"That position was specifically laid down and accepted by Parnell in 1886.
"Lord Midleton demands that the rights and authority of the Crown shall be preserved and safeguarded. There is no difference whatever between us on this, and no difficulty can arise upon it.
"As to the control of Army and Navy, no one suggests any interference with the Imperial authority over the Army and the Navy. I include in that such naval control of harbours as is necessary for security.
"Captain Gwynn has proposed that Ireland should have power to raise a force for home defence. In other words, to pass a Territorial Act for Ireland. My policy about the Volunteers is known: I proposed at the beginning of the war that the Government should utilize the existing Volunteer forces; and had this proposal been acted on in 1914 there would have been no rebellion in 1916. If I understand Captain Gwynn, he did not suggest that Irish Territorials should be under an Irish War Office and an Irish Minister for War, but that in his opinion a system of Irish Territorials was desirable, and inasmuch as the English Territorial Acts are not suitable to us, the Irish Parliament should be given the power to raise under Imperial authority a force for itself and on its own lines.
"If this is his view, I agree with it. But this is a matter on which no one would think of breaking off.
"Speaking generally, I think the Archbishop of Dublin and those who agree with him may take it for granted that upon all those questions which he grouped under the heading of Imperial Security there would be little difficulty in arriving at an agreement with, at any rate, men like myself.
"Now let me deal with the second group of subjects put forward by the Archbishop of Dublin under the heading of Fiscal Security—or a reasonable prospect of national prosperity.
"The first objection is to what is called fiscal autonomy, although, after listening most carefully to his speeches, it seems to me that the real objection is not so much an objection to fiscal autonomy as establishing the full power of the Irish Parliament over the collection and imposition of Irish taxes, as an objection to giving that Parliament power to set up a tariff against Great Britain."
He referred then at length to the Report of the Primrose Committee on Irish Finance, dated October 1911.[11] That Committee had for its chairman a great English Civil Servant; three of its members were famous English financiers; another was the Professor of Political Economy at Oxford. Of the two names associated closely with Ireland, one was Lord Pirrie, whose fortune had been made in Belfast, and the only Irish Nationalist was the Bishop of Ross. They had reported unanimously for giving to Ireland full fiscal powers. "We tried hard," Redmond said, "to get the principle of their Report adopted in framing the Bill of 1912." Government insisted on adhering to the plan of "contract finance" which their own non-partisan committee of experts had explicitly condemned.
He quoted several passages from the weighty argument by which the Committee had justified its conclusions, especially those dealing with the contention that the power would be used to set up a tariff against British goods.
"Ireland is not a nation of fools.
"If in framing a new Constitution you go on the assumption that every power you confer will be abused, it would be far better to desist from your task altogether, and instead of increasing the powers of a people dead to all sense of responsibility and manifestly unfit for political freedom, you had better disestablish all existing forms of constitutional government and advocate the government of Ireland as a Crown Colony. But none of us so distrust our people.
"Dr. O'Donnell has proposed a solution of the difficulty about imposing a tariff against England by means of a Conference between the two nations. Other suggestions will be made. Protection may be found for Ulster by giving to them disproportionate representation. It may be found in the power of the Senate, it may be found in the power to suspend. If we are agreed somewhat on the general lines of the Primrose Report, the outstanding difficulty will be capable of adjustment.
"Sir Crawford McCullagh rightly pointed out the terrible burden of war taxation, which is at present over twenty millions, and he said we cannot go on on those lines, and we must get back to pre-war burdens or the country will be ruined. How are we to get back?
"If nothing is done by us, and the war goes on, as it may, for some years, we may easily be paying thirty, forty, or fifty millions, and generations to come will have to bear a crushing load. The income tax is certain to be raised, and excess profits also, and no part of Ireland will suffer more than Ulster, and especially Belfast.
"The highest interest of Ulster, therefore, is a speedy settlement whereby the increase of war taxation will cease and Ireland's contribution to Imperial purposes will either disappear or, to put it at the very lowest, be limited and stereotyped.
"Mr. Knight raised the question of land purchase. I agree with every word he said, but what is the difficulty? The difficulty is in providing the additional money needed at a low rate of interest. As part of a settlement I feel quite sure we could obtain the completion of land purchase on satisfactory terms. Indeed, I have the highest authority for the statement that this question would be regarded as an essential portion of a settlement, and that a most generous arrangement would be made. But if there is no settlement, do you imagine the Treasury will do anything to help us? No. I fear the British Government will be more occupied in endeavouring to deal with the state of open anarchy in Ireland than in making great financial concessions on land purchase. Mr. Knight, if he wants purchase completed, had better help us to an agreement.
"The third group of objections mentioned by the Archbishop of Dublin deals with Security for Minorities.
"On this, it is impossible for the Convention to break down, because we are all in favour of the object in view. It is a mere question of the best machinery to carry out our unanimous desire and intention.
"Ulster may clearly claim a representation out of proportion to her numbers, not only, I admit, in the Senate, but in the lower chamber. Safeguards of the most stringent character would be accepted, at any rate by me, in the machinery of the Constitution to prevent the possibility of Ulster's interest, Ulster's prosperity and Ulster's sentiments being injured or over-ridden.
"For Southern Unionists, the case is unanswerable. They must get proper representation in both Houses.
"Some suggestions have been made: proportional representation; Mr. Murphy's proposal of a special representation for property; special representation for creeds, and finally a nominated element in the House of Commons. I have an open mind on them all. It may be none of these will be found wholly satisfactory. But where there is a will there is a way. We are all agreed it must be done, and therefore it can and will be done.
"In none of these objections, and they are the chief ones that have emerged on Imperial security, fiscal security, and security of minorities, is there in my mind any difficulty in coming to an agreement, if we are really animated by the desire every speaker has professed to answer the appeal of the Empire in this hour of her dire extremity by removing one of her greatest weaknesses and dangers.
"We were told by Lord Midleton to play for safety. What is safety for us? What is safety for the Empire? I strongly say the only safety is a settlement of this question.
"What will be the certain effect of a breakdown? No one could fail to have been impressed by the serious and solemn note upon which the Archbishop of Dublin concluded his speech. He reminded you this was not a question of Ulster and the rest of Ireland, not of Catholic and Protestant, or Unionist and Nationalist: it was a question of the necessity for all men of good will, all men of responsibility, all men who know that the foundation of freedom is the maintenance of order, to join hands to protect their common country from anarchy and chaos.
"The Archbishop spoke of Mr. Lysaght's speech as a threat. No one here will be moved by threats, but let us not be mad enough to shut our eyes to the facts. Is there a man in this room who can contemplate without horror the immediate future of Ireland if this Convention fails? For my part, I see clearly a future following on our failure in which on one side there will be an angered, if you like, a maddened people, with no responsible control, and on the other, Government ruling by the point of the bayonet. Between these two forces there will be no place for a Constitutional party or for men like myself.
"That would be the effect in Ireland. What would be the effect throughout the Empire?
"I have close relations with statesmen of all parties in all the Dominions, and I am informed that twenty-five per cent, of their troops are of Irish birth or of Irish parents, and that they have practically joined because they believed the Irish problem was as good as settled.
"What has happened about Ireland has caused untold difficulties in every Dominion. Mr. Holman, the Prime Minister of New South Wales, said that conscription was defeated by the Irish vote. Mr. Hughes said the same. Two hundred thousand troops have been lost to the Empire by the feeling of disgust at the failure to settle the Irish question. It has been the same in Canada. Everywhere a breakdown will be regarded with dismay.
"What will be the effect in America? The position of America is grave and dangerous. I have close relations with many Americans of high position and influence, and they all tell me the same. This is a secret session, and I can repeat what they say. There is little or no enthusiasm for the war. Mind, I am speaking of Americans, not Irish Americans. The apathy is largely due to distrust of England. They distrust her posing as the champion of small nations while here at her doors the Irish question is unsettled. Lord Midleton says the Americans are uninformed. Perhaps so as to details. Perhaps they only see the broad effect. But how does that help us? The fact remains. Ireland is the only, or the chief, cause of American apathy to-day. This is of vital importance. Could we hope to win the war if America dropped out? Russia has gone. The President of the United States has many pacifist men around him. Their movement is strong. Germany is abstaining from outrages that would raise American feeling. I say, the danger of peace proposals which we could not accept being offered to America and accepted by her is a real and a very serious one.
"Hence it is that the Government, the diplomatic service, and all connected with our foreign affairs are feverishly anxious as to the result of our deliberations. If we break down in despair and helplessness, God only knows how terrible and far-reaching may be the consequence.
"Far better for us and for the Empire never to have met than to have met and failed of an agreement.
"Finally, what would be the effect of a breakdown at the front?
"We are called upon on all sides of this ancient quarrel to make what people call sacrifices—sacrifices of inherited predilections, of old-world ideas, and of ancient shibboleths, of perhaps ingrained prejudice. I would be ashamed to speak of the surrender of such things as sacrifices, when I remember the kind of sacrifices our brave boys have made and are making this very hour while we are safe at home talking. I cannot trust myself to speak upon this matter. Only the other day, once again the Ulster Division and the Sixteenth Irish Division, shoulder to shoulder, have fought and died for Ireland. The full story is not yet known, but it is full of tragedy, of heroism and of glory. Surely they deserve some encouragement. No set of men living would be prouder and happier than they if we can send them the news of a settlement of this question which will relieve them from the daily shame they feel, every time they meet their Allies, in the consciousness that their country, Ireland, for which they are facing death, is distracted and disunited and a source of reproach.
"No, we must come to a settlement. We must rise to the occasion—if only to save ourselves from a lifelong remorse for wrecking this venture—for what the historian of the future would describe as a crime against the Empire in her hour of deadliest peril, and a crime against the peace and happiness of our own beloved and long-suffering country."
One result of this speech was seen at once in an utterance from Mr. Andrew Jameson, a leading figure among the Southern Unionists. He said at once that Redmond had convinced him that all the difficulties as to maintaining the Imperial connection and providing safeguards for minorities could and would be met. The fiscal difficulty remained. He pressed the Ulster group to come to our assistance and depart from their attitude of silence. This speech went further towards our desire than any Unionist had previously gone.
In a later debate Mr. Pollock outlined two essentials of the Ulster demand. The United Kingdom must remain a fiscal unit; and Ireland must be represented at Westminster. If these points were conceded, agreement, he thought, should be possible.
On the whole, as discussion grew franker and more business-like, relations improved. There were small passages at arms, but these only served to show how strong was the general desire for harmony. One of my colleagues said that he did not know what to make of a political assembly where everyone applauded when you got up, and applauded when you sat down, and never interrupted you. Another said that the Convention was the only society in Ireland from which one always came away cheered up: and this was so generally felt that an Ulster speaker reminded us that the atmosphere of our proceedings was pleasant but exceptional. He warned us to remember that, even if we agreed, either side might be repudiated. Yet there was a marked feeling that the Convention, and the tone which prevailed in the Convention, had done good in the country. This was admitted by the Grand Master of the Orange Order, Colonel Wallace, in a speech which led to an important illustration of the mutual process of education, for it raised with great frankness the issue of religious differences and alluded specially to the recent Papal decrees over which so much controversy had raged. The Bishop of Raphoe rose to reply and expounded, as an ex-professor of Canon Law, the true bearing of these documents. His speech was a masterpiece; its candour and its lucidity commended itself to all hearers, but most of all to the Ulstermen, who applauded at once Lord Oranmore's comment that the odium theologicum had been replaced by divina caritas; and at a very late stage in our proceedings, Mr. Barrie referred back to this speech of the Bishop's as one of the things which they would never forget.
The Primate, who in this month of September was one of the hopeful hearts ("My confidence has grown daily," he said), used words which met with widespread response: "We can never leave this hall and speak of men whom we have met here as we have spoken of them in the past." There was good will in the air—good will to each other and to the enterprise. At the close of the proceedings in Cork the Lord Mayor of Belfast moved a vote of thanks to the citizens through their Lord Mayor, and he closed on a note of hope—anticipating "something in store for Ireland."
Yet already these anticipations were overcast. During this week, while all seemed going so well, one of the endless unhappy and preventible things happened. It was from Redmond that I first heard the news. One of the Sinn Fein leaders who had been rearrested on suspicion after the amnesty took part in a hunger-strike as a protest against being subjected to the conditions imposed on a convicted felon. He was forcibly fed and died under the process, owing to heart-failure. Redmond told me with fury how he had urged again and again on the Chief Secretary the possibility of some such calamity, and had urged that these men should receive the treatment proper in any case to political prisoners, but above all to men who had been neither convicted nor tried.
The result was immediately seen in some hostile demonstrations in Cork, chiefly against Mr. Devlin and Redmond. But this was only the beginning. On the following Sunday the body of the dead man, Thomas Ashe, was carried through the streets of Dublin at the head of a vast procession, in which large bodies of Volunteers, openly defying Government's proclamation, marched in uniform; and he was buried with military honours and volleys fired over his grave. With all this breach of the law Government dared not interfere. They had put themselves in the wrong; whether they prevented the demonstration or permitted it, mischief was bound to follow. A new incitement was given to the enthusiasm for Sinn Fein, a new martyr was provided, and new hostility was raised against the Convention, for whose success Government was notoriously anxious. On the other hand, Ulster Unionist opinion was violently offended; they were scandalized by the disregard for law and the impotence of constitutional authority. This attitude, however open to comments based on their own recent history, did not render them any easier to deal with. Above all, the Ashe incident emphasized the presence in Ireland of a great force over which Redmond had no control and which had no representative in the Convention. How, men asked, even if a bargain could be made with Constitutional Nationalists, should that covenant be carried into effect?
III
The Cork visit marks the close of the first stage in the history of the Convention. At the opening of our session there it was decided to appoint a Grand Committee of twenty, whose task should be, "if possible, to prepare a scheme for submission to the Convention, which would meet the views and difficulties expressed by the different speeches during the course of the debate." The Convention itself, after its deliberations of that week, would adjourn until the Committee was in a position to report. This second stage, purely of committee work, was to last much longer than anyone anticipated: the Convention did not reassemble till the week before Christmas. If that length of adjournment had been foreseen, the Committee would never have been appointed.
Mr. Lysaght in his first address to the Convention had pressed upon us the view that Sinn Féin could be won. But he warned us also (with such emphasis that some speakers afterwards resented it as a threat) that if the Convention produced no result, or an unacceptable result, or provoked suspicion by delay, the result would be a revolution. Already impatience was growing. We could publish no account of our proceedings: but it became known inevitably that we had not as yet reached one operative conclusion in our task of Constitution building.
At Cork, Sir Horace Plunkett made an encouraging speech at the public luncheon; he announced the appointment of our Committee, which certainly looked like business. But only when we got to detail did men fully realize the difficulties and the embarrassing nature of the position.
The Ashe affair had done more harm than we knew. When the Primate was making the hopeful speech from which a few words have already been quoted, he spoke also of our experience as having been a process of mutual education, which we needed to extend beyond our own assembly. He promised his help in this, and it was felt that Ulstermen generally were on their honour to report well of what they commended in our presence. They were, it seems, at least as good as their word; the Committee behind them was favourably impressed, and when we went to Cork—so I have been informed—the question of giving the delegates full powers to negotiate was under discussion. But this mood was dissipated by the angry temper in all sections which arose out of the imprisonments, the hunger-strikes, the penalties imposed, and the successive concessions to violent resistance.
To this was added a new cause of quarrel. The Franchise Bill was now coming before the House of Commons; and under the provisions agreed to by the Speaker's Conference, extension of the franchise was to be applied in Ireland, but there was to be no redistribution. This proposal was not unreasonable, since the Home Rule Act was now a statute and under it new and properly distributed constituencies were scheduled; while over and above this the Convention was in existence to occupy itself with the matter.
On the other hand, the existing distribution of seats was hard on Unionist Ulster: the great mass of population in and about Belfast was under-represented. Ulstermen said that while Nationalists professed great desire to give favour to minorities, in reality they persisted in keeping their political opponents at an unfair disadvantage. There was no more question of enlarging the delegates' authority in Convention: the Advisory Committee hardened their attitude, and it was our task to convince a body which could not hear our arguments at first hand. Decisions lay with Ulstermen in Belfast, not in the Convention—that is to say, not subject to the daily, hourly, prompting to remember that they were not only Ulstermen but Irishmen, which arose from friendly intercourse with their fellow-delegates.
The Grand Committee of twenty, representing all groups, met on October 11th. Sir Horace Plunkett had in advance begged Redmond to undertake the presentation of a scheme which would serve as a basis for discussion. Redmond declined, on the ground that the initiative should come from someone who was not there as a politician; but he admitted that the onus of making a proposal was on Home Rulers. Dr. O'Donnell, though an office-bearer in the United Irish League, was present as a representative of the hierarchy; he was charged with the task. He had been throughout a strong advocate of claiming for Ireland all the powers possessed by any of the Dominions, with limitations on the military side; he had also been forward in his desire to give wholly exceptional rights of representation to minorities.
But when we got into Committee one man immediately took the lead. Sir Alexander McDowell[12] had not spoken in any debate; there is reason to believe that he was glad not to commit himself in advance before the moment when his special gift might come into play. All his life he had been carrying through agreements between conflicting interests: he was a great mediator and negotiator. Now, he advocated what was, in strictness, an irregularity. A task had been delegated to us: he asked us to delegate it again to a smaller group. The whole case, he said, had been fully opened up; further debate would be no use; we all knew all the arguments. He deprecated formal procedure; it was plainly a family quarrel, and we should treat it in that spirit. Honestly, he said, he should be sorry if the Convention failed. Ulster had no fault to find with the Union; but they were living next door to a house already in flames.
That was the general tone, but it would be difficult to convey the impression of experience and authority which his manner left: and Redmond supported him. It was plain that the two men would understand each other. In the upshot their view prevailed; Redmond, Mr. Barrie and Lord Midleton were instructed to suggest names, and after an interval they came back with a list of nine. Lord Midleton was for the Southern Unionists; Mr. Barrie, Lord Londonderry and Sir Alexander McDowell for the Northern; Redmond, Mr. Devlin and Bishop O'Donnell represented the parliamentary Nationalists, and to them were added Mr. W.M. Murphy and Mr. George Russell.
This left eleven of us unemployed, and some days later we were formed into three sub-committees, the first dealing with the question of Electoral Reform and the composition of an Irish Parliament; the second with Land Purchase, and the third with a possible Territorial Force and the Police. But the marrow of the business rested with the original sub-committee of nine.
They, however, could not get rapidly to work; other affairs pulled them in different directions. Redmond was forced to go to Westminster, where the Franchise Bill was coming on; moreover, the Irish party felt that it must raise the question of Irish administration.
As our leader, he was obliged to speak on both matters. His reply to the Ulster amendment proposing to extend redistribution to Ireland was that this departed from the compromise reached at the Speaker's Conference, and moreover ignored the existence of the Convention. He spoke with studied brevity and avoidance of party spirit: but the debate became a wrangle. Mr. Barrie brought back into it some of the Convention's friendlier atmosphere; but his argument was that in the interests of the Convention this concession should be made.
The second debate, on October 23rd, was inevitably contentious: it deplored the policy being pursued by the Irish Executive and the Irish military authorities "at a time when the highest interests of Ireland and the Empire demand the creation of an atmosphere favourable to the Convention." Redmond had an easy task in convicting the Government's action of incoherence and of blundering provocation—but to do this was of no advantage to his main purpose, which he served as best he could by a side-wind, eulogizing the temper of the Convention and specially the "sincere desire for a reasonable settlement" shown by the Ulster delegates.
Still, at the best, it was impossible for him not to feel that the reaction of a debate which could not be kept in the tone on which he started it must be unfavourable to the meetings of the Nine which were about to take place. He was to go in to negotiate a settlement for his country while the voices of faction were yelping at his heels all over Ireland, and all the forces of reconciliation which he had brought into play were neutralized and sterilized.
A debate of these days gave him a happier occasion to intervene than the domestic bickerings in which he had been forced to take part; yet even in this the note of sadness predominated. On October 29th, when a vote of thanks was proposed to the Navy, Army and Mercantile Marine, he joined his voice to that of other leaders of parties, to emphasize, as he said, that they spoke from an absolutely unanimous House of Commons. He recalled the exploits of Irish troops and dwelt again on the presence of a large Irish element in the Canadian and Anzac Divisions. But his reference was chiefly to those Nationalist Irish Brigades, who had remained true, he said, to the old motto of the Brigade of Fontenoy, Semper et ubique fidelis. These men had known in the midst of their privations and sufferings a new and poignant feeling of anguish: they had seen "a section at any rate of their countrymen" repudiate the view that in serving as they served they were fighting for Ireland, for her happiness, for her prosperity and her liberty.
"I wish it were possible for me to speak a word to every one of those men. If my words could reach them, I would say to every one of them that they need have no misgiving, that they were right from the first, that time will vindicate them, that time will show that while fighting for liberty and civilization in Europe they are also fighting for civilization and liberty in their own land. I would like to say to every one of them, in addition, that even at this moment, when ephemeral causes have confused and disturbed Irish opinion, they are regarded with feelings of the deepest pride and gratitude by the great bulk of the Irish race and by all that is best in every creed and class in Ireland."
The Irish Divisions had once and again been engaged shoulder to shoulder, but this time with very different fortune, in the third battle of Ypres; yet, win or lose, they won or lost together. In that same fighting Redmond's own son had earned special honour; the Distinguished Service Order was bestowed on him for holding up a broken line with his company of the Irish Guards. At a happier time this news would have been received with enthusiasm all over Ireland; now, the most one could say was that it delighted the Convention.
It would be quite wrong, however, to regard Redmond's attitude in these days as unhopeful. The first meetings of the Nine were fruitful of much agreement—conditional at all points on general ratification. But the true spirit of compromise was there. So far as concerned the provision to give minorities more than their numerical weight, it was agreed that there should be two Houses, with powers of joint session, and with control over money bills conceded to the Upper House. In the Lower House Unionists should (somehow) get forty per cent, of the representation: so that in the joint session the influences would be equally balanced.
The hitch came over finance. Nationalists wanted complete powers of taxation, but would agree to a treaty establishing Free Trade between the two countries for a long period. Ulster wanted a common fiscal control for Great Britain and Ireland. By November 1st a complete deadlock had been reached.
On that date the Grand Committee met to take stock informally of the position, especially in regard to the procedure of the more detailed sub-committees, and to face the fact that a grave misfortune had befallen us. Sir Alexander McDowell had been prevented by illness from attending any of the meetings. He had no further part in the Convention's work, and died before it ended.
Redmond in a confidential talk spoke of his absence as lamentable. The two had arranged—on the Belfast man's proposal—to meet for private interviews before the Nine came together. Neither had control of the forces for which he spoke; but both stood out, by everyone's consent, from the rest of the assembly. It is impossible to say how much they might have achieved had they come to an understanding; but assuredly no other representative of the North spoke with the same self-confidence or the same weight of personality as Sir Alexander McDowell. My own feeling about him—if it be worth while to record a personal impression—was that he was a man with the instinct for carrying big things through—that the problem tempted him, as a task which called for the exertion of powers which he was conscious of possessing. In losing him we lost certainly the strongest will in his group, perhaps the strongest in the Convention; and it was a will for settlement. It was, too, a will less hampered by regard for public opinion than that of any popularly elected representative man can be. He had, I think, also eminently the persuasive gift which is not only inclined to give and take but can impart that disposition to others.
Mr. Pollock, who replaced him, was an able man, but singularly lacking in this quality. He held his own views clearly and strongly, but his method of exposition accentuated differences: it had always a note of asperity, though this was certainly not deliberate. One of the pleasant memories which remains with me is of a day when debate grew acrimonious and hot words were used. Mr. Pollock refused to reply to some phrases which might have been regarded as taunts, because, he said, "I have made friendships here which I never expected to make, and I value them too much to risk the loss of them." That friendly temper, combined with his ability, made him a valuable member of this Convention: but for the critical work of bringing men's minds together, of sifting the essential from the unessential, he was a bad exchange for Sir Alexander McDowell.
Redmond said to me that he had found Mr. Barrie much more conciliatory than in the earlier and public stages. He was delighted with Lord Midleton, who was, he said, "showing an Irish spirit which I never expected";—standing up for the claims of an Irish Parliament if there was to be one. In the discussion, however, one man, Bishop O'Donnell, had been "head and shoulders above everyone else."
Argument had ranged about the question of customs and excise. This was the dividing line. But when at last a deadlock was definitely reached, the Ulster position was stated in a letter which refused to concede to an Irish Parliament the control of either direct or indirect taxation. It was to be a Parliament with no taxing power at all.
On the other hand, in the corresponding document from the Nationalist side, the importance of immediate and full fiscal control had been put very high.
"Self-government does not exist," it said, "where those nominally entrusted with affairs of government have not control of fiscal and economic policy. No nation with self-respect could accept the idea that while its citizens were regarded as capable of creating wealth they were regarded as incompetent to regulate the manner in which taxation of that wealth should be arranged, and that another country should have the power of levying and collecting taxes, the taxed country being placed in the position of a person of infirm mind whose affairs are regulated by trustees. No finality could be looked for in such an arrangement, not even a temporary satisfaction."
The genesis of this passage should be told, for it had importance in the history of the Convention; and also it conveys an idea of the limits to which Redmond carried self-effacement. It is important because it acted on Ulster like a red rag shown to a bull. Obviously, if this were the Nationalist view, then the Home Rule Act could not be said to give self-government—for under its system of contract finance Ireland certainly had not control of her fiscal and economic policy. A measure accepted with enthusiasm in 1912 was now regarded as impossible of giving "even a temporary satisfaction."
What had happened was this. The Chairman in his tireless efforts to bring about agreement had addressed two sets of questions, to the Nationalists and to the Ulstermen respectively, by answering which he hoped they might clear the air. The direct answers for the Nationalists were drafted by Mr. Russell, but were shown to Redmond, Mr. Devlin and the Bishop of Raphoe. It was, however, suggested that as an addendum a summary should be added. Redmond did not ask to see this addition, and it was not shown to him. It led off with the paragraph which has been quoted. The fact that he allowed anything in any stage of such a negotiation to go out in his name without his own revision marks the loosening of grip—a tired man.
His exertions for the past years, the past ten years at least, had been tremendous: they had been redoubled from 1912 to 1916. Towards the end, one resource had been failing him—the chief of all. A leader when he is well followed gives and takes; there is interchange of energy. For more than a year now Redmond had lacked the moral support, the almost physical stimulus, which comes from the ready response of followers. Labour at no time came easy to him, there was much inertia in his temperament; and the part which he had laid out for himself in the Convention as merely an individual member did not impose on him the same unremitting vigilance as if he acted as leader. Yet, the leadership was his; if he did not exercise it, no one else could; and this incident shows that his abnegation of leadership was not a mere phrase.
On November 22nd the Grand Committee reassembled to hear the report from the Nine. Lord Southborough, who had presided at all their meetings, detailed the conclusions which had been reached or the point on which they had broken down.
Then followed a discussion lasting some three days, in which Ulstermen and Nationalists reaffirmed their positions. Archbishop Bernard, the Primate, and Lord MacDonnell all attempted mediation. Finally, Lord Midleton, who described the position as "a stone wall on each side," announced that he and his group would put before the Grand Committee certain proposals as a via media. These in effect conceded to an Irish Parliament all that Nationalists claimed, subject only to the reservation that customs must be fixed by the Imperial Parliament and the produce of them retained as Ireland's contribution to Imperial services.
At this point our work was interrupted by the reemergence of the redistribution question. Redmond and the other Irish members were obliged to go to London and assist for two days at a debate in the worst traditions of the House of Commons. The change of atmosphere was extraordinary—and the accusations of bad faith were not limited to what passed at Westminster. One virulent speech declared that the Convention had no prospects, never had any, and was never intended to have any. This was accompanied by an attack on the action of the Ulster group—based, of course, on hearsay. Those of us who felt that at any rate the Convention offered a better hope for Ireland than any which now could be based on action at Westminster pleaded for the acceptance of a proposal which Redmond put forward as a compromise—that the proposed Irish clauses should be dropped from the main Bill and the Irish matter dealt with in a separate statute. It was so agreed at last, and a conference between Irish members, with the Speaker presiding, was set up, and quickly did its work. But if all this had been agreed to in October or earlier, much friction would have been saved and a cause of quarrel with the Ulster that was not in the Convention might have been avoided. Still, peace was achieved, and the proposal to cut down Irish representation was once more defeated.
Grand Committee met for another session, but was chiefly concerned with getting ready for the reassembling of Convention—fixed for Tuesday, December 18th. It was decided that a group meeting of Nationalists for informal discussion should be held on the Monday night—the first occasion on which this had been done.
Ill-luck, however, seemed to dog us. Dr. Kelly, the Bishop of Ross, who was much closer in his point of view to Redmond than any of the other Bishops, was gravely ill. This was foreseen. But on the Monday a heavy snowstorm fell; Redmond, shut up in his hills at Aughavanagh, could not reach Dublin. The roads were not open till the Thursday, and then he thought it too late to come. He was in truth already too ill to face any unusual exertion.
The Convention had been summoned, not to receive a final report from the Grand Committee, but to face a new situation. An offer had been put forward by one group which altered the whole complexion of the controversy. Grand Committee had abstained from deciding whether to counsel acceptance or rejection. But for the first time an influential body of Irish Unionists had agreed, not as individuals but as representatives, to accept Home Rule, in a wider measure than had been proffered by the Bills of 1886 and 1893 or by the Act of 1914. Limitations which were imposed in all these had been struck out by Lord Midleton's proposals.
On the other hand, it was certain that the Ulster group would reject the scheme. Conversation among Nationalists made it plain that if Ulster would agree with Lord Midleton we should all join them. For the sake of an agreement reached between all sections of Irishmen, but for nothing less conclusive, Dr. O'Donnell and Mr. Russell were content to waive the claim to full fiscal independence. Such an agreement, they held, would be accepted by Parliament in its integrity. But if Ulster stood out, there would be no "substantial agreement," and the terms which Nationalists and Southern Unionists might combine to propose would be treated as a bargaining offer, certain to be chipped down by Government towards conformity with the Ulster demand. In the result there would be an uprising of opinion in Ireland against a measure so framed; the fiasco of July, 1916, would repeat itself.
Against this, and prompting us to acceptance, was the view very strongly held by Redmond, that Government urgently needed a settlement for the sake of the war, and would use to the utmost any leverage which helped them to this end. An agreement with Lord Midleton would mean a Home Rule proposal proceeding from a leading Unionist statesman who spoke for the interest in Ireland, which, if any, had reason to fear Nationalist government. This would mean necessarily a profound change in the attitude of the House of Lords and of all those social influences whose power we had felt so painfully. Government could undoubtedly, if it chose, carry a measure giving effect to this compact.
Further, weighing greatly with the instincts of the rank and file was the motive which prompted Irish Nationalists to welcome the advance made by those whom Lord Midleton represented. The Southern Unionists were the old landowning and professional class, friendly in all ways of intercourse, but politically severed and sundered from the mass of the population. Now, they came forward with an offer to help in attaining our desire—quite frankly, against their own declared conviction that the Union was the best plan, but with an equally frank recognition that the majority was the majority and was honest in its intent. The personality of the men reinforced the effect of this: Lord Oranmore, for instance, whom most of them had only known by anti-Home Rule speeches in the House of Lords, revealed himself as the friendliest of Irishmen, with the Irish love for a witty phrase.
This temperamental attitude was of help to Lord Midleton when on December 18th he expounded the position of himself and his friends in a very powerful argument, the more persuasive because the good will in his audience softened his habitual touch of contentiousness. It had seemed to them, he said, that both in the Nationalist and Northern Unionist camp there was a tendency to consider dispositions out of doors and to conciliate certain antagonisms without considering whether they excited others. He and his friends had determined to fix their minds solely on the Convention itself, and to pursue the purpose for which they were summoned of endeavouring after agreement within that body. They were Unionists; but they had asked themselves what could be removed from the present system without disturbing the essence of Union; and in that effort they would go to the extremest limit in their power, without thought of conciliating opinions outside, and without any attempt to bargain.
On one point only he indicated that their scheme was tentative. Defence was by consent of all left to the Imperial Parliament. This implied, he held, an adequate contribution, and the yield of customs to be collected by the Imperial Parliament seemed roughly to meet the case, for the period of the war. But this was not absolutely a hard-and-fast proposal. In any case, after the war, the amount should be the subject of inquiry by a joint commission.
Apart from this, the offer was their last word. It conceded to Ireland the control of all purely Irish services. This included the fixation of excise, because excise on commodities produced in Ireland did not touch the treaty-making power. Customs touched that power, and therefore customs, like defence, must be left to the Imperial Parliament. But, he argued, Irish Nationalists were not asked to give up anything which had been conceded to them by any previous Home Rule proposal.
To all Unionists he said: These proposals keep the power of the Crown over all Imperial services undiminished; they keep representation at Westminster—a corollary from leaving the Imperial Parliament powers over Irish taxation; and by accepting the suggestions already agreed to, they give a generous representation to Unionists in an Irish Parliament. This special representation of minorities was, he thought, sufficient to give a guarantee of "sane legislation" while it lasted; and he suggested that the period should be fifteen years. These concessions, in his opinion, sufficiently protected Southern Unionists. To Ulster he said, "We share every danger threatening you—we have many dangers you need not fear. Yet, we have no sinister anticipations. Are you still determined to stand out?"
On the other hand, when so much of the full demand was conceded, were Nationalists insistent, he asked, on demanding what they had never asked in the discussions upon any Home Rule Bill? Nationalist leaders had now the chance of leading a combination of all sane elements in the landowning and land-cultivating classes. No Irish leader had ever before been able to present such an appeal to Unionist opinion as would come from the man who represented a Convention Party.
It was a speech which Redmond, if present, must have replied to, and could not have replied to without indicating profound sympathy—for he was in agreement with its main lines; and his expression of opinion upon it must have influenced strongly the views of the rank and file at the moment when they were most open to suggestion.
In his absence, men's minds were greatly affected by the fear that if we adopted these proposals, our decision would be exposed to attack from a combination of three forces—Sinn Féin, which would at least officially condemn anything less than complete separation, and would furiously assail a proposal that denied full taxing powers; the Roman Catholic Church, which would take its lead from Bishop O'Donnell, who set out in an able memorandum the reasons why Ireland must have full control of taxation; and finally, the powerful newspaper whose proprietor, Mr. Murphy, at once gave signs of his hostility by putting on the paper an amendment to Lord Midleton's resolution which amounted to a direct negative.
The reassembly of the Convention was fixed for Wednesday, January 2nd. Redmond came to Dublin on the Monday. He told me that he was inclined to move that while we thanked Lord Midleton for his substantial contribution towards our purpose, we could not accept his proposal, unless it opened the way to a settlement. What he meant by this was not merely that if Ulster agreed, we should accept; for that would certainly open the way. But he had also in his mind the possibility of a guarantee from Government that an arrangement come to, as this might be, by four-fifths of the Convention, and repudiated only by the pledge-bound Ulster block, would be regarded as substantial agreement, and taken as a basis for legislation. In that case, also, the way would be open; but he had no written assurance of such an understanding, though I gathered that he was urging the Government to give it. We were, however, told on good authority in these days that if the Southern Unionists' proposal was accepted by the Nationalists and other elements outside of Ulster, the Prime Minister would use his whole influence with his colleagues to secure acceptance of the compact and immediate legislation upon it. This would mean, we were also assured, that the whole thing would be done before Easter.
On January 2nd the resumed debate for the first time brought the Convention face to face with concrete proposals for a settlement. In tone and in substance it would have done credit to any Parliament that ever sat. I shall not try to summarize the arguments, but simply to note certain outstanding facts.
Lord Midleton modified his original proposal that collection of customs should be an Imperial service throughout. He agreed that collection might be done by the Irish Civil Service. Moreover, he admitted that Ireland must have full means of checking the account for these taxes, great part of which must necessarily be collected at English ports, since tea, tobacco and the other dutiable articles were seldom shipped direct to Ireland.
But he made it plain that the essential of his proposal was the maintenance of a common customs system, leaving the fixation of customs to the Imperial Parliament for Great Britain and Ireland. If this was denied, as it would be by the acceptance of Mr. Murphy's amendment, all Unionists would be driven once more into the same lobby; all chance of uniting elements heretofore divided would disappear.
This was the fact against which we were brought up. Insistence on the full Nationalist demand as it had been outlined in the Convention meant the refusal of a new and powerful alliance which now offered itself, and the destruction of anything which could be called an agreement.
In the close, Lord Midleton reinforced his appeal by a solid material argument. The sub-committee presided over by Lord MacDonnell had reached unanimous conclusions embodying proposals for the completion of land purchase within a very brief period. Landlords, agents, tenants, representatives for Ulster as well as from the South and West, were parties to this plan. Lord Midleton now looked back on the past as one who had been in the fight since Mr. Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill. Every fresh settlement had been wrecked, he said, by standing for the last shred of the demand. In 1885, if Gladstone had abandoned the identity of democratic franchise for both countries and had made to the Irish minority such concessions as this Convention was willing to make, he would have carried the Liberal Unionist element with him. Then, as now, a great land purchase scheme depended on the solution of the main problem. To-day land purchase stood or fell with the Convention.
He was backed by Lord Dunraven—who waived his preference for his own original proposal—and by Lord Desart, in most able argument: the latter declaring that the proposal to give Ireland a separate customs system could never be carried in England. But the speech of the day came from Mr. Kavanagh, who, speaking as a Nationalist who had been a Unionist, ended a most moving appeal for agreement with a declaration that he at all events would vote for the compromise. There was no mistaking the effect produced by the earnestness of this speaker, who knew as much of Ireland and was as well fitted to judge of its true interests as any man in the room. That effect was felt, I think, in the tone of a private meeting of Nationalists held the same night. Redmond, with the art of which he was a master, indicated support for the proposal without forcing a conclusion. He dwelt on the fact that if we did not agree we not only lost our chance of immediate and complete land purchase but left ourselves subjected to the entire burden of war taxation. Other speakers pointed out that we ought not to let ourselves be lured into driving the Southern Unionists and the Ulstermen together against us. Mr. Clancy said in his downright manner that he would not as yet express his view publicly: but that he was not going to reject this offer for the sake of fixing taxes on tea and tobacco, and that when the right time came, he would say so. The strongest arguments used against this view were that in surrendering control of customs we lost our management of the taxes which pressed upon the poor; and further, that even if we agreed, no one knew what would result. We had no guarantee that the compact would be expressed in legislation. But on the whole the tone showed a disposition to accept, and especially to support Redmond—who had spoken of his political career as a thing ended. Next day the debate in Convention continued. Archbishop Bernard, speaking as a Unionist, said that the proposal was a venture beset with risks, but the greatest danger of all was to do nothing. It would be a grave responsibility for Ulster to wreck the chance of a settlement. Lord Oranmore dwelt on the composition of the proposed Legislature Power was to be entrusted to a very different Parliament from that which they had feared. He and his like were to get what they desired—an opportunity of taking part in the government of the country. It looked to him as if the only possible Irish Government under this scheme must be Unionist in its complexion.
Perhaps there was an echo of this in Redmond's speech, by far the greatest he made in the Convention, when at last he intervened on January 4th—the Friday which ended that session.
He dealt at once with Mr. Barrie's often repeated view that the proper object of our endeavours was to find a compromise between the Act of 1914 and the proposal for partition put forward by Ulster. On that basis the Convention could never have been brought together. The Prime Minister's letter of May 16th which proposed the Convention suggested that Irishmen should meet "for the purpose of drafting a Constitution for their own country." On May 22nd Mr. Lloyd George had said, "We propose that Ireland should try her own hand at hammering out an instrument of government for her people." The only limitation was that it should be a Constitution "for the future government of Ireland within the Empire."
Then he turned to the argument that all the sacrifices were asked from Unionists. Let us weigh them, he said. What sacrifices had been made by the Irish Nationalists, since this chain of events began?—Then followed a passage which I recapitulate, not necessarily in full, but in phrases which he actually used, and I noted down:
"Personal loss I set aside. My position—our position—before the war was that we possessed the confidence of nearly the entire country. I took a risk—we took it—with eyes open. I have—we have—not merely taken the risk but made the sacrifice. If the choice were to be made to-morrow, I would do it all over again.
"I have had my surfeit of public life. My modest ambition would be to serve in some quite humble capacity under the first Unionist Prime Minister of Ireland."
As to other sacrifices, in the way of concessions, he recited the list of what had been agreed to—proposals so strangely undemocratic—the nomination of members of Parliament, the disproportionate powers given to a minority. "Shall we not be denounced for making them?" he asked.
On the other hand, what sacrifices had been made by the Southern Unionists? These were the men who had had the hardest battle to fight in the struggle over Home Rule. They were not, like Ulster Unionists, "entrenched in a ring-fence," but the scattered few, who had suffered most and who might naturally have entertained most bitterness. Yet Lord Midleton's speech had been instinct with an admirable spirit. The speech of the Archbishop of Dublin had touched him deeply.
"Between these men and us there never again can be the differences of the past. They have put behind them all bitter memories. They have agreed to the framework of a Bill better than any offered to us in 1886, 1893 or 1914."
As for us Nationalists—he emphasized that each man came here free, untrammelled.
"I speak only for myself. But even if I stand alone, I will not allow myself, because I cannot get the full measure of my demand, to be drawn to reject the proffered hand of friendship held out to us. In my opinion we should be political fools if we did not endeavour to cement an alliance with these men."
As concerned the Labour men, Mr. Whitley, who had always been a Unionist, had declared willingness to agree. But the Ulster Unionists—what sacrifice had they made?