upon Ireland the responsibility for a clear choice between the two courses, constitutional and unconstitutional. Redmond, as Chairman, advised strongly against this. He said that it would be a lack of courage: that one defeat or two defeats should not turn us from our course. But it is clear to me that he welcomed the Convention as another and a better means of effecting the same end—of replacing the existing Parliamentary party by another body of men.

A recommendation was added, amounting to a direction, that the Convention should sit with closed doors and publish nothing of its proceedings till their conclusion.

Nothing was said to define the all-important words "substantial agreement." But the Prime Minister laid grave emphasis on the importance of a settlement for the purpose of the war. The limitation upon Ulster's claim was plainly conceived by him to lie in Ulster's sense of an Imperial necessity. "The Empire cannot afford uncured sores that sap its vigour. The entire strength of Great Britain and the whole-hearted support of Ireland are essential to victory." He appealed "to Irishmen of all faiths, political and religious, and especially to the patriotic spirit of Ulster, to help by healing."

Redmond, in following him, assumed that there would be concurrence from all sections of Irishmen. It must be "a free assembly"—no proposal must be barred in advance: it must be representative of "every class, creed and interest"—and in recapitulating these, he added the Irish peers. In regard to political parties and bodies, as such, he desired a very limited representation. The United Irish League, "the militant official organization of the Irish party," should be unrepresented, and he advised the same in regard to other purely political organizations and societies. For the Irish party itself he asked a representation only equal in number to that given to Irish Unionists. The Cork Independents must have what they considered a full and adequate number; and for Sinn Fein he asked "a generous representation."

Then he added:

In this there was a genuine expression of the desire which governed his whole conduct in the Convention, to get away from the old lines with their old traditional antagonisms, and refer the solution not to Irish politicians but to Ireland as a whole. What followed in his speech gave positive development to the self-denying ordinance which he had proposed for the party machines. He asked for a nominated element—first, to make sure that men obviously suitable, who none the less might not happen to be elected, should find a place: and secondly, to increase still further the Unionist representation.

He added once more a plea for quick action; dilatoriness had had much to do, he said, with the Government's late failures in Ireland. But, if prompt steps were taken on the path outlined, he would, in spite of all that had come and gone, face the new venture with good heart. Yet even in his confidence there was the pathetic accent of one who feels need to bid defiance to despair.

The omens were not favourable to this storm-beaten courage. When he sat down, Sir John Lonsdale rose to reiterate on behalf of the Ulster Unionists that they "could not and would not be driven into a Home Rule Parliament"—and that they relied absolutely on the pledges that they should not be coerced. Mr. William O'Brien followed. After years of advocating settlement by conference among Irishmen, he condemned this proposal as coming six or seven years too late, and as defective in its machinery, in that it proposed a large body of men: "A dozen Irishmen of the right stamp" would be the proper Conference; and the proposal of partition should be barred out in advance. If the experiment were tried now and failed, the failure would "kill any reasonable hope in our time of reconstructing the constitutional movement upon honest lines." Ireland is always fruitful in Cassandras who do not lack power to assist in the fulfilment, of their ill-bodings, and this speech foreshadowed Mr. O'Brien's intention to abstain. Sir Edward Carson and Mr. Devlin gave the debate a more promising tone: but it was difficult for anybody to be sanguine.

Then across the current of all our thought came the news of the Battle of Messines. Troops had been massing for some time on the sector of line which the Irish Divisions had now held since the previous October; and the day was plainly in sight which had been expected since spring, when they were to try and carry positions in front of which so much blood had been vainly shed. On June 7th, at the clearing of light, all was in readiness: the Ulstermen and ours still in the centre of the attack from Spanbroekmolen to Wytschaete. Just before the moment fixed, men could see clearly: in half a minute all was blotted out. The eighteen huge land-mines in whose shafts our second line had been so often billeted were now at last exploded and the sky was full of powdered earth, with God knows what other fragments. In that darkness the troops went over.

Then came through the message that Willie Redmond had fallen.

Yet one aspect of it was overlooked by many—the loss inflicted on his brother, the Irish leader. It was not merely that Redmond lost the sole near kinsman of his generation; he lost in him the closest of those comrades who had been allied with him in all the stages of his life's fight. The veterans of the old party had been vanishing rapidly from the scene; name succeeded name quickly on our death-roll. This death left Redmond lonely, and sorely stricken in his affections. But it did more. It deprived him of a counsellor, and perhaps the only counsellor he had who temperamentally shared his own point of view. More especially now in the war, when the leader's wisdom in giving the lead which he had given began to be gravely questioned even by his own supporters, it was invaluable for him to have backing from one who had taken the war as part of his life's creed—who knew no hesitancies, no reserves in his conviction that the right course had been followed, for the right thing was to do the right. Finally and chiefly, Willie Redmond was the only man who could break through his brother's constitutional reserve and could force him into discussion. In the months that were to come such a man was badly needed. The loss of him meant to John Redmond a loss of personal efficiency. Sorrow gave a strong grip to depression on a brooding mind which had always a proneness to melancholy, which was now linked with a sick body, and which lived among disappointments and grief and the sense of rancorous dislike in men who once thought it a privilege to cheer him on his passing.

Add to all this that Redmond's one hope for Ireland now lay in the Convention, and that he collated with good reason on his soldier brother's influence there—as no man could fail to do who had seen the effect which his last speech produced upon the House of Commons.

No doubt, however, part of the service which Willie Redmond rendered to Ireland in dying lay in the sympathy which he conciliated to his leader—in whom men saw, rightly, not only his nearest kinsman, but the representative of the principles for which the soldier-politician died. The sympathy was genuine and it was widespread; yet so reserved was John Redmond that few, I think, guessed how deeply the blow had struck home. Still less did they realize how much was meant by the bereavement which followed immediately. Pat O'Brien, who had been through all vicissitudes the faithful and devoted helper of his friend and leader, was suddenly prostrated by a stroke. He came down to the House again; he could not keep away from the place of his duty, where for a quarter of a century he had scarcely missed one division in a hundred, where he had kept watch for Redmond like the most trusty sheep-dog; but death was written over him and it came in a few days. He was the one friend, I believe, whom Redmond would have taken with him to Aughavanagh after Willie Redmond's death. Now, Aughavanagh, which had been a place of rest, was a place of intense loneliness. Yet to Aughavanagh Redmond had withdrawn himself, like a wounded creature; and from Aughavanagh he came to Dublin for Pat O'Brien's funeral in Glasnevin. Then, and then only in his lifetime people saw him publicly break down; he had to be led away from the grave.

Meanwhile, he was beset by ceaseless correspondence concerning the numbers and composition of the assembly to which the British Government on his suggestion had decided to entrust so great a charge. But a startling political event indicated only too plainly how much belated that decision had been.

When the prisoners were released, a new personage immediately came into the public eye. It was certain that one of them would be nominated to contest the vacancy in East Clare left by Willie Redmond's death; the choice fell on Mr. de Valera; and the world learnt that in these months while the imprisoned Sinn Feiners had been discussing their plans for the future—for the right of association as political prisoners had been conceded to them—this young man had been recognized by his fellows as the leading spirit. Ireland as a whole knew nothing of him. He was the son of a Southern American and a county Limerick woman; scholarly, a keen Gaelic Leaguer, by profession a teacher of mathematics. In the rebellion he had held Boland's bakery, a large building covering the approaches to Dublin from Kingstown by rail; he had been the last of the leaders to surrender, and had earned high opinions by his conduct in these operations. This was the Sinn Fein candidate for East Clare—a county where "extreme" men had always been numerous.

The newly elected Sinn Fein leader was very prominent in these days, and a good deal of his eloquence was spent in ridicule of the Convention. That body was certainly starting its task under the most unpromising auspices.

II

The first meeting was fixed for July 25. On the evening before, Redmond came up and there was an informal discussion between the Nationalist members of Parliament and the Catholic Bishops. There were four of each group. Five members had been allowed to the party and as many to the Ulstermen. Redmond was not present at the meeting when selection was made, but he recommended a list, consisting in addition to himself of Mr. Dillon, Mr. Devlin, and Mr. Clancy, K.C.—the latter having been always his most trusted adviser in all points of draftsmanship and constitutional law. My name was added in the place which should have been his brother's, as representing Irish troops.

Of the four representatives of the hierarchy, Archbishop Harty of Cashel had always been a downright outspoken supporter of the Parliamentary party. He had publicly denounced the rebellion both on civil and on moral grounds. But he had never been prominently concerned with political affairs as such; nor had the Bishop of Down and Connor, Dr. MacRory, a man young for his office and not long in it. He had been chosen, no doubt, to guard the special interests of Catholicism in the north-east corner. The others were of a very different stamp; no two in Ireland had a better right to the name of statesmen. Dr. O'Donnell, the Bishop of Raphoe, had been for many years officially one of the treasurers of the United Irish League. Since the foundation of the Congested Districts Board, he had been one of its members, and served on the Dudley Commission which inquired into these regions. His native Donegal could show the traces of his influence in applying remedial measures to what was once its terrible poverty. Dr. Kelly, the Bishop of Ross, came from the extreme south of the same western coast-line; a keen student of finance and economics, he had been a member of the Primrose Committee on Financial Relations, and, before that, of Lord George Hamilton's Commission on the Poor Law. His repute was great in his own order and outside his own order. In any assembly these two brains would have been distinguished.

Next day we assembled—some ninety persons. The main bulk consisted of local representatives—thirty-one chairmen of County Councils, one only having declined to serve. Two of these, Mr. O'Dowd and Mr. Fitzgibbon, were members of our party. There were eight representatives of the Urban Councils, over and above the Lord Mayors of Dublin, Belfast and Cork and the Mayor of Derry. Labour had seven representatives, one of whom, Mr. Lundon, representing the Agricultural Labourers' Union of the South, was an Irish member of Parliament. One was a railway operative from Dublin; one a Catholic Trade-Unionist leader from Derry; the remaining four came from Belfast. Organized labour in Dublin and the Southern towns had endorsed Sinn Féin's attitude and declined to recognize the Convention.

The Southern Unionist Group was led by Lord Midleton; with him were Lords Mayo and Oranmore, representing the Irish peers. The Irish Unionist Alliance had sent Mr. Stewart, a great land-agent, and Mr. Andrew Jameson (whose name, as someone said, was "a household word written in letters of gold throughout Ireland"). The Chambers of Commerce had their representatives from Dublin, Belfast and Cork.

Mr. Pollock, President of the Belfast Chamber of Commerce, was also new to us, and was destined to play a prominent part in our affairs. With the Catholic prelates sat the two Archbishops of the Church of Ireland—Dr. Crozier and Dr. Bernard—to both of whom the democratic constitution of their Church had given great experience in management of business and discussion. Dr. MacDermott, Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly, was the official head of his Church for the year only and had not equal knowledge of administration. An orator, with a touch of the enthusiast in his temperament, he was a simple and sympathetic figure; vehement in his political faith, yet responsive to all the human charities and deeply a lover of his country. There was no better representative there of Ulster, of the Ulster difficulty—at once so separate from and so akin to the rest of Ireland.

Lord Desart, a distinguished lawyer, acted closely with Lord Midleton. Sir Bertram Windle, President of University College, was another of Government's choices—a man of science who was also very much a man of affairs. Another, far less of a debater, far more of a power, was Mr. William Martin Murphy, Chairman of the Dublin Tramways, a powerful employer of labour who had headed the fight against Larkin in 1913, and had been mainly responsible for the character of the employers' victory. He was the owner of the most widely circulated Irish paper, the Irish Independent—which stood in journalism for what Mr. Healy represented in Parliament—an envenomed Nationalist opposition to the Parliamentary party.

Two other personages should be noted. Mr. Walter MacMurrough Kavanagh, Chairman of the Carlow County Council, was by tradition and training a strong Unionist, by inheritance the representative of one of the old Irish princely families. He had been elected to the Vice-Chairmanship of his County Council while still a Unionist; later, he adhered to Lord Dunraven's proposals of devolution, but finding no rest in a half-way house, came into full support of Redmond and for some time was a member of our party; by temperament deeply conservative, he was in no way separated by that from many of the ablest Nationalists, lay and ecclesiastic. As a speaker he had few equals in the Convention; no man there, indeed, except Redmond, could throw equal passion into the plea of urgency for a settlement, for I think no other man felt it with such earnestness.

These were the main personal elements in the group that came together on July 25th—Mr. Duke, the Chief Secretary, acting as temporary Chairman and Sir Francis Hopwood (soon to become Lord Southborough) having been brought over as Secretary. Mr. Duke having addressed us with an earnest suavity, we were told to select a Chairman: and on the motion of the Primate, Archbishop Crozier, this embarrassing task was delegated to a committee of ten, rapidly told off. We adjourned for lunch, and on reassembling found that a unanimous recommendation named Sir Horace Plunkett. The Ulstermen had expressed a willingness to accept Redmond. This he refused to discuss; but he was put into the Chair of the selecting committee. There was a recommendation also that Sir Francis Hopwood should be Secretary to the Convention. Both these proposals were welcomed, and we dispersed feeling that we had done a good day's work.

"Why it happened is a question that may be answered more particularly. It happened because the leader of the Irish party misrepresented his people in the English House of Parliament. On the day of the declaration of war between England and Germany he took the Irish case, weighty with eight centuries of history and tradition, and he threw it out of the window. He pledged Ireland to a particular course of action, and he had no authority to give this pledge and he had no guarantee that it would be met. The ramshackle intelligence of his party and his own emotional nature betrayed him and us and England. He swore Ireland to loyalty as if he had Ireland in his pocket and could answer for her. Ireland has never been disloyal to England, not even at this epoch, because she has never been loyal to England, and the profession of her National faith has been unwavering, has been known to every English person alive, and has been clamant to all the world beside.

"After a lie, truth bursts out, and it is no longer the radiant and serene goddess we knew or hoped for—it is a disease, it is a moral syphilis, and will ravage until the body in which it can dwell has been purged. Mr. Redmond told the lie, and he is answerable to England for the violence she had to be guilty of, and to Ireland for the desolation to which we have had to submit. Without his lie there had been no Insurrection, without it there had been at this moment, and for a year past, an end to the 'Irish question.' Ireland must in ages gone have been guilty of abominable crimes, or she could not at this juncture have been afflicted with a John Redmond."

I think, however, that deep in his heart a resentment, all the more rankling because he gave it no voice, prompted him to be on his guard against lending the least colour of justification to any plea that in the Convention he had sought to pledge Ireland without due mandate or had committed anyone but himself. All that was personal in his resources—his labour, his experience, his judgment, his eloquence—all this he put unreservedly at the Convention's service: but he abstained, and I think not only out of policy but as the result of silent anger, from making the least use of that authority which he still possessed and which he might easily have augmented. If in the result he took too little upon him, lest anyone should ever say he had taken too much, and if because he left too much to others Ireland was the loser, Ireland must bear not the loss only but the blame.

After the first day of Sir Horace Plunkett's chairmanship there was an adjournment of something like a fortnight to give the Chairman and secretariat time for preparation: and in this interval a plan of action was formed. The object in view was to avoid the danger of an immediate break and to give play to the reconciling influences. It was decided to begin by a prolonged process of general discussion, in which men could express their minds freely without the necessity of coming to an operative decision on any of the controversial points, until the value of each could be assessed in relation to the possibility of a general agreement.

The plan adopted was to discuss, without division taken, the schemes which had been submitted by members of the Convention and by others. Members would propose and expound their own projects: for the exposition of the others some member must make himself responsible.

At this "presentation stage" and at all stages, Redmond absolutely declined to put forward a plan in his own name. This was not only from temperamental reasons: there was an official obstacle. He was an individual member of the Convention: but he was Chairman of the Irish party, pledged not to bind it without its consent. He felt, no doubt, that any detailed proposal from him would be taken as binding the party, whom he could not consult without bringing them into the secrets of the Convention.

The Southern Unionists, including the representatives of the Irish peers, were also organized as a group; but they came to the Convention with much fuller powers. They felt themselves bound to consider, and in certain conditions to consult, those whom they represented; but they were free to originate suggestions, and individually each man expressed his own view. But they too had their meeting-place and their frequent consultations.

The handful of Labour men also met and discussed action, though they were not organized as a group and did not feel pledged to a joint course. Each, according to his own lights, represented the interests of Labour. Still, they met.

The only group which had no common centre of reunion was that of the Nationalists—a majority of the whole assembly. This included the representatives of the Irish party and the County and Urban Councillors, all of whom had been returned as its supporters. It included also the four representatives of the hierarchy, every one of whom had been either actually or potentially a part of Nationalist Conventions, and of whom three had been most prominent supporters of the general organization.

There was felt, too, precisely at the moment when it mattered most, the defect in his quality as leader. He lacked the personal touch. It was not that he would not, but that he could not, put himself into contact with the individual minds of men. He owed it, I think, to the rank and file to give them more of his guidance than they actually received. He was a genial presence when they met; but of confidential discussion upon details I am sure that nothing passed. Had he called the group together, had he spoken his mind to them collectively, in confidence, things would in all ways have been better. But there was ingrained in him a sort of shyness, a repugnance to force his view on others by argument, an indisposition to controversy, which was his limitation; and all this was at this time accentuated by the hurt sense that there would be always in men's minds a memory, not of the hundred times when his wisdom had amply justified itself, but of recent occasions when he had advised them and the result was not what he foretold.

Discussion in the Convention itself was not of great value for the education of opinion, because men naturally were reluctant to get up and state precisely their individual difficulties, which in a confidential interchange of views might have been shown to proceed from some defect in comprehension. The chief value in the debates lay in what they revealed rather than what they imparted. One fact was salient. No Nationalist was prepared to recommend acceptance of the Home Rule Act as it stood, though some of its most vehement assailants adopted great parts of its framework. Broadly speaking, Nationalists wanted for Ireland the powers which were possessed by a self-governing Dominion, but were content to leave all control of defence to the Imperial authority and did not press any demand for a local militia. On the other hand, there was strong insistence on the right of an Irish Parliament to have complete power of taxation within its jurisdiction.

It was manifest that the financial clauses of the existing Act would no longer apply. They were framed in view of a situation which found Ireland contributing ten millions in taxation and costing twelve to administer. Now, less than half the taxation paid the cost of all Irish services and the balance went towards the war.

In short, it became increasingly clear as the debates proceeded that we could come to an arrangement with Unionists if Lord Midleton represented Unionism. But he did not. Ulster was there; and the Ulster men made it plain that their business was to hear suggestions, not to put them forward. Two facts, however, emerged about Ulster's attitude. The first was that in coming to the Convention the Ulstermen had expected to negotiate on the basis of taking the Home Rule Act as the maximum Nationalist demand. The only compromise which they had contemplated was a mean term between the provisions of that Act and Ulster's demand for a continuance of the legislative Union so far as Ulster was concerned. The second was that Belfast regarded as ruinous to its interests any possibility of a tariff war with Great Britain, and believed that if Ireland were given the power to fix its own customs duties the dominant farming interest would seek to find revenue by new taxation on imports. Hence, the proposal to give Ireland full fiscal powers could not be acceptable to Ulster. Here lay the main rock in our course.

Another anticipation proved illusory. We all realized that in the circumstances Ireland could come to a financial arrangement with Great Britain on easier terms than at any time in her history; that to settle at once would be highly profitable; and more particularly, that we could probably secure the completion of land purchase as part of the bargain. It was thought that this argument would appeal to the commercial sense of Ulster. We were met by a resolute reiteration that Ulster considered it Ulster's duty and Ireland's duty to take a full share, equally with the rest of the United Kingdom, in all the consequences of the war—even if it cost them their last shilling; and Ulster speakers denounced our argument as a bribe. Some Nationalists were inclined to discount these protestations, yet I see no reason to doubt their sincerity. At all events, no one disputed that it was to Ireland's interest financially that a settlement should be made.

The desire to bring delegates together in friendly social intercourse had shown itself in many quarters. The Viceregal Lodge pressed invitations on us, and Redmond, though in the circumstances he himself would go to no entertainment anywhere, expressed his wish that Nationalists should alter their traditional attitude and accept what was offered in so friendly a spirit. But the first place where we met as a body with informal ease was at the Mansion House as guests of the Lord Mayor—a popular figure in our assembly.

A fortnight later Cork completed what Belfast had begun; and, perhaps because Cork is less strenuous, the whole atmosphere there was even friendlier. It had almost the quality of a holiday excursion, for we assisted at the ancient ceremony by which the Lord Mayor of Cork asserts his jurisdiction over the harbour waters—proceeding outside the protecting headlands and flinging from him a ceremonial dart outwards to the sea. This day, however, we accomplished the ceremony well within the limits; we passed the narrow gateway in the chain of mines, but outside that, submarines were a very real menace, and the Admiralty cut short our steamer's voyage. We were none the less festive on board.

It was not all mere holiday in Cork. One speech in particular at this meeting impressed the whole Convention. A Southern delegate illustrated from his personal knowledge how cumbrous and uneconomic were the dealings of a government at Westminster with the meat supply from Ireland; and a mass of complicated and important trade detail was skilfully linked to the larger issue of war interest and Imperial interest; there was genuine eloquence as well as commercial shrewdness in this discourse. A short speech, too, from one of the Ulster County Councillors indicated by its tone, what was in my opinion the general sentiment, that as a result of these preliminary discussions almost everybody in the assembly expected and desired an effective agreement.

Dealing briefly at first with the contention that the system of the Union had been a success and should not be touched, he outlined the familiar arguments. But, as he said, the existence of the Convention was the final answer. The head of a Coalition Ministry had declared, without dissent from any of his Unionist colleagues, that Dublin Castle had hopelessly broken down. The Prime Minister of another Coalition, mainly Unionist in its composition, had set up this assembly, charging it to find another and better system of government.

Beneficent legislation had been quoted. Yes, but how was it attained?

"Are we to go on for ever upon this path? Are we to go back into the region of perpetual and violent agitation in order to get the reforms we need? Are we never to be allowed to have peace in our country?"

He passed then to the complaint that Ulster's special case had not been sufficiently considered.

"The man who would hope to settle this great problem without special consideration of the special case of Ulster would indeed be a fool. Only for the special case of Ulster we should not be here at all. Our chief business is to endeavour to satisfy that special case.

"For myself, I am one of those Nationalists to whom Mr. Barrie referred, who believe that the co-operation of Ulstermen is necessary for a prosperous and free Ireland, and there are no lengths consistent with common sense and reason to which I would not go to satisfy their fears and doubts and objections.

"Now let me say what are the main objections to these schemes which have emerged from the debate. Some may be regarded as more particularly affecting Ulster, others as more particularly affecting the Southern Unionists, but all of them taken together make up what I may call the Unionist objection.

"The Archbishop of Dublin grouped these objections under three heads:

1. Imperial Security.

2. Fiscal Security.

3. Security for Minorities.

"On the question of Imperial Security, objection is taken to what is called an 'Independent' Parliament.

"It is supposed that what is called Dominion Home Rule implies an 'Independent' Parliament. This is a complete delusion. There is only one Sovereign and Independent Parliament in the Empire—the Imperial Parliament; its supremacy is indefeasible and inalienable. Every other Parliament in the Empire is subordinate, and an Irish Parliament must be subordinate.

"The Imperial Parliament has created many Parliaments and given to them power to deal in general as they wish with local affairs, but it never parted with its own overriding authority—it has no power to do so—and in several of the colonies it has exercised that overriding authority from time to time.

"Gladstone spoke of the Irish Parliament which he proposed to set up as 'practically independent in the exercise of its statutory functions.' But the overriding authority of the Imperial Parliament would always be there in the background to arrest injustice or oppression, just as it is in regard to every Dominion Parliament in the Empire to-day.