It happened that the two latest new members took their seats on the 25th of May, on which date the Home Rule Bill was passed by the House of Commons on third reading for the last time. The occasion was celebrated by the Nationalists, not unnaturally, by a great demonstration of triumph, both in the House itself and outside in Palace Yard. Men on the other side reflected that the tragedy of civil war had been brought one stage nearer.

The reply of Ulster to the passing of the Bill was a series of reviews of the U.V.F. during the Whitsuntide recess. Carson, Londonderry, Craig, and most of the other Ulster members attended these parades, which excited intense enthusiasm through the country, more especially as the arms brought by the Mountjoy were now seen for the first time in the hands of the Volunteers. Several battalions were presented with Colours which had been provided by Lady Londonderry, Lady Massereene, Mrs. Craig, and other local ladies, and the ceremony included the dedication of these Colours by the Bishop of Down and the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church. Many visitors from England witnessed these displays, and among them were several deputations of Liberal and Labour working men, who reported on their return that what they had seen had converted them to sympathy with Ulster.[89]

After the recess the promised Amending Bill was introduced in the House of Lords on the 23rd of June by the Marquis of Crewe, who explained that it embodied Mr. Asquith's proposals of the 9th of March, and that he invited amendments. Lord Lansdowne at once declared that these proposals, which had been rejected as inadequate three months ago, were doubly insufficient now. But the invitation to amend the Bill was accepted, Lord Londonderry asking the pertinent question whether the Government would tell Mr. Redmond that they would insist on acceptance of any amendments made in response to Lord Crewe's invitation—a question to which no answer was forthcoming. Lord Milner, in the course of the debate, said the Bill would have to be entirely remodelled, and he laid stress on the point that if Ulster were coerced to join the rest of Ireland it would make a united Ireland for ever impossible, and that the employment of the Army and Navy for the purpose of coercion would give a shock to the Empire which it would not long survive; to which Lord Roberts added that such a policy would mean the utter destruction of the Army, as he had warned the Prime Minister before the incident at the Curragh.

On the 8th of July the Bill was amended by substituting the permanent exclusion of the whole province of Ulster—which Mr. Balfour had named "the clean cut"—for the proposed county option with a time limit; and several other alterations of minor importance were also made. The Bill as amended passed the third reading on the 14th, when Lord Lansdowne predicted that, whatever might be the fate of the measure and of the Home Rule Bill which it modified, the one thing certain was that the idea of coercing Ulster was dead.

In Ulster itself, meanwhile, the people were bent on making Lord Lansdowne's certainty doubly sure. Carson went over for the Boyne celebration on the 12th of July. The frequency of his visits did nothing to damp the ardour with which his arrival was always hailed by his followers. The same wonderful scenes, whether at Larne or at the Belfast docks, were repeated time after time without appearing to grow stale by repetition. They gave colour to the Radical jeer at "King Carson," for no royal personage could have been given a more regal reception than was accorded to "Sir Edward" (as everybody affectionately called him in Belfast) half a dozen times within a few months.

This occasion, when he arrived on the 10th by the Liverpool steamer, accompanied by Mr. Walter Long, was no exception. His route had been announced in the Press. Countless Union Jacks were displayed in every village along both shores of the Lough. Every vessel at anchor, including the gigantic White Star Liner Britannic, was dressed; every fog-horn bellowed a welcome; the multitude of men at work in the great ship-yards crowded to places commanding a view of the incoming packet, and waved handkerchiefs and raised cheers for Sir Edward; fellow passengers jostled each other to get sight of him as he went down the gangway and to give him a parting cheer from the deck; the dock sheds were packed with people, many of them bare-headed and bare-footed women, who pressed close in the hope of touching his hand, or hearing one of his kindly and humorous greetings. It was the same in the streets all the way from the docks to the centre of the city, and out through the working-class district of Ballymacarret to the country beyond, and in every hamlet on the road to Newtownards and Mount Stewart—people congregating to give him a cheer as he passed in Lord Londonderry's motor-car, or pausing in their work on the land to wave a greeting from fields bordering the road.

Radical newspapers in England believed—or at any rate tried to make their readers believe—that the "Northcliffe Press," particularly The Times and Daily Mail, gave an exaggerated account of these extraordinary demonstrations of welcome to Carson, and of the impressiveness of the great meetings which he addressed. But the accounts in Lord Northcliffe's papers did not differ materially from those in other journals like The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Express, The Standard, The Morning Post, The Observer, The Scotsman, and The Spectator. There was no exaggeration. The special correspondents gave faithful accounts of what they saw and heard, and no more. Editorial support was a different matter. Lord Northcliffe's papers were unfailing in their support of the Ulster cause, as were many other great British journals; and even when at a later period Lord Northcliffe's attitude on the general question of Irish government underwent a change that was profoundly disappointing to Ulstermen, his papers never countenanced the idea of applying coercion to Ulster. In the years 1911 to 1914 The Times remained true to the tradition started by John Walter, who, himself a Liberal, went personally to Belfast in 1886 to inform himself on the question, then for the first time raised by Gladstone; and, having done so, supported the loyalist cause in Ireland till his death. A series of weighty articles in 1913 and 1914 approved and encouraged the resistance threatened by Ulster to Home Rule, and justified the measures taken in preparation for it. Whatever may have been the reason for a different attitude at a later date, Ulster owed a debt of gratitude to The Times in those troubled years.

The long-expected crisis appeared to be very close when Carson arrived in Belfast on the 10th of July, 1914. He had come to attend a meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council—sitting for the first time as the Provisional Government. Craig communicated to the Press the previous day the Preamble and some of the articles of the Constitution of the Provisional Government, hitherto kept strictly secret, one article being that the administration would be taken over "in trust for the Constitution of the United Kingdom," and that "upon the restoration of direct Imperial Government, the Provisional Government shall cease to exist."

At this session on the 10th, the proceedings of which were private, Carson explained the extreme gravity of the situation now reached. The Home Rule Bill would become law probably in a few weeks. It was pretty certain that the Nationalists would not permit the Government to accept the Amending Bill in the altered form in which it had left the Upper House. In that case, nothing remained for them in Ulster but to carry out the policy they had resolved upon long ago, and to make good the Covenant. After his forty minutes' speech a quiet and business-like discussion followed. Plenary authority to take any action necessary in emergency was conferred unanimously on the executive. The course to be followed in assuming the administration was explained and agreed to, and when they separated all the members felt that the crisis for which they had been preparing so long had at last come upon them. There was no flinching.

Next day there was a parade of 3,000 U.V.F. at Larne. A distinguished American who was present said after the march past, "You could destroy these Volunteers, but you could not conquer them." Carson spoke with exceptional solemnity to the men, telling them candidly that, "unless something happens the evidence of which is not visible at present," he could discern nothing but darkness ahead, and no hope of peace. He ended by exhorting his followers throughout Ulster to preserve their self-control and to "commit no act against any individual or against any man's property which would sully the great name you have already won."

As usual, his influence was powerful enough to prevent disturbance. The Government had made extensive military preparations to maintain order on the 12th of July; but, as a well-known "character" in Belfast expressed it, "Sir Edward was worth twenty battalions in keeping order." The anniversary was celebrated everywhere by enormous masses of men in a state of tense excitement. Lord Londonderry addressed an immense gathering at Enniskillen; seventy thousand Orangemen marched from Belfast to Drumbeg to hear Carson, who sounded the same warning note as at Larne two days before. But nowhere throughout the Province was a single occurrence reported that called for action by the police.

When the Ulster leaders returned to London on the 14th they were met by reports of differences in the Cabinet over the Amending Bill, which was to be brought before the House of Commons on the following Monday. Nationalist pressure no doubt dictated the deletion of the amendments made by the Peers and the restoration of the Bill to its original shape. A minority of the Cabinet was said to be opposed to this course. Whether that was true or false, the Prime Minister must by this time have realised that he had allowed the country to drift to the brink of civil war, and that some genuine effort must be made to arrive at a peaceable solution.

Accordingly on Monday, the 20th, instead of introducing the Amending Bill, Mr. Asquith announced in the House of Commons that His Majesty the King, "in view of the grave situation which has arisen, has thought it right to summon representatives of parties, both British and Irish, to a conference at Buckingham Palace, with the object of discussing outstanding issues in relation to the problem of Irish Government." The Prime Minister added that at the King's suggestion the Speaker, Mr. James Lowther, would preside over the Conference, which would begin its proceedings the following day.

The Liberals, the British Unionists, the Nationalists, and the Ulstermen were respectively represented at the Buckingham Palace Conference by Mr. Asquith and Mr. Lloyd George, Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Bonar Law, Mr. Redmond and Mr. Dillon, Sir Edward Carson and Captain James Craig. The King opened the Conference in person on the 21st with a speech recognising the extreme gravity of the situation, and making an impressive appeal for a peaceful settlement of the question at issue. His Majesty then withdrew. The Conference deliberated for four days, but were unable to agree as to what area in Ulster should be excluded from the jurisdiction of the Parliament in Dublin. On the 24th Mr. Asquith announced the breakdown of the Conference, and said that in consequence the Amending Bill would be introduced in the House of Commons on Thursday, the 30th of July.

Here was the old deadlock. The last glimmer of hope that civil war might be averted seemed to be extinguished. Only ten days had elapsed since Carson had gloomily predicted at Larne that peace was impossible "unless something happens, the evidence of which is not visible at present." But that "something" did happen—though it was something infinitely more dreadful, infinitely more devastating in its consequences, even though less dishonouring to the nation, than the alternative from which it saved us. Balanced, as it seemed, on the brink of civil war, Great Britain and Ireland together toppled over on the other side into the maelstrom of world-wide war.

On the 30th of July, when the Amending Bill was to be discussed, the Prime Minister said that, with the concurrence of Mr. Bonar Law and Sir Edward Carson, it would be indefinitely postponed, in order that the country at this grave crisis in the history of the world "should present a united front and be able to speak and act with the authority of an undivided nation." To achieve this, all domestic quarrels must be laid aside, and he promised that "no business of a controversial character" would be undertaken.

Thus it happened that the Amending Bill was never seen by the House of Commons. Four days later the United Kingdom was at war with the greatest military Empire in the world. The opportunity had come for Ulster to prove whether her cherished loyalty was a reality or a sham.

FOOTNOTES:

[88] Annual Register, 1914, p. 110.

[89] Annual Register, 1914, p. 114.



CHAPTER XX

ULSTER IN THE WAR

More than a year before the outbreak of the Great War a writer in The Morning Post, describing the Ulster Volunteers who were then beginning to attract attention in England, used language which was more accurately prophetic than he can have realised in May 1913:

"What these men have been preparing for in Ulster," he wrote, "may be of value as a military asset in time of national emergency. I have seen the men at drill, I have seen them on parade, and experts assure me that in the matter of discipline, physique, and all things which go to the making of a military force they are worthy to rank with our regular soldiers. It is an open secret that, once assured of the maintenance unimpaired of the Union between Great Britain and Ireland under the Imperial Parliament alone, a vast proportion of the citizen army of Ulster would cheerfully hold itself at the disposal of the Imperial Government and volunteer for service either at home or abroad!"[90]

The only error in the prediction was that the writer underestimated the sacrifice Ulster would be willing to make for the Empire. When the testing time came fifteen months after this appreciation was published all hope of unimpaired maintenance of the Union had to be sorrowfully given up, and only those who were in a position to comprehend, with sympathy, the depth and intensity of the feeling in Ulster on the subject could realise all that this meant to the people there. Yet, all the same, their "citizen army" did not hesitate to "hold itself at the disposal of the Imperial Government, and volunteer for service at home or abroad."

In August 1914 the U.V.F., of 100.000 men, was without question the most efficient force of infantry in the United Kingdom outside the Regular Army. The medical comb did not seriously thin its ranks; and although the age test considerably reduced its number, it still left a body of fine material for the British Army. Some of the best of its officers, like Captain Arthur O'Neill, M.P., of the Life Guards, and Lord Castlereagh of the Blues, had to leave the U.V.F. to rejoin the regiments to which they belonged, or to take up staff appointments at the front. In spite of such losses there was a strong desire in the force, which was shared by the political leaders, that it should be kept intact as far as possible and form a distinct unit for active service, and efforts were at once made to get the War Office to arrange for this to be done. Pressure of work at the War Office, and Lord Kitchener's aversion from anything that he thought savoured of political considerations in the organisation of the Army, imposed a delay of several weeks before this was satisfactorily arranged; and the consequence was that in the first few weeks of the war a large number of the keenest young men in Ulster enlisted in various regiments before it was known that an Ulster Division was to be formed out of the U.V.F.

It was the beginning of September before Carson was in a position to go to Belfast to announce that such an arrangement had been made with Lord Kitchener. And when he went he had also the painful duty of telling the people of Ulster that the Government was going to give them the meanest recompense for the promptitude with which they had thrown aside all party purposes in order to assist the Empire.

When war broke out a "party truce" had been proclaimed. The Unionist leaders promised their support to the Government in carrying on the war, and Mr. Asquith pledged the Government to drop all controversial legislation. The consideration of the Amending Bill had been shelved by agreement, Mr. Asquith stating that the postponement "must be without prejudice to the domestic and political position of any party." On this understanding the Unionist Party supported, almost without so much as a word of criticism, all the emergency measures proposed by the Government. Yet on the 10th of August Mr. Asquith astonished the Unionists by announcing that the promise to take no controversial business was not to prevent him advising the King to sign the Home Rule Bill, which had been hung up in the House of Lords by the introduction of the Amending Bill, and had never been either rejected or passed by that House.

Mr. Balfour immediately protested against this conduct as a breach of faith; but Mr. Redmond's speech on that occasion contained the explanation of the Government's conduct. The Nationalist leader gave a strong hint that any help in the war from the southern provinces of Ireland would depend on whether or not the Home Rule Bill was to become law at once. Although the personal loyalty of Mr. Redmond was beyond question, and although he was no doubt sincere when he subsequently denied that his speech was so intended, it was in reality an application of the old maxim that England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity. In any case, the Cabinet knew that, however unjustly Ulster might be treated, she could be relied upon to do everything in her power to further the successful prosecution of the war, and they cynically came to the conclusion that the best thing to do was to placate those whose loyalty was less assured.

This was the unpleasant tale that Sir Edward Carson had to unfold to the Ulster Unionist Council on the 3rd of September. After explaining how and why he had consented to the indefinite postponement of the Amending Bill, he continued:

"And so, without any condition of any kind, we agreed that the Bill should be postponed without prejudice to the position of either party. England's difficulty is not Ulster's opportunity. England's difficulty is our difficulty; and England's sorrows have always been, and always will be, our sorrows. I have seen it stated that the Germans thought they had hit on an opportune moment, owing to our domestic difficulties, to make their bullying demand against our country. They little understood for what we were fighting. We were not fighting to get away from England; we were fighting to stay with England, and the Power that attempted to lay a hand upon England, whatever might be our domestic quarrels, would at once bring us together—as it has brought us together—as one man."

In order to avoid controversy at such a time, Carson declared he would say nothing about their opponents. He insisted that, however unworthily the Government might act in a great national emergency, Ulstermen must distinguish between the Prime Minister as a party leader and the Prime Minister as the representative of the whole nation. Their duty was to "think not of him or his party, but of our country," and they must show that "we do not seek to purchase terms by selling our patriotism." He then referred to the pride they all felt in the U.V.F.; how he had "watched them grow from infancy," through self-sacrificing toil to their present high efficiency, with the purpose of "allowing us to be put into no degraded position in the United Kingdom." But under the altered conditions their duty was clear:

"Our country and our Empire are in danger. And under these circumstances, knowing that the very basis of our political faith is our belief in the greatness of the United Kingdom and of the Empire, I say to our Volunteers without hesitation, go and help to save your country. Go and win honour for Ulster and for Ireland. To every man that goes, or has gone, and not to them only, but to every Irishman, you and I say, from the bottom of our hearts, 'God bless you and bring you home safe and victorious.'"

The arrangements with the War Office for forming a Division from the Ulster Volunteers were then explained, which would enable the men "to go as old comrades accustomed to do their military training together." Carson touched lightly on fears that had been expressed lest political advantage should be taken by the Government or by the Nationalists of the conversion of the U.V.F. into a Division of the British Army, which would leave Ulster defenceless. "We are quite strong enough," he said, "to take care of ourselves, and so I say to men, so far as they have confidence and trust in me, that I advise them to go and do their duty to the country, and we will take care of politics hereafter." He concluded by moving a resolution, which was unanimously carried by the Council, urging "all Loyalists who owe allegiance to our cause" to join the Army at once if qualified for military service.

From beginning to end of this splendidly patriotic oration no allusion was made to the Nationalist attitude to the war. Few people in Ulster had any belief that the spots on the leopard were going to disappear, even when the Home Rule Bill had been placed on the Statute-book. The "difficulty" and the "opportunity" would continue in their old relations. People in Belfast, as elsewhere, did justice to the patriotic tone of Mr. Redmond's speech in the House of Commons on the 3rd of August, which made so deep an impression in England; but they believed him mistaken in attributing to "the democracy of Ireland" a complete change of sentiment towards England, and their scepticism was more than justified by subsequent events.

But they also scrutinised more carefully than Englishmen the precise words used by the Nationalist leader. Englishmen, both in the House of Commons and in the country, were carried off their feet in an ecstasy of joy and wonder at Mr. Redmond's confident offer of loyal help from Ireland to the Empire in the mighty world conflict. Ireland was to be "the one bright spot." Ulstermen, on the other hand, did not fail to observe that the offer was limited to service at home. "I say to the Government," said Mr. Redmond, "that they may to-morrow withdraw every one of their troops from Ireland. I say that the coast of Ireland will be defended from foreign invasion by her armed sons, and for this purpose armed Nationalist Catholics in the South will be only too glad to join arms with the armed Protestant Ulstermen in the North."

These sentences were rapturously applauded in the House of Commons. When they were read in Ulster the shrewd men of the North asked what danger threatened the "coast of Ireland"; and whether, supposing there were a danger, the British Navy would not be a surer defence than the "armed sons" of Ireland whether from South or North. It was not on the coast of Ireland but the coast of Flanders that men were needed, and it was thither that the "armed Protestant Ulstermen" were preparing to go in thousands. They would not be behind the Catholics of the South in the spirit of comradeship invoked by Mr. Redmond if they were to stand shoulder to shoulder under the fire of Prussian batteries; but they could not wax enthusiastic over the suggestion that, while they went to France, Mr. Redmond's Nationalist Volunteers should be trained and armed by the Government to defend the Irish coast—and possibly, later, to impose their will upon Ulster.

The organisation and the training of the Ulster Division forms no part of the present narrative, but it must be stated that after Carson's speech on the 3rd of September, recruiting went on uninterruptedly and rapidly, and the whole energies of the local leaders and of the rank and file were thrown into the work of preparation. Captain James Craig, promoted to be Lieutenant-Colonel, was appointed Q.M.G. of the Division; but the arduous duties of this post, in which he tried to do the work of half a dozen men, brought about a complete breakdown of health some months later, with the result that, to his deep disappointment, he was forbidden to go with the Division to France. No one displayed a finer spirit than his brother, Mr. Charles Craig, M.P. for South Antrim. He had never done any soldiering, as his brother had in South Africa, and he was over military age in 1914; but he did not allow either his age, his military inexperience, or his membership of the House of Commons to serve as excuse for separating himself from the men with whom he had learnt the elements of drill in the U.V.F. He obtained a commission as Captain in the Ulster Division, and went with it to France, where he was wounded and taken prisoner in the great engagement at Thiepval in the battle of the Somme, and had to endure all the rigours of captivity in Germany till the end of the war. There was afterwards not a little pungent comment among his friends on the fact that, when honours were descending in showers on the heads of the just and the unjust alike, a full share of which reached members of Parliament, sometimes for no very conspicuous merit, no recognition of any kind was awarded to this gallant Ulster officer, who had set so fine an example and unostentatiously done so much more than his duty.

The Government's act of treachery in regard to "controversial business" was consummated on the 18th of September, when the Home Rule Bill received the Royal Assent. On the 15th Mr. Asquith put forward his defence in the House of Commons. In a sentence of mellifluous optimism that was to be woefully falsified in a not-distant future, he declared his confidence that the action his Ministry was taking would bring "for the first time for a hundred years Irish opinion, Irish sentiment, Irish loyalty, flowing with a strong and a continuous and ever-increasing stream into the great reservoir of Imperial resources and Imperial unity." He acknowledged, however, that the Government had pledged itself not to put the Home Rule Bill on the Statute-book until the Amending Bill had been disposed of. That promise was not now to be kept; instead he gave another, which, when the time came, was equally violated, namely, to introduce the Amending Bill "in the next session of Parliament, before the Irish Government Bill can possibly come into operation." Meantime, there was to be a Suspensory Bill to provide that the Home Rule Bill should remain in abeyance till the end of the war, and he gave an assurance "which would be in spirit and in substance completely fulfilled, that the Home Rule Bill will not and cannot come into operation until Parliament has had the fullest opportunity, by an Amending Bill, of altering, modifying, or qualifying its provisions in such a way as to secure the general consent both of Ireland and of the United Kingdom." The Prime Minister, further, paid a tribute to "the patriotic and public spirit which had been shown by the Ulster Volunteers," whose conduct has made "the employment of force, any kind of force, for what you call the coercion of Ulster, an absolutely unthinkable thing."

But a verbal acknowledgment of the public spirit shown by the U.V.F. in the first month of the war was a paltry recompense for the Government's breach of faith, as Mr. Bonar Law immediately pointed out in a stinging rejoinder. The leader of the Opposition concluded his powerful indictment by saying that such conduct by the Government could not be allowed to pass without protest, but that at such a moment of national danger debate in Parliament on this domestic quarrel, forced upon them by Ministers, was indecent; and that, having made his protest, neither he nor his party would take further part in that indecency. Thereupon the whole Unionist Party followed Mr. Bonar Law out of the Chamber.

But that was not the end of the incident. It had been decided, with Sir Edward Carson's approval, that "Ulster Day," the second anniversary of the Covenant, should be celebrated in Ulster by special religious services. The intention had been to focus attention on the larger aspects of Imperial instead of local patriotism; but what had just occurred in Parliament could not be ignored, and it necessitated a reaffirmation of Ulster's unchanged attitude in the domestic quarrel. Mr. Bonar Law now determined to accompany Sir Edward Carson to Belfast to renew and to amplify under these circumstances the pledges of British Unionists to Ulster.

The occasion was a memorable one in several respects. On the 17th of September Sir Edward Carson had been quietly married in the country to Miss Frewen, and he was accompanied to Belfast a few days later by the new Lady Carson, who then made acquaintance with Ulster and her husband's followers for the first time. The scenes that invariably marked the leader's arrival from England have been already described; but the presence of his wife led to a more exuberant welcome than ever on this occasion; and the recent Parliamentary storm, with its sequel in the visit of the leader of the Unionist Party, contributed further to the unbounded enthusiasm of the populace.

There was a meeting of the Council on the morning of the 28th, Ulster Day, at which Carson told the whole story of the conferences, negotiations, conversations, and what not, that had been going on up to, and even since, the outbreak of war, in the course of which he observed that, if he had committed any fault, "it was that he believed the Prime Minister." He paid a just tribute to Mr. Bonar Law, whose constancy, patience, and "resolution to be no party even under these difficult circumstances to anything that would be throwing over Ulster, were matters which would be photographed upon his mind to the very end of his life."

But while, naturally, resentment at the conduct of the Government found forcible expression, and the policy that would be pursued "after the war" was outlined, the keynote of the speeches at this Council Meeting, and also at the overwhelming demonstration addressed by Mr. Bonar Law in the Ulster Hall in the evening, was "country before party." As the Unionist leader truly said: "This is not an anti-Home Rule meeting. That can wait, and you are strong enough to let it wait with quiet confidence." But before passing to the great issues raised by the war, introduced by a telling allusion to the idea that Germany had calculated on Ulster being a thorn in England's side, Mr. Bonar Law gave the message to Ulster which he had specially crossed the Channel to deliver in person.

He reminded the audience that hitherto the promise of support to Ulster by the Unionists of Great Britain, given long before at Blenheim, had been coupled with the condition that, if an appeal were made to the electorate, the Unionist Party would bow to the verdict of the country. "But now," he went on, "after the way in which advantage has been taken of your patriotism, I say to you, and I say it with the full authority of our party, we give the pledge without any condition."

During the two days which he spent in Belfast Mr. Bonar Law, and other visitors from England, paid visits to the training camps at Newcastle and Ballykinler, where the 1st Brigade of the Ulster Division was undergoing training for the front. Both now, and for some time to come, there was a good deal of unworthy political jealousy of the Division, which showed itself in a tendency to belittle the recruiting figures from Ulster, and in sneers in the Nationalist Press at the delay in sending to the front a body of troops whose friends had advertised their supposed efficiency before the war. These troops were themselves fretting to get to France; and they believed, rightly or wrongly, that political intrigue was at work to keep them ingloriously at home, while other Divisions, lacking their preliminary training, were receiving preference in the supply of equipment.

One small circumstance, arising out of the conditions in which "Kitchener's Army" had to be raised, afforded genuine enjoyment in Ulster. Men were enlisting far more rapidly than the factories could provide arms, uniforms, and other equipment. Rifles for teaching the recruits to drill and manoeuvre were a long way short of requirements. It was a great joy to the Ulstermen when the War Office borrowed their much-ridiculed "dummy rifles" and "wooden guns," and took them to English training camps for use by the "New Army."

But this volume is not concerned with the conduct of the Great War, nor is it necessary to enter in detail into the controversy that arose as to the efforts of the rest of Ireland, in comparison with those of Ulster, to serve the Empire in the hour of need. It will be sufficient to cite the testimony of two authorities, neither of whom can be suspected of bias on the side of Ulster. The chronicler of the Annual Register records that:

"In Ulster, as in England, the flow of recruits outran the provision made for them by the War Office, and by about the middle of October the Protestant districts had furnished some 21,000, of which Belfast alone had contributed 7,581, or 305 per 10,000 of the population—the highest proportion of all the towns in the United Kingdom."[91]

The second witness is the democratic orator who took a foremost part in the House of Commons in denouncing the Curragh officers who resigned their Commissions rather than march against Ulster. Colonel John Ward, M.P., writing two years after the war, in which he had not kept his eyes shut, said:

"It would be presumptuous for a mere Englishman to praise the gallantry and patriotism of Scotland, Wales, and Ulster; their record stands second to none in the annals of the war. The case of the South of Ireland, her most ardent admirer will admit, is not as any other in the whole British Empire. To the everlasting credit of the great leader of the Irish Nationalists, Mr. John Redmond, his gallant son, and his very lovable brother—together with many real, great-souled Irish soldiers whose loss we so deeply deplore—saw the light and followed the only course open to good men and true. But the patriotism and devotion of the few only show up in greater and more exaggerated contrast the sullen indifference of the majority, and the active hostility of the minority, who would have seen our country and its people overrun and defeated not only without regret, but with fiendish delight."[92]

No generous-minded Ulsterman would wish to detract a word from the tribute paid by Colonel Ward to the Redmond family and other gallant Catholic Nationalists who stood manfully for the Empire in the day of trial; but the concluding sentence in the above quotation cannot be gainsaid. And the pathetic thing was that Mr. Redmond himself never seems to have understood the true sentiments of the majority of those who had been his followers before the war. In a speech in the House on the 15th of September he referred contemptuously to a "little group of men who never belonged to the National Constitutional party, who were circulating anti-recruiting handbills and were publishing little wretched rags once a week or once a month," which were not worth a moment's notice.

The near future was to show that these adherents of Sinn Fein were not so negligible as Mr. Redmond sincerely believed. The real fact was that his own patriotic attitude at the outbreak of war undermined his leadership in Ireland. The "separatism" which had always been, as Ulster never ceased to believe, the true underlying, though not always the acknowledged, motive power of Irish Nationalism, was beginning again to assert itself, and to find expression in "handbills" and "wretched rags." It was discovering other leaders and spokesmen than Mr. Redmond and his party, whom it was destined before long to sweep utterly away.

FOOTNOTES:

[90] Morning Post, May 19th, 1913.

[91] The Annual Register, 1914, p. 259.

[92] "The Army and Ireland," Nineteenth Century and After, January 1921, by Lieut.-Colonel John Ward, C.B., C.M.G., M.P.



CHAPTER XXI

NEGOTIATIONS FOR SETTLEMENT

The position in which Ulster was now placed was, from the political point of view, a very anxious one. Had the war not broken out when it did, there was a very prevalent belief that the Government could not have avoided a general election either before, or immediately after, the placing of Home Rule on the Statute-book; and as to the result of such an election no Unionist had any misgiving. Even if the Government had remained content to disregard the electorate, it would have been impossible for them to subject Ulster to a Dublin Parliament. The organisation there was powerful enough to prevent it, by force if necessary, and the Curragh Incident had proved that the Army could not be employed against the Loyalists.

But the whole outlook had now changed. The war had put off all thought of a General Election till an indefinite future; the Ulster Volunteers, and every other wheel in the very effective machinery prepared for resistance to Home Rule, were now diverted to a wholly different purpose; and at the same time the hated Bill had become an Act, and the only alleviation was the promise, for what it might be worth, of an Amending Bill the scope of which remained undefined. While, therefore, the Ulster leaders and people threw themselves with all their energy into the patriotic work to which the war gave the call, the situation so created at home caused them much uneasiness.

No one felt it more than Lord Londonderry. Indeed, as the autumn of 1914 wore on, the despondency he fell into was so marked that his friends could not avoid disquietude on his personal account in addition to all the other grounds for anxiety. He and Lady Londonderry, it is true, took a leading part in all the activities to which the war gave rise —encouraging recruiting, organising hospitals, and making provision of every kind for soldiers and their dependents, in Ulster and in the County of Durham. But when in London in November, Lord Londonderry would sit moodily at the Carlton Club, speaking to few except intimate friends, and apparently overcome by depression. He was pessimistic about the war. His only son was at the front, and he seemed persuaded he would never return. The affairs of Ulster, to which he had given his whole heart, looked black; and he went about as if all his purpose in life was gone. He went with Lady Londonderry to Mount Stewart for Christmas, and one or two intimate friends who visited him there in January 1915 were greatly disturbed in mind on his account. But the public in Belfast, who saw him going in and out of the Ulster Club as usual, did not know anything was amiss, and were terribly shocked as well as grieved when they heard of his sudden death at Wynyard on the 8th of February.

The death of Lord Londonderry was felt by many thousands in Ulster as a personal bereavement. If he did not arouse the unbounded, and almost delirious, devotion which none but Sir Edward Carson ever evoked in the North of Ireland, the deep respect and warm affection felt towards him by all who knew him, and by great numbers who did not, was a tribute which his modesty and integrity of character and genial friendliness of disposition richly deserved. He was faithfully described by Carson himself to the Ulster Unionist Council several months after his death as "a great leader, a great and devoted public servant, a great patriot, a great gentleman, and above all the greatest of great friends."

Ulster, meantime, had already had a foretaste of the sacrifices the war was to demand when the Division should go to the front. In November 1914 Captain the Hon. Arthur O'Neill, M.P. for Mid Antrim, who had gone to the front with the first expeditionary force, was killed in action in France. There was a certain sense of sad pride in the reflection that the first member of the House of Commons to give his life for King and country was a representative of Ulster; and the constituency which suffered the loss of a promising young member by the death of this gallant Life Guardsman consoled itself by electing in his place his younger brother, Major Hugh O'Neill, then serving in the Ulster Division, who afterwards proved himself a most valuable member of the Ulster Parliamentary Party, and eventually became the first Speaker of the Ulster Parliament created by the Act of 1920.

Notwithstanding the bitter outbreak of party passion caused by the Government's action in putting the Home Rule Bill on the Statute-book in September, the party truce was well maintained throughout the autumn and winter. And the most striking proof of the transformation wrought by the war was seen when Mr. Asquith, when constrained to form a truly national Administration in May 1915, included Sir Edward Carson in his Cabinet with the office of Attorney-General. Mr. Redmond was at the same time invited to join the Government, and his refusal to do so when the British Unionists, the Labour leaders, and the Ulster leaders all responded to the Prime Minister's appeal to their patriotism, did not appear in the eyes of Ulstermen to confirm the Nationalist leader's profession of loyalty to the Empire; though they did him the justice of believing that he would have accepted office if he had felt free to follow his own inclination. His inability to do so, and the complaints of his followers, including Mr. Dillon, at the admission of Carson to the Cabinet, revealed the incapacity of the Nationalists to rise to a level above party.

Carson, however, did not remain very long in the Government. Disapproving of the policy pursued in relation to our Allies in the Balkans, he resigned on the 20th of October, 1915. But he had remained long enough to prove his value in council to the most energetic of his colleagues in the Cabinet. Men like Mr. Churchill and Mr. Lloyd George, although they had been the bitterest of Carson's opponents eighteen months previously, seldom omitted from this time forward to seek his advice in times of difficulty; and the latter of these two, when things were going badly with the Allies more than a year later, endeavoured to persuade Mr. Asquith to include Carson in a Committee of four to be charged with the entire conduct of the war.

It was, perhaps, fortunate that the Ulster leader was not a member of the Government when the rebellion broke out in the South of Ireland at Easter 1916. For this event suddenly brought to the front again the whole Home Rule question, which everybody had hoped might be allowed to sleep till the end of the war; and it would have been a misfortune if Carson had not then been in a position of independence to play his part in this new act of the Irish drama.

The Government had many warnings of what was brewing. But Mr. Birrell, the Chief Secretary, who in frivolity seemed a contemporary embodiment of Nero, deemed cheap wit a sufficient reply to all remonstrances, and had to confess afterwards that he had utterly miscalculated the forces with which he had to deal. He was completely taken by surprise when, on the 20th of April, an attempt to land weapons from a German vessel, escorted by a submarine from which Sir Roger Casement landed in the West of Ireland, proved that the Irish rebels were in league with the enemy; and even after this ominous event, he did nothing to provide against the outbreak that occurred in Dublin four days later. The rising in the capital, and in several other places in the South of Ireland, was not got under for a week, during which time more than 170 houses had been burnt, L2,000,000 sterling worth of property destroyed or damaged, and 1,315 casualties had been suffered, of which 304 were fatal.

The aims of the insurgents were disclosed in a proclamation which referred to the administration in Ireland as a "long usurpation by a foreign people and government." It declared that the Irish Republican Brotherhood—the same organisation that planned and carried out the Phoenix Park murders in 1882—had now seized the right moment for "reviving the old traditions of Irish nationhood," and announced that the new Irish Republic was a sovereign independent State, which was entitled to claim the allegiance of every Irish man and woman.

The rebellion was the subject of debates in both Houses of Parliament on the 10th and 11th of May—Mr. Birrell having in the interval, to use a phrase of Carlyle's, "taken himself and his incompetence elsewhere"—when Mr. Dillon, speaking for the Nationalist Party, poured forth a flood of passionate sympathy with the rebels, declaring that he was proud of youths who could boast of having slaughtered British soldiers, and he denounced the Government for suppressing the rising in "a sea of blood." The actual fact was, that out of a large number of prisoners taken red-handed in the act of armed rebellion who were condemned to death after trial by court-martial, the great majority were reprieved, and thirteen in all were executed. Whether such measures deserved the frightful description coined by Mr. Dillon's flamboyant rhetoric everybody can judge for himself, after considering whether in any other country or at any other period of the world's history, active assistance of a foreign enemy—for that is what it amounted to—has been visited with a more lenient retribution.

On the same day that Mr. Dillon thus justified the whole basis of Ulster's unchanging attitude towards Nationalism by blurting out his sympathy with England's enemies, Mr. Asquith announced that he was himself going to Ireland to investigate matters on the spot. These two events, Mr. Dillon's speech and the Prime Minister's visit to Dublin—where he certainly exhibited no stern anger against the rebels, even if the stories were exaggerated which reported him to have shown them ostentatious friendliness—went far to transform what had been a wretched fiasco into a success. Cowed at first by their complete failure, the rebels found encouragement in the complacency of the Prime Minister, and the fear or sympathy, whichever it was, of the Nationalist Party. From that moment they rapidly increased in influence, until they proved two years later that they had become the predominant power all over Ireland except in Ulster.

In Ulster the rebellion was regarded with mixed feelings. The strongest sentiment was one of horror at the treacherous blow dealt to the Empire while engaged in a life-and-death struggle with a foreign enemy. But, was it unpardonably Pharisaic if there was also some self-glorification in the thought that Ulstermen in this respect were not as other men were? There was also a prevalent feeling that after what had occurred they would hear no more of Home Rule, at any rate during the war. It appeared inconceivable that any sane Government could think of handing over the control of Ireland in time of war to people who had just proved their active hostility to Great Britain in so unmistakable a fashion.

But they were soon undeceived. Mr. Asquith, on his return, told the House of Commons what he had learnt during his few days' sojourn in Ireland. His first proposition was that the existing machinery of Government in Ireland had completely broken down. That was undeniable. It was the natural fruit of the Birrell regime. Mr. Asquith was himself responsible for it. But no more strange or illogical conclusion could be drawn from it than that which Mr. Asquith proceeded to propound. This was that there was now "a unique opportunity for a new departure for the settlement of outstanding problems "—which, when translated from Asquithian into plain English, meant that now was the time for Home Rule. The pledge to postpone the question till after the war was to be swept aside, and, instead of building up by sound and sensible administration what Mr. Birrel's abnegation of government had allowed to crumble into "breakdown," the rebels were to be rewarded for traffic with the enemy and destruction of the central parts of Dublin, with great loss of life, by being allowed to point to the triumphant success of their activity, which was certain to prove the most effective of all possible propaganda for their political ideals in Ireland.

Some regard, however, was still to be paid to the promise of an Amending Bill. The Prime Minister repeated that no one contemplated the coercion of Ulster; that an attempt must be made to come to agreement about the terms on which the Home Rule Act could be brought into immediate operation; and that the Cabinet had deputed to Mr. Lloyd George the task of negotiating to this end with both parties in Ireland. Accordingly, Mr. Lloyd George, then Secretary of State for War, interviewed Sir Edward Carson on the one hand and Mr. Redmond and Mr. Devlin on the other, and submitted to them separately the proposals which he said the Cabinet were prepared to make.[93]

On the 6th of June Carson explained the Cabinet's proposals at a special meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council held in private. His task was an extremely difficult one, for the advice he had to offer was utterly detestable to himself, and he knew it would be no less so to his hearers. And the latter, profound as was their trust in him as their leader, were men of singularly independent judgment and quite capable of respectfully declining to take any course they did not themselves approve. Indeed, Carson emphasised the fact that he could not, and had not attempted to, bind the Council to take the same view of the situation as himself. At the same time he clearly and frankly stated what his own opinion was, saying: "I would indeed be a poor leader of a great movement if I hesitated to express my own views of any proposition put before you."[94]

His speech, which took nearly two hours in delivery, was a perfect model of lucid exposition and convincing argument. He reviewed in close detail the course of events that had led to the present situation. He maintained from first to last the highest ground of patriotism. Mentioning that numerous correspondents had asked why he did not challenge the Nationalist professions of loyalty two years before at the beginning of the war, which had since then been so signally falsified, he answered:

"Because I had no desire to show a dissentient Ireland to the Germans. I am glad, even with what has happened, that we played the game, and if we had to do it again we would play the game. And then suddenly came the rebellion in Dublin. I cannot find words to describe my own horror when I heard of it. For I am bound to admit to you that I was not thinking merely of Ulster; I was thinking of the war; I was thinking, as I am always thinking, of what will happen if we are beaten in the war. I was thinking of the sacrifice of human lives at the front, and in Gallipoli, and at Kut, when suddenly I heard that the whole thing was interrupted by, forsooth, an Irish rebellion—by what Mr. Dillon in the House of Commons called a clean fight! It is not Ulster or Ireland that is now at stake: it is the British Empire. We have therefore to consider not merely a local problem, but a great Imperial problem—how to win the war."

He then outlined the representations that had been made to him by the Cabinet as to the injury to the Allied cause resulting from the unsettled Irish question—the disturbance of good relations with the United States, whence we were obtaining vast quantities of munitions; the bad effect of our local differences on opinion in Allied and neutral countries. He admitted that these evil effects were largely due to false and hostile propaganda to which the British Government weakly neglected to provide an antidote; he believed they were grossly exaggerated. But in time of war they could not contend with their own Government nor be deaf to its appeals, especially when that Government contained all their own party leaders, on whose support they had hitherto leaned.

One of Carson's chief difficulties was to make men grasp the significance of the fact that Home Rule was now actually established by Act of Parliament. The point that the Act was on the Statute-book was constantly lost sight of, with all that it implied. He drove home the unwelcome truth that simple repeal of that Act was not practical politics. The only hope for Ulster to escape going under a Parliament in Dublin lay in the promised Amending Bill. But they had no assurance how much that Bill, when produced, would do for them. Was it likely, he asked, to do more than was now offered by the Government?

He then told the Council what Mr. Lloyd George's proposals were. The Cabinet offered on the one hand a "clean cut," not indeed of the whole of Ulster, but of the six most Protestant counties, and on the other to bring the Home Rule Act, so modified, into immediate operation. He pointed out that none of them could contemplate using the U.V.F. for fighting purposes at home after the war; and that, even if such a thing were thinkable, they could not expect to get more by forcible resistance to the Act than what was now offered by legislation.

But to Carson himself, and to all who listened to him that day, the heartrending question was whether they could suffer a separation to be made between the Loyalists in the six counties and those in the other three counties of the Province. It could only be done, Carson declared, if, after considering all the circumstances of the case as he unfolded it to them, the delegates from Cavan, Monaghan, and Donegal could make the self-sacrifice of releasing the other counties from the obligation to stand or fall together. Carson ended by saying that he did not intend to take a vote—he "could be no party to having Ulstermen vote one against the other." What was to be done must be done by agreement, or not at all. He offered to confer separately with the delegates from the three omitted counties, and the Council adjourned till the 12th of June to enable this conference to be held.

In the interval a large number of the delegates held meetings of their local associations, most of which passed resolutions in favour of accepting the Government's proposals. But there was undoubtedly a widespread feeling that it would be a betrayal of the Loyalists of Cavan, Monaghan, and Donegal, and even a positive breach of the Covenant, to accept exclusion from the Home Rule Act for only a portion of Ulster. This was, it is true, a misunderstanding of the strict meaning of the Covenant, which had been expressly conditioned so as not to extend to such unforeseen circumstances as the war had brought about[95]; but there was a general desire to avoid if possible taking technical points, and both Carson himself and the Council were ready to sacrifice the opportunity for a tolerable settlement should the representatives of the three counties not freely consent to what was proposed.

In a spirit of self-sacrifice which deeply touched every member of the Council, this consent was given. Carson had obtained leave for Lord Farnham to return from the Army in France to be present at the meeting. Lord Farnham, as a delegate from Cavan, made a speech at the adjourned meeting on the 12th which filled his hearers with admiration. That he was almost heart-broken by the turn events had taken he made no attempt to conceal; and his distress was shared by those who heard his moving words. But he showed that he possessed the instinct of statesmanship which compelled him to recognise, in spite of the powerful pull of sentiment and self-interest in the opposite direction, that the course recommended by Carson was the path of wisdom. With breaking voice he thanked the latter "for the clearness, and the fairness, and the manliness with which he has put the deplorable situation that has arisen before us, and for his manly advice as leader "; and he then read a resolution that had been passed earlier in the day by the delegates of the three counties, which, after recording a protest against any settlement excluding them from Ulster, expressed sorrowful acquiescence, on grounds of the larger patriotism, in whatever decision might be come to in the matter by their colleagues from the six counties.

It was the saddest hour the Ulster Unionist Council ever spent. Men not prone to emotion shed tears. It was the most poignant ordeal the Ulster leader ever passed through. But it was just one of those occasions when far-seeing statesmanship demands the ruthless silencing of promptings that spring from emotion. Many of those who on that terrible 12th of June were most torn by doubt as to the necessity for the decision arrived at, realised before long that their leader had never been guided by surer insight than in the counsel he gave them that day.

The Resolution adopted by the Council was a lengthy one. After reciting the unaltered attachment of Ulster to the Union, it placed on record the appeal that had been made by the Government on patriotic grounds for a settlement of the Irish difficulty, which the Council did not think it right at such a time of national emergency to resist; but it was careful to reserve, in case the negotiations should break down from any other cause, complete freedom to revert to "opposition to the whole policy of Home Rule for Ireland."

Meantime the Nationalist leaders had been submitting Mr. Lloyd George's proposals to their own people, and on the 10th of June Mr. Redmond made a speech in Dublin from which it appeared that he was submitting a very different proposal to that explained by Carson in Belfast. For Mr. Redmond told his Dublin audience that, while the Home Rule Act was to come into operation at once, the exclusion of the six counties was to be only for the period of the war and twelve months afterwards. That would, of course, have been even less favourable to Ulster than the terms offered by Mr. Asquith and rejected by Carson in March 1914. Exclusion for the period of the war meant nothing; it would have been useless to Ulster; it was no concession whatever; and Carson would have refused, as he did in 1914, even to submit it to the Unionist Council in Belfast. Mr. Lloyd George, who must have known this, had told him quite clearly that there was to be a "definite clean cut," with no suggestion of a time limit. There was, however, an idea that after the war an Imperial Conference would be held, at which the whole constitutional relations of the component nations of the British Empire would be reviewed, and that the permanent status of Ireland would then come under reconsideration with the rest. In this sense the arrangement now proposed was spoken of as "provisional"; but both Mr. Lloyd George and the Prime Minister made it perfectly plain that the proposed exclusion of the six Ulster counties from Home Rule could never be reversed except by a fresh Act of Parliament.

But when the question was raised by Mr. Redmond in the House of Commons on the 24th of July, in a speech of marked moderation, he explained that he had understood the exclusion, like all the rest of the scheme, to be strictly "provisional," with the consequence that it would come to an end automatically at the end of the specified period unless prolonged by new legislation; and he refused to respond to an earnest appeal by Mr. Asquith not to let slip this opportunity of obtaining, with the consent of the Unionist Party, immediate Home Rule for the greater part of Ireland, more especially as Mr. Redmond himself had disclaimed any desire to bring Ulster within the Home Rule jurisdiction without her own consent.

The negotiations for settlement thus fell to the ground, and the bitter sacrifice which Ulster had brought herself to offer, in response to the Government's urgent appeal, bore no fruit, unless it was to afford one more proof of her loyalty to England and the Empire. She was to find that such proofs were for the most part thrown away, and merely were used by her enemies, and by some who professed to be her friends, as a starting-point for demands on her for further concessions. But, although all British parties in turn did their best to impress upon Ulster that loyalty did not pay, she never succeeded in learning the lesson sufficiently to be guided by it in her political conduct.

FOOTNOTES:

[93] Mr. Lloyd George's memory was at fault when he said in the House of Commons on the 7th of February, 1922, that on the occasion referred to in the text he had seen Sir Edward Carson and Mr. Redmond together.

[94] The quotations from this speech, which was never published, are from a report privately taken by the Ulster Unionist Council.

[95] See ante, p. 105.



CHAPTER XXII

THE IRISH CONVENTION

After the failure of Mr. Lloyd George's negotiations for settlement in the summer of 1916 the Nationalists practically dropped all pretence of helping the Government to carry on the war. They were, no doubt, beginning to realise how completely they were losing hold of the people of Southern Ireland, and that the only chance of regaining their vanishing popularity was by an attitude of hostility to the British Government.

Frequently during the autumn and winter they raised debates in Parliament on the demand that the Home Rule Act should immediately come into operation, and threatened that if this were not done recruits from Ireland would not be forthcoming, although the need for men was now a matter of great national urgency. They ignored the fact that Mr. Redmond was a consenting party to Mr. Asquith's policy of holding Home Rule in abeyance till after the war, and attempted to explain away their own loss of influence in Ireland by alleging that the exasperation of the Irish people at the delay in obtaining "self-government" was the cause of their alienation from England, and of the growth of Sinn Fein.

In December 1916 the Asquith Government came to an end, and Mr. Lloyd George became Prime Minister. He had shown his estimate of Sir Edward Carson's statesmanship by pressing Mr. Asquith to entrust the entire conduct of the war to a Committee of four, of whom the Ulster leader should be one; and, having failed in this attempt to infuse energy and decision into the counsels of his Chief, he turned him out and formed a Ministry with Carson in the office of First Lord of the Admiralty, at that time one of the most vital in the Government. Colonel James Craig also joined the Ministry as Treasurer of the Household.

The change of Government did nothing to alter the attitude of the Nationalists, unless, indeed, the return of Carson to high office added to the fierceness of their attacks. On the 26th of February 1917—just when "unrestricted submarine warfare" was bringing the country into its greatest peril—Mr. Dillon called upon the Government to release twenty-eight men who had been deported from Ireland, and who were declared by Mr. Duke, the Chief Secretary, to have been deeply implicated in the Easter rebellion of the previous year; and a week later Mr. T.P. O'Connor returned to the charge with another demand for Home Rule without further ado.

The debate on Mr. O'Connor's motion on the 7th of March was made memorable by the speech of Major William Redmond, home on leave from the trenches in France, whose sincere and impassioned appeal for oblivion of old historic quarrels between Irish Catholics and Protestants, who were at that moment fighting and dying side by side in France, made a deep impression on the House of Commons and the country. And when this gallant officer fell in action not long afterwards and was carried out of the firing line by Ulster soldiers, his speech on the 7th of March was recalled and made the peg on which to hang many adjurations to Ulster to come into line with their Nationalist fellow-countrymen of the South.

Such appeals revealed a curious inability to grasp the realities of the situation. Men spoke and wrote as if it were something new and wonderful for Irishmen of the "two nations" to be found fighting side by side in the British Army—as if the same thing had not been seen in the Peninsula, in the Crimea, on the Indian frontier, in South Africa, and in many another fight. Ulstermen, like everybody else who knew Major Redmond, deplored the loss of a very gallant officer and a very lovable man. But they could not understand why his death should be made a reason for a change in their political convictions. When Major Arthur O'Neill, an Ulster member, was killed in action in 1914, no one had suggested that Nationalists should on that account turn Unionists. Why, they wondered, should Unionists any more turn Nationalists because a Nationalist M.P. had made the same supreme sacrifice? All this sentimental talk of that time was founded on the misconception that Ulster's attachment to the Union was the result of personal prejudice against Catholics of the South, instead of being, as it was, a deliberate and reasoned conviction as to the best government for Ireland.

This distinction was clearly brought out in the same debate by Sir John Lonsdale, who, when Carson became a member of the Cabinet, had been elected leader of the Ulster Party in the House of Commons; and an emphatic pronouncement, which went to the root of the controversy, was made in reply to the Nationalists by the Prime Minister. In the north-eastern portion of Ireland, he said:

"You have a population as hostile to Irish rule as the rest of Ireland is to British rule, yea, and as ready to rebel against it as the rest of Ireland is against British rule—as alien in blood, in religious faith, in traditions, in outlook—as alien from the rest of Ireland in this respect as the inhabitants of Fife or Aberdeen. To place them under National rule against their will would be as glaring an outrage on the principles of liberty and self-government as the denial of self-government would be for the rest of Ireland."

The Government were, therefore, prepared, said Mr. Lloyd George, to bring in Home Rule immediately for that part of Ireland that wanted it, but not for the Northern part which did not want it. Mr. Redmond made a fine display of indignation at this refusal to coerce Ulster; and, in imitation of the Unionists in 1914, marched out of the House at the head of his party. Next day he issued a manifesto to men of Irish blood in the United States and in the Dominions, calling on them to use all means in their power to exert pressure on the British Government. It was clear that this sort of thing could not be tolerated in the middle of a war in which Great Britain was fighting for her life, and at a crisis in it when her fortunes were far from prosperous. Accordingly, on the 16th of March Mr. Bonar Law warned the Nationalists that their conduct might make it necessary to appeal to the country on the ground that they were obstructing the prosecution of the war. But he also announced that the Cabinet intended to make one more attempt to arrive at a settlement of the apparently insoluble problem of Irish government.

Two months passed before it was made known how this attempt was to be made. On the 16th of May the Prime Minister addressed a letter in duplicate to Mr. Redmond and Sir John Lonsdale, representing the two Irish parties respectively, in which he put forward for their consideration two alternative methods of procedure, after premising that the Government felt precluded from proposing during the war any measures except such as "would be substantially accepted by both sides."

These alternatives were: (a) a "Bill for the immediate application of the Home Rule Act to Ireland, but excluding therefrom the six counties of North-East Ulster," or, (b) a Convention of Irishmen "for the purpose of drafting a Constitution ... which should secure a just balance of all the opposing interests." Sir John Lonsdale replied to the Prime Minister that he would take the Government's first proposal to Belfast for consideration by the Council; but as Mr. Redmond, on the other hand, peremptorily refused to have anything to say to it, it became necessary to fall back on the other alternative, namely the assembling of an Irish Convention.

The members chosen to sit in the Convention were to be "representative men" in Emerson's meaning of the words, but not in the democratic sense as deriving their authority from direct popular election. Certain political organisations and parties were each invited to nominate a certain number; the Churches were represented by their leading clergy; men occupying public positions, such as chairmen of local authorities, were given ex-officio seats; and a certain number were nominated by the Government. The total membership of this variegated assembly was ninety-five. The Sinn Fein party were invited to join, but refused to have anything to do with it, declaring that they would consider nothing short of complete independence for Ireland. The majority of the Irish people thus stood aloof from the Convention altogether.

As the purpose for which the Convention was called was quickly lost sight of by many, and by none more than its Chairman, it is well to remember what that purpose was. If it had not been for the opposition of Ulster, the Home Rule Act of 1914 would have been in force for years, and none of the many attempts at settlement would have been necessary. The one and only thing required was to reconcile, if possible, the aspirations of Ulster with those of the rest of Ireland. That was the purpose, and the only purpose, of the Convention; and in the letter addressed to Sir John Lonsdale equally with Mr. Redmond, the Prime Minister distinctly laid it down that unless its conclusions were accepted "by both sides," nothing could come of it. To leave no shadow of doubt on this point Mr. Bonar Law, in reply to a specific question, said that there could be no "substantial agreement" to which Ulster was not a party.

It is necessary to emphasise this point, because for such a purpose the heterogeneous conglomeration of Nationalists of all shades that formed the great majority of the Convention was worse than useless. The Convention was in reality a bi-lateral conference, in which one of the two sides was four times as numerous as the other. Yet much party capital was subsequently made of the fact that the Nationalist members agreed upon a scheme of Home Rule—an achievement which had no element of the miraculous or even of the unexpected about it.

Notwithstanding that the Sinn Fein party had displayed their contempt for the Convention, and under the delusion that it would "create an atmosphere of good-will" for its meeting, the Government released without condition or reservation all the prisoners concerned in the Easter rebellion of 1916. It was like playing a penny whistle to conciliate a cobra. The prisoners, from whose minds nothing was further than any thought of good-will to England, were received by the populace in Dublin with a rapturous ovation, their triumphal procession being headed by Mr. De Valera, who was soon afterwards elected member for East Clare by a majority of nearly thirty thousand. Four months later, the Chief Secretary told Parliament that the young men of Southern Ireland, who had refused to serve in the Army, were being enrolled in preparation for another rebellion.

It was only after some hesitation that the Ulster Unionist Council decided not to hold aloof from the Convention, as the Sinn Feiners did. Carson accompanied Sir John Lonsdale to Belfast and explained the explicit pledges by Ministers that participation would not commit them to anything, that they would not be bound by any majority vote, and that without their concurrence no legislation was to be founded on any agreement between the other groups in the Convention; he also urged that Ulster could not refuse to do what the Government held would be helpful in the prosecution of the war.

The invitation to nominate five delegates was therefore accepted; and when the membership of the Convention was complete there were nineteen out of ninety-five who could be reckoned as supporters in general of the Ulster point of view. Among them were the Primate, the Moderator of the General Assembly, the Duke of Abercorn, the Marquis of Londonderry, Mr. H.M. Pollock, Chairman of the Belfast Chamber of Commerce, one Labour representative, Mr J. Hanna, and the Lord Mayors of Belfast and Derry. It was agreed that Mr. H.T. Barrie, member for North Derry, should act as chairman and leader of the Ulster group, and he discharged this difficult duty with unfailing tact and ability.

There was some difficulty in finding a suitable Chairman, for no party was willing to accept any strong man opposed to their own views, while an impartial man was not to be found in Ireland. Eventually the choice fell on Sir Horace Plunkett as a gentleman who, if eagerly supported by none, was accepted by each group as preferable to a more formidable opponent. Sir Horace made no pretence of impartiality. Whatever influence he possessed was used as a partisan of the Nationalists. He was not, like the Speaker of the House of Commons, a silent guardian of order; he often harangued the assembly, which, on one occasion at least, he addressed for over an hour; and he issued manifestos, questionnaires, and letters to members, one of which was sharply censured as misleading both by Mr. Barrie and the Bishop of Raphoe.

The procedure adopted was described by the Chairman himself as "unprecedented." It was not only that, but was unsuitable in the last degree for the purpose in view. When it is borne in mind what that purpose was, it is clear that the only business-like method would have been to invite the Ulster delegates at the outset to formulate their objections to coming under the Home Rule Act of 1914, and then to see whether Mr. Redmond could make any concessions which would persuade Ulster to accept something less than the permanent exclusion of six counties, which had been their minimum hitherto.

The procedure actually followed was ludicrously different. The object, as stated by the chairman, was "to avoid raising contentious issues in such a way as to divide the Convention on party lines,"[96] which, to say the least, was a curious method of handling the most contentious problem in British politics. A fine opportunity was offered to amateur constitution-mongers. Anyone was allowed to propound a scheme for the future government of Ireland, which, of course, was an encouragement to endless wide-ranging debate, with the least conceivable likelihood of arriving at definite decisions. Neither of the leaders of the two parties whose agreement was essential if the Convention was to have any result took the initiative in bringing forward proposals. Mr. Redmond was invited to do so, but declined. Mr. Barrie had no reason to do so, because the Ulster scheme for the government of Ireland was the legislative union. So it was left to individuals with no official responsibility to set forth their ideas, which became the subject of protracted debates of a general character.

It was further arranged that while contentious issues—the only ones that mattered—should be avoided, any conclusions reached on minor matters should be purely provisional, and contingent on agreement being come to ultimately on fundamentals. Month after month was spent in thus discussing such questions as the powers which an Irish Parliament ought to wield, while the question whether Ulster was to come into that Parliament was left to stand over. Committees and sub-committees were appointed to thresh out these details, and some of them relieved the tedium by wandering into such interesting by-ways of irrelevancy as housing and land purchase, all of which, in Gilbertian phrase, "had nothing to do with the case."

The Ulster group raised no objection to all this expenditure of time and energy. For they saw that it was not time wasted. From the standpoint of the highest national interest it was, indeed, more useful than anything the Convention could have accomplished by business-like methods. The summer and autumn of 1917, and the early months of 1918, covered a terribly critical period of the war. The country was never in greater peril, and the attitude of the Nationalists in the House of Commons added to the difficulties of the Government, as Mr. Bonar Law had complained in March. It was to placate them that the Convention had been summoned. It was a bone thrown to a snarling dog, and the longer there was anything to gnaw the longer would the dog keep quiet. The Ulster delegates understood this perfectly, and, as their chief desire was to help the Government to get on with the war, they had no wish to curtail the proceedings of the Convention, although they were never under the delusion that it could lead to anything in Ireland.

Having regard to the origin of this strange assembly of Irishmen it might have been supposed that its ingenuity would be directed to finding some modification of Mr. Asquith's Home Rule Act which Ulster could accept. That Act was the point of departure for its investigation, and the quest was ex hypothesi for some amendment that would not be an enlargement of the authority to be delegated to the subordinate Parliament, or any further loosening of the tie with Great Britain. Any proposal of the latter sort would be in the opposite direction from that in which the Convention was intended to travel. Yet this is precisely what was done from the very outset. The Act of 1914 was brushed aside as beneath contempt; and the Ulster delegates had to listen with amazement week after week to proposals for giving to the whole of Ireland, including their own Province, a constitution practically as independent of Great Britain as that of the Dominions.

But what astonished the Ulstermen above everything was to find these extravagant demands of the Nationalists supported by those who were supposed to be representatives of Southern Unionism, with Lord Midleton, a prominent member of the Unionist Party in England, at their head. The only material point on which Lord Midleton differed from the extremists led by the Bishop of Raphoe was that he wished to limit complete fiscal autonomy for Ireland by reserving the control of Customs duties to the Imperial Parliament. Save in this single particular he joined forces with the Nationalists, and shocked the Unionists of the North by giving his support to a scheme of Home Rule going beyond anything ever suggested at Westminster by any Radical from Gladstone to Asquith.

This question of the financial powers to be exercised by the hypothetical Irish Parliament occupied the Convention and its committees for the greater part of its eight months of existence. In January 1918 Lord Midleton and Mr. Redmond came to an agreement on the subject which proved the undoing of them both, and produced the only really impressive scene in the Convention.

For some time Mr. Redmond had given the impression of being a tired man who had lost his wonted driving-force. He took little or no part in the lobbying and canvassing that was constantly going on behind the scenes in the Convention; he appeared to be losing grip as a leader. But he cannot be blamed for his anxiety to come to terms with Lord Midleton; and when he found, no doubt greatly to his surprise, that a Unionist leader was ready to abandon Unionist principles and to accept Dominion Home Rule for Ireland, subject to a single reservation on the subject of Customs, he naturally jumped at it, and assumed that his followers would do the same.

But, while Mr. Redmond had been losing ground, the influence of the Catholic Bishop of Raphoe had been on the increase, and that able and astute prelate was entirely opposed to the compromise on which Mr. Redmond and Lord Midleton were agreed. On the evening of the 14th of January it came to the knowledge of Mr. Redmond that when the question came up for decision next day, he would find Mr. Devlin, his principal lieutenant, in league with the ecclesiastics against him. He was personally too far committed to retrace his steps; to go forward meant disaster, for it would produce a deep cleavage in the Nationalist ranks; and, as the state of affairs was generally known to members of the Convention, the sitting of the following day was anticipated with unusual interest.

There was an atmosphere of suppressed excitement when the Chairman took his seat on the 15th. Mr. Redmond entered a few seconds later and took his usual place without betraying the slightest sign of disturbed equanimity. The Bishop of Raphoe strode past him, casting to left and right swift, challenging glances. Mr. Devlin slipped quietly into his seat beside the leader he had thrown over, without a word or gesture of greeting. All over the room small groups of members engaged in whispered conversation; an air of mysterious expectancy prevailed. The Ulster members had been threatened that it was to be for them a day of disaster and dismay—a little isolated group, about to be deserted by friends and crushed by enemies. The Chairman, in an agitated voice, opened proceedings by inviting questions. There was no response. A minute or so of tense pause ensued. Then Mr. Redmond rose, and in a perfectly even voice and his usual measured diction, stated that he was aware that his proposal was repudiated by many of his usual followers; that the bishops were against him, and some leading Nationalists, including Mr. Devlin; that, while he believed if he persisted he would have a majority, the result would be to split his party, a thing he wished to avoid; and that he had therefore decided not to proceed with his amendment, and under these circumstances felt he could be of no further use to the Convention in the matter.

For a minute or two the assembly could not grasp the full significance of what had happened. Then it broke upon them that this was the fall of a notable leader, although they did not yet know that it was also the close of a distinguished career. Mr. Redmond's demeanour throughout what must have been a painful ordeal was beyond all praise. There was not a quiver in his voice, nor a hesitation for word or phrase. His self-possession and dignity and high-bred bearing won the respect and sympathy of the most strenuous of political opponents, even while they recognised that the defeat of the Nationalist leader meant relief from pressure on themselves. Mr. Redmond took no further part in the work of the Convention; his health was failing, and the members were startled by the news of his death on the 6th of March.