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THE IRISH HOME-RULE
CONVENTION

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NRW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCITTTA
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA. Ltd.

TORONTO

THE IRISH HOME-RULE
CONVENTION

'THOUGHTS FOR A CONVENTION'

BY

GEORGE W. RUSSELL (A. E.)
'A DEFENCE OF THE CONVENTION'

BY

THE RIGHT HON.
SIR HORACE PLUNKETT

AN AMERICAN OPINION

BY

JOHN QUINN

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1917

All rights reserved

COPTEIQHT, 1917,

By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Set up and electrotyped. Published, September, 1917.

SEP 20 1917

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I An American's War Credo . . 3

II Sinn Fein and the Dublin In-
surrection 17

III An English View of the Insur-

rection AND Home Rule . 37

IV The American Point of View . 52
V Some Irish Opinions .... 59

VI George W. Russell (A. E.) . . 79
VII Sir Horace Plunkett ... 90
Thoughts for a Convention ... 97

Note 156

Addendum 157

A Defence of the Convention . .163

AN AMERICAN OPINION
By John Quinn

THE IRISH HOME-RULE
CONVENTION

AN AMERICAN OPINION
By John Quinn

1AM glad to be one of a few million
Americans who have neither changed
their views nor found it expedient or poli-
tic, because America has entered the war
as one of the Allies, to change their views
upon the war or its cause and the aims
of the conspirators who began it or of
the terms upon which it shall end. I
have said, and written from the beginning
of the war, that there could be no real
peace with the Germans until the German
philosophy, the German doctrine, the Ger-
3

4i The Irish Home-Rule Convention

man practice and the German religion of
might above right, of philosophized butch-
ery, of the belief that wars pay, was not
only knocked out of the heads of the Ger-
man kaiser and the German general staflP
and the German war party conspirators,
but out of the heads of the German
people themselves. Thanks to the Eng-
lish blockade and now to our own em-
bargo the pinch of hunger is being felt
in Germany, but German militarism still
flourishes and the organized butcheries
continue still. Germany has always be-
lieved and still believes in brute force.
Now that her plans for world conquest in
this war have miscarried, she is beginning
to rely upon her organization for peace
to get her own terms. Autocracy can not
only make war better than democracy
but it hopes to make peace better than
democracy, for it relies upon bribery
and the purchase and corruption of

The Irkh Home-Rule Convention 5

the purchasable and corruptible in every
country. Germany knows that in these
days nations fight as nations and that
the armies on the fighting lines are but
the advance guards of the greater armies
that are entire nations. She had so or-
ganized her national life that she could
militarize all her resources and industries
upon a moment's notice. She knew,
and counted upon the fact, that Eng-
land and France and Russia could not.
But now France and England and Italy
have organized themselves militarily.
The United States is organizing herself
militarily. When the United States shall
have militarily mobilized not merely her
fighting men but her vast resources, and
shall have joined with France, England,
Italy and Russia in the crusade to defeat
German militarism, the combination will
be irresistible. Germany knows this well.
Hence her feverish desire for peace now.

6 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

while she still has the war map to point
to and to trade upon.

Germany still is the child of " scientific
barbarism." She had money, but the
collapse of German credit is now evident
to impartial economic experts. She is
striving for peace, and her spies and pro-
pagandists are working for peace in
Russia and Scandinavia and Switzerland
and Holland and the United States, with
brazen impertinence, not because she has
suffered a change of heart, not because
she has come to disbelieve in the massacre
of women, children and old men, not be-
cause she has sickened of burning and de-
stroying towns and villages, not because
she has developed a new sense of justice
and national honor, but because the ma-
terial' resources and the military organi-
zation upon which she relied are beginning
to wear. The signs of the creaking of
the machines are evident. Her rails and

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 7

rolling stock must be wearing out, the
fuel for her motors and submarines run-
ning low, her supply of nitrates diminish-
ing, her stores of wheat, copper, niclde,
cotton and rubber going down, and the
stored-up munitions, provisions and army
supplies upon which she relied for quick
victory becomng exhausted. It is written
that they that take the sword shall perish
with the sword. Germany has worshipped
and still worships brute force and only by
the force of the great democracies of the
world may she be overcome.

I do not believe, and I have never be-
lieved, in the distinction attempted to be
made between the German people and
those who began and are carrying on the
war. The German people, as well as the
kaiser and his fellow-conspirators, be-
lieved enthusiastically in war. For a
hundred years wars had paid Germany.
This war has been popular in Germany

8 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

It has been carried on by the German
people with all the zeal and ardour of
religious fanatics. Its worst infamies
have been defended and justified hy the
German people. German atrocities in
Belgium, Austrian atrocities in Serbia,
the Lusitania infamy, the submarine pi-
racy, were approved hy the German people
generally. They were not merely ap-
proved but were generally applauded and
exulted in and defended hy the German
people, by the press, by the publicists, by
the professors, by the German Catholics,
by the Jews, by the Socialists, by the lead-
ers of all parties, by the great associations
and corporations and by the whole na-
tion. Certain German Catholic defenses
both in Germany and the United States
were particularly rancid and nauseating.
The world has not forgotten the Ger-
man cry DeutscMand iiher Alles or the
German Hymn of Hate which was sung

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 9

and rejoiced in bj men, women and chil-
dren all over Germany. It was not alone
the German officers or the general staff
who were guilty of the revolting and bes-
tial cruelties and destruction in Belgium
and France. It may be said the atroci-
ties in Belgium have ceased. But if one
wishes to know whether Germany still be-
lieves in frightfulness, one should read the
pamphlet just published entitled Fright-
fulness in Retreat (Hodder & Stoughton,
London), which shows in seventy-six pages
what the German soldiers of the retreating
army in France have done. If after that
there still remains any doubt in the mind of
a candid reader, let him read The War on
Hospital Ships, from the narratives of
eye-witnesses, and the verdict on the Ger-
man outrages expressed by the Interna-
tional Red Cross Committee in Geneva, a
body of the highest standing and most
scrupulous impartiality, addressed to the

10 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

German Government January 29, 1917.
The deportation and forced labour of the
Belgian civil population, the systematic
exhaustion of the economic resources of
occupied Belgium, the extinction of Bel-
gian competition for the benefit of German
industry, and the many and unspeakable
outrages committed by Germans in occu-
pied France and Belgium, all prove that
the Germans as a people are stained with
crime and infamy. An article in the
Nineteenth Centufy for August, 1917, en-
titled At War with the German People, by
Brigadier-General F. G. Stone, C. M. G.,
demonstrates the utter absurdity of the
claim that the Allies have no quarrel with
the German people.

Even in the United States, representa-
tive Germans and representative German
societies, with a few exceptions, have
never openly condemned the German
atrocities in Belgium or the Austrian

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 11

atrocities in Serbia or the Lusitania in-
famy or the innumerable other cases
of German cruelty, perfidy and culculated
barbarity. The many cowardly, detesta-
ble and criminal German plots, conspira-
cies and murderous outrages in this coun-
try, both before and since the United
States came into the war, have not been
generally condemned or disapproved by
representative Germans or leading German
societies in this country. A German ma^*^
boast that " after the mar we shall organ-
ize sympathy y'^ but the stain will endure.

While the proof sheets of this book were
being read the papers had long cable dis-
patches regarding the reception in Ger-
many of the President's reply to the Pope.
The Frankfurter Zeitung said : *' To
Wilson the Imperial Government is the
merciless dictator of Germany but he him-
self has to add that our nation is today at
one with its Government." The socialist

12 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

paper Vorwarts said: ^'The German people
are -ftghting this most terrible of battles
not for the rights of a single family or a
certain form of Government, but for its
own existence." The Frankfurter Zeit-
wng is also quoted as saying : " In all
essential points the German people is on£
with its Government, especially in the
policy that directly preceded and that has
been followed during the war."

Something must have gone wrong with
the German Government's bureau of news-
control, for while some of the German edi-
torials claim that Germany has already
reformed itself, others claim that she is
still to be reformed. For example, the
Vossische Zeitung says : " The movement
which Germany has created out of her
very innermost is a genuine movement for
liberty, and this path Germany has taken
without advice from her foes and it does
not lead to a sham democracy. The move-

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 13

ment respects the rights of a nation " (for
instance, Belgium) " and opposes every
oppression of a people" (that is, Bel-
gium and occupied France and Serbia).
" This movement purposes also, by virtue
of this self-determination, to teach nations
to further neighbourly interests " (again
Belgium, occupied France, Serbia, Ru-
mania, Poland) " thus producing an hon-
est league of the weaker nations, which col-
lectively will be strong and free and cap-
able of defending themselves " (including
of course Belgium, occupied France, Ser-
bia, Rumania and Poland). " This is the
political aim which Germany has in view
for herself and the European continent,
and the achievement of which will be se-
cured through parliamentarization."

But according to Vorwdrts, the cre-
ation and birth of the movement has not
yet taken place. Vorwdrts says : " The
only thing lacking is a Government re-

14j The Irish Home-Rule Convention

sponsible to the people's representatives
as it exists in all other countries of the
world," and " the German people are more
than ripe for democratic government."

While condemning the " inconceivably
foolish proceedings of Zimmermann and
other irritating incidents of the German-
American conflict," the Munich Post says :
" Have the democratic events of the last
month, the rising of a new free and demo-
cratic Germany, with a program of peace
by agreement through international tri-
bunals and the democratization of em-
pires, completely escaped his (Wilson's)
notice ? " But the Vienna Neue Freie
Presse tops them all. It said : *' Even if
it were assumed that Germany had striven
after world domination, no one will under-
stand why the slaughter must continue,
despite the frustration of the alleged plan
of domination."

There are possibly some criminals in

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 15

prison as equally devoid of humour as they
are of decency and honour, who would not
" understand " after they have been
caught, tried, convicted and sent to prison,
why the imprisonment " must continue,
despite the frustration of the alleged
plan " of the criminal.

The Grerman sense of justice is shown
by this paper's allusion to such things as
the sinking of the Lusitania^ conspiracies
to murder our citizens and to destroy
property in the United States organized
by German officers and agents and paid
for by German money, the grotesque blun-
dering of the German foreign office over
Mexico and Japan, the slaughter of
Americans on the high seas and such
things as the cowardly murder by a Ger-
man submarine of the sailors taken from
the Belgian Prince, as " irritating inci-
dents." International murder conspir-
acies seem to these Germans to be " mere

16 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

incidents." This leads one to wonder how
many of those on the ship that, under safe
conduct from Great Britain, carried the
honourable and truthful BernstorfF and his
official and unofficial German aides and
agents back to Germany, were, from Bern-
storfF down, morally and legally guilty of
wholesale murder or conspiracy to murder
or to destroy property or to incite strikes
or to promote the cowardly crime of arson
in the United States. While the scrupu-
lous and truthful BernstorfF and his out-
law crew have gone, conspiracies and plot-
tings continue still.

This may all seem a long, long way from
Tipperary, but I have stated my war credo
briefly because it shows the point of view
from which I consider political and inter-
national questions other than the one
great question, the successful conduct of
the war and the making of a peace that
means the end of German militarism.

II

SINJf FEIN AND THE DUBLIN
INSUERECTION

WHATEVER my interest in Irish
affairs and in the home rule
question before the war, when the war
broke out I felt that if Germany should
win, home rule and all similar questions
would become minor ones, that the
Irish and everybody else would be subject
to Prussian sabres, and that it was the
duty of all to defeat the Germans first.

While the coming in of the United
States was an enormous gain for the
western powers and will ultimately settle
the contest by the defeat of Germany, it
seemed to me, before the President's great
message in answer to the Pope's peace
17

18 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

proposals, that there was a certain un-
reality in the motives as set forth in many
of our speeches. The English, French,
Italian and Russian soldiers were not fight-
ing for democracy or any other cracy or
for mere humanitarian or pacifist ideals.
They were fighting for life first ; for free-
dom of thought and development in what-
ever form, next; for the old, old watch-
words of freedom and liberty, in fact. It
is curious that those who blamed di-
plomacy for not preventing the war, now
seem to look to diplomacy, to negotiations,
to the presentation of the various coun-
tries' " cases " as a means of forcing peace.
Diplomacy can no more always prevent
wars than disinfection and sanitation can
always prevent epidemics. But that is no
valid argument against either diplomacy
or sanitation. The mistake is to rely
solely upon diplomacy to restore peace
where diplomacy failed to prevent war.

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 19

Peace should come, when it does come, only
from the surrender of Germany. Whether
it will be because of military defeat, or
financial collapse, or exhaustion of mili-
tary supplies, or of starvation, or all of
these things, does not affect the point.
Arugment is wasted on a people who have
been taught to believe in and who worship
" blood and iron."

The armies had and have no doubt
about it. They care nothing for political
formulas and for academic distinctions be-
tween nations and governments, which
they looked and look upon either as mere
rhetoric or as diplomatic suggestions to
the German people to revolutionize their
own government. Therefore I put the
winning of the war above any Irish or any
other political questions.

The Sinn Fevners seem to me to put
the home rule and other Irish questions
above the winning of the war. Cardinal

20 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

Newman, emphasizing the importance of
clear definitions, once wrote that if peo-
ple would define the meaning of the words
or terms used bj them or of the positions
taken by them, they would generally find
that argument was either superfluous or
useless ; that they were in fundamentals
either so close together that argument was
unnecessary or so wide apart that argu-
ment was useless. The Sinn Feiners and
ultra-Nationalists seem to place Irish in-
terests and Irish ideals first. That is one
point of view. While I think it is a mis-
taken one, it is intelligible and logical.
The world owes Belgium a debt of eternal
honour and gratitude that she did not take
that attitude when her hour of trial came.
And France and the cause of liberty owe
great Britain an eternal debt of gratitude
that she promptly came to the side of
France and Belgium when the awful de-
cision of war for the right, or neutrality

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 21

for safety or profit, had to be made.
With Germany the victor in this war the
Irish in Ireland after six months' expe^
rience with the Germans would look back
to the conditions in Ireland before the war
as heaven itself.

If any Irishman who thinks, thinks that
a German victory would help Ireland to-
ward either self-government or independ-
ence, he might have his thought shaken by
reading an amusing little book entitled
The Germans in Cork, being the letters of
His Excellency, the Baron von Kartoffel
(Military Governor of Cork in the year
1918) and others, published very recently
in Dublin (The Talbot Press, Ltd.).
That little book shows that under Ger^
man rule the Sinn Feiners are pro-Eng-
lish, that among other things Germany
has confiscated all the money in the Irish
savings banks and with that great fund
is building barracks and concert halls and

22 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

coffee palaces to replace the public houses ;
that all men in Ireland between the ages
of 17 and 35 are made to join the new
army which, as a precautionary measure,
is trained in Germany; strikes are pun-
ished by deportation to Berlin, and it is
of course *' verhoten " to use the Irish
language. It is dead. The Sinn Feiners
who were caught plotting against Ger-
many were, as a precautionary measure,
sent as exiles to the shores of the Baltic.
His Excellency, Baron von Kartoffel,
writes to his brother in Berlin complaining
that under the English rule the Irish chil-
dren's minds had been poisoned, warped
and stunted, and claims that they ought
to have been taught that " a certain
amount of adversity is absolutely neces-
sary to the growth of nations." Gov-
ernor General Baron von Kartoffel visits
the Cork slums, is depressed by what he
sees there, thinks it over, and has the in-

The Irish Home-Rule Convention S3

mates of the lunatic asylum *' gassed," the
remains cremated, clean sheets put on the
beds and the slum population, escorted by
soldiers, moved in. Strangely enough
they showed no gratitude. The picture of
Prussianizing Ireland is an amusing one.
But I would not have it believed that hot-
headed Smn Feiners or a few irreconcilable
Irishmen in America represent the general
Irish feeling in this war.

The war made the contest over the prin-
ciple that no nation has any longer the
right to make a war of offence against
any other nation the greatest contest
that the modern world has known, the
most fateful contest of modern times.
In the light of that great principle,
there is not much difference between the
pacifists and some Smn Feiners, The
pacifist ignores plain facts; the extreme
Sinn Femer lacks a sense of proportion.
The pacifist ignores the fact that weakness

24 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

in defence of the world's peace or reliance
upon words as a defence against brutes
who rely upon brute strength is ignomin-
ious and stupid where it is not cowardly
or pro-German. Pragmatically consid-
ered, judged by results, there is not much
to choose between the pacifist and the pro-
German. Each one wants immediate
peace. As Germany wants immediate
peace, the pacifist and the pro-German are
playing Germany's game. Pragmatically
considered, pacifist agitation and pro-Ger-
man propaganda are approved by Ger-
many as good because they advance Ger-
many's interest. But while the effects
of pacifism and pro-Germanism are sim-
ilar, there is all the difference in the world
between the motives of the extreme
Sinn Feiners, who love Ireland and do
not care anything about Germany, and
the motives of the bribed pro-Germans
who are really traitors to whatever coun-

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 25

try they are in. Until the German con-
spirators who have brought the misery of
this war upon the world are defeated, and
until the German people who have carried
out the abominable and infamous slaugh-
ter-program of German autocrats are
brought to realize that war does not pay,
questions like home rule and the suffrage
and other political and economic questions
are comparative ir relevancies. Therefore
I think of home rule chiefly as a step in the
winning of the war.

The Dublin insurrection of May, 1916,
was not generally popular in Ireland. If
its leaders had been put in prison for the
period of the war, the Sinn Fei/n> move-
ment, so far as it was merely revolution-
ary and not constructive, would, as a
formidable movement, have ended a year
ago. Because of the temperamental inca-
pacity which unfortunately included com-
plete lack of vision which characterized

26 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

the government that executed those sixteen
men, after secret trials of small groups
with many days' intervals between each
trial, and their folly in arresting several
thousand obviously innocent men in vari-
ous parts of Ireland and deporting them
to England, deep resentment at the Eng-
lish Government spread through Ireland;
the leaders of the insurrection came to be
thought of as martyrs ; and what would
have been regarded as a generally accept-
able solution of the home rule question a
year ago has now become simply impos-
sible.

From the Irish point of view, as dis-
tinct from what I term the international
view, the British Government in executing
these sixteen leaders and putting their
names on the roll of martyrdom has not
injured the cause of home rule, while the
men themselves by their ideality and death
have enormously advanced it. Because of

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 27

it the national education of Ireland has
gone on much faster and much further.
What the British cabinet did not realize
is the strain of ideality among the Irish
people. It was still there, and so there
was an outbreak like the Irish rebellion,
which would have been impossible in Eng-
land, and yet quite possible in France or
Italy. Those leaders, full of enthusiasm
about a something quite indefinable which
they called " the Irish republic," made
their appeal to the Irish enthusiasm for
the ideal and the beautiful. Now they are
dead, the appeal goes on all the more.
But those leaders should be distinguished
sharply from the very few pro-German
Irish and from the ordinary ruck of poli-
ticians, past, present and to come, who
think that hatred of England is states-
manship, and who have the one vulgarity
in common, a belief in Irish hatred of the
English and in English hatred of the Irish.

28 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

The English people do not hate the Irish.
As a rule the English admire the Irish
tremendously, though at times their ad-
miration is mixed with apprehension or
misgiving, not merely of the Irishman's
intellect and brilliancy, but of his keen
common sense and practical wisdom and
the dramatic expression of Irish tempera-
ment. A muddling nation trying to
govern one of the cleverest nations in the
world. But it should not be forgotten
that the Ulster business was never popu-
lar or widely approved in England.

From a Nationalist point of view, the
Irish rebellion and the fate of its leaders
have made the world richer. But I can-
not forgive the government's lack of vision
and the stupidity of that general who
sent those idealists to their fate. Many
in Ireland have come to feel that these
Irish poets and teachers and writers were
right, and no one can deny that they made

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 29

a world-shaking event. All the actors in
the tragedy, including the military execu-
tioners, played their parts admirably.
Nothing was wanting. It was curious
and tragic how those in power unwittingly
played up. The uprising was a wild
thought, and it was a time in Ireland for
wild thoughts. The executions were the
only things wanting to make it a great
and monumental event in Irish history.
The folly of poets is sometimes wisdom,
and the death-verdicts of the courts-mar-
tial and the wisdom of the English states-
men who approved the verdicts were alto-
gether folly. What was a problem in-
volving the highest statesmanship was
handed over to soldiers.

Mr. Asquith must have been, and in-
deed was, profoundly shocked not merely
by the horrors of the insurrection, but
by the very fact of the insurrection. The
pity was that he did not follow the ad-

so The Irish Home-Rule Convention

vice of those who urged amnesty and con-
cord. He candidly admitted that the old
system of Irish government was no longer
possible. But he followed the advice of
" the men of profound wisdom and strong
will " who " urged that crime is no less
punishable because it amounts to trea-
son " and that the leaders must be exe-
cuted before grievances were to be re-
moved. The Government were to knock
the Smn Fevners down with one hand and
then pick them up with the other. Lin-
coln would not have followed that coun-
sel. He did not follow it. We almost
knew the very tone of the order he would
have sent disapproving the death-sen-
tences of the courts martial. Unfortu-
nately the golden moment for reconcilia-
tion passed, and it has taken over a year
for the real work of conciliation, by the
convention, to be begun. The executions
profoundly shocked England. They were

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 31

so out of date. Englishmen generally
regretted them at the time and felt that
the leaders had been treated with unneces-
sary harshness. I have no doubt that
Mr. Asquith has since sincerely regretted
the extreme measures taken.

So the uprising was an Irish event, al-
most the greatest in Irish history. Cir-
cumstances made the stage a great stage,
with the whole world for spectators. The
tragedy shocked the Irish public mind and
at the same time healed the Irish amour
pro pre of its cherished wounds. Since
the uprising they can say " We have
done it," and no one may gainsay them.
They gained in their own consciousness
and in every one else's. After that it was
inevitable that sooner or later Sir Edward
Carson and his followers both in England
and Ireland should fall into line and the
union of the North and South be accom-
plished; inevitable that Ireland and not

S2 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

England should decide what sort of home
rule would content Ireland. Between
Ulster Unionists and the rest of Ireland
there has always been a kind of sympathy,
for both are men of war and both are
rebels. There is no pacifism about them,
and both are Irish in their feeling about
England and Ireland. The old Fenian
leader, John O'Leary, always said this.
O'Leary called the Ulstermen patriots
who wanted Ireland for themselves. Their
anti-Popery he regarded as a passing
aberration.

Ireland is the scene of Germany's one
and only bloodless victory. Perhaps fifty
thousand British soldiers locked up in Ire-
land; recruiting there almost at a stand-
still because of the history of the last
year, involving a loss to the British army
of perhaps another fifty thousand men,
making a total loss of one hundred thou-
sand from the firing line; the checking

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 33

of enlistment in Canada, and the contribu-
tion to the defeat of conscription in Aus-
tralia — these 'constitute a German victory
without the firing of a German gun
or the loss of a German soldier. England
is paying too costly a price for her past
bungling in Ireland.

But I do not wish to imply that Ireland
as a whole has been disloyal in the war.
From the outbreak of the war until May,
1916, Ireland gave unmistakable signs of
meeting England more than halfway.
When the war broke out England ap-
pealed to Ireland and Ireland responded
generously to the appeal. The two na-
tions went to war together. But unfortu-
nately for England, as well as for Ire-
land, Ireland's efforts have not yet se-
cured that measure of generous response
to which she felt she was entitled.

Before all the executions had been fin-
ished, Mr. Asquith hurried over to Dublin

34 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

and in the House of Commons on the 26th
of May, 1916, Mr. Asquith said:

" Two main dominant impressions . . .
were left on my mind. The first was the
breakdown of the existing machinery of
Irish Government; and the next was the
strength and depth, and I might almost
say, I think without exaggeration, the
universality, of the feeling in Ireland that
we have now a unique opportunity for a
new departure for the settlement of out-
standing problems, and for a joint and
combined effort to obtain agreement as to
the way in which the Government of Ire-
land is for the future to be carried on.
As I said, and I repeat, the moment is
felt in Ireland to be peculiarly opportune,
and one great reason that has led to that
opinion both there and here is our expe-
rience in the War. Irishmen of all creeds
and classes, north, south, east and west,
have responded with alacrity and with self-
devotion to the demands of the cause
which appeals to them. They have shed,
they are shedding today, their blood ; giv-
ing the best of all they had, sacrificing

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 35

what they prized most, without stint and
without reserve, in the trenches and on the
battlefields, which will be forever conse-
crated to the memory of Ireland, as of
Great Britain and of the Empire at large.
Sir, can we who represent Great Britain,
can they who represent Ireland, tolerate
the prospect that when this war is over,
when we have by our joint efforts and
sacrifices, as we hope and believe we shall,
achieved our end, here at home Irishmen
should be arrayed against one another in
the most tragic and the most debasing of
all conflicts — internecine domestic strife?
I say to the House of Commons and to the
country and to the Empire that the
thought is inconceivable. That can never
be. It would be a confession of bank-
ruptcy, not only of statesmanship, but of
patriotism."

Mr. Lloyd George, then a member of
the Government under Mr. Asquith, later
undertook to obtain an agreement between
Ulster and the rest of Ireland. Although
both Sir Edward Carson and Mr. John
Redmond each made sacrifices, the settle-

36 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

merit agreed upon, fortunately for Ireland
as well as for England, for it was not sat-
isfactory and would not have been a per-
manent one, was thrown over by the Gov-
ernment upon the demand of certain well
known forces then dominant in the Cab-
inet. That surrender of Mr. Asquith and
his associates was, as it has turned out, a
fortunate thing for Ireland and the Em-
pire, for the patched-up settlement satis-
fied no party. It would not have brought
peace, and would not have endured.

Ill

AN ENGUSH VIEW OF THE
INSURRECTION AND HOME RULE

THE following English statements are
from an interesting book Dublin —
(Explorations and Reflections y published
just recently (Dublin. Maunsel & Co.,
1917). The author gives an interesting
and vivid account of what he conceives to
be the average Englishman's views about
Ireland. He approaches the subject with
an open and disinterested mind and with
a candor and honesty that I like to think
are characteristic of the liberty-loving
English people. The facts stated by him
and his conclusion that Dublin is one of
the strongholds of liberty, are so inter-
37

38 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

esting that I need not apologize for quot-
ing rather fully from his book :

"The murder of Mr. Sheehy-Skeffing-
ton and his companions was a sheer stroke
of ill-fortune for England for which it is
difficult to see how she can justly be
abused. The actual culprit, moreover,
was an Irishman. But having suffered
the disaster of this ghastly deed one would
have thought those responsible for gen-
eral questions of policy would have paused
and taken thought. Not so. The meth-
ods employed in suppressing the Rebellion
of 1916 were precisely similar to the
methods employed in suppressing the Re-
bellions of 1798 and 1803. The military
mind had apparently remained impervious
to new ideas throughout the intervening
century. In spite of all the harm done in
the past to Anglo-Irish relations by the
making of martyrs and national heroes,
more martyrs and more national heroes
were made, and the prestige of England
was permanently lowered in the eyes of
America and of the neutral world. She
has never since been able to regain the

The Irish Home-Rule Convention S9

position then lost. If the murder of Mr.
Sheehy-Skeffington was simply a piece of
bad luck for England, for the attempts
made to hush-up that tragic business she
had no one but herself to blame.

" These attempts were not successful,
they were persisted in for a week or two,
then dropped, under pressure, in such a
manner as gravely to shake public confi-
dence in the administration. There was
something bungling and ignoble in the
whole proceeding. England behaved like
a good-hearted, respectable rich man put
in a false and ignominious position by a
momentary lack of moral courage. When
the moment was passed the amends were
adequate and dignified, but they came too
late. What a contrast to all this seemed
the behaviour of the rebel leaders \ They
were foolish, insane as it appears to us,
but insanely honest and sincere. Nothing
ignoble or mean or (according to their
lights) ungenerous, has ever been proved
against them. The inevitable reaction in
England in their favour when the truth
gradually emerged was very strong, and
its influence is still felt. The whole epi-

40 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

sode of the Rebellion has indeed struck
through the black fog of politics which
formerly interposed itself between our eyes
and Ireland, and in an unforgettable
lightning flash has shown us Ireland's
bleeding heart and our own the sword
transfixing it. And it did more, that ter-
rible revealing lightning — it showed us
ourselves as we never thought to see our-
selves. It is an awkward moment for a
nation which has been publicly thanking
God that it is not as other nations are,
that it is no tyrant but the protector of
the oppressed, no wicked Prussian mili-
tarist but the enemy of militarism, when
it suddenly becomes suspect of the very
crimes which it has set out with a flourish
of trumpets to punish other races for
committing. At the outbreak of the re-
volt we held all the cards, the sympathy
was all with us. But not even the Ger-
mans could have played a hand more
clumsily. After two years of war even
the man in the street was capable of re-
flecting that there must be ' something be-
hind ' the outbreak. And from this it was
but a step to speculating as to what that

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 41

something could be. In a little while, the
alarming news came through that the exe-
cuted rebels were not mere thieves and
murderers in the pay of Germany, but
schoolmasters and poets of blameless pri-
vate lives, idealists, abstemious, self-deny-
ing men, deeply religious. What was the
cause which inspired them? Who was op-
pressing these people? Had Ireland then
really a grievance and, if so, what was
it? . . .

" After the rising had been crushed my
country presented herself to my mind as
a rather pompous old lady, who, whilst
giving herself tremendous airs of virtue, is
suddenly struck in the face by a small boy
who has been stood in the corner by her
for a longer time than flesh and blood will
endure. The old lady's consternation is
pitiable. She may be pompous and ab-
surd, however, but at least she knows how
to spank. Presently, she spanks so hard,
so mercilessly, that all the onlookers, and
even some of the members of her own fam-
ily cry out ' for shame ! ' But she takes
no heed of them.

" Whatever the Easter Rebellion may

42 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

or may not have done for Ireland, I think
it has helped to modify the attitude of a
portion of the British public towards the
war. The necessity to win through to an
honourable peace has not been weakened
by it ; but the old confidence that we were
the champions of small nations, that ours
was a ' Holy War,' that we could never
succumb to ' militarism ' has received a
shock. Englishmen began to realize that
not only were their own personal liberties
for which their forefathers struggled and
died being taken from them, but that their
country was actually regarded as the for-
eign tyrant by a large proportion of the
indigenous population of the sister isle.
It would not surprise me if, when the war
is over, the Dublin revolt were held to
have done something to bring peace
nearer, simply by helping to bring about
the necessary ' change of heart.'

" One effect, at least, of the Dublin In-
surrection is beyond dispute. It made
Ireland ' actual ' for the average English-
man — as actual say as Serbia or Monte-
negro ; for a week or two, as actual as
Belgium. Its Rebellion, however keenly

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 43

we might resent it, had some of the crudity
and brilliance of a work of youthful
genius, and a marked capacity for touch-
ing the imaginations even of the unimagi-
native. And it had a strange quality of
glamour, the glamour which attaches it-
self almost immediately to events which
are destined to live in history. It made
English people realize (for the first time
in many cases) that the nation which
could produce men capable of such a for-
lorn hope, whose unhappy circumstances
urged its idealists to offer up their lives
in the vain chance of bettering them, must
be one of rare interest — a nation with an
unconquerable soul . . ." (pages 13-17).

And again, this courageous and candid
Englishman says:

" If I am unable to grow enthusiastic
about Gaelic, I have at least been pro-
foundly impressed by those of the ' Irish '
Irish whom I have encountered in Dublin.
The most noticeable thing about them is
that they are good people, moved by noble
impulses, austere and simple in their lives
like men and women who have seen a vision

44 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

and are filled with a deep purpose. Mis-
taken they may be in their political ideals
(though I confess I do not believe it), but
their sincerity shines out like a bright star
in a dark night of corruption. It was
from people of this kind that the leaders
of the recent rebellion were drawn and
from whom any further human sacrifices
which the gods may demand of Ireland will
doubtless be taken. It is not a pleasant
thought for an Englishman; but then
there is scarcely a page of Irish history
which can provide pleasant thoughts for
an Englishman. Perhaps that is why,
with the strong commonsense which is said
to distinguish his race, no Englishman
ever reads one.

" As for the ' moderate ' man in Irish
politics, I confess he seems to me to be
much the same as the moderate man every-
where else. The moderate man is always
prone to compromise, to engage in politi-
cal buying and selling. In Ireland he
seems to be particularly adept at selling:
perhaps that is the reason why he invari-
ably prospers.

" Throughout my stay in Dublin I have

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 45

been unable to resist the conviction that it
is the ' Irish ' Irish who hate us ( or at
least our Government) most bitterly
whom we English ought most truly to re-
spect. The clean fire of their loathing
for oppression is just the fire which so
much needs re-kindling in our own hearts.
If we could but join them in the real
' Holy War ' not only would freedom come
to Ireland, but to England herself might
be restored all those qualities which in the
past have made her great " (pages 189-
191).

And again he says :

" The quickest way to the complete re-
union of Ireland with the Empire seems to
be through an exceptionally generous and
comprehensive measure of Home Rule. /
cannot imagine any appeal to the gener-
osity of the Irish people being made in
vain: the way to arouse the generous emo-
tions of others is, assuredly, to be gener-
ous oneself. I do not believe that the
England which the average Irishman sees
bears any relation whatever to the true
England. I shall never believe, in spite of

46 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

recent history, that my country is really
militarist at heart. There is, however, a
certain type of narrow-minded English-
men, kept exclusively for export purposes,
who goes about the world like a misguided
fanatic, dropping the dead weight of the
white man's burden on the already bowed
necks of those unfortunate ' backward '
races who are too weak to protest. This
type of Englishman has for centuries
made the mistake of dumping himself and
his burdens on to Ireland. Ireland, how-
ever, though poor in cash is rich in spirit.
There has been trouble, and there always
will be trouble until the export to Ireland
of British Junkers is once and for all pro-
hibited. When that happens, I see no
reason why the friendship between Eng-
land and Ireland, a friendship based on
mutual understanding, should not ripen
apace. Both countries will have much to
gain by it, but of the two I think England
will gain more. The Irish possess essen-
tial qualities which the English lack.
They are to my mind the salt of the Brit-
ish peoples, the invaluable leaven without
which the Anglo-Saxon would grow ever
more lumpy" (pages S65-266).

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 47

The author goes on to compare the
relations of England and Ireland to that
of a husband and wife, the husband having
been neglectful of the wife's proper
claims, and the wife taking advantage of
a moment when the husband was himself
embarrassed to assert her claims. The
case goes to court, the lawyers go on talk-
ing, bargains and settlements are agreed
to, pledged words broken, the wife grows
more haggard and weary, and then at
last the young men who love her dearly
and who never could understand the law
and who cannot bear the delays, burst
out with a sudden madness :

" With bombs and rifles in their hands
they march to the doors of the Great
Court in which so many millions of words
have been uttered and so little accom-
plished. They create, this little band, a
tremendous disturbance with their bombs
and their explosions ; they startle all the
Judges out of their seven senses ; they kill.

48 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

alas, a few of the loyal servants of the
Court; and they are killed themselves.
But they are glad to die. They were
tired of all the writing and all the talking.
They wanted to do something.

" When the commotion calms down, and
the lady's younger and too ardent sup-
porters have all been executed and impris-
oned the Court continues its deliberations.
It continues them still ; but it seems to me
that things are not the same. The Reb-
els, pathetic and hopeless as their out-
break was, have achieved something. The
Judges are nervous and jangled, a little
doubtful of their omniscience. The explo-
sion of the bombs was uncomfortably near
their own noses. Moreover, the disturb-
ance has called the attention of the whole
world to the dilatoriness and incompetence
with which the Irish case has been con-
ducted. The Court, and all the counsel
engaged on both sides are suspect. On
the rich husband's side the attention of
many of his relatives (particularly of his
grandsons and great-nephews) has for the
first time been attracted to his treatment
of his unhappy wife. They consider it an

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 49

abomination, and will no longer support
him in his meanness. And on the lady's
side, the outburst of the young men has
brought about a still more widespread dis-
trust of the lawyers who, advancing al-
ways to the struggle with their drawn sal-
aries in their hands, have nothing but the
extraction of a certain amount of alimony
in the form of Land Acts (perilously like
bribes) to show for their endeavours.
Yes : on the side of the Dark Rosalsen, the
hearts of many of her supporters go out
now to the fools who had no salary at all,
but who, nevertheless, in a frenzy of gen-
erous impatience, laid down their lives "
(pages 270-271).

Padraic H. Pearse, whose name will be
always remembered as the leader of the
revolt, has been presented in such various
aspects to the American public that it
will be useful to call attention here to his
collected works now in course of publica-
tion of which the first volume has lately
appeared. Not a single thought can be
found that is unworthy or ignoble.

50 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

It was well said in a recent brief Irish
review of this interesting book: "Prob-
ably no more selfless spirit ever broke
itself against the might of the Iron Age
than this man's spirit which was lit up
by love of children and country, a dreamer
with his heart in the Golden Age. This
man, much more simple than Thomas
McDonagh or Joseph Plunkett, had a
much greater and more original personal-
ity, and as we read this book we under-
stand his pre-eminence among the revolu-
tionaries. The fact was he had infinite
faith, he was selfless, and therefore he was
a moral rock to lean on. As we read this
book, with its gentleness and its idealism,
and think of the storm he raised, we are
reminded of the scriptural picture of a
little child leading the lion, only in this
case it was in no idyllic fields the child
was, but it was hallooing the beast on to
rend its enemies. Undoubtedly Padraic

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 51

Pearse was a powerful and unique person-
ality, and the publication of this volume
in which is collected his best writing will
give him that place in Irish literature
which he is entitled to by merit, and which
would be justly his quite apart from the
place in Irish history he has gained by his
astonishing enterprise."

One of Pearse's poems has this :

" I have squandered the splendid years that

the Lord God gave to my youth
In attempting impossible things, deeming

them alone worth the toil.
Was it folly or grace? Not men shall
judge me, but God.
• • •
And:

" I have heard in my heart, that a

man shall scatter, not hoard.
Shall do the deed of today, nor take thought

of tomorrow's teen,
Shall not bargain or huxter with God."

That was the faith of Padraic Pearse.

THE AMERICAN POINT OF VIEW

THE feeling of Americans generally
as to Ireland's right to home rule
cannot be better expressed than in the
words of William James in his memorable
address upon the unveiling of the monu-
ment in Boston to Robert Gould Shaw.
At the conclusion of that address he said :

" Democracy is still upon its trial.
The civic genius of our people is its only
bulwark, and neither laws nor monuments,
neither battleships nor public libraries,
nor great newspapers nor booming stocks ;
neither mechanical invention nor political
adroitness, nor churches nor universities
nor civil service examinations can save us
from degeneration if the inner mystery be

lost. That mystery, at once the secret
52

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 53

and the glory of our English-speaking
race, consists in nothing but two common
habits, two inveterate habits carried into
public life, — habits so homely that they
lend themselves to no rhetorical expres-
sion, yet habits more precious, perhaps,
than any that the human race has gained.
They can never be too often pointed out
or praised. One of them is the habit of
trained and disciplined good temper to-
wards the opposite party when it fairly
wins its innings. It was by breaking
away from this habit that the Slave States
nearly wrecked our Nation. The other is
that of fierce and mercUess resentment to-
ward every man or set of men who break
the public peace. By holding to this habit
the free States saved her life."

The people of the United States feel
that neither Ulster nor those of the Tories
in England who financed and backed Ul-
ster's ante-war pronouncements, exercised
any trained or disciplined good temper to-
wards nationalist Ireland "when it had
fairly won its innings." They also feel

54 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

that the Ulstermen and their English sup-
porters rightly merited that " fierce and
merciless resentment toward every man or
set of men who break the public peace.'*

To thoughtful observers in this coun-
try, Ireland seems politically to be some-
what backward. But there has been a
great deal of political education recently
outside of the regular parliamentary
party. The Irish volunteers encouraged
a hopeful spirit of self-respect and dis-
cipline. There is good material for a real
constitutional settlement. The things
that were to be feared were secret agree-
ments, intrigues and weakness. But the
days of those things have passed. There
must be no repetitions of the weakness and
timidity that prompted the Parliamentary
party to agree to partition twice. The
convention now sitting in Dublin has a
unique opportunity for great service.
The world will applaud a settlement that

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 55

is a real solution. But a division of Ire-
land, even of two or three counties, will
be regarded as an Ulster victory, and will
be regarded by Irishmen all over the
world as another trick. Anything that
even looks like an Ulster victory will be
bad.

It is likely that few people in England
realize to what extent the Irish question
interests all sections and all varieties of
people in the United States. In villages
and cities in the west and south, as well as
in New England and the Middle Atlantic
states, the question of Irish government in
its broad lines is remarkably well known.
Americans sympathize with Ireland be-
cause they feel that she had " fairly won
her innings " and had been deprived of her
innings. They feel that the resistance
by Ulster to the home rule act would
never have gone to the extent that it did
but for the encouragement of a small

56 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

group of powerful English Tories and the
support of certain powerful English finan-
cial interests, who, wishing to prevent the
carrying out of English radical reforms,
looked about for a way of defeating the
Liberal party, and hit upon Sir Edward
Carson and the Ulster question as the rock
on which to break the Liberal party or
drive it from power. Ulster supplied the
familiar " moral issue." Old and dying
feelings of religious bigotry were revived.
The Tories and the financiers backed and
financed Ulster, and Sir Edward Carson
argued and managed the case for them,
not because they loved Ulster or were
really afraid of religious persecution, but
because they wanted to get the Liberals
out and the Tories in. The result is
known: the rejection of the home rule act
by the Lords; the House of Lords act;
long delay ; then when the House of Lords
act had become a law, the Ulster volun-

The Irish Home-Rule Convention SI

teers, Sir Edward Carson's threats, dis-
affection in the army, the Curragh trea-
son. Sir Edward Carson's visit to the
kaiser, open threats of rebellion in Ulster
by Sir Edward Carson and others in and
out of Ulster; the Buckingham Palace
conference and its failure; and then the
war. Many people forget that the Buck-
ingham Palace conference over the home
rule question, which resulted in a dead-
lock, ended July 24-25, 1914, and that
England and Germany were at war
August 4, 1914. It is believed in the
United States that Germany would not
have forced the war if she had believed that
England would come in; that Germany
felt that England would not come in
largely because of the Ulster business, and
"^ of what was believed in Germany to be
general treason and disaffection in the
English army; and that therefore the
Carsons, the Lansdownes, the London-

58 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

derrjs, the Selbournes and the others have
a heavy responsibility for the war. If
that belief is unfounded, still it is a
belief.

Then even when the war broke out, Mr.
Asquith and his associates put the old
patch-work home rule act on the statute
books indeed, but provided that it should
not go into effect until after the war, and
then only with amendments ; giving, as was
said, a promissory note payable after
death, giving with one hand and taking
away with the other. But at last Eng-
lish opinion is awake, the English sense of
justice and fair play is aroused. Eng-
land has done her best to make this last
effort a success. The amnesty of all the
Irish political prisoners, which preceded
the constitution of the convention, was
wise statesmanship.

SOME IRISH OPINIONS

OPINIONS in Ireland and in England
differ as to the outcome of the
convention. Some are hopeful, others
pessimistic, but none indifferent. I could
quote from scores of letters from promi-
nent and influential Englishmen and Irish-
men, nearly every one giving a different
shade of opinion. One does not see how
anything can reconcile Ulster and the
South; another argues that Sinn Fein
has split if not ruined the Nationalist
party ; another that any problem founded
on a political-cum-religious rock is diffi-
cult of solution. Others have no patience
with Sinn Fein and one rather bitterly
59

60 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

writes that it is Sinn Fein ilher Allies with
them and that they would " scrap any
flag, including the Stars and Stripes, ex-
cept the German Flag." Another hopes
that " things will settle down without any
further bloodshed," but doubts it, and adds
that " Little is to be expected from fanati-
cism except blood."

One of the most distinguished and best-
informed statesmen and publicists in Eng-
land who knows Ireland thoroughly is not
sanguine as to the success of the con-
vention, adding : " for the Ulster obstruc-
tionists, having been foolishly told by
the Government that they would have a
virtual veto, are likely to be dogged in
refusing concessions. However, we must
hope for the best." Others believe that
nothing but a representative convention
would be able to produce a result and have
it accepted.

But all recognize the vital importance

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 61

of a generally satisfactory solution by the
convention. The following from an ar-
ticle in The Contemporary Review, Au-
gust, 1917, by Mr. J. W. Good, on The
Spirit of Belfast is not pessimistic but
does not dodge the difficulties of the situa-
tion :

"If both Ulster parties react in the
same fashion when England rubs them the
wrong way they display also, as against
franc tireurs and unauthorized combatants,
the freemasonry of professional soldiers.
Sir Horace Plunkett — to whom we owe
the saying ' a man in Ireland without a
party is like a dog in a tennis court ' —
had the melancholy satisfaction of proving
the truth of his own epigram, when, on
suspicion of a weakening in his opposition
to Home Rule, the Ulster Unionists, who
for years had been calling on the National-
ists to bow down to him as the ideal states-
man, bluntly told him to get back to his
milk-cans and churns and leave politics to
those who understood them. There was
an even more glaring instance in the early

62 The Irkh Home-Rule Convention

days of the war when some well-inten-
tioned folk sought to organize in Belfast
a Home Defence Corps on the English
principle, free from any tinge of politics.
The Unionists immediately declared that
the proper place for any man who had not
signed the Covenant was not in some
' fancy ' corps but in the Irish National
Volunteers ; the Nationalists were equally
insistent that if any one outside their or-
ganization wanted to shoulder a rifle he
should do so as an Ulster Volunteer. One
is sometimes tempted to think that the
paupers in Lady Gregory's comedy, who
wrangle so venomously and yet are not
happy away from one another, symbolize
perfectly the spirit of political Ulster.

" The better one knows the North of
Ireland the less one is inclined to accept
the * two nations ' theory which figures so
much in current controversy. It is merely
the old fallacy of the opposition of Celt
and Saxon, which, as Lecky showed a gen-
eration ago, bears no relation to the facts
of the Irish situation. . . . The error
into which most outsiders fall is that they
contrast the Ulster Unionist with the Na-

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 63

tionalist of the South and West, and nat-
urally fail to find much in common between
them. As a matter of fact, in tempera-
ment and outlook the Belfast Loyalist, as
he loves to describe himself, is farther
apart from the Unionist of Cork or Lim-
erick than the Protestant of the Shankill
is from the Catholic of the Falls. His
quarrel with his Nationalist neighbours is
less a clash between races than an embit-
tered family feud. Only near relations
have the same uncanny knowledge of each
other's weak points, and the same skill in
getting their thrusts home between the
joints of their opponent's armour. There
is a story of a Jewish Lord Mayor of Bel-
fast who in a time of civil commotion tried
to make peace between the hostile mobs,
and was extinguished by a shout from the
crowd : ' What right have you to inter-
fere in a fight between Christians.'' ' Un-
fortunately, some one is always ready to
interfere, and it is this knowledge that
keeps the rival parties from arriving at an
agreement — were it only an agreement to
differ.

" It is generally assumed that the events

64 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

of recent years have made the task of
reconciliation in Ulster almost impossible.
The manoeuvre battles of the old days were
bad enough, but the rival forces are now
entrenched in Hindenburg lines which no
bombardment of facts or arguments can
breach. There are plenty of facts, unfor-
tunately, to support this view, but the rule,
as strangers imagine it to be, that every-
thing in Ireland goes by contraries, seems
to me to apply here. Having lived in
Ulster for years before Sir Edward Carson
blossomed forth as ' a leader of revolt,' I
am not impressed by the case which spe-
cial pleaders in both camps make that old
hostilities were dying out till the present
agitation gave them a new lease of life.
Unionists accept that theory because it
enables them to contend that there was
no real demand for Home Rule ; National-
ists use it as a stick for the backs of
Tories, who exploited Ulster antagonisms
in the hope of overthrowing a hated Radi-
cal Government, As a matter of fact, the
taint was in the blood, though its pres-
ence might not have been so plain to a
casual eye ; and, personally, I believe it is

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 65

not altogether a bad thing that it should
have been driven to the surface in baleful
eruption. Without the eruption the dis-
ease might have been ignored till it was too
late ; it is now clear, even to those who pro-
fessed to regard the spread of the infection
as a sign of health and energy, that a rem-
edy MUST BE FOUND, if the wholc body poli-
tic is not to rot into corruption."

I regret that Dr. Douglas Hyde is not
a member of the convention. He was
one of the organizers of and for over
twenty years the president of the Gaelic
League. That League and Sir Horace
Plunkett's Irish Agricultural Organiza-
tion Society were the two great organiza-
tions in Ireland that knew neither politics
nor creed; in whose work Unionist and
Nationalist and Sinn Feiner and Catholic
*and Protestant could and did take part
side by side. Hyde resigned the presi-
dency of the Gaelic League when it became
political. He made the great refusal of

66 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

not consenting to continue at the head of
the body, to which he had given the best
years of his life, after it had been cap-
tured by the extremists and made in part
into a political organization. Douglas
Hyde, William Butler Yeats, Lady Greg-
ory, and George Russell, in literature and
the drama, and Sir Hugh Lane in art, have
been the leaders in the preparation for
home rule and have worked to enrich the
life of the nation.

I also regret that Standish O'Grady,
that great-hearted, wise, tolerant Irish-
man, the noblest of them all, is not in the
convention. He is a member of no party,
because he is above all parties.

It is generally regretted that the Sinn
Feiners remained out of the convention.
The Sinn Feiners holding out against the
convention deprive it of the services of
men like Professor John MacNeill, one of
the most acute minds in Ireland, a man who

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 67

has never been pro-German or in league
with any Germans, a man always capable
of being reasoned with; and of men like
Gavan Duffy and Colonel Maurice Moore,
who are reasonable and not really fanat-
ics. While these men have not gone into
the convention, my hope is that they will
give aid to members^of the convention who
will press on the convention a good meas-
ure, and if a good measure is agreed upon
I believe that the majority of the Smn
Femers will accept it. That is appa-
rently the policy of the Smn Feiners — to
remain outside and spur the convention by
extreme demands, but to accept the agree-
ment if the system of government is a
good one and includes Ulster. While the
''bodies whose representatives form the
largest part of the convention member-
ship are no longer representative them-
selves of political opinion, and while the
chairmen of county councils are not by

68 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

character or education fitted to discuss
constitutional questions, the hope for the
convention is that a few intelligent
men who know what they want will form
a solid bloc and reinforce each other and
overcome the rest by sheer force of argu-
ment as to the justice, the necessity, the
policy, both from an Irish and from an
imperial point of view, of a complete, sat-
isfactory, acceptable settlement that will
include all Ireland.

A few months ago the question was,
what kind of folk the Ulster government
would send, whether they would be mod-
erate and reasonable or " die-hards." If
the latter were to be sent, and if it
appeared that they only came in to
separate Ulster, then, as a well-informed
friend of mine wrote, *' the convention
had better dissolve at once, because parti-
tion will be no settlement." Bait now
the question has changed. Sir Ed-

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 69

ward Carson is no longer the idol of
Ulster. His name is not likely to be en-
shrined in history in connection with any
great or beneficent, social, economic or
political reform. He is more likely to be
associated with one of the most sinister
episodes in the history of England and Ire-
land. In fact Ulster might be pointed to
as a victim of the power of over-sugges-
tion in politics. Over-suggestion and
outer-suggestion may be said to have
passed into auto-suggestion. But thanks
to liberal injections of the anti-toxin of
common sense and cold reason, the fever
has died down. Ulster is cool and ra-
tional again. She has waked up. Ulster
vwill make the sacrifice of her pride and
will take the risk of what some Ulster-
men fear may be a peril to their business
interests. She will place the greater in-
terest above her own pride and fears.
She will take the imperial and not the

70 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

parochial course. She has nothing to
fear, neither Popery, the cry of which was
absurd, nor confiscation or spoliation,
which were equally absurd, nor lack of
business ability in Ireland outside of Ul-
ster. The claim that Ulster must have
guaranties was always an absurdity. The
patched-up home rule act now upon
the statute books of Great Britain
guards in explicit terms against any
possible dangers to religious liberty and
to equality before the law in a way that
probably no other constitution does.
And if that act, loaded down with guar-
anties as it is, does not satisfy Ulster, let
guaranties be piled upon guaranties until
Ulster must admit that she is satisfied.

I feel confident that England now real-
izes that if the work of the convention is
bungled and a satisfactory measure is not
passed, nationalist Ireland will settle back
into a cold anger and that all the work of

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 71

the past twenty-five years to bring about
friendly relations between Protestant and
Catholic will be lost. Seldom has a
finer opportunity for vision and courage
come to a body of delegates than to those
who will control the work of the conven-
tion. A wise and eloquent Irish friend of
mine wrote me recently : " The Irish na-
tional mood is today like molten metal, and
unless some skilful political artificer can
seize the glowing mass and press it into the
ideal mould, it will cool in a mould and
mood which promise little good."

Many Sinn Feiners advocate " an inde-
pendent Ireland." If by that they mean
^ republic, they will, in my judgment, get
it only as a sequel of a revolution in Eng-
land, in which no one believes. On the
other hand, Americans should not be mis-
led by the common charges against the
Sinn Feiners, The main body of them

ARE CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMERS. The

72 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

Parliamentary party has not troubled it-
self much during the last twenty years
about the young men who wanted temper-
ance, co-operation, education and the like.
And unless the Parliamentary party moves
along better and sounder lines than in the
past, it can never lead the people. It may
machine them, but that will not mend mat-
ters.

I believe that colonial home rule would
amply satisfy nineteen-twentieths of the
people of Ireland. Wise and liberal Irish-
men do not care to see a republic
preached, lest when real grievances are
settled the demand for a republic
should persist and throw things into con-
fusion. If a satisfactory home rule meas-
ure with Ulster included is produced by
the convention, their judgment is that
only the few hotheads would continue to
demand a republic. But the Nationalists

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 73

and the majority of the Sinn Feiners be-
lieve that it would be better for Ireland
not to be distracted by any further
politics, if the convention once gives a
decent settlement.

The choice of Sir Horace Plunkett as
chairman of the convention, and the fact
that George W. Russell (A.E.) is one of
the leading members of the convention and
was a member of the committee to suggest
a chairman, have convinced me that the
work of the convention will be honest and
sound. Plunkett's chairmanship is popu-
lar in Ireland. People know that he is
straight and wants to bring about a settle-
ment. He is a good Irishman, and one of
the sanest and fairest men I have ever
known. The secretary of the convention
is Sir Francis Hopwood, and it is signifi-
cant that one of the first requests made of
him was for information in regard to the

74 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

procedure adopted by the convention that
drew up the constitution for the union of
South Africa.

A hopeful sign also is that Mr. Erskine
Childers is on the secretariat. He is one
of the clearest thinkers and best writers
on home rule questions in Ireland or Eng-
land. His book The Framework of Home
Rule (1911) is, apart from the eloquent
article of George Russell's reprinted in
this book, the only piece of high politics on
the subject I know. The Government al-
lowed him to come back from France on
application for his services. I am told
that so far the meetings of the convention
have been in good spirit.

And now I am leaving the region of fact
and coming to that of prophecy. I be-
lieve the Convention will be a success.
The leaders are more reasonable than their
followers. Meeting together and talking
without the newspapers being able to get

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 75

at them, will lead them to agree upon what
is right. I am satisfied that the ma-
jority of the convention will see to it that
there shall not come out of the convention
any reasonable grounds for belief that
Ulster has won, that Ulster has had her
way, that secret diplomacy has again
come out on top, that back-stairs intrigue
and private understandings are not over,
but that broad statesmanship and a genu-
ine desire to promote the interests of Ire-
land and of England have been the guiding
motive of the convention. I believe that
the wretched history of the last few years
will be reversed bv the action of the con-
vention. I believe that the work of the
convention will be approved by the coun-
try, that the convention will give genuine
home rule to an undivided Ireland, and
that public opinion in the United States
and in Canada and Australia, as well as in
Ireland and England, will applaud and re-

76 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

joice at its work as a genuine and honest
settlement. I know that to be the desire
of men like Sir Horace Plunkett and
George W. Russell, and if their views pre-
vail they will have done not merely lasting
good for Ireland, but will have delivered
a powerful blow for the defeat of the com-
mon enemy of all.

The following is from one of the best-
informed of the young Irish writers :

" The present Irish situation will nat-
urally seem confused at the distance. The
fact is, however, that the Irish situation
is rapidly clarifying itself, and we are a
good deal nearer to a united country than
we have been in the whole of the later
period. For the Parliamentary party it
is, of course, a land-slide : it is so for more
than the party, for the Unionists even will
come sliding down the slippery slope and
be clasped to our bosoms. . . .

" It has been said, against the Conven-
tion (which is holding its second meeting
today), that it has no mandate from the
country. That is not the fact. It has,

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 77

unexpressed indeed, but very definitely, a
mandate. When one gathers together a
number of facts there gathers round them
an air, an atmosphere, a kind of psycho-
logical fringe, and the man who can in-
terpret this brings home the bacon.
Around the grouped facts of our conven-
tion there is such a fringe. The country
has declared for and against partition, it
has declared for and against a republic, it
has declared for and against the old home
rule bill which is on the statute book:
it has mentioned, without much emphasis,
it is true, but without any antagonism, the
idea of colonial self-government. All the
other ideas have been advanced and have
been attacked. Colonial home rule has
been advanced, and has not been attacked
by any one. That is the psychological
fafct which surrounds the other facts, and
the absolute mandate of the country to the
men gathered in the Regent House (that
last infirmary for noble minds) is. Let ye
talk about colonial home rule, and if ye
don't talk about that then shut your gobs
and go home — Gob, by the bye, means in
the Irish the beak of a bird."

78 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

A solution that deals honestly and
justly with the financial problems and
gives home rule to a united Ireland, will be
welcomed not merely in Ireland but in the
United States. Those interested in Irish
affairs in the United States have not been
appeased by the mere appointment of the
convention, for it has come late and after
many sad blunders. .They are awaiting
its verdict.

VI

GEORGE W. RUSSELL (a. E.)

THE author of Thoughts for a Con-
vention is a great Irishman. In him
are combined in a unique degree many tal-
ents and accomplishments. He is an ar-
tist of charm and originality, a poet of
deep vision and beauty, an eloquent
speaker, a prose writer of great distinc-
ti(hi, an expert agricultural and coopera-
tive organizer and the editor of The Irish
Homestead, a weekly agricultural paper,
one of the best published in English. Like
his friend and my friend William Butler
Yeats, he delights to discover and encour-
age young poets, writers and artists. He

has been a leading spirit for years in the
79

80 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

Irish Agricultural Organization Society,
he is an intimate friend and the righthand
helper of Sir Horace Plunkett in all his
work, and a force in contemporary Ire-
land.^ His last work The National Being
(Maunsel, Dublin 1916; New York, The
Macmillan Co.) combines fine vision and
practical thought. A list of his creative
works and his other writings on economics
are given in a note below.

Russell is an Ulster man and a Protes-
tant, but a member of no political party.
It is safe to say that he knows Ulster as

^ He is the author of Homeward: Songs by
the Way, 1894. The Future of Ireland and
The Awakening of the Fires, 1897. Ideals in
Ireland: Priesi or Hero?, 1897. The Earth
Breath, 1897. Literary Ideals in Ireland,
1899 (in collaboration). Ideals in Ireland,
1901 (in collaboration). The Nuts of Knowl-
edge, 1903. Controversy in Ireland, 1904.
The Divine Vision, 1904. The Mask of
Apollo, 1904. New Poems, 1904 (edited).

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 81

well as if not better than Sir Edward Car-
son does. Indeed Sir Edward Carson is
not an Ulsterman at all. Russell's
Thoughts for a Convention has had a
great effect on Southern Unionist and
Ulster opinion. It first appeared in The
Irish Times, a Unionist paper, and has
been several times reprinted. It is the
best, the sanest, the most unbiased and at
the same time the most eloquent discussion
of the general principles underlying the
Irish home rule question that I have seen.
Seldom have I read a more eloquent and

5^ Still Waters, 1906. Some Irish Essays,
1906. Deirdre (A play), 1907. The Hero
in Man, 1909. The Renewal of Youth, 1911.
The United Irishwomen, 1912 (in collabora-
tion). Co-operation and Nationality, 1912.
The Rural Community, 1913. Collected
Poems, 1913. Gods of War and other Poems,
1915. Imaginations and Reveries, 1915; and
the last and one of his best books. The Na-
tional Being (1916).

82 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

persuasive discussion of a great political
question. Plato could not have done it
better in the Athens of his day. His
statement of the history, the aims and the
achievements of the Unionists, the Na-
tionalists and the Simfi Feiners is sympa-
thetic and just. He explains from full
knowledge that the usual charge of in-
sincerity against the constitutional Na-
tionalists is unjust, and he gives them full
credit for the many good measures won by
them in their long contest. But he points
out the weakness of a constitutional party
that finds itself between two extreme par-
ties, each of which desires a settlement in
accordance with fundamental principles.
His exposition of the Ulster feeling is put
in a way that ought to touch the pride of,
and make a strong appeal to all Irishmen
of every party and creed. How thin and
poor, in comparison with his fine and ele-
vated reasoning, are the usual constitu-

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 83

tional arguments! His demonstration of
the impracticability and impossibility of a
completely independent Ireland is conclu-
sive, and, I believe, will be agreed to by the
majority of the extremists themselves.
His demonstration of the necessity of a
complete separation of religion from poli-
tics is equally conclusive. His argument
as to the profound wisdom of a real settle-
ment, in the interests not merely of Ire-
land or Great Britain, but of the whole
Empire, is as eloquent as it is wise.

I might, if I were in the convention, not
hold out for the complete exclusion of
Irish members from Westminster. And I
cannot agree to his dictum that it was the
question of Alsace-Lorraine that led to
" the inevitable war " (paragraph 17).

The editor of The Irish Times is quoted
as having said that Russell had shaken the
faith of Unionists in their innermost taber-
nacles. It is regarded in Ireland as re-

84 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

markable that such articles should have
appeared in a Unionist paper without a
single letter of protest, whereas The Irish
Times readers are as a rule only too ready
to rush into print protesting that they will
never have it, and so forth.

In The Nineteenth Century for July,
1917, Professor A. V. Dicey, the veteran
opponent of home rule in any form for
thirty years, had an article entitled Is it
Wise to Establish Home Rule Before the
End of the War? The Professor referred
sympathetically to Russell's pamphlet and
even wrote with unusual courtesy and
moderation, for him, of the Sinn Feiners.
Of Russell's pamphlet he said:

" An Englishman interested in the home
rule question should read with care
Thoughts for a Convention by A. E. (Mr.
George Russell), Maunsel and Co., Dublin.
I have no doubt that A. E. disagrees with
all my conclusions, but his Memorandum,

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 85

though written from an entirely Irish
point of view, is characterized by a noble
spirit, and brings before Englishmen feel-
ings, thoughts, and sometimes facts with
regard to Ireland which they are apt to
overlook."

Twenty thousand copies of the pam-
phlet were sold within a few days after its
publication, which means something in Ire-
land, and The Irish Times itself has a
large circulation.

^This would be no place, even if I were
able to do it, to discuss the details of the
problems before the convention. I can
do no better than to refer to Erskine Chil-
ders' The Framework of Home Rule (Lon-
don: Edward Arnold, 1911) for a com-
plete discussion of Irish parliamentary
history, the Grattan Parliament, the
Union, Canada and Ireland, Australia and
Ireland, South Africa and Ireland, and
their analogies, the Ireland of today, the

86 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

framework of home rule, the Union fi-
nance, financial independence, land pur-
chase, and a sketch of an Irish constitu-
tion. The lamented Professor T. M.
Kettle's little book Home Rule Finance, an
Experiment injustice (Dublin, 1911) and
his admirally-tempered book The Open
Secret of Ireland (191S) are also instruc-
tive. He had been a member of Parlia-
ment, and at the outbreak of the war was
a professor in the Irish National Univer-
sity. He entered the army, and, like the
brave Maj or William Redmond, was killed
a few months ago, leading his Irish sol-
diers.

An interesting discussion of What Ire-
land Wants appeared not long ago in
the Fortnightly Review, July, 1917, by Sir
J. R. O'ConneU. He considers some of the
fundamental problems confronting the
convention and the outlook after legisla-

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 87

tive autonomy has been conferred upon
Ireland. It is an article that will repay
reading.

The article by Professor Dicey in The
Nineteenth Century, July, 1917, above re-
ferred to, is a typical example of lawyers'
special pleading. He argues at some
length that the establishment of any form
of home rule in Ireland would, during the
continuance of the war, be a cause of weak-
ness to Great Britain and the British Em-
pire. But the Professor seems to forget
thaf Bismarck brought about the union of
the German kingdoms into an empire dur-
ing a war, that Lincoln emancipated the
slaves in the middle of the Civil War, and
that neither Bismarck nor Lincoln was in-
fluenced by constitutional arguments or
lawyers' fears. The Professor gives an
interesting sketch of the three parties now
in Ireland — the Constitutional or Parlia-

88 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

mentary Nationalists, the Sinm, Feiners
and the Unionists, and he frankly admits
that every Irish party prefers that Ire-
land, whatever her relation to Great Brit-
ain, should be administratively governed
as one country. The Professor gives a
peculiar and even amusing explanation of
the failure of the Asquith-Lloyd George
attempt at reconciliation and settlement in
1916, saying that " Englishmen cannot
care ardently about more than one impor-
tant matter at a time." He admits that
there is a great change of feeling among
Englishmen toward the demand of Irish-
men for home rule, and gives his case en-
tirely away by stating that every argu-
ment used in his article must be read sub-
ject to the limitation " that no course of
action or inaction is commendable which
is really opposed to the success of Eng-
land's armies."

Well, England has spoken. She means

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 89

business this time. The author of
Thoughts for a Convention has wisely and
justly said:

" The Premier of an alien cabinet has
declared that there is no measure of self-
government which Great Britain would not
assent to being set up in Ireland, if Irish-
men themselves could but come to an
agreement."

In justice to him, I must also add that
Sir Edward Carson has seen the light and
longs for " some solution of that long-
continued Irish question that would meet
the ideal of liberty of all the parties in
Ireland." One closes the review contain-
ing Professor Dicey's article without any
doubt what the verdict will be, and it will
not be such a verdict as Professor Dicey,
whose views, I am happy to believe, are not
now widely shared in England, would ren-
der.

VII

SIE HORACE PLUNKETT

SIR HORACE PLUNKETT, whose
speech at Dundalk, Ireland, June 25,
1917, is reprinted here, needs no introduc-
tion to American readers. He is almost as
v^ell known in the United States as in Ire-
land. His career as a member of Par-
liament, then as head of the Irish Depart-
ment of Agriculture and Technical In-
struction, as the founder and head of the
Irish Agricultural Organization Society,
and his writings, need not be dwelt on
here. All well-wishers of Ireland and all
those who hope for a satisfactory and
honest solution of the home rule question,
were glad to see that Sir Horace Plunkett

had been chosen chairman of the conven-

90

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 91

tion. On private as well as public grounds
it was a great satisfaction to see this rec-
ognition by Irishmen of one who has
worked so honestly for the good of Ireland,
especially considering how badly he was
treated by the Liberal Government of Ire-
land in 190T-1908. Those who are inter-
ested in the life-work of this good Irish-
man might read with profit the book S^r
Horace Plunkett and His Place in the Irish
Nation by Edward E. Lysaght (Dublin
and London 1916). The author of that
book is also a member of the convention.

Sir Horace demonstrates the complete
impracticability of the extremists who
dream that the stattis and the government
of Ireland could or would be settled at the
peace conference. The convention is
Ireland's peace conference. If the con-
vention's work is approved by Ireland, as
I feel sure it will be, there will be no real
Irish question to submit to the great peace

92 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

conference that will follow Germany's sur-
render. The temporary inclusion of Ul-
ster, as suggested by Sir Horace Plunkett
in his speech reprinted here, will not now
satisfy, A year ago it was wise states-
manship. Today it is not. There must
be no division, nothing tentative or tem-
porary about the settlement.

Sir Horace, at the end of his address,
quotes from a song — probably an Eng-
lish song — that he says he remembers
was popular some fifty years ago, called
Strangers Yet. The thought underlying
the six lines quoted is a fine one, but the
verse is bad and sentimental. The Gaelic
League and leaders of the Irish literary
movement — W. B. Yeats, Douglas Hydo,
George Russell, John M. Synge and
others — have almost driven that sort of
sentimentality out of Ireland. The cheap
rhetoric and the sham pathos that passes
for " eloquence " in some American-Irish

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 93

circles would simply not be tolerated in
Ireland today. I am sure Sir Horace
would agree that the following, from the
eloquent pen of the chivalrous Captain
Tom Kettle, is better:

" Bond^ from the toil of hate we may not

cease :
Free, we are free to be your friend.
But when you make your banquet, and we

come,
Soldier with equal soldier must we sit.
Closing a battle, not forgetting it.
This mate and mother of valiant rebels dead
Must come with all her history on her head.
We keep the past for pride.
Nor war nor peace shall strike our poets

dumb:
No rawest squad of all Death's volunteers.
No simplest man who died
To tear your flag down, in the bitter years.
But shall have praise, and three times thrice

again.
When, at that tabic, men shall drink with

men."

94f The Irish Home-Rule Convention

If the convention should fail of real re-
sult, a generally accepted result, all well-
wishers not merely of Ireland but of the en-
tire Allied cause will regret it.

My prediction is that the convention
will agree and that the country will
ratify its verdict. Certainly nothing
would be more popular among Americans,
with their undoubted sympathy for Ire-
land's aspirations for autonomy, than the
achievement now of a real measure of home
rule — one uniting all Ireland.

New York, August 28-30, 191T

THOUGHTS FOR A CONVENTION

Memorandum on the State of Ireland
By Geoege W. Russell (A.E.)

THOUGHTS FOR A CONVENTION

1-. There are moments in history when
by the urgency of circumstance every one
in a country is drawn from normal pur-
suits to consider the affairs of the nation.
The merchant is turned from his ware-
house, the bookman from his books, the
farmer from his fields, because they realize
that the very foundations of the Society,
under whose shelter they were able to
carry on their vocations, are being shaken,
and they can no longer be voiceless, or
leave it to deputies, unadvised by them, to
arrange national destinies. We are all
accustomed to endure the annoyances and
irritations caused by legislation which is
not agreeable to us, and solace ourselves
by remembering that the things which
97

98 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

really matter are not affected. But when
the destiny of a nation, the principles by
which life is to be guided are at stake, all
are on a level, are equally affected and
are bound to give expression to their opin-
ions. Ireland is in one of these moments
of history. Circumstances with which we
are all familiar and the fever in which the
world exists have infected it, and it is like
molten metal the skilled political artificer
might pour into a desirable mould. But
if it is not handled rightly, if any factor
is ignored, there may be an explosion
which would bring on us a fate as tragic
as anything in our past history. Irish-
men can no longer afford to remain aloof
from each other, or to address each other
distantly and defiantly from press or plat-
form, but must strive to understand each
other truly, and to give due weight to each
others' opinions, and, if possible arrive at
a compromise, a balancing of their diver-

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 99

sities, which may save our country from
anarchy and chaos for generations to
come.

2. An agreement about Irish Govern-
ment must be an agreement, not between
two but three Irish parties first of all, and
afterwards with Great Britain. The
Premier of a coalition Cabinet has declared
that there is no measure of self govern-
ment which Great Britain would not as-
sent to being set up in Ireland, if Irish-
men themselves could but come to an agree-
ment. Before such a compromise between
Irish parties is possible there must be a
clear understanding of the ideals of these
parties, as they are understood by them-
selves, and not as they are presented in
party controversy by special pleaders
whose obj ect too often is to pervert or dis-
credit the principles and actions of op-
ponents, a thing which is easy to do be-
cause all parties, even the noblest, have

100 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

followers who do them disservice by igno-
rant advocacy or excited action. If we
are to unite Ireland we can only do so by
recognising what truly are the principles
each party stands for, and will not for-
sake, and for which if necessary they will
risk life. True understanding is to see
ideals as they are held by men between
themselves and Heaven; and in this mood
I will try, first of all, to understand the
position of Unionists, Sinn Feiners and
Constitutional Nationalists as they have
been explained to me by the best minds
among them, those who have induced
others of their countrymen to accept those
ideals. When this is done we will see if
compromise, a balancing of diversities, be
not possible in an Irish State where all
that is essential in these varied ideals may
be harmonized and retained.

3. I will take first of all the position of
Unionists. They are, many of them, the

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 101

descendants of settlers who, by their en-
trance into Ireland broke up the Gaelic
uniformity and introduced the speech, the
thoughts characteristic of another race.
While they have grown to love their coun-
try as much as any of Gaelic origin, and
their peculiarities have been modified by
centuries of life in Ireland and by inter-
marriage, so that they are much more akin
to their fellow-countrymen in mind and
manner than they are to any other peo-
ple, they still retain habits, beliefs and
traditions from which they will not part.
They form a class economically powerful.
They have openness and energy of charac-
ter, great organizing power and a mastery
over materials, all qualities invaluable in
an Irish State. In North-East Ulster
where they are most homogeneous they
conduct the affairs of their cities with
great efficiency, carrying on an interna-
tional trade not only with Great Britain

102 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

but with the rest of the world. They have
made these industries famous. They be-
lieve that their prosperity is in large meas-
ure due to their acceptance of the Union,
that it would be lessened if they threw in
their lot with the other Ireland and ac-
cepted its ideals, that business which now
goes to their shipyards and factories would
cease if they were absorbed in a self-gov-
erning Ireland whose spokesmen had an
unfortunate habit of nagging their neigh-
bours and of conveying the impression that
they are inspired by race hatred. They
believe that an Irish legislature would be
controlled by a majority, representatives
mainly of small farmers, men who had no
knowledge of affairs, or of the peculiar
needs of Ulster industry, or the intricacy
of the problems involved in carrying on an
international trade; that the religious
ideas of the majority would be so favoured
in education and government that the fav-

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 103

ouritism would amount to religious oppres-
sion. They are also convinced that no
small country in the present state of the
world can really be independent, that such
only exist by sufferance of their mighty
neighbours, and must be subservient in
trade policy and military policy to retain
even a nominal freedom; and that an in-
dependent Ireland would by its position be
a focus for the intrigues of powers hostile
to Great Britain, and if it achieved inde-
pendence Great Britain in self protection
would be forced to conquer it again. They
consider that security for industry and
freedom for the individual can best be pre-
served in Ireland by the maintenance of the
Union, and that the world spirit is with
the great empires,

4. The second political group may be
described as the spiritual inheritors of the
more ancient race in Ireland. They re-
gard the preservation of their nationality

104f The Irish Home-Rule Convention

as a sacred charge, themselves as a con-
quered people owing no allegiance to the
dominant race. They cannot be called
traitors to it because neither they nor their
predecessors have ever admitted the right
of another people to govern them against
their will. They are inspired by an an-
cient history, a literature stretching be-
yond the Christian era, a national culture
and distinct national ideals which they de-
sire to manifest in a civilization which shall
not be an echo or imitation of any other.
While they do not depreciate the worth of
English culture or its political system they
are as angry at its being imposed on them
as a young man with a passion for art
would be if his guardian insisted on his
adopting another profession and denied
him any chance of manifesting his own
genius. Few hatreds equal those caused
by the denial or obstruction of national
aptitudes. Many of those who fought in

The Irish Home-Rule Corwention 105

the last Irish insurrection were fighters not
merely for a political change but were
rather desperate and despairing champions
of a culture which they held was being
stifled from infancy in Irish children in the
schools of the nation. They believe that
the national genius cannot manifest itself
in a civilization and is not allowed to mani-
fest itself while the Union persists. They
wish Ireland to be as much itself as Japan,
and as free to make its own choice of politi-
cal principles, its culture and social order,
and to develop its industries unfettered by
the trade policy of their neighbours.
Their mood is unconquerable, and while
often overcome it has emerged again and
again in Irish history, and it has perhaps
more adherents to-day that at any period
since the Act of Union, and this has been
helped on by the incarnation of the Gaelic
spirit in modern Anglo-Irish literature,
and a host of brilliant poets, dramatists

106 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

and prose writers who have won interna-
tional recognition, and have increased the
dignity of spirit and the self-respect of
the followers of this tradition. They
assert that the Union kills the soul of
the people ; that empires do not permit the
intensive cultivation of human life: that
tbey destroy the richness and variety
of existence by the extinction of peculiar
and unique gifts, and the substitution
therefor of a culture which has its value
mainly for the people who created it,
but is as alien to our race as the
mood of the scientist is to the artist
or poet.

5, The third group occupies a middle
position between those who desire the per-
fecting of the Union and those whose
claim is for complete independence: and
because they occupy a middle position,
and have taken colouring from the ex-
tremes between which they exist they have

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 107

been exposed to the charge of insincerity,
which is unjust so far as the best minds
among them are concerned. They have
aimed at a middle course, not going far
enough on one side or another to secure
the confidence of the extremists. They
have sought to maintain the connexion
with the empire, and at the same time to
acquire an Irish control over administra-
tion and legislation. They have been
more practical than ideal, and to their
credit must be placed the organizing of
the movements which secured most of the
reforms in Ireland since the Union, such
as religious equality, the acts securing to
farmers fair rents and fixity of tenure,
the wise and salutary measures making
possible the transfer of land from land-
lord to tenant, facilities for education at
popular universities, the labourers' acts
and many others. They are a practical
party taking what they could get, and

108 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

because they could show ostensible results
they have had a greater following in Ire-
land than any other party. This is nat-
ural because the average man in all coun-
tries is a realist. But this reliance on
material results to secure support meant
that they must always show results, or
the minds of their countrymen veered to
those ultimates and fundamentals which
await settlement here as they do in all
civilizations. As in the race with Atal-
anta the golden apples had to be thrown
in order to win the race. The intellect
of Ireland is now fixed on fundamentals,
and the compromise this middle party is
able to offer does not make provision for
the ideals of either of the extremists, and
indeed meets little favour anywhere in a
country excited by recent events in world
history, where revolutionary changes are
expected and a settlement far more in ac-
cord with fundamental principles.

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 109

6. It is possible that many of the rank
and file of these parties will not at first
agree with the portraits painted of their
opponents, and that is because the special
pleaders of the press, who in Ireland are,
as a rule, allowed little freedom to state
private convictions, have come to regard
themselves as barristers paid to conduct a
case, and have acquired the habit of isolat-
ing particular events, the hasty speech or
violent action of individuals in localities,
and of exhibiting these as indicating the
whole character of the party attacked.
They misrepresent Irishmen to each other.
The Ulster advocates of the Union, for
example, are accustomed to hear from
\ their advisers that the favourite employ-
ment of Irish farmers in the three south-
ern provinces is cattle driving, if not
worse. They are told that Protestants
in these provinces live in fear of their
lives, whereas anybody who has knowledge

110 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

of the true conditions know that, so far
from being riotous and unbusinesslike, the
farmers in these provinces have developed
a network of rural associations, dairies,
bafcon factories, agricultural and poultry
societies, etc., doing their business effi-
ciently, applying the teachings of science
in their factories, competing in quality of
output with the very best of the same class
of society in Ulster and obtaining as good
prices in the same market. As a matter
of fact this method of organization now
largely adopted by Ulster farmers was
initiated in the South. In the charge of
intolerance I do not believe. Here, as
in all other countries, there are unfor-
tunate souls obsessed by dark powers,
whose human malignity takes the form
of religious hatreds, but I believe, and
the thousands of Irish Protestants in
the Southern Counties will affirm it as
true, that they have nothing to complain

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 111

of in this respect. I am sure that in this
matter of religious tolerance these prov-
inces can stand favourable comparison
with any country in the world where there
are varieties of religions, even with Great
Britain. I would plead with my Ulster
compatriots not to gaze too long or too
credulously into that distorting mirror
held up to them, nor be tempted to take
individual action as representative of the
mass. How would they like to have the
depth or quality of spiritual life in their
great city represented by the scrawlings
and revilings about the head of the Cath-
olic Church to be found occasionally on
the blank walls of Belfast? If the same
method of distortion by selection of facts
was carried out there is not a single city
or nation which could not be made to ap-
pear baser than Sodom or Gomorrah and
as deserving of their fate.

7. The Ulster character is better ap-

112 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

predated by Southern Ireland, and there
is little reason to vindicate it against any
charges except the slander that Ulster
Unionists do not regard themselves as
Irishmen, and that they have no love for
their own country. Their position is
that they are Unionists, not merely be-
cause it is for the good of Great Britain,
but because they hold it to be for the good
of Ireland, and it is the Irish argument
weighs with them, and if they were con-
vinced it would be better for Ireland to be
self-governed they would throw in their
lot with the rest of Ireland, which would
accept them gladly and greet them as a
prodigal son who had returned, having
made, unlike most prodigal sons, a for-
tune, and well able to be the wisest adviser
in family affairs. It is necessary to pref-
ace what I have to say by way of argu-
ment or remonstrance to Irish parties by
words making it clear that I write without

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 113

prejudice against any party, and that I
do not in the least underestimate their
good qualities or the weight to be attached
to their opinions and ideals. It is the
traditional Irish way, which we have too
often forgotten, to notice the good in the
opponent before battling with what is evil.
So Maeve, the ancient Queen of Connacht,
looking over the walls of her city of
Cruachan at the Ulster foemen, said of
them, " Noble and regal is their appear-
ance," and her own followers said, " Noble
and regal are those of whom you speak."
When we lost the old Irish culture we lost
the tradition of courtesy to each other
which lessens the difficulties of life and
makes it possible to conduct controversy
without 'Creating bitter memories.

8. I desire first to argue with Irish
Unionists whether it is accurate to say of
them, as it would appear to be from their
spokesmen, that the principle of national-

114 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

ity cannot be recognized by them or al-
lowed to take root in the commonwealth
of dominions which form the Empire.
Must one culture only exist? Must all
citizens have their minds poured into the
same mould, and varieties of gifts and
cultural traditions be extinguished?
What would India with its myriad races
say to that theory? What would Canada
enclosing in its dominion and cherishing
a French Canadian nation say? Union-
ists have by every means in their power
discouraged the study of the national lit-
erature of Ireland though it is one of the
most ancient in Europe, though the schol-
ars of France and Germany have founded
journals for Its study, and its beauty is
being recognized by all who have read it.
It contains the race memory of Ireland,
its imaginations and thoughts for two
thousand years. Must that be obliter-
ated? Must national character be steril-

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 115

ized of all taint of its peculiar beauty?
Must Ireland have no character of its
own but be servilely imitative of its neigh-
bour in all things and be nothing of itself?
It is objected that the study of Irish his-
tory, Irish literature and the national cul-
ture generates hostility to the Empire.
Is that a true psychological analysis?
Is it not true in all human happenings
that if people are denied what is right and
natural they will instantly assume an at-
titude of hostility to the power which
denies? The hostility is not inherent in
the subject but is evoked by the denial.
I put it to my Unionist compatriots that
the ideal is to aim at a diversity of cul-
ture, and the greatest freedom, richness
and variety of thought. The more this
richness and variety prevail in a nation
the less likelihood is there of the tyranny
of one culture over the rest. We should
aim in Ireland at that freedom of the an-

116 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

cient Athenians, who, as Pericles said,
listened gladly to the opinions of others
and did not turn sour faces on those who
disagreed with them. A culture which is
allowed essential freedom to develop will
soon perish if it does not in itself contain
the elements of human worth which make
for immortality. The world has to its
sorrow many instances of freak religions
which were persecuted and so by natural
opposition were perpetuated and hard-
ened in belief. We should allow the great-
est freedom in respect of cultural develop-
ments in Ireland so that the best may
triumph by reason of superior beauty and
not because the police are relied upon to
maintain one culture in a dominant posi-
tion.

9. I have also an argument to address
to the extremists whose claim, uttered
lately with more openness and vehemence,
is for the complete independence of the

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 117

whole of Ireland, who cry out against
partition, who will not have a square mile
of Irish soil subject to foreign rule. That
implies they desire the inclusion of Ulster
and the inhabitants of Ulster in their
Irish State. I tell them frankly that if
they expect Ulster to throw its lot in
with a self-governing Ireland they must
remain within the commonwealth of do-
minions which constitute the Empire, be
prepared loyally, once Ireland has com-
plete control over its internal affairs, to
accept the status of a dominion and the
responsibilities of that wider union. If
they will not accept that status as the
Boers did, they w^ill never draw that im-
portant and powerful Irish party into an
Irish State except by force, and do they
think there is any possibility of that.? It
is extremely doubtful whether if the
world stood aloof, and allowed Irishmen
to fight out their own quarrels among

118 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

themselves, that the fighters for complete
independence could conquer a community
so numerous,, so determined, so wealthy,
so much more capable of providing for
themselves the plentiful munitions by
which alone one army can hope to conquer
another. In South Africa men who had
fiercer traditional hostilities than Irish-
men of different parties here have had,
who belonged to different races, who had
a few years before been engaged in a racial
war, were great enough to rise above these
past antagonizms, to make an agreement
and abide faithfully by it. Is the same
magnanimity not possible in Ireland.'^ I
say to my countrymen who cry out for
the complete separation of Ireland from
the Empire that they will not in this gen-
eration bring with them the most power-
ful and wealthy, if not the most numerous,
party in their country. Complete con-
trol of Irish afi^airs is a possibility, and I

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 119

suggest to the extremists that the status
of a self-governing dominion inside a fed-
eration of dominions is a proposal which,
if other safeguards for minority interests
are incorporated, would attract Union-
ist attention. But if these men who de-
pend so much in their economic enter-
prises upon a friendly relation with their
largest customers are to be allured into a
self-governing Ireland there must be ac-
ceptance of the Empire as an essential
condition. The Boers found it not im-
possible to accept this status for the sake
of a United South Africa. Are our Irish
Boers not prepared to make a compromise
and abide by it loyally for the sake of a
united Ireland?

10. A remonstrance must also be ad-
dressed to the middle party in that it has
made no real effort to understand and con-
ciliate the feelings of Irish Unionists.
They have indeed made promises, no doubt

120 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

sincerely, but they have undone the effect
of all they said by encouraging of recent
years the growth of sectarian organiza-
tions with political aims and have relied
on these as on a party machine. It may
be said that in Ulster a similar organiza-
tion, sectarian with political objects, has
long existed, and that this justified a
counter organization. Both in my opin-
ion are unjustifiable and evil, but the
backing of such an organization was
specially foolish in the case of the major-
ity, whose main object ought to be to al-
lure the minority into the same political
fold. The baser elements in society, the
intriguers, the job-seekers, and all who
would acquire by influence what they can-
not attain by merit, flock into such bodies,
and create a sinister impression as to their
objects and deliberations. If we are to
have national concord among Irishmen,
religion must be left to the Churches whose

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 121

duty it is to promote it, and be dissevered
from party politics, and it should be re-
garded as contrary to national idealism
to organize men of one religion into secret
societies with political or economic aims.
So shall be left to Caesar the realm which
is Csesar's, and it shall not appear part of
the politics of eternity that Michael's
sister's son obtains a particular post be-
ginning at thirty shillings a week. I am
not certain that it should not be an es-
sential condition of any Irish settlement
that all such sectarian organizations
should be disbanded in so far as their ob-
jects are political, and remain solely as
friendly societies. It is useless assuring
a minority already suspicious, of the tol-
erance it may expect from the majority,
if the party machine of the majority is
sectarian and semi-secret, if no one of the
religion of the minority may join it. I
believe in spite of the recent growth of

12^ The Irish Home-Rule Convention

sectarian societies that it has affected but
little the general tolerant spirit in Ire-
land, and where evils have appeared they
have speedily resulted in the break up of
the organization in the locality. Irish-
men individually as a rule are much nobler
in spirit than the political organizations
they belong to.

11. It is necessary to speak with the
utmost frankness and not to slur over any
real difficulty in the way of a settlement.
Irish parties must rise above themselves
if they are to bring about an Irish unity.
They appear on the surface unreconcil-
able, but that, in my opinion, is because
the spokesmen of parties are under the
illusion that they should never indicate in
public that they might possibly abate one
jot of the claims of their party. A
crowd or organization is often more ex-
treme than its individual members. I
have spoken to Unionists and Sinn Feiners

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 123

and find them as reasonable in privsite as
they are unreasonable in public. I am
convinced that an immense relief would be
felt by all Irishmen if a real settlement of
the Irish question could be arrived at, a
compromise which would reconcile them to
living under one government, and would
at the same time enable us to live at peace
with our neighbours. The suggestions
which follow were the result of discussions
between a group of Unionists, National-
ists and Sinn Feiners, and as they found
it possible to agree upon a compromise it
is hoped that the policy which harmonized
their diversities may help to bring about
a similar result in Ireland.

12. I may now turn to consider the
Anglo-Irish problem and to make specific
suggestions for its solution and the char-
acter of the government to be established
in Ireland. The factors are triple.
There is first the desire many centuries

124 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

old of Irish nationalists for self-govern-
ment and the political unity of the peo-
ple: secondly, there is the problem of the
Unionists who require that the self-gov-
erning Ireland they enter shall be friendly
to the imperial connection, and that their
religious and economic interests shall be
safeguarded by real and not merely by
verbal guarantees; and, thirdly, there is
the position of Great Britain which re-
quires, reasonably enough, that any self-
governing dominion set up alongside it
shall be friendly to the empire. In this
matter Great Britain has priority of
claim to consideration, for it has first pro-
posed a solution, the Home Rule Act
which is on the Statute Book, though later
variants of that have been outlined be-
cause of the attitude of Unionists in
North-East Ulster, variants which sug-
gest the partition of Ireland, the elimina-
tion of six counties from the area con-

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 125

trolled by the Irish government. This
Act, or the variants of it offered to Ire-
land, is the British contribution to the
settlement of the Anglo-Irish problem.

13. If it is believed that this scheme,
or any diminutive of it, will settle the
Anglo-Irish problem, British statesmen
and people who trust them are only pre-
paring for themselves bitter disappoint-
ment. I believe that nothing less than
complete self-government has ever been
the object of Irish Nationalism. How-
ever ready certain sections have been to
accept instalments, no Irish political
leader ever had authority to pledge his
countrymen to accept a half measure as
a final settlement of the Irish claim. The
Home Rule Act, if put into operation to-
morrow, even if Ulster were cajoled or
coerced into accepting it, would not be
regarded by Irish Nationalists as a final
settlement, no matter what may be said at

126 The Irkh Home-Rule Convention

Westminster. Nowhere in Ireland has it
been accepted as final. Received without
enthusiasm at first, every year which has
passed since the Bill was introduced has
seen the system of self-government formu-
lated there subjected to more acute and
hostile criticism: and I believe it would
be perfectly accurate to say that its pass-
ing to-morrow would only be the prelimi-
nary for another agitation, made fiercer by
the unrest of the world, where revolutions
and the upsetting of dynasties are in the
air, and where the claims of nationalities
no more ancient than the Irish, like the
Poles, the Finns, and the Arabs, to po-
litical freedom are admitted by the spokes-
men of the great powers, Great Britain,
included, or are already conceded. If
any partition of Ireland is contemplated,
this will intensify the bitterness now ex-
isting. I believe it is to the interest of
Great Britain to settle the Anglo-Irish

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 127

dispute. It has been countered in many
of its policies in America and the Colonies
by the vengeful feelings of Irish exiles.
There may yet come a time when the re-
fusal of the Irish mouse to gnaw at a net
spread about the lion may bring about the
downfall of the empire. It cannot be to
the interest of Great Britain to have on
its flank some millions of people who,
whenever Great Britain is engaged in a
war which threatens its existence, feel a
thrill running through them, as prisoners
do hearing the guns sounding closer of an
army which comes, as they think, to liber-
ate them. Nations denied essential free-
dom ever feel like that when the power
which dominates them is itself in peril.
Who can doubt but for the creation of
Dominion Government in South Africa
that the present war would have found
the Boers thirsty for revenge, and the
Home Government incapable of dealing

128 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

with a distant people who taxed its re-
sources but a few years previous? I have
no doubt that if Ireland was granted the
essential freedom and wholeness in its po-
litical life it desires, its mood also would
be turned. I have no feelings of race
hatred, no exultation in thought of the
downfall of any race ; but as a close ob-
server of the mood of millions in Ireland,
I feel certain that if their claim is not met
they will brood and scheme and wait to
strike a blow; though the dream may be
handed on from them to their children and
their children's children, yet they will
hope, sometime, to give the last vengeful
thrust of enmity at the stricken heart of
the empire.

14. Any measure which is not a settle-
ment, which leaves Ireland still actively
discontented is a waste of effort, and the
sooner English statesmen realize the futil-
ity of half -measures the better. A man

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 129

who claims a debt he believes is due to him,
who is offered half of it in payment, is
not going to be conciliated or be one iota
more friendly, if he knows that the other
is able to pay the full amount and it could
be yielded without detriment to the donor.
Ireland will never be content with a system
of self-government which lessens its repre-
sentation in the Imperial Parliament, and
still retains for that Parliament control
over all-important matters like taxation
and trade policy. Whoever controls
these controls the character of an Irish
civilization, and the demand of Ireland is
not merely for administrative powers, but
the power to fashion its own national pol-
icy, and to build up a civilization of its
own with an economic character in keep-
ing by self-devised and self-checked ef-
forts. To misunderstand this is to sup-
pose there is no such thing as national
idealism, and that a people will accept sub-

130 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

stitutes for the principle of nationality,
whereas the past history of the world and
present circumstance in Europe is evi-
dence that nothing is more unconquerable
and immortal than national feeling, and
that it emerges from centuries of alien
government, and is ready at any time to
flare out in insurrection. At no period in
Irish history was that sentiment more
self-conscious than it is to-day.

15. Nationalist Ireland requires that
the Home Rule Act should be radically
changed to give Ireland unfettered con-
trol over taxation, customs, excise and
trade policy. These powers are at pres-
ent denied, and if the Act were in opera-
tion, Irish people instead of trying to
make the best of it, would begin at once
to use whatever powers they had as a
lever to gain the desired control, and this
would lead to fresh antagonism and a
prolonged struggle between the two coun-

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 131

tries, and in this last effort Irish Na-
tionalists would have the support of that
wealthy class now Unionist in the three
southern provinces, and also in Ulster if
it were included, for they would then de-
sire as much as Nationalists that, while
they live in a self-governing Ireland, the
powers of the Irish Government should be
such as would enable it to build up Irish
industries by an Irish trade policy, and
to impose taxation in a way to suit Irish
conditions. As the object of British con-
sent to Irish self-government is to dispose
of Irish antagonism nothing is to be
gained by passing measures which will not
dispose of it. The practically unanimous
claim of Nationalists as exhibited in the
press in Ireland is for the status and pow-
ers of economic control possessed by the
self-governing dominions. By this alone
will the causes of friction between the two
nations be removed, and a real solidarity

132 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

of interest based on a federal union for
joint defence of the freedom and well-being
of the federated communities be possible,
and I have no doubt it would take place.
I do not believe that hatreds remain for
long among people when the causes which
created them are removed. We have seen
in Europe and in the dominions the con-
tinual reversals of feeling which have taken
place when a sore has been removed. An-
tagonisms are replaced by alliances. It
is mercifully true of human nature that it
prefers to exercise goodwill to hatred when
it can, and the common sense of the best in
Ireland would operate, once there was no
longer interference in our internal affairs,
to allay and keep in order these turbulent
elements which exist in every country, but
which only become a danger to society
when real grievances based on the viola-
tion of true principles of government are
present.

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 133

16. The Union has failed absolutely to
conciliate Ireland. Every generation
there have been rebellions and shootings
and agitations of a vehement and exhaust-
ing character carried continually to the
point of lawlessness before Irish grievances
could be redressed. A form of govern-
ment which requires a succession of rebel-
lions to secure reforms afterwards admit-
ted to be reasonable cannot be a good form
of government. These agitations have in-
flicted grave material and moral injury on
Ireland. The instability of the political
system has prejudiced natural economic
development. Capital will not be invested
in industries where no one is certain about
the future. And because the will of the
people was so passionately set on political
freedom an atmosphere of suspicion gath-
ered around public movements which in
other countries would have been allowed to
carry on their beneficent work unhindered

134 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

by any party. Here they were continu-
ally being forced to declare themselves
either for or against self-government. The
long attack on the movement for the or-
ganization of Irish agriculture was an in-
stance. Men are elected on public bodies
not because they are efficient administra-
tors, but because they can be trusted to
pass resolutions favouring one party or
another. This has led to corruption.
Every conceivable rascality in Ireland has
hid itself behind the great names of nation
or empire. The least and the most harm-
less actions of men engaged in philan-
thropic or educational work or social re-
form are scrutinized and criticized so as
to obstruct good work. If a phrase even
suggests the possibility of a political par-
tiality, or tendency to anything which
might be construed by the most suspicious
scrutineer to indicate a remote desire to
use the work done as an argument either

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 135

for or against self-government, the man
or movement is never allowed to forget it.
Public service becomes intolerable and
often impossible under such conditions,
and while the struggle continues this also
will continue to the moral detriment of the
people. There are only two forms of gov-
ernment possible. A people may either be
governed by force or may govern them-
selves. The dual government of Ireland
by two houses of Parliament, one in Dub-
lin and one in London, contemplated in the
Home Rule Act would be impossible and
irritating. Whatever may be said for two
bodies, each with its spheres of influence
clearly defined, there is nothing to be said
for two legislatures with concurrent pow-
ers of legislation and taxation, and with
members from Ireland retained at West-
minster to provide some kind of demo-
cratic excuse for the exercise of powers of
Irish legislation and taxation by the Par-

136 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

liament at Westminster. The Irish de-
mand is that Great Britain shall throw
upon our shoulders the full weight of re-
sponsibility for the management of our
own affairs, so that we can only blame our-
selves and our political guides and not
Great Britain if we err in our policies.

17. I have stated what I believe to be
sound reasons for the recognition of the
justice of the Irish demand by Great Brit-
ain and I now turn to Ulster, and ask it
whether the unstable condition of things in
Ireland does not affect it even more than
Great Britain. If it persists in its pres-
ent attitude, if it remains out of a self-
governing Ireland, it will not thereby ex-
empt itself from political, social and eco-
nomic trouble. Ireland will regard the six
Ulster counties as the French have re-
garded Alsace-Lorraine, whose hopes of re-
conquest turned Europe into an armed
camp, with the endless suspicions, secret

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 137

treaties, military and naval developments,
the expense of maintaining huge armies,
and finally the inevitable war. So sure as
Ulster remains out, so surely will it become
a focus for nationalist designs. I say
nothing of the injury to the great whole-
sale business carried on from its capital
city throughout the rest of Ireland where
the inevitable and logical answer of mer-
chants in the rest of Ireland to requests
for orders will be : '' You would die rather
than live in the same political house with
us. We will die rather than trade with
you." There will be lamentably and in-
evitably a fiercer tone between North and
South. Everything which happens in one
quarter will be distorted in the other.
Each will lie about the other. The ma-
terials will exist more than before for civil
commotion, and this will be aided by the
powerful minority of Nationalists in the
excluded counties working in conjunction

138 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

with their allies across the border. Noth-
ing was ever gained in life by hatred;
nothing good ever came of it or could
come of it; and the first and most impor-
tant of all the commandments of the spirit
that there should be brotherhood between
men will be deliberately broken to the ruin
of the spiritual life of Ireland.

18. So far from Irish Nationalists wish-
ing to oppress Ulster, I believe that there
is hardly any demand which could be made,
even involving democratic injustice to
themselves, which would not willingly be
granted if their Ulster compatriots would
fling their lot in with the rest of Ireland
and heal the eternal sore. I ask Ulster
what is there that they could not do as
efficiently in an Ireland with the status and
economic power of a self-governing domin-
ion as they do at present ? Could they not
build their ships and sell them, manufac-
ture and export their linens? What do

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 139

they mean when thej say Ulster industries
would be taxed? I cannot imagine any
Irish taxation which their wildest dreams
imagined so heavy as the taxation which
they will endure as part of the United
Kingdom in future. They will be impli-
cated in all the revolutionary legislation
made inevitable in Great Britain by the re-
coil on society of the munition workers and
disbanded conscripts. Ireland, which
luckily for itself, has the majority of its
population economically independent as
workers on the land, and which, in the de-
velopment of agriculture now made nec-
essary as a result of changes in naval war-
fare, will be able to absorb without much
trouble its returning workers, Ireland will
be much quieter, less revolutionary and
less expensive to govern. I ask what rea-
son is there to suppose that taxation in a
self-governing Ireland would be greater
than in Great Britain after the war, or in

140 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

what way Ulster industries could be sin-
gled out, or for what evil purpose by an
Irish Parliament? It would be only too
anxious rather to develop still further the
one great industrial centre in Ireland ; and
would, it is my firm conviction, allow the
representatives of Ulster practically to
dictate the industrial policy of Ireland.
Has there ever at any time been the
slightest opposition by any Irish Nation-
alist to proposals made by Ulster indus-
trialists which would lend colour to such a
suspicion? Personally, I think that Ul-
ster without safeguards of any kind might
trust its fellow-countrymen; the weight,
the intelligence, the vigour of character
of Ulster people in any case would enable
them to dominate Ireland economically.

19. But I do not for a moment say that
Ulster is not justified in demanding safe-
guards. Its leader, speaking at West-
minster during one of the debates on the

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 141

Home Rule Bill, said scornfully, " We do
not fear oppressive legislation. We know
in fact there would be none. What we do
fear is oppressive administration." That
I translate to mean that Ulster fears that
the policy of the spoils to the victors would
be adopted, and that jobbery in Nation-
alist and Catholic interests would be ram-
pant. There are as many honest Nation-
alists and Catholics who would object to
this as there are Protestant Unionists, and
they would readily accept as part of any
settlement the proposal that all posts
which can rightly be filled by competitive
examination shall only be filled after ex-
amination by Irish Civil Service Commis-
sioners, and that this should include all
posts paid for out of public funds whether
directly under the Irish Government or
under County Councils, Urban Councils,
Corporations, or Boards of Guardians.
Further, they would allow the Ulster

142 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

Counties through their members a veto on
any important administrative position
where the area of the official's operation
was largely confined to North-East Ul-
ster, if such posts were of a character
which could not rightly be filled after ex-
amination and must needs be a government
appointment. I have heard the suspicion
expressed that Gaelic might be made a sub-
ject compulsory on all candidates, and
that this would prejudice the chances of
Ulster candidates desirous of entering the
Civil Service. Nationalist opinion would
readily agree that, if marks were given for
Gaelic, an alternative language, such as
French or German, should be allowed the
candidate as a matter of choice and the
marks given be of equal value. By such
concession jobbery would be made impos-
sible. The corruption and bribery now
prevalent in local government would be a
thing of the past. Nationalists and Un-

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 143

ionists alike would be assured of honest
administration and that merit and effi-
ciency, not membership of some sectarian
or political association, would lead to pub-
lic service.

20. If that would not be regarded as
adequate protection, Nationalists are
ready to consider with friendly minds any
other safeguards proposed either by Ul-
ster or Southern Unionists, though in my
opinion the less there are formal and legal
acknowledgments of differences the better,
for it is desirable that Protestant and
Catholic, Unionist and Nationalist, should
meet and redivide along other lines than
those of religion or past party politics,
and it is obvious that the raising of artifi-
cial barriers might perpetuate the present
lines of division. A real settlement is im-
possible without the inclusion of the whole
province in the Irish State, and apart from
the passionate sentiment existing in Na-

144 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

tionalist Ireland for the unity of the whole
country there are strong economic bonds
between Ulster and the three provinces.
Further, the exclusion of all or a large
part of Ulster would make the excluded
part too predominantly industrial and the
rest of Ireland too exclusively agricul-
tural, tending to prevent that right bal-
ance between rural and urban industry
which all nations should aim at and which
makes for a varied intellectual life, social
and political wisdom and a healthy na-
tional being. Though for the sake of
obliteration of past differences I would
prefer as little building by legislation of
fences isolating one section of the commu-
nity from another, still I am certain that
if Ulster, as the price of coming into a self-
governing Ireland, demanded some appli-
cation of the Swiss Cantonal system to it-
self which would give it control over local
administration, it could have it ; or, again

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 145

it could be conceded the powers of local
control vested in the provincial govern-
ments in Canada, where the provincial as-
semblies have exclusive power to legislate
for themselves in respect of local works,
municipal institutions, licences, and ad-
ministration of justice in the province.
Further, subject to certain provisions pro-
tecting the interests of different religious
bodies, the provincial assemblies have the
exclusive power to make laws upon educa-
tion. Would not this give Ulster all the
guarantees for civil and religious liberty it
requires? What arguments of theirs,
what fears have they expressed, which
would not be met by such control over
local administration? I would prefer
that the mind of Ulster should argue its
points with the whole of Ireland and press
its ideals upon it without reservation of
its wisdom for itself. But doubtless if
Ulster accepted this proposal it would

146 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

benefit the rest of Ireland by the model it
would set of efficient administration: and
it would, I have no doubt, insert in its
Provincial constitution all the safeguards
for minorities there which they would ask
should be inserted in any Irish constitu-
tion to protect the interest of their co-
religionists in that part of Ireland where
they are in a minority.

21. I can deal only with fundamentals
in this memorandum because it is upon
fundamentals there are differences of
thinking. Once these are settled, it would
be comparatively easy to devise the neces-
sary clauses in an Irish constitution, giv-
ing safeguards to England for the due
payment of the advances under the Land
Acts, and the principles upon which an
Irish contribution should be made to the
empire for naval and military purposes.
It was suggested by Mr. Lionel Curtis in
his Problems of the Commonwealth, that

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 147

assessors might be appointed by the do-
minions to fix the fair taxable capacity
of each for this purpose. It will be ob-
served that while I have claimed for Ire-
land the status of a dominion, I have re-
ferred solely hitherto to the powers of
control over trade policy, customs, excise,
taxation and legislation possessed by the
dominions, and have not claimed for Ire-
land the right to have an army or a navy
of its own. I recognize that the proxim-
ity of the two islands makes it desirable
to consolidate the naval power under the
control of the Admiralty. The regular
army should remain in the same way un-
der the War Office which would have the
power of recruiting in Ireland. The Irish
Parliament would, I have no doubt, be will-
ing to raise at its own expense under an
Irish Territorial Council a territorial
force similar to that of England but not
removable from Ireland. Military con-

148 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

scription could never be permitted except
bj act of the Irish Parliament. It would
be a denial of the first principle of na-
tionality if the power of conscripting the
citizens of the country lay not in the hands
of the National Parliament but was exer-
cised by another nation.

S2. While a self-governing Ireland
would contribute money to the defence of
the federated empire, it would not be
content that that money should be spent
on dockyards, arsenals, camps, har-
bours, naval stations, ship-building and
supplies in Great Britain to the almost
complete neglect of Ireland as at present.
A large contribution for such purposes
spent outside Ireland would be an eco-
nomic drain if not balanced by counter ex-
penditure here. This might be effected by
the training of a portion of the navy and
army and the Irish regiments of the regu-
lar army in Ireland and their equipment,

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 149

clothing, supplies, munitions and rations,
being obtained through an Irish depart-
ment. Naval dockyards should be con-
structed here and a proportion of ships
built in them. Just as surely as there
must be a balance between the imports and
exports of a country, so must there be a
balance between the revenue raised in a
nation and the public expenditure on that
nation. Irish economic depression after
the Act of Union was due in large meas-
ure to absentee landlordism and the ex-
penditure of Irish revenue outside Ireland
with no proportionate return. This must
not be expected to continue against Irish
interests. Ireland, granted the freedom it
desires, would be willing to defend its free-
dom and the freedom of other dominions
in the commonwealth of nations it belonged
to, but it is not willing to allow millions to
be raised in Ireland and spent outside Ire-
land. If three or five millions are raised

150 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

in Ireland for imperial purposes and spent
in Great Britain, it simply means that the
vast employment of labour necessitated
takes place outside Ireland: whereas if
spent here, it would mean the employment
of many thousands of men, the support of
their families, and in the economic chain
would follow the support of those who
cater for them in food, clothing, housing,
etc. Even with the best will in the world,
to do its share towards its defence of the
freedom it had attained, Ireland could not
permit such an economic drain on its re-
sources. No country could approve of a
policy which in its application means the
emigration of thousands of its people
every year while it continued.

23. I believe even if there were no his-
torical basis for Irish nationalism that
such claims as I have stated would have
become inevitable, because the tendency of
humanity as it develops intellectually and

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 151

spiritually is to desire more and more free-
dom, and to substitute more and more an
internal law for external law or gov-
ernment, and that the solidarity of empires
or nations will depend not so much upon
the close texture of their political organi-
zation or the uniformity of mind so en-
gendered as upon the freedom allowed and
the delight people feel in that freedom.
The more educated a man is the more it is
hateful to him to be constrained and the
more Impossible does it become for central
governments to provide by regulation for
the Infinite variety of desires and cultural
developments which spring up everywhere
and are in themselves laudable, and In no
way endanger the state. A recognition of
this has already led to much decentraliza-
tion In Great Britain Itself. And if the
claim for more power in the administration
of local affairs was so strongly felt In a
homogeneous country like Great Britain

15^ The Irish Home-Rule Convention

that, through its county council system,
people in districts like Kent or Essex have
been permitted control over education and
the purchase of land, and the distribu-
tion of it to small holders, how much more
passionately must this desire for self-con-
trol be felt in Ireland where people have a
different national character which has sur-
vived all the educational experiments to
change them into the likeness of their
neighbours. The battle which is going on
in the world has been stated to be a spirit-
ual conflict between those who desire
greater freedom for the individual and
think that the state exists to preserve that
freedom, and those who believe in the pre-
dominance of the state and the complete
subjection of the individual to it and the
moulding of the individual mind in its im-
age. This has been stated, and if the first
view is a declaration of ideals sincerely
held by Great Britain, it would mean the

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 153

granting to Ireland, a country which has
expressed its wishes by vaster majorities
than were ever polled in any other country
for political changes, the satisfaction of
its desires.

S4. The acceptance of the proposals
here made would mean sacrifices for the
two extremes in Ireland, and neither party
has as yet made any real sacrifice to meet
the other,- but each has gone on its own
way. I urge upon them that if the sug-
gestions made here were accepted, both
would obtain substantially what they de-
sire, the Ulster Unionists, that safety for
their interests and provision for Ireland's
unity with the commonwealth of do-
minions inside the empire; the Nation-
alists, that power they desire to create
an Irish civilization by self-devised and
self-checked efforts. The brotherhood of
dominions of which they would form one
would be inspired as much by the fresh

154 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

life and wide democratic outlook of
Australia, New Zealand, South Africa
and Canada, as by the hoarier polit-
ical wisdom of Great Britain; and mili-
tary, naval, foreign and colonial policy
must in the future be devised by the rep-
resentatives of those dominions sitting in
council together with the representatives
of Great Britain. Does not that indicate
a different form of imperialism from that
they hold in no friendly memory? It
would not be imperialism in the ancient
sense but a federal union of independent
nations to protect national liberties, which
might draw into its union other peoples
hitherto unconnected with it, and so beget
a league of nations to make a common in-
ternational law prevail. The allegiance
would be to common principles which
mankind desire and would not permit
the dominance of any one race. We
have not only to be good Irishmen

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 155

but good citizens of the world, and one
is as important as the other, for earth
is more and more forcing on its children a
recognition of their fundamental unity,
and that all rise and fall and suffer to-
gether, and that none can escape the infec-
tion from their common humanity. If
these ideas emerge from the world conflict
and are accepted as world morality, it will
be some compensation for the anguish of
learning the lesson. We in Ireland like
the rest of the world must rise above our-
selves and our differences if we are to man-
ifest the genius which is in us, and play a
noble part in world history.

NOTE

I was asked to put into shape for pub-
lication ideas and suggestions for an Irish
settlement which had been discussed among
a group whose members represented all ex-
tremes in Irish opinion. The compromise
arrived at was embodied in documents writ-
ten by members of the group privately cir-
culated, criticized and again amended. I
make special acknowledgments to Colonel
Maurice Moore, Mr. James G. Douglas,
Mr. Edward E. Lysaght, Mr. Joseph
Johnston, F.T.C.D., Mr. Alec Wilson and
Mr. Diarmid Coffey. For the spirit,
method of presentation and general argu-
ments used, I alone am responsible. And
if any are offended at what I have said, I
am to be blamed, not my fellow- workers.

A. E.
156

ADDENDUM

This pamphlet is a reprint of articles
which appeared in the Irish Times on the
26th, 28th and 29th of May. The letters
which follow appeared in the same paper on
the SI St of May.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE IRISH TIMES

Sir — In an attempt to discover what
measure of agreement to-day was possible be-
tween the political antagonists of yesterday,
the attention of a few dozen Irish men and
women was drawn to the articles by A. E.
which have appeared in your columns, and
the following statement was signed by those
whose names are appended beneath it: —

** We, the undersigned, having read
Thoughts for a Convention by A. E. with-
out endorsing all his statements, express our
general agreement with his conclusions and
157

158 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

with the argument by which these are
reached/'

The signatories include : —

His Grace the Most Rev. Dr. Walsh, Arch-
bishop of Dublin.

The Lord Monteagle, K.P.

Sir John Griffith, M.A.I., M. Inst. C. E.

Sir Nugent Everard.

Sir Algernon Coote, Bt.

Sir J. R. O'Connell, LL.D.

Sir Henry Grattan Bellew, Bt.

Lady Gregory.

Mrs. J. R. Green.

Douglas Hyde, LL.D., D.Litt., Professor
Irish National University.

Edmund Curtis, M.A., Professor Oratory,
History and English Literature, Dublin
University.

T. B. Rudmose Brown, M.A., Professor of
Romance Languages, University of Dublin.

Dermod O'Brien, President Royal Hibernian
Academy.

Thomas E. Gordon, M.B., F.R.C.S.I.

Oliver Gogarty, F.R.C.S.I.

Joseph T. Wigham, M.D.

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 159

Frank C. Purser, M.D.
Robert J. Rowlette, M.D.
Edward Martyn.
George Gavan Duffy.
F. J. O'Connor.
John Mackie, F.C.A.
John O'Neill.
John McCann.
J. Hubbard Clarke, J.P.
Thomas Butler.
John Douglas.
E. A. Stopford.
James MacNeill.

Does not this suggest that agreement might
also be possible in an Irish Convention if, by
some miracle, Irishmen of various parties
would step out of their well-fenced enclosures
to take counsel in common ? — Yours, etc.,
James G. Douglas.

Dublin, May SOth, 1917.

160 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

TO THE EDITOR OP THE IRISH TIMES

Sir — May I express the hope that
" A. E.'s '* Thoughts for a Convention, the
last instalment of which you published yes-
terday, and which I am informed will reap-
pear as a pamphlet this week, will be
widely read? I am not thinking of his con-
clusions, ably reasoned as they are, but of
the tone and temper in which he handles the
most explosive material in the whole maga-
zine of Irish controversy. It is refreshing
to listen to one who not only has the courage
of his convictions, but can also say honestly
that the convictions are his own and not some-
body else's.

*' A. E." strikes a note which may go far
to make the Convention the success the vast
majority of Irishmen hardly dare to hope
that it will be. If he speaks only for him-
self, " More shame for his generation " will
surely be the verdict of history.
Yours, etc.,

Horace Plunkett.

The Plunkett House, Dublin,
May 30th, 1917.

A DEFENCE OF THE CONVENTION

A Speech delivered at Dundalk
June 25, 1917

By Seb Horace Plunkett

** Sinn Fein, Labour and Mr. O'Brien's
League now stand out. But the Bishops
have accepted Mr. Lloyd George's invitation,
and a noble and statesmanlike speech by Sir
Horace Plunkett — his first on the political
platform for fifteen years — in favour of the
Convention should have an eiFect."

— The New Statesman.

A DEFENCE OF THE CONVENTION

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen^

THIS is the first time in over fifteen
years that I have stood on a plat-
form which could be called political, and I
daresay there are many others here who
leave party politics severely alone. But
to-day Ireland, in common with many an-
other country, is passing through a crisis
unprecedented in its history, and the call
has come for men of no party to work to-
gether with men of all parties in the field
of politics. For, whether we wish it or
not, changes are about to be made in our
system of government which must pro-
foundly affect us all. These changes are
to be discussed in a National Convention,

which the leader of over four-fifths of our
163

164« The Irish Home-Rule Convention

Parliamentary representatives has himself
declared should be composed mainly of
non-partisan Irishmen. To these latter,
therefore, I. desire chiefly to speak, as one
of them, upon our political duty at this
time.

THE CONVENTION AND ITS CRITICS

A great majority of the Irish people
have already decided that an attempt
should be made at once in Ireland by Irish-
men to come to some agreement, and have
welcomed the plan offered for our accept-
ance by the Government. But voices are
heard denying that the Convention gives
us any real opportunity of attaining the
end in view. So strongly is this felt that
a body of opinion, of unknown numerical
strength but of imquestioned sincerity
and of great determination, is urging
upon us a wholly dilBPerent plan. Ireland
is to appear before the Peace Conference

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 165

and to demand that her government shall
be brought into accord with the principles
for which the Allies profess to be fighting.
These men who reject, and others who
accept, the Convention make two objec-
tions to it: they say, first, that it is not
in any true sense representative, and sec-
ondly, that it has no power to get legisla-
tive effect given to its decision, no matter
by how large a majority its wishes may be
declared. The best contribution I can
make to your deliberations will be to ex-
amine, briefly, the alternative which has
been suggested, to answer, as far as I can,
the two damaging criticisms of the Con-
vention itself, and then to give my reason
for holding that we should accept the offer
of the Government.

IREIiAND AT THE PEACE CONFEEENCE

It would not be fair to criticize the
Peace Conference proposal in its details.

166 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

because the time has not come to work
these out ; but it is quite necessary to dis-
cuss the plan in its broad outlines, since
it is advocated as a better way than that
which most of us wish to take. I submit,
then, that if the Conference were to meet
to-morrow, Ireland could not be repre-
sented at it, for the obvious reason that
there would be no agreement as to who
were to be her plenipotentiaries. But, if
this difficulty were surmounted — and in
an atmosphere which makes it almost im-
possible to find an Irish Chairman for our
Convention it is a big " if " — what is it
that our plenipotentiaries are going to ask
of the assembled representatives of the
war-worn nations ? They will have to ad-
mit that the people of Ireland are not
unanimous as to the kind of government
they require. Some prefer the status quo;
others desire devolution within the United
Kingdom; a much larger section favour

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 167

government within the British Common-
wealth of self-governing nations, but dif-
fer considerably as to the precise position
Ireland should occupy in it; and yet an-
other group desire to make their country
an independent sovereign State. Worse
still, there is the Ulster difficulty, which
three short years ago brought us to the
verge of civil war. What, again, I ask,
would our plenipotentiaries at the peace
conference propose, assuming — and it is
a large assumption — that the Conference
admitted them to its councils and did not
tell them to try first a conference at
home? Is it likely that the representa-
tives of the nations, having to discover the
means to be taken to prevent fur'ther
attempts to disturb the world's peace and
the practicable limitations of militarism
and navalism, having to decide vast ques-
tions of restitution and reparation, hav-
ing to allay the fiercest racial antagonisms

168 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

of the Near East — to mention but a few
of their problems — will welcome the task
of settling the Irish question not only in
its old and well-understood Anglo-Irish
significance, but in its later development
of Irish disagreement? How many minor-
ities is a peace conference to be asked to
coerce, to say nothing of the coercion of
Great Britain which any settlement agree-
able to the advocates of this plan would
involve? I cannot help feeling that this
method of settlement, which, no doubt, will
appeal to the imagination and stir the
pride of many Irishmen, would provoke
more violent opposition than any that has
yet been proposed. So let us turn to the
Convention, and see whether that bird in
the hand does not offer a better solution
than this doubtful bird in a distant bush.

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 169

THE ALLEGED UNREPRESENTATIVE CHARAC-'
TER OF THE CONVENTION

I come now to the main criticism of the
Convention — its constitution. It is not
ideally representative — that may be ad-
mitted at once. It is widely felt that the
only satisfactory plan would be to let the
democracy choose its delegates as it
chooses its Parliamentary representatives.
But there are several objections to any
popular election just now. The Parlia-
mentary register is out of date, and it
would take a long time to revise it. The
country is in a state of considerable un-
rest, which we all hope the Convention will
allay. In the circumstances, if we were
to have a hundred fights over the selection
of the delegates, the birthpangs of the
Convention might be fatal to the spirit
in which it can alone succeed. There is
a very strongly felt objection to having

ITO The Irish Home-Rule Convention

any election while a large number of Irish-
men are fighting abroad. No body of citi-
zens has a better right to be heard than
those soldiers, who, apart from other
claims, are very likely to have gained some
wide points of view. I fully realize that
the Sinn Fein group have a grievance in
the large representation of local govern-
ment bodies elected before they gained
their present numerical strength ; but it is
notorious that the great bulk of that party
— which rose phoenix-like out of the ashes
of the rebellion — consists of recent con-
verts. Has their doctrine failed to com-
mend itself ta a full proportion of the
chairman o»f county and county-borough
councils and to the urban district nominees
who will be delegates under the Govern-
ment's plan ? Theirs is not the only griev-
ance. The Nationalists in the six Ulster
counties claiming exclusion are also un-
represented, and other bodies make similar

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 171

complaints. Of all these I would ask:
does the basis of representation very much
matter? Surely the equal balance of par-
ties is far less important than a com-
prehensive representation of Irish inter-
ests, and this is more easily reached by
nomination than by election. As the Con-
vention, which, as many have pointed out,
would be more properly called a Confer-
ence, is constituted, every considerable sec-
tion of Irishmen should find in it some com-
petent advocate of its views. One essen-
tial point is that, if the Convention agrees
upon a scheme which does not clearly meet
with popular favour, it will unquestion-
ably be submitted by referendum or other-
wise for popular approval. Lastly, con-
sider the constructive work the Conven-
tion has to do. While every delegate will
be competent to criticize its report, those
who will have the necessary special knowl-
edge for drafting a bill will be exceeding

172 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

few. One Alexander Hamilton would do
the whole job. No one who knows the way
such work has to be done would be sur-
prised either by a good report from a bad
Convention or a bad report from a good
Convention.

THE CASE FOR AN ALL-IRELAND SUPPORT

The conclusion, then, that I reach is
that, in times of great difficulty, the Gov-
ernment have made an honest attempt to
enable us to settle the political question
for ourselves. They have striven to bring
together a body of Irishmen sufficiently
representing the main currents of Irish
opinion to bespeak favourable considera-
tion for decisions as to which they are
unanimous, and to make a strong case for
those at which they arrive by a substantial
majority. It has been suggested, I know,
that it is nothing more than a clever trick
to put Ireland in the wrong by proving

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 173

to the world that, in the words of Lord
Dufferin's joke at our expense, " the Irish
don't know what they want, and won't be
happy till they get it." The suggestion
comes from those who foster that undying
hatred of England which, if it does not
exclude, most assuredly renders barren
their love for Ireland. To such I would
say the England of the war is wholly un-
like any England that has ever been — as
unlike as is the Lloyd George Government
from any of its predecessors. It is domi-
nated by labour. Little time has the Brit-
ish democracy just now to think of Ire-
land, but I am convinced it wants to do
justly by Ireland for its own sake, for
Ireland's sake, and out of regard to the
opinion of its Allies, especially America
and Russia. But, if this view cannot be
taken by those I am now addressing, I have
another answer. If they really think
England is an insidious foe, seeking our de-

174 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

struction, why, in the name of common
sense, should they fall into the trap which
they plainly see when, by simply taking
counsel together, the Irish have it in their
power to hoist the enemy with his own
petard? What, however, concerns us
here is that the Convention will meet, and
we wish it Godspeed. Far the best serv-
ice this meeting can do is to appeal to
those Irishmen who have determined to re-
main aloof to reconsider their decision.

AN APPEAL TO THOSE WHO HAVE REFUSED
^ CO-OPERATION

To those of our countrymen upon whose
willingness to make some sacrifice of in-
dividual opinions, the full success of the
Convention will depend, I beg leave to ad-
dress a few friendly words. Of all the
abstentions, that of Mr. William O'Brien
is to me the most pathetic. When I ac-
cepted the invitation to come here to-day

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 175

and plead for unity, I had hoped that his
mantle would fall upon me, but never
dreamed that he would himself cast it off.
No man has more consistently stood for
the coming together of Irishmen to try
and compose their differences, and at least,
I looked to him to tell us to make the best
of a bad Convention. I can well believe in
the " poignant personal sorrow " with
which he made his great refusal, and I
hope he will see in this meeting a direct ap-
peal to him to reconsider it. He will
thus render the greatest service of a life
devoted to Ireland.

The abstention of the Sinn Femers is, in
a sense, more regrettable, because they are
more numerous. In some respects, theirs
is the most interesting political party in
Irish history. Most other parties depend
for their strength upon organization, and
this is the weakness of Svnn Fein, Its
strength is in its idealism, the central idea

176 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

being the concentration of all Irish
thought and action upon exclusively Irish
service. That idea, in some of its impli-
cations, leads, unhappily, to extreme
courses, but none will question the nobility
of an aspiration for which many fine young
Irishmen have laid down their lives. But
around this central idea seethes every kind
of discontent, and it seems to me that the
one thing the cool-headed leaders should
see their party requires at the moment —
indeed, the condition precedent of the real-
ization of any of its aims — is to find
its place in the national life. This can
only be done by meeting face to face, un-
der conditions favourable to frank dis-
cussion, every section of the community
to which, in common with every other po-
litical party, it aspires to commend its
policy. They, I should have thought,
would see that the one gleam of hope
which has in modern times brightened the

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 177

political prospect in Ireland is the recog-
nition by England that the settlement of
the Irish question must come from Ire-
land — from ourselves alone. They, of
all Irishmen, should not lightly reject a
Convention which, whatever its defects, has
at least the merit of being Irish.

I regret, too, more than I can say, the
abstention of labour. Irish policies, ow-
ing, no doubt, to the domination of the
land question, have notably disregarded
the workers of both town and country. In
a constitutional Convention the voice of
those who toil and spin, .must be heard.
Three capable and authorized spokesmen
would do as well as a hundred. All that
is wanted is that a watching l>rief should
be held for labour.

178 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

Ireland's difficulty, ulster's
opportunity

strange as it may seem, the solvent for
all these discords lies just across the bor-
ders to the North. So here. North of the
Boyne, and in sight of the Ulster hills, may
we not appeal to those Unionists who have
earned our respect by agreeing to meet
us, to help the cause of peace and good-
will in Ireland by listening with an open
mind to any fresh arguments which may
be offered to them on this first opportu-
nity for a free and unfettered inter-
change of view upon the Irish question?
Their position in Ireland is to the foreign
observer the most anomalous. On the
one hand, they appear as a minority
claiming to dictate to the majority. I
dismiss that charge. They do not want
to interfere with us. They have their own
version of Sinn Fein — they, too, want to

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 179

be left to themselves alone. On the other
hand, they claim, and they rightly claim,
that they have to their credit certain solid
achievements, the result of certain solid
qualities. There is not a thinking Irish-
man but admits the achievements and re-
gards the qualities as absolutely indispen-
sable to any prosperous and progressive
Ireland in the future. But of all the mis-
understandings which curse our unhappy
country, the worst is the conviction among
these Ulstermen that we of the South and
West bear them no good will, and that we
so little understand their industrial and
commercial activities, that, even with the
best intentions in the world, we should in-
evitably embark upon schemes of legisla-
tion and practise methods of administra-
tion fatal to their interests. Personally, I
think we have neglected the duty of trying
to allay — much that we have done has
tended to confirm — these fears.

180 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

For this reason, when the Ulster crisis
was most acute, I elaborated a plan for
the temporary inclusion of Ulster in an
all-Ireland government for an experi-
mental period, with the right guaranteed
by all parties to withdraw if, after a fair
trial, the plan did not work, or at any
time, if a competent impartial tribunal de-
cided that serious harm was being done
to Ulster interests. I thought it most
auspicious that Nationalist Ireland seemed
willing to accept the compromise, and that
fact makes me believe that Ulster Union-
ists will be astonished at the reception
they will get in the Convention. There
they will find an honest and unanimous
desire not to coerce, but to win, them.
All the alternative schemes for the future
government of Ireland will be discussed in
turn, and discussed in their severely prac-
tical, as well as in their sentimental, as-
pects. Unless I am greatly mistaken, par-

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 181

tition in the last analysis may prove to
be administratively and financially as dis-
tasteful to the North-East as it is for
other reasons to the rest of Ireland. And
in the course of these practical discussions
I confidently believe that a better under-
standing of the South by the North will
inevitably result. It will be seen that our
hearts and minds are shown at their worst
in a public life dominated by the grievance
of its unsettled Question. Other men and
other methods will prevail in a self-govern-
ing Ireland if only Ulster will play its
part.

The real feeling of Southern Ireland to
the Northern Proviuce is well expressed
in the words of a song which I remember
was very popular some forty years ago,
called " Strangers Yet." Two whom God
had joined together were unnaturally kept
apart. One asks:

182 The Irish Home-Rule Convention

" Must it ever more be thus —
Spirits still impervious ?
Can we never fairly stand
Soul to soul, as hand in hand?
Are the bounds eternal set
To retain us strangers yet? **

If at the Convention Ulster answers
these questions as the whole world hopes
she will, she will have saved the country at
a critical moment, and done herself lasting
honour which Ireland will never forget.
The Unionists in three predominantly Na-
tionalist counties of Ulster throughout the
South and West, the Nationalists in the
six Ulster Unionist counties, and to my
personal knowledge, the people of the
United States, would all be relieved of not
unwarranted misgivings. To the Sinn
Feiners a shining example would be set,
while the Nationalist Party, who, at any
rate, have repudiated the idea of coercing
Ulster, would feel that those strong, de-

The Irish Home-Rule Convention 183

termined men had bent down to place a
wreath on the grave of Willie Redmond,
who went over the top with a United Ire-
land as his heart's desire.

THE END

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The insurrection in Dublin was the culmination of the
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social reform, and in political thought.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. The Forces at Work.

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III. Poetry of the Renascence.

IV. The Drama.

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