Chapter VIII: The Convention and the End (3)

Against this, and prompting us to acceptance, was the view very strongly held by Redmond, that Government urgently needed a settlement for the sake of the war, and would use to the utmost any leverage which helped them to this end. An agreement with Lord Midleton would mean a Home Rule proposal proceeding from a leading Unionist statesman who spoke for the interest in Ireland, which, if any, had reason to fear Nationalist government. This would mean necessarily a profound change in the attitude of the House of Lords and of all those social influences whose power we had felt so painfully. Government could undoubtedly, if it chose, carry a measure giving effect to this compact.

Further, weighing greatly with the instincts of the rank and file was the motive which prompted Irish Nationalists to welcome the advance made by those whom Lord Midleton represented. The Southern Unionists were the old landowning and professional class, friendly in all ways of intercourse, but politically severed and sundered from the mass of the population. Now, they came forward with an offer to help in attaining our desire--quite frankly, against their own declared conviction that the Union was the best plan, but with an equally frank recognition that the majority was the majority and was honest in its intent. The personality of the men reinforced the effect of this: Lord Oranmore, for instance, whom most of them had only known by anti-Home Rule speeches in the House of Lords, revealed himself as the friendliest of Irishmen, with the Irish love for a witty phrase.

This temperamental attitude was of help to Lord Midleton when on December 18th he expounded the position of himself and his friends in a very powerful argument, the more persuasive because the good will in his audience softened his habitual touch of contentiousness. It had seemed to them, he said, that both in the Nationalist and Northern Unionist camp there was a tendency to consider dispositions out of doors and to conciliate certain antagonisms without considering whether they excited others. He and his friends had determined to fix their minds solely on the Convention itself, and to pursue the purpose for which they were summoned of endeavouring after agreement within that body. They were Unionists; but they had asked themselves what could be removed from the present system without disturbing the essence of Union; and in that effort they would go to the extremest limit in their power, without thought of conciliating opinions outside, and without any attempt to bargain.

On one point only he indicated that their scheme was tentative. Defence was by consent of all left to the Imperial Parliament. This implied, he held, an adequate contribution, and the yield of customs to be collected by the Imperial Parliament seemed roughly to meet the case, for the period of the war. But this was not absolutely a hard-and-fast proposal. In any case, after the war, the amount should be the subject of inquiry by a joint commission.

Apart from this, the offer was their last word. It conceded to Ireland the control of all purely Irish services. This included the fixation of excise, because excise on commodities produced in Ireland did not touch the treaty-making power. Customs touched that power, and therefore customs, like defence, must be left to the Imperial Parliament. But, he argued, Irish Nationalists were not asked to give up anything which had been conceded to them by any previous Home Rule proposal.

To all Unionists he said: These proposals keep the power of the Crown over all Imperial services undiminished; they keep representation at Westminster--a corollary from leaving the Imperial Parliament powers over Irish taxation; and by accepting the suggestions already agreed to, they give a generous representation to Unionists in an Irish Parliament. This special representation of minorities was, he thought, sufficient to give a guarantee of "sane legislation" while it lasted; and he suggested that the period should be fifteen years. These concessions, in his opinion, sufficiently protected Southern Unionists. To Ulster he said, "We share every danger threatening you--we have many dangers you need not fear. Yet, we have no sinister anticipations. Are you still determined to stand out?"

On the other hand, when so much of the full demand was conceded, were Nationalists insistent, he asked, on demanding what they had never asked in the discussions upon any Home Rule Bill? Nationalist leaders had now the chance of leading a combination of all sane elements in the landowning and land-cultivating classes. No Irish leader had ever before been able to present such an appeal to Unionist opinion as would come from the man who represented a Convention Party.

It was a speech which Redmond, if present, must have replied to, and could not have replied to without indicating profound sympathy--for he was in agreement with its main lines; and his expression of opinion upon it must have influenced strongly the views of the rank and file at the moment when they were most open to suggestion.

In his absence, men's minds were greatly affected by the fear that if we adopted these proposals, our decision would be exposed to attack from a combination of three forces--Sinn Féin, which would at least officially condemn anything less than complete separation, and would furiously assail a proposal that denied full taxing powers; the Roman Catholic Church, which would take its lead from Bishop O'Donnell, who set out in an able memorandum the reasons why Ireland must have full control of taxation; and finally, the powerful newspaper whose proprietor, Mr. Murphy, at once gave signs of his hostility by putting on the paper an amendment to Lord Midleton's resolution which amounted to a direct negative.

The reassembly of the Convention was fixed for Wednesday, January 2nd. Redmond came to Dublin on the Monday. He told me that he was inclined to move that while we thanked Lord Midleton for his substantial contribution towards our purpose, we could not accept his proposal, unless it opened the way to a settlement. What he meant by this was not merely that if Ulster agreed, we should accept; for that would certainly open the way. But he had also in his mind the possibility of a guarantee from Government that an arrangement come to, as this might be, by four-fifths of the Convention, and repudiated only by the pledge-bound Ulster block, would be regarded as substantial agreement, and taken as a basis for legislation. In that case, also, the way would be open; but he had no written assurance of such an understanding, though I gathered that he was urging the Government to give it. We were, however, told on good authority in these days that if the Southern Unionists' proposal was accepted by the Nationalists and other elements outside of Ulster, the Prime Minister would use his whole influence with his colleagues to secure acceptance of the compact and immediate legislation upon it. This would mean, we were also assured, that the whole thing would be done before Easter.

On January 2nd the resumed debate for the first time brought the Convention face to face with concrete proposals for a settlement. In tone and in substance it would have done credit to any Parliament that ever sat. I shall not try to summarize the arguments, but simply to note certain outstanding facts.

Lord Midleton modified his original proposal that collection of customs should be an Imperial service throughout. He agreed that collection might be done by the Irish Civil Service. Moreover, he admitted that Ireland must have full means of checking the account for these taxes, great part of which must necessarily be collected at English ports, since tea, tobacco and the other dutiable articles were seldom shipped direct to Ireland.

But he made it plain that the essential of his proposal was the maintenance of a common customs system, leaving the fixation of customs to the Imperial Parliament for Great Britain and Ireland. If this was denied, as it would be by the acceptance of Mr. Murphy's amendment, all Unionists would be driven once more into the same lobby; all chance of uniting elements heretofore divided would disappear.

This was the fact against which we were brought up. Insistence on the full Nationalist demand as it had been outlined in the Convention meant the refusal of a new and powerful alliance which now offered itself, and the destruction of anything which could be called an agreement.

In the close, Lord Midleton reinforced his appeal by a solid material argument. The sub-committee presided over by Lord MacDonnell had reached unanimous conclusions embodying proposals for the completion of land purchase within a very brief period. Landlords, agents, tenants, representatives for Ulster as well as from the South and West, were parties to this plan. Lord Midleton now looked back on the past as one who had been in the fight since Mr. Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill. Every fresh settlement had been wrecked, he said, by standing for the last shred of the demand. In 1885, if Gladstone had abandoned the identity of democratic franchise for both countries and had made to the Irish minority such concessions as this Convention was willing to make, he would have carried the Liberal Unionist element with him. Then, as now, a great land purchase scheme depended on the solution of the main problem. To-day land purchase stood or fell with the Convention.

He was backed by Lord Dunraven--who waived his preference for his own original proposal--and by Lord Desart, in most able argument: the latter declaring that the proposal to give Ireland a separate customs system could never be carried in England. But the speech of the day came from Mr. Kavanagh, who, speaking as a Nationalist who had been a Unionist, ended a most moving appeal for agreement with a declaration that he at all events would vote for the compromise. There was no mistaking the effect produced by the earnestness of this speaker, who knew as much of Ireland and was as well fitted to judge of its true interests as any man in the room. That effect was felt, I think, in the tone of a private meeting of Nationalists held the same night. Redmond, with the art of which he was a master, indicated support for the proposal without forcing a conclusion. He dwelt on the fact that if we did not agree we not only lost our chance of immediate and complete land purchase but left ourselves subjected to the entire burden of war taxation. Other speakers pointed out that we ought not to let ourselves be lured into driving the Southern Unionists and the Ulstermen together against us. Mr. Clancy said in his downright manner that he would not as yet express his view publicly: but that he was not going to reject this offer for the sake of fixing taxes on tea and tobacco, and that when the right time came, he would say so. The strongest arguments used against this view were that in surrendering control of customs we lost our management of the taxes which pressed upon the poor; and further, that even if we agreed, no one knew what would result. We had no guarantee that the compact would be expressed in legislation. But on the whole the tone showed a disposition to accept, and especially to support Redmond--who had spoken of his political career as a thing ended. Next day the debate in Convention continued. Archbishop Bernard, speaking as a Unionist, said that the proposal was a venture beset with risks, but the greatest danger of all was to do nothing. It would be a grave responsibility for Ulster to wreck the chance of a settlement. Lord Oranmore dwelt on the composition of the proposed Legislature Power was to be entrusted to a very different Parliament from that which they had feared. He and his like were to get what they desired--an opportunity of taking part in the government of the country. It looked to him as if the only possible Irish Government under this scheme must be Unionist in its complexion.

Perhaps there was an echo of this in Redmond's speech, by far the greatest he made in the Convention, when at last he intervened on January 4th--the Friday which ended that session.

He dealt at once with Mr. Barrie's often repeated view that the proper object of our endeavours was to find a compromise between the Act of 1914 and the proposal for partition put forward by Ulster. On that basis the Convention could never have been brought together. The Prime Minister's letter of May 16th which proposed the Convention suggested that Irishmen should meet "for the purpose of drafting a Constitution for their own country." On May 22nd Mr. Lloyd George had said, "We propose that Ireland should try her own hand at hammering out an instrument of government for her people." The only limitation was that it should be a Constitution "for the future government of Ireland within the Empire."

Then he turned to the argument that all the sacrifices were asked from Unionists. Let us weigh them, he said. What sacrifices had been made by the Irish Nationalists, since this chain of events began?--Then followed a passage which I recapitulate, not necessarily in full, but in phrases which he actually used, and I noted down:

"Personal loss I set aside. My position--our position--before the war was that we possessed the confidence of nearly the entire country. I took a risk--we took it--with eyes open. I have--we have--not merely taken the risk but made the sacrifice. If the choice were to be made to-morrow, I would do it all over again.

"I have had my surfeit of public life. My modest ambition would be to serve in some quite humble capacity under the first Unionist Prime Minister of Ireland."

As to other sacrifices, in the way of concessions, he recited the list of what had been agreed to--proposals so strangely undemocratic--the nomination of members of Parliament, the disproportionate powers given to a minority. "Shall we not be denounced for making them?" he asked.

On the other hand, what sacrifices had been made by the Southern Unionists? These were the men who had had the hardest battle to fight in the struggle over Home Rule. They were not, like Ulster Unionists, "entrenched in a ring-fence," but the scattered few, who had suffered most and who might naturally have entertained most bitterness. Yet Lord Midleton's speech had been instinct with an admirable spirit. The speech of the Archbishop of Dublin had touched him deeply.

"Between these men and us there never again can be the differences of the past. They have put behind them all bitter memories. They have agreed to the framework of a Bill better than any offered to us in 1886, 1893 or 1914."

As for us Nationalists--he emphasized that each man came here free, untrammelled.

"I speak only for myself. But even if I stand alone, I will not allow myself, because I cannot get the full measure of my demand, to be drawn to reject the proffered hand of friendship held out to us. In my opinion we should be political fools if we did not endeavour to cement an alliance with these men."

As concerned the Labour men, Mr. Whitley, who had always been a Unionist, had declared willingness to agree. But the Ulster Unionists--what sacrifice had they made?

"The last thing I desire is to attack Mr. Barrie and his friends. But they are not free agents. I was shocked when I heard that a section here openly avowed the need to refer back to some outside body. If we had been told we were going into a body which would consist of two orders of members, it would have been difficult to get us here."

On the essential point Ulster had made no concession. What did Mr. Barrie say in his formal document? 'We are satisfied that for Ireland and for Great Britain a common system of finances with one Exchequer is a fundamental necessity.' If they denied the taxing power to Ireland, any proposal on these lines must give Ireland less than any proposal for Home Rule ever put forward. This was Ulster's original position and they had not budged an inch.

"This is their response to the Empire's S.O.S. Is it worthy of Ulster's Imperial loyalty? I don't believe it is their last word."

Lord Londonderry, however, in replying, did not add any ground of hope. The last speech of the day announced that of six trade unionists five would support the compromise.

Redmond that evening put on the notice paper a motion adopting Lord Midleton's proposals provided that they "be adopted by His Majesty's Government as a settlement of the Irish question and legislative effect be given to them forthwith."

On the day before this motion was tabled, a party was given at Lord Granard's house which everybody attended, and which marked the most festive moment of our comradeship. When we separated on the Friday most men were absolutely confident of an agreement covering four-fifths of the Convention.

Unhappily, the motion could not come under consideration for a period of ten days. In the following week Lord Midleton thought it necessary to attend the House of Lords. It was settled that we should spend the interval discussing the land purchase report, for which his presence was not essential. Redmond, whose health was still bad, did not come up to Dublin. All this gave time for agitation, and agitation was at work.

Still, during that week there was no sign of any change in tone. Members of the local bodies who had gone to their homes at the week's end came back just as much inclined to settle as before.

I met Redmond on the night of Monday, January 14th. He had seen no one in these ten days. He told me that he was still uncertain what would happen, but asked me to get one of the leading County Councillors to second his motion. Next morning I came in half an hour before the meeting to find the man I wanted. When I met him he was full of excitement, and said, "Something has gone wrong; the men are all saying they must vote against Redmond." Then it was evident that propaganda had been busy to some purpose.

When Redmond came in to his place, I said, "It's all right. Martin McDonogh will second your motion." He answered with a characteristic brusqueness, "He needn't trouble. I'm not going to move it; Devlin and the Bishops are voting against me."

He rose immediately the Chairman was in his place.

"The amendment which I have on the paper," he said, "embodies the deliberate advice I give to the Convention.

"I consulted no one--and could not do so, being ill. It stands on record on my sole responsibility.

"Since entering the building I have heard that some very important Nationalist representatives are against this course--the Catholic bishops, Mr. Devlin--and others. I must face the situation--at which I am surprised; and I regret it.

"If I proceeded I should probably carry my point on a division, but the Nationalists would be divided. Such a division could not carry out the objects I have in view.

"Therefore, I must avoid pressing my motion. But I leave it standing on the paper. The others will give their advice. I feel that I can be of no further service to the Convention and will therefore not move."[13]

There was a pause of consternation. The Chairman intervened and the debate proceeded, and was carried on through the week. During its course a letter to the Chairman from the Bishop of Ross was circulated to us, most dexterous in exposition, most affecting in the tone of its conclusion. It can be read in the Report of the Convention and it cannot with justice be quoted except at full length--so admirable is the linking of argument. It need only be said here that it was an appeal "to my fellow-Nationalists who have already made great concessions" to yield, for the sake of a settlement, this further point, and that the appeal was signed "from my sick-bed, not far removed from my death-bed." That eloquent voice and subtle brain could ill be spared from our assembly: but the letter came too late. It is plain that the writer had no inkling of what would happen till it was actually taking place.

No one can overstate the effect of this episode. Redmond's personal ascendancy in the Convention had become very great. I am certain there was not a man there but would have said, "If there is to be an Irish Parliament, Redmond must be Prime Minister, and his personality will give that Parliament its best possible chance." The Ulstermen had more than once expressed their view that if Home Rule were sure to mean Redmond's rule, their objections to it would be materially lessened. Now, they saw Redmond thrown over, and by a combination in which the clerical influence, so much distrusted by them, was paramount.

IV

A new stage in the history of the Convention now opens. In the interval between the meeting which began by Redmond's withdrawal of his amendment and that of the following week, Sir Horace Plunkett went to London and laid the situation before the Prime Minister. Redmond had also written to Mr. Lloyd George stating that no progress could be made unless Government would declare its intentions as to legislation. The Chairman came back with the following letter in his pocket:

10 DOWNING STREET,

WHITEHALL, S.W. 1,

_January_ 21, 1918.

DEAR SIR HORACE PLUNKETT,

In our conversation on Saturday you told me that the situation in
the Convention has now reached a very critical stage. The issues
are so grave that I feel the Convention should not come to a
definite break without the Government having an opportunity of full
consultation with the leaders of the different sections. If, and
when, therefore, a point is reached at which the Convention finds
that it can make no further progress towards an agreed settlement,
I would ask that representatives should be sent to confer with the
Cabinet. The Government are agreed and determined that a solution
must be found. But they are firmly convinced that the best hope of
a settlement lies within the Convention, and they are prepared to
do anything in their power to assist the Convention finally to
reach a basis of agreement which would enable a new Irish
Constitution to come into operation with the consent of all
parties.

Yours sincerely,

D. LLOYD GEORGE.

Before acting on this, Sir Horace Plunkett allowed the debate to continue during two days. Since no movement towards agreement manifested itself, but only evidence of widespread and various divergence, he laid the Prime Minister's invitation before the Convention. There was considerable difference of opinion before a decision was reached for acceptance. Groups separated to select their representatives on the delegation.

It was agreed in private conference that only one view should be presented from the Nationalist side, and that the view of what was at this point clearly the majority. Redmond, in agreeing to act as a delegate, agreed to set aside his own judgment and to press the claim for full fiscal responsibility--which, like other Nationalists, he regarded as in the abstract Ireland's right. But illness prevented him from attending when at last the delegates were received by the Prime Minister on February 13th.

On the 5th he had asked a question in Parliament--the last he was to ask there. It concerned the starting of a factory for the manufacture of aircraft in Dublin--one of the things for which he was pressing in his ceaseless effort to bring Ireland some industrial advantage from the war. I saw him towards the end of that month in his room at the House, and he commented bitterly upon a raid carried out by Sinn Féiners, in which some newly erected buildings were destroyed at one of the aerodromes near Dublin which he had helped to establish. But the main thing he had to say concerned the course of the Convention. Everything, in his judgment, was wrecked; he saw nothing ahead for his country but ruin and chaos.

He spoke of his health. A bout of sickness which had prostrated him at Christmas in Dublin had left him uneasy. He was at the time, I thought, unduly alarmed about himself, and I believed that the continuance of this frame of mind was simply characteristic of a man who had very little experience of ill-health. I left him with profound compassion for his trouble of spirit, but without any serious apprehension for his state of body.

The Convention reassembled on February 26th to consider the result of the delegation, which was summed up in a letter from Mr. Lloyd George. This well-known document begins with a definite pledge of action. On receiving the report of the Convention the Government would give it immediate attention and would "proceed with the least possible delay to submit legislative proposals to Parliament."--The date of this pledge was February 25, 1918.--Mr. Lloyd George pressed, however, for a settlement "in and through the Convention"; and he declared his conviction that "In view of previous attempts at settlement and of the deliberations of the Convention itself, the only hope of agreement lies in a solution which on the one side provides for the unity of Ireland by a single Legislature, with adequate safeguards for the interests of Ulster and of the Southern Unionists, and, on the other, secures the well-being of the Empire and the fundamental unity of the United Kingdom."

Ireland's strong claim to some control of indirect taxation was admitted; but it was laid down that till two years after the war the fixation and collection of customs and excise should be left to the Imperial Parliament: and that at the end of the war a Royal Commission should report on Ireland's contribution to Imperial expenditure and should submit proposals as to the fiscal relations of the two countries.

For the war period, Ireland was to contribute "an agreed proportion of the Imperial expenditure," but was to receive the full proceeds of Irish revenue from customs and excise, less the agreed contribution. The police and postal services were to be reserved also as war services.

These provisions were laid down as essentials. A suggestion was made of an Ulster Committee within the Irish Parliament, having power to modify or veto measures, whether of legislation or administration, in their application to Ulster.

Lastly, Government expressed their willingness to accept and finance the Convention's scheme for land purchase and to give a large grant for urban housing.

The question now before the Convention was whether it should or should not accept this offer, which differed from the Midleton proposals in that it withheld the control of excise as well as of customs, and that it retained control of police and Post Office for the war period. It also adumbrated an Ulster Committee, which had been an unpopular suggestion when put forward in the presentation stages. On the other hand, it offered great material inducements in the proposed expenditure for land purchase and for housing. Some of the County Councillors who had been most vehement in their opposition to the Midleton compromise were now disposed to think this too good an offer to let go, but believed it could be obtained without their taking the responsibility of voting for it. It was necessary to point out that the Irish party could not lower a standard of national demand set up by the Nationalists in the Convention, and that if they did so they would be hooted out of existence.

The main argument of those who advised against acceptance was that Ministers had pledged themselves to act in any case. Let them. We could best help by enunciating our own programme. Then they would know the real facts of the Irish situation. If a majority of the Convention accepted the proposals of the Prime Minister's letter, there was no pledge that the Bill would be on those lines. We needed to keep a bargaining margin in what we put forward. It was even suggested that the Government proposals would be more likely to attract support in Ireland if put forward as a generous offer from a largely Unionist Government than if published as a compromise to which Nationalists had condescended.

Our reply was that the essential thing was to make a beginning with self-government, and that by refusing to accept the Government's offer, on which alone we could combine with an influential Unionist section, we gravely increased the difficulties in the way of carrying Home Rule. If, as we held, the main need was to unite Ireland, the last thing on which we should insist was the concession of complete financial powers. When the lack of those powers began to prove itself injurious to Ireland's material interests, Ireland would certainly become united in a demand for the concession of them; and the history of the British Empire since the loss of America showed that every such demand had been granted to a self-governing State.

At this moment interest centred on the discussion in private councils of Nationalists. The debates in full Convention were animated, but somewhat unreal by comparison. Lord Midleton's motion had been dropped, by consent, for a series of resolutions tabled by Lord MacDonnell which were in substance an acceptance of Government's proposal.

But neither in the private councils nor in the public debates had we Redmond's presence. His illness had grown serious; an operation was necessary; it passed over hopefully, and on Tuesday, March 5th, when the debate resumed, Mr. Clancy had a telegram saying that he was practically out of danger.

It was plain in these days that we were nearing a most critical decision, and Nationalist opinion was profoundly uneasy. Many men were drifting back to Redmond's view, and recoiled from the prospect of dividing the Convention once more into its original component parts--Nationalists on the one side, Unionists on the other. It was proposed that on the Wednesday Nationalists should meet and, if possible, concert joint action; if not, determine definitely each to go our own ways; for a painful part of the situation was that all of us had been used to act together, and none now felt himself free of some obligation. This had to be cleared up When we came down to Trinity College that morning, the news met us that Redmond was dead.

The Convention adjourned its work, although time pressed most seriously, till after the interment. Ireland is a country where a public man can always count on a good funeral. The body was brought to Kingstown, and thence by special train to Wexford, where he had expressed the wish to be laid, in the burying-place of his own people and in the town with which he had been most closely associated. Hundreds of men came from distant parts to mark their sorrow and respect: what remained of him was carried in long and imposing procession through the streets. Over the grave Mr. Dillon, who had been chosen to succeed him in the chair of the Irish party, spoke eloquent and fitting words. Some day, no doubt, a monument to his memory will be set up in the streets of Wexford, where his great uncle's statue stands, and where will be placed the memorial to his gallant brother, subscribed for from all parts of the kingdom and from all Irish regiments in the Army.

But I say without hesitation that the first and most striking endeavour to put in lasting shape a tribute to John Redmond was made in the Convention, not by great men, but by the ordinary rank and file of Irish Nationalists, who went back from the graveside to the work which his death had interrupted.

Those who had been inclined before to accept his advice--still standing on our minutes--were now more than ever determined to follow it. That advice was not to refuse the hand of friendship which offered itself from men who by alliance with us could take away from the Home Rule demand all sectarian character: who could bring for the first time a great and representative body of Irish landlord opinion and Irish Protestant opinion into line with the opinion of Irish tenants and Irish Catholics. In order to act upon this advice men needed to face a powerful combination of forces and much threatened unpopularity: they had to encounter the hostility of an able and vindictively conducted newspaper; they had to separate themselves politically from the united voice of their own hierarchy; they had to break away from the politician who for many years now had equalled Redmond in his influence in Ireland and surpassed him in popularity. All of them were representative of constituents, all were living among those whom they represented; not a man of them but knew he would worsen his personal and political position by what he did. Yet, for that is the true way to state it, they stood to their dead leader's policy.

It needs not to follow out in any detail the steps by which we reached the end of our labours. In the upshot, the Ulster group of nineteen dissented from everything and joined in a report which renewed the demand for partition. The Primate and the Provost signed a separate note declaring that a Federal Scheme based on the Swiss or Canadian system offered the only solution which could avoid the alternative choice between the coercion of Ulster and the partition of Ireland. The remaining members, sixty-six in all, accepted one common scheme.[14] Their number included ten Southern Unionists, five Labour representatives (three of whom were Protestant artisans from Belfast), with Lords Granard, MacDonnell and Dunraven, Sir Bertram Windle and the representatives of the Dublin and Cork Chambers of Commerce.

The scheme on which we concurred recommended the immediate establishment of self-government by an Irish Ministry responsible to a Parliament consisting of two Houses, composed on highly artificial lines. For a period of fifteen years Southern Unionists were to be represented by nominated members, while Ulster was to have extra members elected by special constituencies representing commercial and agricultural interests. The Parliament was to have full control of internal legislation, administration and direct taxation. The fixation of customs and excise was to be from Westminster, but the proceeds of these taxes to be paid into the Irish Exchequer. There was to be a contribution to the cost of Imperial defences, and representation at Westminster, but a representation of the Irish Parliament rather than of the constituencies. All of this was agreed to at our last meeting, and nothing could have been more pleasant than the atmosphere of good will which prevailed. But this was after a critical division--the most critical in which I have ever voted--in which those of us Nationalists who were for accepting the Government proposals voted with the Southern Unionists and those who were against with the Ulster group. The combination of Ulstermen and extreme Nationalists was thirty-four strong; those who adopted Redmond's policy and Lord Midleton's were thirty-eight. We had in our lobby sixteen of the Nationalist County and Urban Councillors; they had eleven.

If that vote had gone otherwise, we were told plainly that the Southern Unionists would be no parties to the rest of the compromise. They were willing to recommend self-government only if the Convention recommended the reservation of customs to the Imperial Parliament. This point had become in their minds important even more as a symbol of the close union between the two kingdoms than by reason of the economic advantages which they attributed to it.

Once the sticking-point was passed, the divided Nationalists recombined, and we were all at one in our mutual felicitations on the harmony which prevailed at the close. But as one of our rank and file said in my ear, "If we had not given the vote we did, where would be all this talk of harmony? And mind you now, it was not easy to give it."

He was right, and within six months it cost him the chairmanship of his County Council. Others paid the same penalty, I am sure, without grudging it, for most of us were prouder of that action than of any other in our political lives. It may be well to set down the names of the local representatives and Labour men who voted as Redmond would have advised on that first crucial division.

They were: W. Broderick, Youghal Urban Council; J.J. Coen, Westmeath County Council; D. Condren, Wicklow County Council; J. Dooly, Kings County County Council; Captain Doran, Louth County Council; T. Fallon, Leitrim County Council; J. Fitzgibbon, Roscommon County Council; Captain Gwynn, Irish Party; T. Halligan, Meath County Council; W. Kavanagh, Carlow County Council; J. McCarron, Labour; M. McDonogh, Galway Urban Council; J. McDonnell, Galway County Council; C. McKay, Labour; J. Murphy, Labour; J. O'Dowd, Sligo County Council; C.P. O'Neill, Pembroke Urban Council; Dr. O'Sullivan, Mayor of Waterford; T. Power, Waterford County Council; Sir S.B. Quin, Mayor of Limerick; D. Reilly, Cavan County Council; M. Slattery, Tipperary (S. Riding); H.T. Whitley, Labour.[15]

In so far as we were led by anyone, Mr. Clancy, fulfilling in public what he had privately spoken, was our leader and spokesman.

We were along with the Southern Unionists and our natural allies, Lords Granard and MacDonnell and Sir Bertram Windle. Archbishop Bernard and Dr. Mahaffy voted with us in that pinch, so that both the late Provost of Trinity and the present one did their part to secure an agreement.

In the other list, the Archbishop of Armagh and the Moderator were grouped with the Archbishop of Cashel and the Bishops of Raphoe and Down and Connor; the Lord Mayor of Cork and Lord Mayor of Belfast were together; Mr. Devlin was with Mr. Barrie. This list represented no unity except a common refusal to agree to any compromise. Those who voted in it followed one or other of two trains of cogent reasoning; but the reasonings led to opposite conclusions. These men were beyond doubt as honest in their convictions as those who went the other way; but they took the easier course, whether they were Nationalist or Unionist: they swam with the tide.

The troubles which Nationalists brought on themselves by supporting Lord Midleton were answered by the troubles which his group met for supporting Nationalist demands. The men who refused to make the compromise possible have the laugh of us. Neither section of us who voted for agreement achieved anything by facing the risk of unpopularity. We had followed Redmond's policy and we shared Redmond's fate. We had done our best to help the British Government and that Government itself defeated us.

By the Prime Minister's letter Government was pledged to legislate for the better government of Ireland, not upon condition of our reaching substantial agreement, but in any event. Yet the letter emphasized the "urgent importance of getting a settlement in and through the Convention." We had secured a report for a scheme in which sixty-six out of eighty-seven concurred in the broad lines; and of the twenty-one dissentients, nineteen were a group sent to the assembly with a pledge which they construed as giving them a special position, in that no legislation affecting them was to be passed without their concurrence. The agreement which we had reached enabled the Government, when it undertook legislation, to quote Unionist authority on the one hand and Nationalist authority on the other for many wise provisions which otherwise a Coalition Ministry might have found it most difficult to propose.

But no legislation followed. Once more an Irish issue became involved in the wheels of the English political machine.

We have ourselves in part to thank for it. We might in January have taken Redmond's advice, and Lord Midleton's declared view that legislation would follow might have proved correct. Yet, what use are might-have-beens? History is concerned with what happened, and our work in the Convention dragged itself on till the great German offensive had been launched and the Allied line pushed back to the very gates of Paris, and Government was at its wits' end for men. It is hard to blame a Ministry for what harm was done in the frantic rush to cope with perhaps the most critical instant in all history; but what was done produced infinite mischief and no good result. Immediately after the Convention's report (signed upon April 8th) had been received, Government proposed to apply conscription to Ireland.

It is said, and it is not difficult to believe, that without making this proposal they dare not have come upon the British people with so extreme demands for compulsory service as were made. But by making it Ministers tore up and scattered in fragments whatever results the Convention had to show for its labours, and by legislating for conscription in Ireland they gained not one man. The proposal, as Redmond had always told them, proved impossible to carry out.

I do not believe that if Redmond had lived this would ever have happened. His record in the war gave him an authority in Parliament which no other Irishman could possibly claim. It would have been impossible for Mr. Lloyd George to take such a step without giving him notice; and once that notice came, Redmond could have insisted upon the significance of the report of the Convention's sub-committee on questions of defence. This committee consisted of two civilians and three soldiers. Lord Desart, a Unionist, was in the chair; Mr. Powell, K.C., a Unionist (afterwards Irish Solicitor-General and now a judge), was the other civilian; the soldiers were the Duke of Abercorn, an Ulster Covenanter, with Captain Doran and myself, Nationalists from the Sixteenth Division. We found unanimously that if an Irish Parliament existed, whatever might be the claims of the Imperial authority, it would be impracticable to impose conscription without the Irish Parliament's consent. This unanimous finding was bound to influence the view of any Ministry, no matter how hard pressed. But, as debate revealed, Mr. Lloyd George had never heard of it.

I believe that Redmond could have persuaded Mr. Lloyd George to adopt in April the course on which--but after the harm was done--he fell back in June, when Lord French asked for a large, but limited, number of recruits to refill the Irish Divisions within a specified time--at the end of which time, failing the production of the volunteers, other measures must be taken. Here, however, we are back in the region of speculation. Conscription was proposed and anarchy let loose in Ireland. Redmond's words, "Better for us never to have met than to have met and failed," stand as the final sentence on this notable episode in Irish history.

That is the Convention's epitaph as, I think, he would have written it. How shall we write his own?

No attempt has been made in this book, and none shall be made, to represent him as a hero. But there are certain attributes which malice itself can scarcely deny him. All his ideals were generous. His love of country, the master-motive in his life, had nothing in it exclusive or tribal or partisan. His was a policy forward-looking and constructive; without narrowness or jealousy, it aimed to bring the destinies of Ireland into the hands of Irishmen, not greatly caring what Irishmen they were--indeed, if they were in a real measure responsible to Ireland, not caring at all. In this spirit he grasped masterfully at the chance which the war offered; in this spirit, he went out to meet his fellow-countrymen in the Irish Convention.

And not only towards his countrymen was he magnanimous. His love of Ireland was free from all attendant hates. His resentment was never on private grounds, and it was without rancour. He spent his whole life in opposition, and was not embittered; his mind remained constructive after thirty years spent in criticism. His experience of political life and of English Ministers had rid him of any credulous faith in mankind; yet his instinct was always to perceive the best in men. The friend who knew him best in Convention, and who had seen him in his darkest hours then and long ago, said this of him: "He was always an optimist." The speaker did not mean--he could not have meant--that in those last months Redmond was sanguine. He meant, I think, that he had faith; that in a country where suspicion is the prevailing disease, he credited men with honest motives and with his own love of Ireland.

If he went wrong at any time, he went wrong by too generous a judgment of other men, too open-handed a policy. Perhaps, too, he may have erred--it was his characteristic defect--in not pressing his policy upon others with more vehemence. He had not the temperament which, when once possessed with an idea, rests neither night nor day in pursuit of it and spares neither others' labour nor its own to carry the conception into effect. There was an element of inertia in his nature, and of the ordinary self-seeking motives which impel men not a trace. Ambition he had none--none, at all events, in the last ten or fifteen years, during which I have known him. As for vanity, I never saw a man so entirely devoid of it. His modesty amounted to a defect, in that he always underestimated his personal influence. A man less single-minded, vainer, more ambitious of success, might with the same gifts have achieved more for Ireland in thrusting towards a personal triumph. A man with more love for the homage of crowds might have kept himself in closer touch with the mass of his following.

The way of life to which he was committed was in its essence distasteful to him. I do not believe that history shows an example of a statesman who served his country more absolutely from a sense of duty.

All this might be admitted without conceding greatness to him. But he was a great man, unlike others, cast in a mould of his own. Without the least affectation of unconventionality, and indeed under a formal appearance, he was profoundly unconventional. His tastes, whether in literature, in art, in the choice of society, in the choice of his way of life, were utterly his own, unaffected by any standard but that which he himself established. Without subtlety of interpretation, his judgments cut deep into the heart of things. You could not hear him speak, could not be in his presence, without feeling the weight of his personality.

A statesman, if ever there was one, he was never given the opportunity of proving himself in administration; he can be judged only by his gifts in counsel and by his power of guiding action. As a counsellor, he was supreme. He had that faculty for anticipating the future, that broad, far-reaching vision of the chain of events which can proceed only from long, deep and constant thought, and which is truly admirable when united, as it was in him, to a sovereign contempt for this or that momentary outcry. In these qualities of insight and foresight I have only seen one man approach him, the late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, to whose credit stands the greatest work of Imperial reconciliation accomplished in our day. But Redmond had supremely what the wise old Scotsman lacked--the gift of persuasive speech, to win acceptance for his wisdom and his vision.

He could persuade, but he could not compel. His was not the magnetism which constrains allegiance almost in despite of reason--the power which was possessed by his first and only leader, Parnell. Redmond's appeal was to men's judgment and convictions, not to those instincts which lie deepest and most potent in the heart of man. That was the limitation to his greatness. He could lead only by convincing men that he was right.

If in the end it is true he failed to convince his countrymen and failed to carry them with him, this book has told what difficulties were set in his way, not so much by those who desired a different end than his, but by those who desired the same end. Yet admit that he failed and that he fell from power. No man holds power for ever, and during seventeen continuous years he held the leadership among his own people with far more than all the personal ascendancy of a Prime Minister in one of the oversea Dominions; and he held it without any of the binding force which control of administration and patronage bestows. He left his people improved in their material circumstances to an almost incredible degree, as compared with their state when he began his work.

Yet Ireland counts his life a failure, and he most assuredly accepted that view; for he died heartbroken, not for his own sake but for Ireland's, because he had not won through to the goal. His action upon the war was his life's supreme action; he felt this, and knew that it had failed to achieve its end. By that action let us judge him, for all else is trivial in comparison beside it.

It is said by his critics that he bargained badly. If reply were made that he believed the Allied cause to be right and desired to lead his country according to his conception of justice, we should be answered that he was in charge of his country's interests, not of her morals; and he would have admitted an element of truth in this. Yet, as in the Boer War he had led his countrymen to support what he conceived to be the right cause, even with certain injury to their own, so now assuredly he would not have acted as he did, had he not been convinced that Ireland's honour was to be served as well as her advantage.

But when there is talk of bargaining, it is well to consider what he had to bargain with. No one in August 1914 anticipated the course of the war. No one foresaw the need for the last man available. It was more than a year before Great Britain could even equip the men who pressed themselves forward for service. All that he really had in his hand to give or to withhold was the value of Ireland's moral support. Could he by waiting his time have made a better bargain?

When that critical hour came, Redmond knew in his, bones the weight of Ireland's history; he knew all the propensities which would instantly tend to assert themselves, unless their play was checked by a strong counter-emotion. He knew that if Ireland said nothing and did nothing at the crisis, things would be said of Ireland which would rapidly engender rising passion; and with the growth of that passion all possibility, not of bargaining but of controlling the situation between the two countries would be gone. In plain language, if he had not acted at once, his only chance for action would have been in heading an Ireland hostile to England. In this war, with the issue defined as it was from the outset, he could only have done this by denying all that he believed. But apart from his judgment of the merits, there was his purpose of unity to be served. Ulster was the difficulty; all other obstacles were disposed of. How could he hope for an Ulster united to Ireland, if Ulster were divided from Ireland on the war?

Everything depended on an instant and almost desperate move. He might have left the sole offer of service from Ireland to lie with Sir Edward Carson. What he did actually was to offer instantly all that the Ulstermen had offered, and more, for he proposed active union in Ireland itself. It was a bold stroke, but it was guided by an ideal perpetually present with him--the essential unity of Ireland. To set Irishmen working together at such a crisis in the common name of Ireland was an object for which he was willing to jeopardize the whole organization which stood behind him, at a moment when he could speak of full right for three-fourths of his countrymen. And, when he is called a failure, let it be remembered that in this he did not fail.

This fight is not yet ended, the long battle is not lost. Had Ireland from the first stood aloof, had she been drawn at the war's opening into the temper which she displayed in its closing stages, then indeed we might despair of any hopeful issue, any genuine peace between these two neighbouring islands, and, what matters infinitely more, between the strong yet divergent strains that make up Ireland itself.