Red terror and green; the Sinn-Fein-bolshevist movement

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Red terror and green:

3 1924 028 170 003

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RED TERROR AND GREEN

RED TERROR AND
GREEN

The Sinn Fein-Bolshevist Movement
BY RICHARD DAWSON

NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

681 FIFTH AVENUE

CoPTBiaHT, 1920,

By E. p. Dutton & Company

All Bights Reserved

uy

Printed in the United States of America

* ♦

CONTENTS

CBATTBB PAOB

I. Ireland Cou^qes heb Mind 1

II. Idealism A^wakes . . .-..'..•. . ■ 11

III. Sinn Fein . .... I*'. . . . ". . 27

IV Enter James Connolly . . . . .' . . 43

V. LABoms AND THE Union 56

VI. The Revolutionaht Movement 69

VII. The Nineteenth Cbntubt. ...'.'.. 84

VIII. Stormy Petrels *. • . . 102

IX. Undercurrents . . . . ,'.'" .'\ . . 118

X. Arms and the Man . . . . . . . . 141

XI. Privy Conspiracy and Rebellion .... 164

XII. Makers of Mischief 187

XIII. The Bolshevik Alliance . 208

XIV. A State of War 229

XV. CoNCLirsioN 253

Index 267

BED TERROR AND GREEN

RED TERROR AND
GREEN

CHAPTEE I

lEEIAND CHANGES HEE IiUND

Wae found Nationalist Ireland, after a century
of "wandering in the political wilderness, within
sight of her goal. It did more; it unclasped
the deadlock which the Palace Conference had
failed to solve, and which threatened to produce
one of two unfortunate alternatives, either such
a recasting of the Home Eule Bill as would have
embittered the relations between the component
parts of the United Kingdom, or such an en-
forcement of the measure as would have caused
permanent embitterment in Ireland itself. The
relief of the minority at being rescued from the
dire extremity of resistance was probably not
greater than that of the reflecting section of the
majority who realised that to set forth on self-
government amidst storms of hatred would be

2 lEELAND CHANGES HER MIND

but a poor augury of a successful voyage. But
the War did even more than that. It provided
Nationalisj; Ireland with an opportunity such as
Fate seldom vouchsafes, the chance of once and
for all silencing the voice of her detractors and
winning the respect and confidence of her foes.
And then, deaf to the wise counsels of her lead-
er, blind to the glowing example of tens of thou-
sands of her valiant sons, she deliberately threw
the chance away. Like another Penelope, she
unravelled in a night the fabric she had been
weaving for a hundred years.

In the face of a decision so surprising and
momentous it is not a little curious that a con-
siderable number of men still talk and write and
think in terms of the Home Rule controversy of
five years ago. The columns of the Press teem
with correspondence, arguing for and against
partition, setting forth the respective merits of
different forms of Dominion self-government,
and comparing them with the American State
system. Even the Government convened a Con-
ference among the ruins of Dublin to devise a
scheme that should reconcile conflicting inter-
ests in an agreed measure of Home Rule. Such
weU-meant activities are based on the theory —
and must be abortive if the theory be iucorrect
— ^that Ireland's attitude during the last four

tTHE NEW MOVEMENT 3

years is the outcome of discontent with the de-
tails of the Home Rule Act, at worst manifesting
itself in one of those sporadic and short-lived
outbreaks of the insurrectionary movement
which is endemic in Irish politics. According
to this view Sinn Fein is merely the reincar-
nation, under another name, of the movement
which called itself Young Ireland in 1848 and
Fenianism in 1867.

Certain affinities of course all revolutionary
parties must needs have in common: "There
is a river in Macedon and a river at Monmouth
and there is sahnons in both." But, as it is
the purpose of this book to show, the affinities
of Sinn Fein with the revolutionaries of the
last century are entirely superficial. The re-
semblance indeed is hardly skin deep. It is
important to note the relations between the
revolutionary and constitutional agitations in
Ireland since the Union. The two movements
ran parallel. The extremists were no doubt
ready to push their line beyond the limits set
for themselves by the moderate wing of the
Nationalist Party; they were anxious to move
faster; possibly they chafed at and despised
the caution and half heartedness of the mod-
erates, but they never tried to thwart or trip
them up. The revolutionary vein which lay be-
neath the surface only out-cropped during the

4 lEELAND CHANGES HEE MIND

periods when the constitutional movement
was utterly stagnant. The Young Irelanders
only made their effort at times when the Repeal
agitation — ^which they supported — ^had burned
itself out. The rebellion of 1848 came when
'ConneU's agitation had died away. The Fen-
ian Rising came half-way between the Tenant
Right and the Land League movements, when
the demand for self-government had sunk to an
almost inaudible whisper. The fact that, despite
the existence of the Clan-na-Gael, Ireland had
not, until Easter Week, had an armed rising for
fifty years may be attributed to the vigour and
constancy with which the constitutional section
were pressing their claims.

It is even more important to note the alacrity
with which the champions of independence and
physical force lent their aid to the advocates
of limited self-government and parliamentary
methods when their own methods had failed.
The man who had been "out" in '48 and '67
was the peaceful voter of 1880, giving loyal sup-
port, even in the Palace of Westminster itself,
to men whom he knew were out of sympathy
with his extreme views. Even the Clan-nar'
Grael did not disdain to provide the sinews of
war for a policy which fell far short of its ambi-
tions. The extremists acted on the principle

SINN FEIN STANDS ALOOF 5

that haK a loaf is better than no bread. Some,
no doubt, reflected that if they could not jump
the stream they might cross it by stepping
stones, but, whatever their motives may have
been, the significant fact remains that the revo-
lutionary movement of the last century never
showed any jealousy of the constitutional party.
Contrast such a policy with that of Sinn
Fein and mark how sharp is the differentiation.
So far from showing any sympathy, even tacit,
with the United Irish League, when it has not
held sternly aloof, it has been actively hostile.
It fought its only parliamentary election prior
to the Dublin rebellion against Mr. Eedmond's
official nominee in 1907. Even when the Home
Eule Bill was marching triumphantly through
Parliament its journals were snapping and
snarling at the heels of the Parliamentary
Party. And then, when the Parliamentarians
had triumphed, when the Home Eule Act stood
on the Statute Book, and when it only needed
a few months of sacrifice, not uncongenial to an
ardent and pugnacious race, to procure the con-
summation of Ireland's dreams, this body,
hitherto insignificant, whose snarlings the
Nationalists had treated as they might the pet-
tish snapping of a pom-pom, brought their ef-
forts tumbling to the ground as a mischievous

6 IRELAND CHANaES HEE MIND

child overturns a house of cards, the pride of
its patient builder.

The suddenness and apparent wantonness of
the catastrophe, which wrecked not only the Act
for the Better Government of Ireland, but what
was even more important, the visions of a new
era of closer comradeship between the warring
elements of the country which Mr. Eedmond's
appeal had evoked, has generated the theory
that it came through some gadfly madness seiz-
ing upon a people wearied with a long struggle
for liberty, sickened by hopes deferred, and
turning against leaders of whom they were
tired, as the children of Israel turned against
Moses besides the waters of Marah.

If this be the explanation, then the task of
settling the Irish question is comparatively easy,
no more difficult than fishing up a broken sub-
marine cable, splicing the fracture and setting
the electric current running through the wires
again. The question arises whether this is the
real explanation. It might account for the
refusal to enlist, and the overthrow of the
Nationalist Party at the polls — ^though the
pertinacity and magnitude of the opposition
hardly coincide with the theory of the movement
being only a sudden and passing whim. But it
does not square with the main facts. It does not

A FAULTY THEORY 7

account for the astonishing rise of Sinn Fein in
the course of a few weeks from a poverty-
stricken body, with only one branch outside
Dublin, without any commanding or notorious
figures among its leaders, without a Press, to
an organisation which sweeps the constituencies,
establishes its own Parliament, controls the lo-
cal authorities, and holds three-quarters of the
country in thrall. Above all, it does not account
for the Dublin rebellion and the German alli-
ance. Eational beings do not take such meas-
ures because an Act of Parliament falls short
of their desires. ' ' No man, ' ' said John Mitchell
from the dock, "proudly mounts the scaffold
or coolly faces a felon's death . , . for nothing.
No man, be he as young or vain as you will,
does this in the insolence of youth or the in-
toxication of vanity."

Had these events been emanations from Sinn
Fein alone, the theory that they represented but
a passing phase would be infinitely more credi-
ble than it is. Great political movements, still
less revolutions, are not begotten by highbrows :
they are the products of flesh and blood. The
antiquarian enthusiasm of Dr. Douglas Hyde
might create a new Nationalism inspired with
scholarly ideals ; the intelleotualism of Mr. Ar-
thur GriflSth could give it practical direction;

8 lEELAND CHANGES HER MIND

the Abbey Theatre could invest it with a gener-
ous warmth and colour. Men reared iu such an
atmosphere might overthrow Home Eule, not as
wanton children poking at a house of cards, but
with the deliberate belief that it was a flimsy
temple housing false gods, but they would have
lacked the driving force that alone can generate
revolutions and give persistence to great politi-
cal movements.

The idea may come from above, the driving
force always comes from below. It is born not
of the brain, but of bodies festering in the un-
speakable pollution of Dublin slums, and of
blood boiling under the oratory of men like
James Larkin, coarse and vulgar if you wiU,
but aU the more inflammatory for that. The
force gets solidity and permanence when, behind
the wrong and the demagogue, stands a direct-
ing mind, such as James Connolly's, fired with
indignation and sympathy and stored with
knowledge. And when from those stores of
knowledge he constructs a creed in which ma-
terial reform blends with the revival of ancient
national ideals and traditions and with political
emancipation, then indeed we can feel that we
are in face of an abiding force.

The actual situation, then, is not just a simple
clash between rival Nationalists, but one very
grave and complex. To hope to solve the Irish

SEEKING INSPIRATION 9

question by paper contetitutions, constructed
without examination of all its factors, is to try
to draw the subject of a jig-saw puzzle after put-
ting half a dozen pieces into place. Such an at-
tempt must at best be futile, at worst it may be
fatal.

It is the aim of the writer to describe the new
Nationalism, not as it appears to him, but as it
is conceived by its authors and made manifest
by events. The new Nationalism is still in
process of evolution, and of evolution so swift
that before these words see the light it may have
taken on new accretions. Even so far as it has
gone it has radically altered the orientation of
the Irish problem, and therefore calls for con-
sideration by aU who hope to solve it.

To achieve the task we must follow the course
of two streams of thought, starting from a
common source, diverging for a time into paral-
lel channels, and then again uniting to form the
Irish movement of to-day. On the one side we
shall find ancient Irish culture invoked to create
an artistic and intellectual revival : on the other
we shall find the ancient Irish politico-economic
organisation being invoked as the inspiration
of industrial liberty. We shall see how Graelic
decadence is ascribed to the loss of the old tra-
ditions, and how the guilt is fastened not only

10 lEELAND CHANGES HEE MIND

on English. Machiavellianism, hut on Irishmen,
posing as patriots, but unconsciously betraying
their country by setting f ortb their aspirations
and demands in terms of Anglicised politics.
We shall see the old idols of the market-place
and platform overthrown, and unknown figures
installed on th.e empty pedestal, great names
besmirched and ridiculed, and names long for-
gotten blazoned in their place. Irish history
will be presented in new perspective, in which
the battle of the Boyne becomes smaller than the
battle of Kinsale, in which Sarsfield has less
significance than Lalor, and Thompson displaces
Grattan as the moulder of Ireland's future. And
finally we shall see how the new Nationalism,
starting with lofty ideals of national regenera-
tion on the old Unes of the ancient culture, be-
gins to seek its inspirations from modem
sources of unspeakable corniption.

CHAPTEE n

EDEAXJSM AWAKES

In the STimmer of 1893 Irish Nationalism had
fallen upon evil days. The tide which during
thirteen years had floated it so high had spent
itself and was on the ebb. Mr. Gladstone was
about to retire, weary and disappointed, leaving
behind him none who could bend his bow; Mr.
Parnell had fallen, leaving behind him a riven
party, distracted by jealousies and dissensions.
Yet this year, which seemed to be a gravestone
in the cemetery of Ireland's hopes, has come to
be described as a landmark in her progress. And
all because half a dozen men met in Dublin in
July and founded a society to promote the study
of the Irish language.

The formation of the Gaelic League was not
on the face of it a world-shaking event. Except
for Dr. Douglas Hyde, its founders were un-
distinguished men, unknown outside their own
narrow circles. Its object, though respectable
and interesting, did not promise to stir Ireland

11

12 IDEALISM AWAKES

to its depths. Although, throughout the nine-
teenth century axchseologists and scholars had
studied the Gaelic, and although there was in
existence in 1893 a Society for the Preservation
of the Irish Language, the youth of Ireland did
not Mndle. O'Connell, the great National
Leader, was a native speaker of Irish, but he
refused to speak anything but English, and en-
couraged his countrymen to follow his example.
Common sense seemed to coincide with his
counsel. What a waste of time did it appear to
spend time in mastering a dialect confined to a
handful of people, mainly peasants, which might
be used to unlock the doors leading to the learn-
ing of Europe. Goethe, SchiUer, Dante, Cer-
vantes, Eaciae and Moliere, Victor Hugo and
Dumas — who would give up the chance of read-
ing their works in order to study the Annals of
the Four Masters or the Books of Ballymote and
Lecam in the original? Interesting, no doubt,
they were, but if Ireland were to keep abreast of
the times, her people had to study languages
that were liviag, not dead. Every argument
that is used against Greek to-day could be used
with tenfold force against the study of Irish.
The Gaelic League set itself to combat that
view, and found its weapon not in philosophy,
but in Nationalism, In the disuse of the Irish

A NATION'S SOUL 13

language it saw not the loss of a dialect, but the
loss of a nation's soul. Though literary in its
outward manifestation and strictly non-political
in its constitution, it was a system of political
philosophy operating through a literary me-
dium. Its purpose was to keep alive the Irish
tongue in order 4hat the soul of Ireland might
not die. To that it postponed all other consider-
ations. To the Gaelic League, as to other Irish
parties, England was the enemy, but less per-
haps because of the loss of an Irish Parliament
than because of the loss of the spirit of Irish na-
tionality. That Irish representatives should sit
at Westminster was regrettable, but less because
it bespoke the political subjection of the Irish
people than because it promoted their Anglici-
sation. This doctrine, if not directly opposed to,
out clean across the theory, certainly held by
'Connell and in greater or less degree by lat-
ter-day Nationalists, that Ireland's short cut to
self-government lay through assimilation with
British aims and ideals. To the Gaelic League
such teaching was anathema. Under Home Eule,
so gained, whatever it might bring of gratified
pride or material advantage wouldbe outweighed
by the loss of conscious nationhood. Even were
the last link broken, Ireland, unless she were an
Irish Ireland, would be decadent though free.

14 IDEALISM AWAKES

It need not be thought that the founders of
the Gaelic League had in 1893 envisaged the
implications of their creed quite so definitely
as this, still less that they proclaimed them quite
so frankly to their disciples. Othierwise they
would not have found recruits where they did,
even among Unionists. The non-political char-
acter of the society was always kept in the fore-
ground. Even in 1914 Dr. Douglas Hyde, an-
swering complaints "from many parts of
Ireland that the Gaelic League was rapidly be-
coming a political body," entered a very elo-
quent and impassioned defence, quoting words
he had used the year before.

"Suppose — ^which God forbid — ^that any one
political party did succeed in getting hold of the
machinery or the name of the Gaelic League and
succeeded in runniag the League on party lines,
I teU you that on that very day the transcendent
significance of the language movement would
fail. The entire structure . . . would fall to
pieces. The language, which would then be
looked upon as the appanage of a single political
sect, and not the inheritance of a nation, would
go down in contumely and dishonour."

And then he continued :

"The cause of Irish nationality was too holy,
too sacred a thing to be stained by the dust of

THE CLOVEN HOOF 15

warring factions or disturbed by the -wranglings
of ephemeral party politics. The Gaelic League
was the one spot in. Ireland where a truce of God
prevailed, and every Irishman, no matter what
colour his coat, no matter what his creed, or
class, or politics, was free to enter in and enjoy
the fragrance and the perfume and the flowers,
and the soothing breezes which blew like bahn
through the enchanted gardens of Holy Ire-
land."*

In this purple passage Dr. Hyde no doubt
enunciated the principles which mainly animat-
ed him and his fellow founders of the League in
1893, and which were then convincing to persons
of politics most dissimilar. But his words were
less convincing at the time he spoke them and,
despite his assurance, large numbers of mem-
bers left the League for the very reason against
which he protested. That he was able to utter
them at all is either a singular instance of self-
delusion or an equally singular example of self-
detachment from contemporary events. Eight
years before, Mr. John Sweetman, a leading
Gaelic Leaguer, had said:

"Out of the Gaelic League have already
grown a series of movements not only strongly
political, but each and all making for a separate

* Irish News, October 15th, 1914,

16 IDEALISM AWAKES

Irish nation, freed from every link of the Brit-
ish connection. " *

In a printed circular of March 4th, 1906, ithe
Clan-na-Gael, which has always kept alive the
fire of Irish Eevolution, thus handsomely testi-
fied to the work of the Gaelic League :

"The work of the GaeKo League is in line
with the object of the Clan-na-Gael. It/is pre-
paring the mind of the country for that su-
preme effort which wiU lead to the final/triumph
of the Gael. Although a non-political organisa^
tion, and acting openly within the existing law,
it is steadily creating the conditions which will
make a free Ireland possible."

Dr. Hyde was at that time in America. He
spoke at San Francisco, and said no word to
repudiate the doctrine of Mr. Sweetman or the
Clan-na-Gael. On the contrary, what he said
was this :

"We aim high, for we aim at nothing else
than establishing a new nation on the map of

Europe." t

There was no differentiation between a spirit
of nationality and political nationhood, and Dr.
Hyde himself seized the occasion of a public
dinner, following the National Teachers' Con-
gress at Sligo, to mark the kind of nationhood

* Freeman's Jowmal, January 31st, 1906.
t Gaelio American, March Slst, 1906.

POLITICAL ATHLETES 17

lie wanted by ostentatiously walking out of the
room when the King's health was proposed.

Exactly how far the Graelio League has de-
parted from its self-imposed political neutrality
it needs not further to inquire. It is as the
originating, if not the immediate cause of the
New Nationalism, that its foundation is justly
held to mark an era in the history of Irish revo-
lution. Even had its determination to be non-
political been more deeply rooted than it prob-
ably was, there were forces at work which would
have undermined it, or which would have ap-
plied to their own purposes the stimulus of the
language movement.

As has been observed in the preceding chap-
ter, a vein of revolution underlies all Irish his-
tory, outcropping when circumstances offer a
favourable opportunity, or when chance provides
it with a sufficiently attractive policy. The lan-
guage movement provided such an opportunity.
There was already in existence another body,
the Gaelic Athletic Association, akin to the Gael-
ic League in its inspirations, but operating in
the realms of sport, and avowedly political in its
nature. Its object was to check Anglicisation by
reviving the old Gaelic games. Archbishop
Croke gave .the new movement his blessing In
these words, written in 1884, the year of its
foundation ;

18 IDEALISM AWAKES

"If we continue travelling for the next score
years in the same direction that we have ^een
going in for some time past, condemning the
sports tliat were practised by our forefathers,
effacing our national features . . . and putting
on with England's stuff and broadcloths her
'masher' habits and such effeminate follies as
she may recommend, we had better at once ab-
jure our nationality, clap our hands for joy at
the sight of the Union Jack and pl^ 'Eng-
land's bloody red' triumphantly above the
green. ' '

The Irishman, an organ of the physical force
party, thus endorsed the archiepisoopal senti-
ments :

"If any two purposes should go together,
they ought to be politics and athletics , . . the
exigencies of our situation force us into a per-
petual war with England. . . . While fighting
the enemy in the by-ways which are called con-
stitutional, we must also maintain a certain de-
gree of readiness to meet our enemy in the field
when the occasion offers."*

In pursuance of this patriotic policy the As-
sociation bans British soldiers or Irish police-
men, and has placed itseK out of communion
with the Irish Amateur Athletic Association
and similar bodies. In the "Irish Tear Book"

* Irishmum, December, 1884.

THE SEPAEATIST REVIVAL 19

for 1906 schools which confine themselves to
hurling and Irish football are lauded for their
patriotism, while those who practise cricket and
such foreign games are held up to reprobation
as decadent and anti-national.

It is easy to see how Gaelic League and Gael-
ic Athletic Association, both finding their sanc-
tion in the remote national past, should be
drawn together, andho^ the more forceful body-
should become the dominating influence, both
being guided, more or less unconsciously, by the
underlying revolutionary forces. In this con-
nection it is important to observe that the Gaelic
League has drawn financial aid from such bod-
ies as the Clan-na-Gael and the American Or-
der of Hibernians.

Within a few years there came about a Sep-
aratist revival in Ireland, manifesting itself in
varying forms but with a very definite and sin-
gle purpose. That it was in the main inteUeo-
tual and literary is, of course, due to the inspi-
ration of the Gaelic League. Where it marked
an advance upon its parent was that it admitted
politics, and did not shrink, in some societies,
from hints of physical force. Thus the Literary
Societies which sprang up, mainly in Dublin,
Cork, and Belfast, only took politics as a side
line, as may be seen in the columns of the Shcm

20 IDEALISM AWAKES

Van Vocht, a monthly journal which was pub-
lished in Belfast ia the closing years of the
last century. The Young Ireland Society, on
the other hand, while it posed as a movement of
intellectuals, had for its avowed object :

"To hasten the day when the flag for which
patriots suffered and martyrs died may float
triumphantly over an Ireland free for ever from
English rule and domination" (Annual Eeport,
January, 1904).

The Dungannon Clubs and the Daughters of
Erin Societies were extreme in their doctrine,
short in their Kves, and singularly disgraceful
in their methods. Their literature was obscene,
and they were chiefly remarkable as having been
the instruments through which Sinn Fein con-
ducted its campaign against recruiting in the
early years of the century.

Perhaps the most interesting of the bodies
which sprang from the Gaelic League was
' ' Cumann na nGaedheal, ' ' which was an organi-
sation in which were combined many, if not aU,
of the clubs above mentioned. Its interest to a
great extent lies in this, that it brings us face to
face with Mr. Arthur Griffith, to whose teaching
it owed its existence. It reflected the phase of
his political evolution through which he was
passing. It was Separatist in its aims, inteUec-

CUMANN NA nGAEDHEAL 21

tual in its inspirations, and educational in its
methods. In this it took its tone largely from
the United Irishman, a journal established in
1899, with Mr. Griffith as editor, hy some Dub-
lin Separatists.

We are here in the middle of the transition
period from the Gaelic League to Sinn Fein.
The process of evolution had begun, and can be
traced in the columns of the United Irishman,
but it had not reached its full development. Al-
though Mr. Arthur Griffith had set himself defi-
nitely political aims of a Separatist tendency,
the propagandist methods of his paper were still
very largely those of the Gaelic League. In his
coadjutor, Mr. William Eooney, he had a man
of less ability indeed than Thomas Davis, the
poet of the Young Ireland movement, but of sim-
ilar character and with the additional qualifi-
cation that he was an accomplished Irish schol-
ar. This combination of hard-headed National-
ism and scholarly passion was fruitful. The
United Irishman, as has been said by an histo-
rian of the movement, acted both as its secretary
and organiser; got into touch with every liter-
ary or political club of Separatist leanings, and
federated them in the Cumann na nGaedheal.

But still the movement hung fire. It had its
goal, it had found its spiritual inspiration, it had

22 IDEALISM AWAKES

stirred the imagination of the youths of Ireland,
it had won the sympathy and support of under-,
ground revolution, but it still lacked motive
force. It was bitterly critical of the constitu-
tional Nationalists, but destructive criticism
alone can never maintain a party, much less in-
spire revolutionary action. Even the cry of
Separation was not enough. It had been
preached before so often, and had been attempt-
ed with results so disastrous, that it had become
almost academic. Something more practical
was needed. Home Eule, though perhaps only
an unsatisfying compromise, was at least a
practical and, more important, practicable sug-
gestion. If that compromise were to be turned
down it could only be in favour of some other
alternative equally practicable and more in tune
with Ireland's real aspirations.

Everything pointed to the necessity of pro-
ducing a constructive policy. In 1902 Mr. Eoo-
ney died and the movement lost the support of
his literary and romantic enthusiasm. The Cu-
mann na nGaedheal had done all it could do,
it had paved the way, but could not start the
traffic along it. There were signs of approach-
ing dissolution in the Unionist Party. It was
breaking up on the question of Tariff Eef orm,
the popularity of the war which had carried it

SEEKING A PROGRAMME 23

into office in 1900 was on the wane, it seemed
probable that the next election would once more
find Ireland able to renew her demands with
some prospects of success.

Though, as indeed is natural, it is not men-
tioned by Sinn Fein writers in this connection,
it is possible that the passing of the Land Pur-
chase Act was not without its influence upon the
development of the Sinn Fein idea. The Act
was a great one and very popular, possibly the
greatest opportunity ever offered to an agri-
cultural people. It has made over a quarter
of a million tenants owners of their holdings, at
instalment rates for purchase less than their
former judicial rents. It may be that to the ene-
mies of Anglicisation this opened up alarming
vistas of Anglo-Hibernian friendship. James
Connolly, though he admits the benefits con-
firmed by the Act, invariably strives to belittle
the share of Great Britain in the transaction
by maintaining that it was nothing but an act,
and not a complete act, of restitution.

Whether the passing of the Wyndham Act
had any influence on Mr. Griffith's mind or not,
the other factors made it evident that without
a constructive and operative programme the
new Nationalism would be purely platonic, and
Ireland's future would be directed by the

24 IDEALISM AWAKES

Constitutional Party with the certain loss of
the true national idea.

The problem he had to solve was this — ^to se-
cure for Ireland legislative freedom, and to se-
cure it by extra-parliamentary action. His
school objected to parliamentary action on va-
rious grounds, the most obvious being that any
concessions that could be obtained by parlia-
mentary methods would be ha. the nature of a
compromise which would fall short of Ireland's
ambitions and requirements. Although the most
obvious, this was far from being the most seri-
ous objection. Infinitely more grave was the
consideration that, by appealing to a British
Parliament, Ireland tacitly abandoned imper-
ishable rights. Even were Parliamentarianism
effective, which it had not been and was not Kke-
ly to be, the mere presence of Irish members at
"Westminster constituted an acceptance of the
Act of Union and of the authority of the Brit-
ish Parliament to legislate for Ireland. Not
only that ; it had also diverted the mind of the
people to political action in a foreign land and
away from the historic, literary, and economic
realities of their own. Political contact dulled
the clear-cut edge of Irish Nationalism and pro-
moted that Anglicisation of Ireland which was
the danger most of all to be averted.

A LESSON FEOM HUNGARY 25

What form, then, should that extra-parlia-
mentary action assume? Not force. Mr. Ar-
thur Griffith was too coldly intellectual and too
clear-sighted to think that force was a prac-
ticable remedy. Nor had he at that time, though
Separatist in his ideals, formulated in his prac-
tical mind the conception of an Irish Republic.
For the moment the Constitution of 1782 would
satisfy his aims, provided that the new Parlia-
ment should be not only the Parliament of
Grattan, but a Parliament far more infused with
the old traditions and the pure spirit of Irish
nationality.

Groping after a solution which would avoid a
hopeless appeal to force, he published scattered
articles in the United Irishman on Austro-Hun-
garian relations. From these, in 1904, emerged
a connected series of articles under the title of
"The Resurrection of Hungary." In these ar-
ticles he described the parallelism between the
position of Hungary and Ireland, showed how
the former had forced her freedom from Aus-
tria, and pointed his countrymen in the same
direction.

This practical policy at once gave vitality ta
the spirit which was lying dormant in the new
Nationalism. It was what Young Ireland, Cu-
mann na nGaedheal, the Dungannon Clubs, the
Daughters of Erin, and every Separatist or-

26 IDEALISM AWAKES

ganisation in Ireland had been waiting for. In
no long time they became fused into a single
organisation, Sinn Fein, "Ourselves Alone."
Here, they believed, they had found the road to
liberty, avoiding constitutionalism on the one
hand and armed revolution on the other.

And Eevolution, which did not shrink from
arms, waited in the background and watched.

CHAPTEB ni

SINN FEIN

"Leabhab na h-Eieeann," or "Irish Year
Book, " is a product of Sinn Fein, issued by a
Publication Committee, of wMcli in 1918 Mr.
Arthur Griffith was Chairman. The following
description of Sinn Fein, published in 1909, is
authoritative :

"Sinn Fein

Literally — 'Ourselves.' The title and expres-
sion of a movement which denies the lawful
existence of the incorporating Union in contra-
distinction to Unionism and Parliamentarian-
ism.* Sinn Fein declares Ireland to be by nat-

*In the same issue Parliamentarianism is thus defined:
' ' The name applied to the policy adopted by that party in Ire-
land which agrees with Unionism in acknowledging the validity
of the Act of Union and accepting the supremacy of the Brit-
ish Parliament over Irish affairs, but which advocates the
erection of a central elective local governing body in Ireland.
To secure this it believes in action in the British Parliament. ' '
It will be observed that the title "Nationalist" is not applied
to that party.

27

28 SINN FEIN

ural and constitutional right a Sovereign State,
and teaches that the election of Irishmen to
serve in .the British Parliament is treason to
the Irish State, as no lawful power exists, has
existed, or can exist iu that Parliament to leg-
islate for Ireland. It advocates the withdrawal
of the Irish representatives from Westminster,
and the formation ia Ireland of a voluntary
legislature endowed with the moral authority
of the Irish nation."
The Constitution is then quoted as f oUows : —
"The object of Sinn Fein is the re-establish-
ment of the Independence of Ireland.

' ' The object of the Sinn Fein policy is to unite
Ireland on this broad national platform : 1st.
That we are a distinct nation; 2nd. That we
will not make any voluntary agreement with
Great Britain until Great Britain keeps her own
compact which she made by the Renunciation
Act of 1783, which enacted 'that the right
claimed by the people of Ireland to be bound
only by laws enacted by His Majesty and the
Parliament of that Kingdom is hereby declared
to be established, and ascertained for ever, and
shaE, at no time hereafter, be questioned or
questionable.' 3rd. That we are determined to
make use of any powers we have, or may have
at any time in the future, to work for our own

THE CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS 29

advancement, and for the creation of a pros-
perous, virile and independent nation.

' ' That the people of Ireland are a free people
and that no law made without their authority
or consent is, or ever can be, binding on their
conscience.

"That national self -development through the
recognition of the duties and right of citizenship
on the part of the individual and by the aid and
support of all movements originating from
within Ireland, instinct with national tradition
and not looking outside Ireland for the accom-
plishment of its aims, is vital to Ireland."

Before passing on, one observation has to be
made on the wording of Clauses 1 and 2 of this
Constitution. They are as they stand out of
harmony with one another, the first claiming
independence, section 2 of the second speaking
of a "voluntary agreement" with Great Britain
subject to her adhesion to the Eenunciation Act
of 1783, which elsewhere Mr. Griffith speaks of
as a " Treaty. ' ' The reason is that the wording
of these clauses represents a compromise be-
tween the founders of Sinn Fein. One section
favoured independence pure and simple and
complete; another, including Mr. Griffith, de-

80 SINN FEIN

sired to base the movement on the Grattan Con-
stitution as it existed after the passing of the
Eeminciation Act. This is, however, now of
merely academic interest. Sinn Fein has long
passed out of the phase of compromise. "The
policy of Sinn Fein to-day," says Mr. O'Hegar-
ty * in this present year, "is the old Sinn Fein
policy with two alterations. In the first place, it
is based frankly on separation, with no mention
of the Constitution of 1782 ; and in the second
place its immediate objective is the Peace Con-
ference."

It is probable that Mr. Arthur Griffith did not
contemplate a development so rapid and ex-
treme when, in a speech of great length and,
despite many inaccuracies, of great ability, he
unfolded his plan at the first annual Convention
of the National Council in November, 1905. He
is too coldly intellectual, too lacking in warmth
of passion or sympathy, to be a revolutionary
chief. He is one of those who can construct rev-
olutions, but who cannot conduct or control
them. Mainly perhaps from his natural bent,
partly perhaps from tactical prudence, he pre-
sented Sinn Fein as a means for social and eco-
nomic reform to be attained through political in-

* Mr. O 'Hegarty claims to write with authority, as having
been a member of the "National Council" formed by Mr. Grif-
fith, of the Executives of the Cumann na nCraedheal, Bungannon
Clubs, and Sinn Fein itself until 1911.

ECONOMIC POLICY 31

dependence, whicli could best and most consist-
ently be achieved by extra-parliamentary ac-
tion. And most of all h.e insisted that all re-
forms, social, economic, or political, should be
inspired by and based upon the spirit of nation-
ality. Thus in industrial matters he denounced
Free Trade. "It does not matter that aU
Europe has rejected it. England still holds on,
and because England holds on, Ireland under
the English system of education perforce con-
cludes the 'as-good-and-as-cheap' shibboleth
must be a gospel. With the remainder of Eng-
land's impositions and humbugs we must bun-
dle it out of the country. ' ' To Mr. Grifi&th Free
Trade is not only economically unsound, but it is
nationally disastrous because it destroys the
idea of separate nationality. There is no inter-
nationalism about Mr. Arthur Grriffith. As the
apostle of national economics he holds up Fred-
erick List, "the man who thwarted England's
dream of the commercial conquest of the world,
and who made the mighty confederation before
which England has fallen commercially, and is
falling politically — Germany." He deplores the
predominance of agriculture and the neglect of
manufacturing industry in Ireland not only on
economic grounds, but because, by making her
dependent on foreign supplies, it impairs her
spirit of independent nationalism. He rests

32 SINN FEIN

his indictment of the education system mainly
on its anti-national character. "Education in
Ireland." he declares, "encumbers the intellect,
ehiUs the fancy, debases the soul, and enervates
the body — it cuts off the Irishman from his tra-
dition and by denying him a country debases
his soul, it stores his mind with lumber and non-
sense, it destroys his fancy by depriving him of
tradition, and enervates his body by denying
him physical culture. ' ' As proof that the funds
provided for Irish education are "invested to
the children's moral and national destruction,"
te says that from the primary schools come re-
cruits for the British Army and Navy, and he
describes the Irishman who joins the Army,
Navy, or Eoyal Irish Constabulary as "neces-
sarily, from that moment, the active enemy of
his country." *

There are many other counts in the indict-
ment ; no branch of Irish affairs, indeed, escapes
inclusion. But enough perhaps has been given

* In this Mr. Griffith does an injustice. This is hardly
consistent with facts. The Irish Independent, May 15th, 1905,
contained a letter from Mr. Seamus Macmanus, formerly a
school teacher and prominent member of the Gaelic League,
which contains this passage: "The Irish youth who quits
school without realising his duties as a rebel, is, or should be,
a discredit to his schoolmaster. . . . He felt his conscience easy
in the knowledge that his salary wag well and easily earned, so
far, at least, as the stirring of discontent and the dissemina-
tion of rebellious opinions was concerned."

NATIONAL LIFE 33

to sl\ow its tendency. Its basic doctrine is po-
litical, Though Mr. Griffith expresses the belief
that the elimination of the British connection
would result in greater material progress, he
clearly attaches equal, if not indeed greater, im-
portance to the moral and spiritual resultswhich
would proceed from the awakening of the na-
tional idea. Self -centralisation, springing from
and issuing in self-reliance, is the keystone of
his doctrine.

It is, however, of less importance to consider
the objects at which he aimed than the methods
by which he proposed to attain them. Other
men than he had thought the same thoughts,
though not perhaps with such definite conscious-
ness, and certainly without the same conviction
that the material and political were so closely
intertwined. But what distinguishes him from
them is this — that while recognising the futility
of physical force he still absolutely rejects that
which was regarded as its only alternative —
constitutional action — as treason to Ireland.
Parliamentary action being therefore barred, he
directed his countrymen along the paths by
which Hungary, Finland, and Poland had won
to the freedom they could not reach by force of
arms. Ireland has to construct a national life
outside the range of British administration.
It would not be possible at once to withdraw

34 SINN FEIN

the children of Ireland from the National
Schools, but they might gradually be absorbed
into the schools of the Irish Christian Brothers,
or into voluntary schools, to be created and sup-
ported by the Irish people throughout the world.
Secondary and University education would have
to be reformed on similar lines, the lines laid
down by Kossuth. As Hungary did, so should
Ireland do in matters of law. There is no pow-
er to compel Irishmen at variance with one an-
other to settle their disputes in British law
courts. Why then should they do so? Let Ire-
land establish her own Courts of Arbitration,
in which no barristers or solicitors should be
allowed to practise "who had devoted their time
to hawking their souls for sale" in the Four
Courts, or who did not renounce their practice
in foreign Courts. Papineau and Deak had
tried the plan in Canada and Hungary, why not
adopt it in Ireland? Thus Ireland should boy-
cott British goods and the armed forces of the
Crown. She should refuse to pay taxes, not
necessarily in a way to offend the law, but by
self-denial, by refusing to drink whiskey or oth-
er alcoholic liquor, thus depriving England of
half her Irish revenue. The banking system of
Ireland could be broken by Kossuth's expedient
of establishing a patriotic National Bank, which

NATIONALIST HELOTS 35

lent its funds to the Hungarian people, not to
the Austrian Government. But over and above
all else, the Irish people should refuse to send
representatives to the British House of Com-
mons.

Too much attention cannot be devoted to a
consideration of the last plank in the platform
of Sinn Fein. It is the very pith and keiTiel of
the movement, differentiating it absolutely from
the Old Nationalism. The Constitutional Na-
tionalist might be as keen on material reform
as any Sinn Feiner — ^though it has in fact hap-
pened that the stress and turmoil of political
"warfare have pushed economic and social re-
form into the background except when, as in
1880, an economic question gave vitality to the
political movement. But the Constitutional Na-
tionalist would be content to accept, and has ac-
cepted, material reform from Great Britain;
he has, like Sinn Fein, inveighed against British
misgovernment, but he has committed treason
against Ireland in asking England to grant
reforms. "In the British Liberal as in the
British Tory," says Mr. Griffith, "we see our
enemy, and in those who talk of ending British
misgovernment we see the helots. It is not
British misgovernment, but British government
in Ireland good or bad, that we are opposed to. "

36 SINN FEIN

Sinn Fein, therefore, is not an offshoot of
conMitutional Nationalism; it is a distinct or-
ganism. , It is only because both parties claim
to be Nationalists that there can be any confu-
sion of thought on this point. When, in the sen-
tence above quoted, Mr. Griffith described Brit-
ish parties as "enemies" and the Irish Party as
"helots," he in truth grouped them into a com-
mon hostility to Ireland, for if his view be cor-
rect, the Irish helot is the deadlier enemy of
the two, because by every effort at reform he
locks the shackles more firmly upon his country.
No social reform, no measure of self-govern-
ment, however generous, gained by parliamen-
tary action or recognition of the British connec-
tion could atone for the intolerable wrong it
would inflict upon Ireland. This principle lies
at the root of the Irish question as it exists to-
day. For now there have been translated into
fact doctrines which, when they were spoken,
seemed to the exoteric audience fantastic utter-
ances which marred an otherwise attractive pro-
gramme if they were seriously meant, but which
were probably not really serious.

It is rather curious to look back upon the
comments made on the New Nationalism in its
early days. The Unionists regarded it, as one
writer said, ' ' with mixed feelings. ' ' The politi-

FLUTTEEED DOVECOTES 37

cal side, of course, they loathed. It appeared to
them to be mad, so mad as to make it negligible,
as a sort of window dressing. With the social
and economic side of the programme they had a
good deal of sympathy, it being a cardinal
point of their creed that the real Irish problem
is in the main economic and not political. They
liked the doctrine of self-help, for they had ever
deplored the fact that Ireland wasted in agita-
tion time which might be better devoted to in-
dustry and commerce. They regretted that Sinn
Fein, which in some respects saw so clearly
what were Ireland's needs, was falling into the
same error. Moreover, the Unionists were not
displeased to see the way in which Sinn Fein
ridiculed and belaboured the Parliamentary
Party. Although the attack was delivered from
a different angle and the criticism was inspired
from a different source, they enjoyed the attack
and agreed with the criticism.

The position of the parliamentary National-
ists was much more embarrassing and less com-
fortable. Writhing under the attacks, they
could not venture on open reprisals. Having to
keep an eye upon the Irish World and Mr. Pat-
rick Ford, through whom their war-chest was
largely supplied, they could not denounce the
robust NationaKsm of Sinn Fein, while they

38 SINN FEIN

could not accept it without a humiliating con-
fession of error and their own disappearance
from the field. Their attitude towards Sinn
Fein, therefore, was rather that of a dignified
wayfarer towards the small dog who yaps at his
heels. Thinking it beneath his dignity to kick, he
affects a lordly indifference the while he feels in
fancy the creature's teeth meeting in his leg.

There were, indeed, some anxious moments
when fancy seemed changing into certainty.
The readiness of the parliamentary National-
ists to accept the Councils Bill, proffered them
by Sir Henry Oampbell-Bannerman in 1907, in-
tensified the hostility of Sinn Fein and secured
for them the adhesion of many seceders
from Mr. Eedmond's party, among them Mr.
Dolau, the Member for North Leitrim, and Sir
Thomas Esmonde, one of the party Whips. Al-
though the Devolution Bill was disowned by Mr.
Eedmond and scornfully rejected by a Conven-
tion of the United Irish League, Sinn Fein had
got hold of a weapon which it wielded with great
vigour and dexterity. Mr. Dolan resigned his
seat and sought re-election against Mr. Eed-
mond's nominee. He was defeated, but only by
some 800 or 900 votes. Not even the return of
Sir Thomas Esmonde to the fold could disguise
the fact that the ofl&cial Nationalists had only a

DECLINE OP SINN FEIN 39

small majority, in a constituency where they
had aU the organisation and a unanimous Press,
over Sinn Fein, which had no local papers, no
organisation, and little money.

The dignified wayfarer had to abandon his
contemptuous indifference and kick out; and
to a great extent verified the military dictum
that the offensive is the best defence. It was
hinted that Sinn Fein was tainted with anti-
clericalism, and that the devout fell away.

Inflated by the Leitrim election Mr. Grriffith
induced Sinn Fein to start a daily paper. It
flickered for a few months and then died out.
Those who worship success were disheartened
by this failure and deserted. A scheme was
mooted by some half-hearted Sinn Feiners to
join hands with Mr. William O'Brien, who was
generally at loggerheads with his party — the
basis of the compromise being that though there
should be a Parliamentary Party it should be
under the control of a National Executive,
which should decide policy and tactics, and
among the latter whether the party should at-
tend Parliament and, if so, when it should with-
draw. The scheme was prematurely disclosed
and pleased no one. The advocates of the policy
of "Thorough" on both sides denoimced it, and
none more heartily than the Sinn Fein Execu-

40 SINN FEIN

tive. But the harm was done. On top of it all
came tlie General Election of 1910.

As ip 1885 and 1892, the result of that elec-
tion gave the Irish Parliamentary Party the
balance of power in the House of Commons, and
as in both those years the Liberal Party prom-
ised Home Eule. Following the events above
described, this was fatal to the Sinn Fein idea.
The people resumed their allegiance to Mr.
Eedmond and the rival organisation shrank to a
shadow of its former self. Though the central
body continued to meet, it had few branches
to control. The United Irishman continued to
appear, but it was comparatively neglected in
the interest attached to the Three Years' War
for Home Eule at Westminster.

The parliamentary players got all the lime-
light and the rest of the stage was ia the shade.
But while Sinn Fein thus stood idly, a super in
the wings, and watched the leading man playing
his part to the admiration of the gallery, its
resolution to oust him, so far from being weak-
ened by its downfall, developed in intensity.
Now this is significant. It might have been ex-
pected that the set-back it had received would
have tended to create in Sinn Fein a spirit of
compromise ; that it would have endeavoured to
rehabilitate itself by joining in the Home Eule

THE POSITION IN 1913 41

struggle as advocates of a larger measure of
self-government. As shown above, it had in
1905 shown some disposition to accept the Con-
stitution of 1783. Sinn Fein might, therefore,
have thrown itself into the fight in the three
years' war, from 1911-1914, and propounded
that measure of self-government as the mini-
mum which Mr. Eedmond could accept, without
any appearance of having renounced its own
original views. Ninety-nine parties out of a
hundred would have played so strong a card.
Sinn Fein did nothing of the kind. It had
dropped Grrattan's Parliament once and for all,
the lower its fortunes sank the stronger grew its
vision of complete independence, and it diS'
dained any compromise on that fundamental ar-
ticle of its faith, even though compromise might
have smashed its enemies, the "helots," and ad-
hesion to principle promised to be fatal to itself.
Let us turn back Mr. Wells's time machine
and observe Sinn Fein as it was at the beginning
of 1913. It is still, in the words of Mr. O'Hegar-
ty, "the evolution of a national philosophy
rather than a political portent. Its principles
and policy are based upon ideas rather than
rhetoric, and they appeal to the intellect rather
than the passions." Its doctrines are openly
rebellious, but its methods are not illegal. While

42 SINN FEIN

the political side of its programme shocks those
who are well affected towards British rule, and
much o£ its programme appears to them fantas-
tic and fanatical, there is also much that extorts
their assent, while its moral influence connnands
their respect.

It now remains to examine the causes which
have converted such an organisation into a
revolutionary movement that openly prescribes
sporadic assassination and selects for its allies
the vilest elements of society. To do so we must
leave Sinn Fein at this point and trace the
growth of another movement, long in process of
gestation, but at that moment quickening into
life.

CHAPTBE IV

ENTEE JAMES CONNOULY

With the possible exception of Thomas Em-
mett, there is not in the whole gallery of Irish
revolution a more commanding figure or arrest-
ing personality than that of James Connolly.
"Whatever view be taken of his doctrines, aims,
and methods, he! compels the respect due to a
man who, while battling for a precarious liveli-
hood on the lowest strata of society, still con-
trives to store his mind with knowledge; who at
the age of twenty-six gives a new direction to
the revolutionary movement in his own country ;
who was a potent force in the propagation of a
creed that is now convulsing the world; who
fought with ardour and ability for the class to
which he belonged ;, and who finally gave his life
in a hopeless struggle for the principles in which
he believed. The history of the industrial move-
ment with which we are now concerned is com-
promised in the twenty crowded vears of stormy

43

44 ENTER JAMES CONNOLLY

life which lie between the foundations of the
Irish Socialist Republican Party by James Con-
nolly in. 1896 and his death in 1916.

That is not to say that Irish industrialism
had not a history, often pitiful and occasionally
violent. There were guilds and societies weU
back in the eighteenth century, and even in the
days before the Reformation, and more than
once Parliament was constrained to make in-
quiry into the relation between masters and
men. But the movement had no great vitality.
Although Connolly observes that Labour was
well organised in Dublin in the opening years of
the nineteenth century, and was, indeed, the
backbone of Emmet's rebellion, it made so little
headway towards organisation that in 1895 the
membership of the Irish unions making returns
was no more than 17,476, divided between 93
unions. There were other unions which be-
longed to United Kingdom federations, or were
branches of British organisations, but all told
there were not more than 50,000 trade unionists
in Ireland. And it is notable that in his book,
Labour in Ireland, Connolly makes little or
no allusion to the growth or decay of Irish la-
bour organisation in the past, except the casual
reference just quoted. And he himself gives as
the reason that his purpose was not to write a

WEAKNESS OF IRISH LABOUR 45

history of labour in Ireland, but to give a record
of labour in Irish history.

At first sight the distinction is not startling,
yet it contains the key to the new industrialism
which he founded, and explains why he launched
his movement within two years of the meeting
of the first Irish Trade Union Congress, which
claimed to open up new vistas to the workers of
Ireland. The weak point in that development
of labour was to him that it lacked the idea of
Irish Nationalism. True, it had asserted the
Irish labour movement's independence of Brit-
ish influence, and had thereby incurred the
displeasure of British trade unionism, but this
independence was not based on the conception
of a labour movement founded on Gaelic ideas
and finding its origin and sanction in Gaelic
institutions.

Connolly himself explains his meaning in the
course of articles, first published in the Shcm
Van VocJit* and afterwards reprinted under
the title of Erin's Hope:

"The I.S.R.P. was founded in Dublin in 1896
by a few working men whom the writer had suc-
ceeded in interesting in his proposition that the
two currents of revolutionary thought in Ire-
land — the Socialist and the National — rwere not

•See Chapter III.

46 ENTER JAMES CONNOLLY

antagonistic, but complementary, and that the
Irish Socialist was in reality the best Irish pa-
triot, but ill order to convince the Irish people
of that fact he must first learn to look inward
upon Ireland for his justification, rest his argu-
ments upon the facts of Irish history and be
champion against the subjection of Ireland and
all that it implies. That the Irish question was
at the bottom an economic question, and that the
economic struggle must first be able to function
nationally before it could function internation-
ally, and as Socialists were opposed to all op-
pression so should they ever be foremost in the
daily battle against all its manifestations social
and political."

Were the practice not abhorrent to right-
thinking persons, the reader might almost do
well to turn down the corner of this page, in or-
der that the above passage may be easy for ref-
erence, so much does it reveal that is new, so
much does it explain that it is essential to un-
derstand. The very name of the book in which
it appeared is significant. Erin's hope lay not
only in the uplifting of her proletariat through
Socialism, but through Socialism in&pired by
Irish ideas. While the Socialists of other lands
are bidden to look wide over the great human
family, overleaping the artificial lines of terri-

SbwiNG THE SEEDS 47

torial boundaries, and studying the story of the
race rather than the nation, the Irish Socialist
is taught to concentrate his vision on his own
country and its history, its traditions and its in-
stitutions, buried under the detritus of centu-
ries. It is our task to trace how Connolly based
his Socialism on Gaelic traditions and institu-
tions, and propounded revolutionary methods
as the result of his study of Irish history. But
the real importance of the passage lies in the ex-
planation it gives of the future relations which
arose, and which exist to-day, between the polit-
ical and bourgeois and the economic and proleta-
rian revolutionary movements. James ConnoUy
was, indeed, a Sinn Feiner, preaching its funda-
mental doctrine — though applied to different
objects — ^before ever Mr. Arthur Griffiths began
to move.

Thus were sown in 1896 the seeds which have
sprung up into armed revolution and political
complications the most involved and distracting.
How they came to be sown must, therefore, be
understood, and to reach a proper understand-
ing we should have some knowledge of the fac-
tors which went to the making of the man who
sowed them.

Of no man can it more certainly be said that
he takes out of his learning very much what he
brings to it than of James Connolly. By he-

48 ENTEE JAMES CONNOLLY

redity lie was a rebel, by bitter experience he
was a revolutionary, by Ms environment be be-
came a Socialist. His uncle was a Fenian, and
in his coinpany he attended meetings of extreme
Nationalists when he was a boy in Edinburgh.
Thus he faced the vicissitudes of his life in Scot-
land with a strong bias towards Nationalism in
its insurrectionary form. And what vicissitudes
they were ! As a boy of eleven he worked in a
bakery until his health gave way, and then he
was navvy, pedlar, and sometimes tramp, until
for a couple of comparatively prosperous years
he had a job in an Edinburgh factory. Then a
return to his native Ireland, and back again to
Edinburgh to take up the work of a dustman un-
der the Corporation. No wonder the iron en-
tered his soul and the idea of political insurrec-
tion grew into revolutionary hatred of his condi-
tions.

Always a student, Connolly might have con-
fined his studies to Irish literature had he been
in Ireland. Being in Scotland, a country where
philosophy is popular, and where at that time
it happened that the study of social philosophy
was attracting great attention, he, by a natural
process, became a Socialist, and a Socialist of the
Marxian school. There was then in Edinburgh
one John Leslie, who had written a pamphlet

E^ELY STRUGGLES 49

in whicli the Lalxd League was discussed from
the standpoint of Socialistic Labour, and its
teaching gave direction to his mind. Thus fall-
ing under Leslie 's infl^xence, he took the decisive
step of his life. He had given up his post as
dustman in order to stand as a Socialist candi-
date for the Town Council of Edinburgh; was
defeated, and being out of work resolved to go
to Chili to try farming. Leslie persuaded him
to cultivate Socialism in Ireland instead, and
accordingly he went to Dublin, where he got
work as a navvy in some big drainage opera-
tions, and afterwards found employment as a
proofreader on a Sunday paper.

Here, then, we find united the hereditary
rebel, the convinced Socialist, the man embit-
tered by experience, consumed with a sympathy
for his class, less vehement in expression than
his future coadjutor Larkin, but not the less
deadly for being more restrained. This short
sketch of Connolly's career enables us to under-
stand what lay behind the Irish Socialist Ee-
pubUcan Party.

But that is not enough. It remains to exam-
ine Connolly's interpretation of Irish history.
It need not be examined in a critical spirit; to
do so indeed would be a grave mistake. For the
thing that matters is not whether Connolly's

50 ENTEE JAMES CONNOLLY

reading of it were true or false, but that it is tlie
version whicli he gave to his foUo-wers. The
writer, therefore, tme to his self-imposed pur-
pose, wiU*present Connolly's views with as little
comment or criticism as possible.

Bringing to the study of Irish history an he-
redity bent towards insurrectionary methods,
Connolly brought away from it a profound con-
tempt for its historians and an ineradicable
hostility to Nationalism of the type to which the
last four generations have been accustomed.
When he objects to the historians that they
ignore or violate the dictum of Marx, "that ia
every historical epoch the prevailing method of
economic production and exchange, and the so-
cial organisation necessarily following from it,
form the basis upon which alone can be ex-
plained the political and intellectual history of
that epoch," he makes a charge to which, until
recently, the historians of aU countries are
equally open. They viewed events in a false
perspective, as quite probably they were viewed
by those who took part ia them. But Connolly
goes further, and seems to regard the ignoring
of social and economic phenomena by Irish his-
torians as wilful and of set purpose. Their mis-
reading of Irish history appears to him to be
due, not to ignorance of the true functions of

BLIND HISTOEIANS 51

the Mstorian, but to deliberate treachery, bom
of the instinct of self-preservation.

The conspiracy had its starting-point in the
dispersion of the Clans and the disappearace of
the old system of communal land-ownership in
1649. Until the final victory of Cromwell the
basis of Irish Society rested on tribal ownership
of land, except within the Pale, and consequent-
ly when the tribes went to war against England
they were fighting not only for political free-
dom, but for their land as well. With the sup-
pression of the tribal or clan system the social
and economic aspect of the conflict sank out of
sight. With the passing of the tribal system and
of the Chiefs of the Clans, the direction of the
patriotic movement fell into the hands of the
middle class — for the aristocracy were only pa-
triotic so long as they feared that the land which
was theirs by confiscation would be taken from
them — and so became for the most part the
idealised expression of middle-class interest. On
these lines was Irish patriotic history written,
and on these lines did Irish patriotism operate.

"Hence," says Connolly,* "the spokesmen
of the middle-class, in the Press and on the plat-
form, have consistently sought the emasculation
of the Irish National Movement, the distortion

* "Lessons of History," p. 5.

52 ENTEE JAMES CONNOLLY

of Irisli Mstory, and, above all, the denial of aU
relation between the social rights of the Irish
tribes and the political rights of the Irish na-
tion. It was hoped and intended by this means
to create what is termed ' a real National Move-
ment,' i.e., a movement in which each class
would unite in a national struggle against the
common enemy — ^England."

It is not difficult to see how such a policy
might inspire a constitutional programme, as ac-
cording to Connolly it did, but he goes further
and sees its taint even in revolutionary move-
ments.

"During the last hundred years every gener-
ation has witnessed an attempted rebellion
against British rule. Every such conspiracy or
rebellion has drawn the majority of its adher-
ents from the lower orders in town and country,
yet under the inspiration of a few middle-class
doctrinaires the social question has been rigor-
ously excluded from the field of action to be cov-
ered by the rebellion if successful ; in hopes that
by such exclusion it would be possible to concili-
ate the upper classes and enlist them in the
struggle for freedom."

As a result they failed — "a warning to those
who neglect the vital truth that successful revo-
lutions are not the product of our brains, but
of ripe material conditions."

SAESFIELD, FOOL OE TEAITOE 53

Connolly writes of this error of the insurreo-
tionists as much in sorrow as in anger; when he
comes to describe the career of parliamentary-
Nationalism his anger is tempered only by con-
tempt. He is a political iconoclast, shattering
patriotic reputations ruthlessly and pouring
ridicule on the stock arguments and most telling
catchwords of patriotic orators. There is no
more picturesque figure in Irish history than
that of Sarsfield; he has become a legendary
hero of Irish Nationalism. The defence of Lim-
merick, when, in the words of the French com-
mandant, its walls could be "battered down with
roasted apples," against William himself, is
regarded as a national epic. Yet of Sarsfield
and his men Connolly declares that "so far
from the paeans of praise lavished on them be-
ing justified, it is questionable whether a more
enlightened or patriotic age than our own will
not condemn them as little better than traitors
for their action in seducing the Irish people
from their allegiance to the cause of their coun-
try's freedom to plunge them into war on behalf
of a foreign tyrant. ' ' To Connolly the William-
ite war was a disaster, not because the Catholic
King was defeated, but because Ireland took
part in it and so lost the chance of complete
independence while "the forces of their oppres-
sors were rent in civil war. ' '

54 ENTER JAMES CONNOLLY

It had this further disastrous effect, that it
ranged the leaders of both parties on the side of
feudalisnft* "The so-called patriotic efforts of
the Catholic gentry were directed to the conser-
vation of their own rights of property, as
against the right of the English Parliament to
interfere with or regulate such rights. The so-
called Patriot Parliament in Dublin was, in real-
ity, like every other Parliament that ever sat in
Dublin, merely a collection of land-thieves and
their lackeys; their patriotism consisted in an
effort to retain for themselves the spoils of the
native peasantry ; the English influence against
which they protested was the influence of their
fellow-thieves in England hungry for a share in
the spoil; and Sarsfield and his followers did
not become Irish patriots because of their fight
against King William's Government any more
than an Irish Whig out of office becomes a
patriot because of his hatred to the Tories who
are in."

From the view-point of ConnoUy, therefore,
the WiUiamite war loses all the dignity with
which it has been invested by Irish patriots.
Sarsfield 's dying words at Landen, "Oh, that
this blood had been shed for Ireland," became
the merest "tosh," and dishonest tosh at that,

* Ldbovr in Irish History, p. 17.

FATAL VALOUE 55

for tlie shedding of it would only have served to
place a foreign foot upon his country's neck in
order that he might enjoy the spoil of his delud-
ed fellow-countrymen. The only importance of
the struggle which ended at Limerick in 1691
lies in this — that it stereotyped a form of patri-
otism, always vicious, and fatal where it was not
futile.

CHAPTEE V

LABOUR AND THE UNION

Theeb events make the eigMeenth century no-
table in the story of Irish. Nationalism — ^the Pe-
nal Laws, Grattan's Parliament, and the Act of
Union. While the latter event is the starting-
point of the Parliamentary Movement, and
Grattan's Parliament represents its ideal, the
Penal Laws are invoked in well-nigh every
speech to keep the flame of patriotism alight.
These are the keynotes of the war-song of Na-
tionalism. ConnoUy, on the other hand, dis-
misses them as historical incidents having no
particular bearing on the Irish question as he
sees it. Such importance as the Penal Laws
possessed arose from the fact that they helped
to place the manufacturing business of the coun-
try in the hands of Protestants; otherwise he
holds them to be of purely "posthumous inter-
est." They are indefensible, but to denounce
them is to waste time and even some sympathy.
For he points out that the effect of the Code in

56

PENAL LAWS 57

impoverishing the Catholics has been touch
over-rated.

In 1763 a Bill was introduced in the Irish
House of Commons to give greater facilities to
Protestants ^Rdshing to! borrow money from
Catholics, which would indicate that the op-
pressed had managed to thrive under the Penal
Laws. And Connolly would almost seem to con-
demn the attention which has been given to these
laws, as having the effect of distracting atten-
tion which would be better devoted to the work-
ing out of economic laws which caused infinitely
greater misery and hardship to the people irre-
spective of religion, such as the famine of 1740,
or the removal of the embargo on the admis-
sions of Irish meat, cattle, butter, and cheese
into England.*

"The 'patriots' who occupied the public stage
in Ireland during the period we have been deal-
ing with never once raised their voices to protest
against such social injustice. Like their imita-
tors to-day they regarded the misery of the Irish
people as a convenient handle for political agi-
tation; and, like their imitators to-day, they
were ever ready to outvie the Government in
their denunciation of all those who, more ear-

* The effect of this measure was so to enhance the piiee of
the articles as to make tillage comparatively unprofitahle, with
the result that small holders were evicted to establish ranches.

58 LABOUE AND THE UNION

nest than themselves, sought to find a radical
cure for such miseiy. ' ' *

In thfs general condenmation he includes men
like Lucas, Molyneux, and Swift, although that
great man had penned some of his bitterest sat-
ires on the side of the suffering people. Their
agitation for the repeal of Poynings' Law ap-
pears to Connolly a mere beating of the wind,
dishonest in its motive — ^though the dishonesty
may have been unconscious — and entirely futile
for its purpose, however successful. In this, of
course, he runs directly counter to the accepted
belief of H6me Eule Nationalism. Poynings'
Law placed Irish legislation under the control of
the British Parliament, it reduced the Irish
Legislature to a mere debating society. It is a
frequent theme of Nationalist oratory, adorning
many a speech and pointing a patriotic moral.
To Connolly it mattered not a jot whether
Poynings' Law were repealed or not; the result
to Ireland would be much the same. Indeed the
only difference to Ireland lay in this, that were
the Law repealed the people would be plundered
by Irishmen; whUe it remained in existence
Englishmen shared in the plunder. The passage
in which this theory is expounded merits quo-
tation as typical of Connolly's position.

* Labcmr in Irish History, p. 32.

PATEIOTIC THIEVES 59

"In course of time the section of land-thieves
resident in England did claim a right to super-
vise the doings of the adventurers in Ireland,
and, consequently, to control their Parliament.
Hence arose Poynings' Law and the subordina-
tion of the Dublin Parliament to the London
Parliament. Finding this subordinate position
of their Parliament enabled the English ruling
class to strip the Irish workers of the fruits of
their toil, the more far-seeing of the privileged
class in Ireland became alarmed lest the strip-
ping process should go too far, and leave noth-
ing for them to fatten on.

"At once they became patriots, anxious that
Ireland — ^which, in their phraseology, meant the
ruling class in Ireland — should be free from the
control of the Parliament of England. Their
pamphlets, speeches and all public pronounce-
ments were devoted to telling the world how
much nicer, equitable, and altogether more de-
lectable it would be for the Irish people to be
robbed in the interests of a native-born aristoc-
racy than to witness the painful spectacle of
that aristocracy being compelled to divide the
plunder with its English rival. ' ' * Perhaps, he
admits. Swift and his friends did not confess
even to themselves that this was the beisis of
* Labour in Irish Bistory, p. 34,

60 LABOUR AND THE UNION

their political creed, but lie feels bound to ex-
pose the flimsy sophistry which strives to im-
part to*a sordid, self-seeking struggle the ap-
pearance of a patriotic movement.

As with Swift and Molyneux, so with Grattan
and Flood, the "Two Harries," as they are
contemptuously called by Connolly, quoting the
words of a street ballad written at the time of
what he calls the "betrayal of the Irish Volun-
teers." Grattan is "the ideal capitalist states-
man, his spirit was the spirit of the bourgeoisie
incarnate. He cared more for the rights of
property than for human rights or the interests
of any religion." "The eminently respectable,
anti-revolutionary, religious Mr. Henry Grattan
was at heart a free thinker, free lover, and epi-
curean philosopher." He had accepted a dona-
tion of £50,000 from the Government for his
"patriotic" services, and afterwards "in excess
of gratitude for this timely aid repaid the Gov-
ernment by betraying and denouncing the Vol-
unteers."

Henry Flood fares little better. "Flood, the
great Protestant" patriot — ^he of whom Davis
sings :

Bless Henry Mood, who nobly stood
By us through gloomy years —

in the Irish House of Commons of 1763 fiercely

aSATTAN'S PAELIAMENT 61

denounced the Government for not killing
enough of the white boys.* He called it "clem-
ency. ' ' He is further described as a known ene-
my of the oppressed peasantry and a hater of
Catholics, and it is charged against him that he
spoke and voted in favour of a motion to pay
the expenses of an army of 10,000 British sol-
diers to put down the Eevolution in America.

Having thus stripped from these protagonists
of self-government the halos with which Na-
tionalism has invested them, Connolly proceeds
to shatter the image, constructed by popular
fancy and historical distortion, of the constitu-
tional system they brought into being. The
Constitution of 1782 has been represented as an
ideal to be worked for, but so splendid as almost
to be beyond reasonable hope of attainment. It
was the goal of O'Connell; others, claiming to
be as patriotic as he, based their claim on de-
mands less extreme. The period during which
Ireland enjoyed that Constitution is depicted
as a golden age, socially and economically. Irish
prosperity was advancing by leaps and bounds,
owing its origin to the free Parliament, and
owing its end to the Act of Union.

*A secret organisation, very powerful in the South of Ire-
land, so called from wearing white shirts as a disguise. Their
grievances were agrarian and their method ferocious.

62 LABOUR AND THE UNION

Connolly devotes some space to the dissipa-
tion of the latter delusion. In the first place he
denies that Ireland was really prosperous at all.
In 1786* the Munster peasantry, then fighting
against tithes, called upon the Irish Parliament
to help them in their misery, plundered by the
Protestant clergy in the form of tithes and by
the Catholic clergy in the name of dues. Wages
in Meath were 6d. a day in summer and 4d. in
winter, and in 1796 the advertisement of a
Charity Sermon in the Parish Chapel, Meath
Street, Dublin, stated that in three streets in the
parish of St. Catherine's "2000 souls had been
found in a starving condition."

WhUe Connolly, as a Socialist, is bound to
hold that the economic condition of Ireland un-
der Grattan's Parliament was bad because of
the inadequate share of Labour in the wealth
produced, he admits that from the capitalist
standpoint, taking the volume of wealth pro-
duced as a standard, Ireland was during this pe-
riod prosperous. But he stoutly denies that in
any but an infinitesimal degree was this pros-
perity produced by Parliament. The establish-
ment of free trading relations between Great
Britain and Ireland, which antedated Grattan's
Parliament by some few years, was contribu-
tory to it, but the root cause lay in an economic

\ WHY IRELAND PEOSPERED 63

\
development outside the power of Parliament to
create or destroy. The grant of parliamentary
independence to Ireland coincided with great
mechanical discoveries, which revolutionised
manufacture, and by reducing the cost of manu-
factured goods gave an enormous stimulus to
trade. Arkwright invented the water-frame in
1769, Hargreave and Crampton followed within
the next decade with the spinning jenny and
mechanical mule, the steam engine was applied
to blast furnaces in 1788. Domestic industries
gave place to factories, and the factories were
hard set to supply the hosts of customers at-
tracted by the new prices. The cotton and linen
trades trebled their output, the iron trade was
doubled. The boom held during the life of
Grattan's Parliament; its end came soon after
the Union, but not as a consequence of it.

The cause of the slump, as of the boom, was
not political, but economic. As the inventor had
created Irish trade, so did the inventor destroy
it. The application of steam not only revolu-
tionised methods of manufacture, but it diverted
the process of manufacture to British factories.
So long as the new machinery could be worked
by hand Ireland could hold her own, but when
steam came to be applied to the service of in-
dustry, the possession of coal weighted the

64 LABOUR AND THE UNION

scales fatally against her. During the debate in
the Irish Parliament on the Union BUI, Mr. Fos-
ter stated that the Irish production of linen was
twice as 'great as that of Scotland — ^namely,
47,000,000 yards as against 23,000,000— and he
attributed this to the fact that Ireland had a na-
tive Parliament. By the year 1830, the single
port of Dundee exported more linen than the
whole of Ireland, and this melancholy result has
been attributed to the Union. Connolly derides
the argument. Scotland, he says, like Ireland,
had been deprived of self-government. Why
then had Scottish manufacturers advanced and
Irish declined? Simply because Scotland had
coal and other advantages which Ireland lacked.

Grattan's Parliament is the Mecca of Parlia-
mentary Nationalism as the Union is its Hegira.
Connolly is contemptuous of both.

"The theory that the fleeting 'prosperity' of
Ireland was created by the Parliament of Grat-
tan is only useful to its propagators as a prop
to their arguments that the Legislative Union
between Great Britain and Ireland destroyed
the trade of the latter country, and that, there-
fore, the repeal of that Union would lead to the
re-establishment of Irish manufacturers on a
paying basis. The fact that the Union placed
all Irish manufacturers upon an absolutely

\ AN AWKWAED QUESTION 65

\

equal basis legally with the mamifacturers of
Eiigla)|id is usually ignored, or, worse still, per-
verted in its statement so as to leave the impres-
sion that the reverse is the case. In fact many
thousanijs of our countrymen still believe that
English laws prohibit mining in Ireland after
certain minerals and the manufacture of certain
articles. . . . There are not, and have not been
since the iMion, any such laws." *

He proceeds to suggest the application of the
Socratic method by any student anxious to pur-
sue the study of this remarkable controversy
in Irish history. Let him, he says, propound
this question to any leading exponent of Parlia-
mentarianism :

"Please explain the process by which the re-
moval of Parliament from Dublin to London —
a removal absolutely unaccompanied by any
legislative interference with Irish industry —
prevented the Irish capitalist class from con-
tinuing to produce goods for the Irish market."

He will, he proceeds, get no logical answer to
his question — ^no answer that any reputable
thinker on economic questions will accept for a
moment. He will get figures of exports and em-
ployment — that was O'Connell's method, which

* Labour in Irish History, p. 45.

66 LABOUE AND THE UNION

has been slavishly copied ever since. But neither
O 'Connell nor his successors have ever attempt-
ed to analyse and explain the process br which
their indftstries were destroyed. One explana^
tion only has been given — that the Union led to
absenteeism, but that is "worse than childish."
A few hundreds or thousands may have spent
more, or all of their time in England, but what
of the millions that remained? They, too, wore
boots, and shirts, and used tools. English,
Scottish, French, and Belgian manufacturers
throve by supplying the Irish people with
goods, the Irish manufacturers alone could not.
Why? The question remains unanswered.

But Connolly is not content to disprove these
ordinarily accepted doctrines, he propounds a
positive theory of his own which is in utter con-
tradiction to them. It was not, he maintains,
the Union which produced the weakness of Irish
manufacturers, but the weakness of Irish manu-
facturers which made the Union possible. Had
there been in Ireland a wealthy and energetic
capitalist class, it would have been a barrier
against corruption. Again, a strong and enter-
prising capitalist class would not, at Grattan's
bidding, have forsaken and denounced the Vol-
unteers when they demanded a reformed par-
liamentary representation and a more popular

CONSTITUTIONALISM CONDEMNED 67

suffrage. And an Ireland controlled by popular
suffrage would undoubtedly have established a
stringent system of protection wbicli, applied in
time, might have neutralised the advantage
which her coalfields gave to Great Britain in the
race for wealth.

Taking such a view of the political patriots
of the eighteenth century, and the conscious or
subconscious motives of the movements they
directed and controlled, it is not surprising that
Connolly conceived a profound distrust of con-
stitutional patriotism and of the parliamentary
institutions in which they found their field of
operations. To him there was no difference
between a Parliament endowed with the powers
obtained by Grattan and the Volunteers and a
Parliament shackled and made impotent by
Poynings' Law. As to the aviator, hills and
valleys are flattened into one level plain, so to
Connolly Ireland's history from 1641 to 1800
presents no alternations of outline, it is a dreary
level of futility, treachery, and corruption.
Holding that belief, he regards all the agitation
of the nineteenth century with contempt, as an
effort, always fatuous and generally dishonest,
to restore a system which was useless at its
best, and at its worst was absolutely fatal to
Ireland's cause. Henceforth he devotes but lit-

68 LABOUE AND THE UNION

tie attention to constitutional agitation, except
so far as it touches the revolutionary move-
ment, in which alone he sees hope of the regen-
eration of Ireland.

In his last speech against the Union, Henry
Grattan, seeing defeat to be inevitable, apostro-
phised Ireland in a passage which has often
been quoted:

"Yet I do not give up the country; I see her
in a swoon, but she is not dead :

Thou art not conquered; beauty's ensign yet

Ib crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,

And Death's pale flag is not advanced there."

So, too, might have spoken Connolly. For he
sees the promise of returning life in the national
revolutionary movement which came into being
while Grattan 's Parliament was at its zenith.

CHAPTER VI

THE EEVOLTJTIONABY MOVEMENT

Foe parliamentary Nationalism the eighteenth
century contains four facts of capital impor-
tance: the Union, Grattan's Parliament, the Pe-
nal Laws, the rising of '98. The first gives it its
raison d'etre, the second its ideal, the two latter
provide it with material to rouse the passions
and stimulate the ardour of its supporters. For
Connolly the century contains only one phenom-
enon of moment — the establishment of the So-
ciety of United Irishmen in 1791. In that event
he sees the dawn of a new day in Ireland's life,
the opening of an era of new visions nobler than
the old, in that they were social rather than po-
litical. It is not the least of his charges against
Parliamentarianism that, while it has made of
the rising of 1798 an epic of patriotism, it has
deliberately obscured and betrayed the princi-
ples of which that insurrection was the expres-
sion.

70 THE EEVOLUTIONAEY MOVEMENT

"Few movements in history have been more
consistently misrepresented by open enemies
and prof eSsed admirers than that of the United
Irishmen. . . . The middle-class 'patriotic' his-
torians, orators, and journalists of Ireland have
ever vied with one another in enthusiastic de-
scriptions of their military exploits on land and
sea, their hair-breadth escapes and heroic mar-
tyrdom, but have resolutely suppressed or dis-
torted their writings, songs, and manifestoes."

It may be that Connolly, bringing to the study
of the United Irishmen movement a mind filled
with Socialistic teaching, read into it a more
reasoned and genuine expression of the doc-
trine of social revolt than it contained. It was
probably more of a political movement than he
admits, but it was certainly more of a social
movement than subsequent generations have
recognised. It is, indeed, only by recognising
that fact that an explanation can be found for
the appearance of such an organisation at a mo-
ment when Ireland had her own Parliament,
equipped with very ample powers, and when she
was on the flood-tide of a prosperity to which
she was unaccustomed. The influence of the so-
cial side of the movement has made itself felt
in subsequent revolutionary movements, such as
those in which Thomas Emmett and John

THE UNITED IRISHMEN 71

Mitchell were the leading figures. And there
can be no question of the influence of the United
Irishmen on Connolly himself, and even, per-
haps, upon Sinn Fein.

Indeed, there is so curious a parallelism be-
tween the objects of the United Irishmen on
one side, and Sinn Fein and James Connolly on
the other, that, were generalised inference not
so notoriously dangerous, one would be tempted
to say that at this point Sinn Fein and the
Workers' Eepublic touched hands for a mo-
ment, to meet again in co-operation after more
than a century. To read Connolly's analysis
of the history of the United Irishmen is almost
to read the story of Sinn Fein :

"The organisation was at first an open,
peaceful association, seeking to utilise the ordi-
nary means of political agitation in order to
spread its propaganda among the masses, and
so prepare them for the accomplishment of its
greater end — ^viz., the realisation in Ireland of
a republic. . . . Afterwards . . . the organisa-
tion assumed the veil and methods of secrecy,
and in that form attained to such proportions as
enabled it to enter into negotiations with the
Revolutionary Directory of France."

For the last four words write "Germany,"

72 THE EEVOLUTIONAEY MOVEMENT

and the parallelism is complete, even to the de-
tail that neither of the foreign allies selected
was resjJeotable.

Read the century-old Minutes of the first
Dublin Society of United Irishmen — ^they might
have been penned by Arthur Griffith :

"We have no National Government; we are
ruled by Englishmen and the servants of Eng-
lishmen, whose object is the interest of another
country ; whose instrument is corruption ; whose
strength is the weakness of Ireland. ..."

In the Secret Manifesto to the Friends of
Freedom in Ireland it is stated that the external
business of the society wiU be first propaganda,
second communication with provincial centres
and the formation of a National Convention of
the people of Ireland. Sinn Fein calls it Dail
Eireann.

If we turn to the social side of. the pro-
gramme, we find the germs of the proletarian
revolutionary movement. It teems with refer-
ences to the Rights of Man and the grandeur of
the mission of the French revolutionaries. ' ' Our
freedom must be had at all hazards," so writes
"Wolfe Tone. "If the men of property wiU not
help us they must fall ; we will free ourselves by
the aid of that large and respectable class of the
community — the men of no property."

THE EIGHTS OF MAN 73

From the Minutes of the first Dublin Society,
already quoted, another extract may he made :

"When the aristocracy come forward, the
people fall backward ; when the people come for-
ward, the aristocracy, fearful of being left be-
hind, insinuate themselves into our ranks and
rise into timid leaders or treacherous auxilia-
ries. They mean to make us their instruments,
let us make them our instruments. . . . The peo-
ple must serve the party, or the party must
emerge in the mightiness of the people, and
Hercules will then lean upon his club. On the
14th of July, the day which shall ever commemo-
rate the French Revolution, let this Society pour
out their first libation to European liberty, even-
tually the liberty of the world and ... let them
swear to maintain the rights and prerogatives
of their nature as men, and the rights and pre-
rogative of Ireland as an independent people."

In these and similar passages, crude as is
their doctrine and turgid their phraseology, can
be discerned the germ of new ideas of democra-
cy, of internationalism and of class warfare. Of
the second, indeed, the traces of a very shadowy
character, and too much must not be deducted
from the references to France. The Eevolution
was then in the minds of all, the "Rights of
Man" tripped from every tongue. The Irish,

74 THE EEVOLUTIONAEY MOVEMENT

ever quick to take impression from outside,
would take them most readily from a country
the traditional enemy of England, and the asy-
lum for thousands of Irish refugees. But the
ideas of class interest, of what would now be
called perhaps class consciousness, were assum-
ing reality.

Before the break-up of the Confederation of
Kilkenny and the disappearance of the Clans
from Irish history the main lines of cleavage
had been racial and religious, and so they con-
tinued for half a century. But the Penal Laws,
which did maintain the religious cleavage, also
produced another cleavage which cut across it.
They did so in two ways. First, though it is
frequently forgotten, there were Penal Laws
against Presbyterians which in some respects
were more efficiently applied than those against
the Catholics. Next, the anti-Catholic Laws,
though they were so outrageous that they re-
mained to a considerable extent a dead letter,
did have the effect of placing the industrial and
commercial business of the country in the hands
of the Protestants. The employers of labour
were not considerate — ^there is abundant evi-
dence in the reports of Parliamentary Commis-
sions, taken early in the nineteenth century, to
show that artisans were receiving not even star-
vation wages, but wages which had to be supple-

EEGEOUPING PAETIES 75

mented by the mendicancy of the family to keep
them from starvation. Probably, on the whole,
the Protestant workers were the worst off, for
they formed the bulk of the industrial popula-
tion. In the rural districts the Catholic tenant-
ry found, as Connolly puts it, that "the Catholic
landlord represented the Mass less than the
rent-roll," and in the preceding chapter we
have seen them protesting as much against the
exactions of the Catholic priest as of the Pro-
testant parson. Thus were formed other lines
of cleavage — ^between rich and poor, employers
and employed, landlord and tenant — ^which cut
across the religious difference and forged a new
bond of fellowship between the members of the
conflicting creeds. Hence it came about that
Wolfe Tone, who, if he were anything, was a
Protestant, was for a time secretary of the
Catholic Committee and became the founder of
the United Irishmen, many of whose leaders
were Protestants, and which numbered many of
their co-religionists among the rank and file, the
bulk of which represented the older faith. And
it is not without significance that the Society of
United Irishmen was founded in Belfast.

While, then, it is doubtful how far the ab-
stractions represented by the French Eevolu-
tion had permeated the mass of the United

76 THE EEVOLUTIONAEY MOVEMENT

Irishmen, there can be no doubt that in their
movement can be found the first organisation
on anything like a national scale of the Irish
proletariat. The operations of the Oak Boys
and Hearts of Steel in Monaghan Down, and
Antrim, and of the more formidable White Boys
in the south, were the premonitory symptoms of
the discontent which the United Irishmen util-
ised in furtherance of their political purpose
with some suggestion that the wrongs should be
righted. The accusation which Connolly makes
against the parliamentary patriots is this — ^that
while they utilised the discontent, they made no
effort to remove or mitigate its causes ; nay, that
in some cases they resolutely refused to do so.

However far the movement of the United
Irishmen may have been permeated by demo-
cratic and proletarian influence, there is no
doubt that the Emmett Conspiracy owed to them
such success as it had, and was in its nature
much more closely allied with modem Social-
ism. Labour had been building up an organisa-
tion until there were in Dublin in the opening
years of the nineteenth century a number of so-
cieties, friendly societies in name, but subserv-
ing the purpose of trade unions. Being Ulegal,
these organisations were compelled to secrecy,
and so became admirable engines of revolution-

THE EMMETT CONSPIEACY 77

ary propaganda and organisation. It happened
also that the leaders of the United Irishmen,
who were mainly of the middle dass, had disap-
peared, and that consequently the direction of
the conspiracy fell more into the hands of a low-
er order. Emmett himself was a social reformer
of an advanced type. In the proclamation which
he prepared to be issued in the name of the
Provisional Government of Ireland, the first
three articles provided for the wholesale confis-
cation and nationalisation of all Church proper-
ty, and the transfer of all landed property,
bonds, debentures and public securities until the
National Government should be established and
a national decision taken as to their disposition.
In his account of the Emmett Conspiracy
Connolly mentions an incident of no historical
moment, but interesting as revealing his attitude
towards those whom he contemptuously calls
"patriots." Daniel O'Connell was turned out
in the Lawyers' Yeomanry Corps of Dublin on
the night of the rising, and later pointed out to
Mr. Daunt a house in James Street which he had
searched for ' ' Croppies. ' ' (Croppies was a nick-
name for the rebels.) And Connolly then goes
on to mention that he himself was shown at
Derrynane, the home of the O'Connells in Ker-
,ry, a blunderbuss which he was told had been

78 THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT

obtained by the future Liberator from the own-
er of a bouse in James Street.

A quarter of a century later O'Connell comes
again upon tbe scene, whence he was to play the
leading part, and to win undying adulation from
Constitutional Nationalism and unmitigated
hostility from the parties of Separation and
Revolution.

Those twenty-five years, which the lawyer
spent in preparation for his great political ef-
fort, were bad years for Labour. Industrial
prosperity was on the wane. With the close of
the Napoleonic wars came a fall in food prices,
and tenants found it increasingly hard to pay
their rents. Trouble developed between land-
lord and tenant in the country, between employ-
er and employed in the towns. The trade unions
seem to have acquired strength and organisa-
tion. They were still illegal up to 1824, but
their existence was being recognised and winked
at by the employers, who often found it conven-
ient to negotiate with them. With the repeal
of the anti-combinations laws, partial as it was,
in 1824 labour organisation developed to such
an extent that employers became seriously con-
cerned.

The chief trouble seems to have arisen
through the unions being rather close corpora-

O'CONNELL AND LABOR 79

tions, restricted in their membersHp, and re-
senting the employment of non-union men, or
"colts."* Their dealings with the colts were
largely executed through the medium of persons
bearing the suggestive title of "welters," who
conducted their physical negotiations with much
zeal and efficiency. Parliamentary Committees
sat from time to time to examine into com-
plaints of violence or of restraint on trade on
the part of the unions. Violence no doubt there
was in plenty, but it was most rife in the earlier
years of the movement; the less frequent calls
on the services of the "welters" were coincident
with, and symptomatic of the growing influence
and authority of organisation. The most elabo-
rate and noteworthy of these inquiries was that
instituted on the motion of O'Connell to investi-
gate the "constitution, proceedings and extent
of combination by workers."

O'Connell 's action was dictated by unveiled
hostility to the Labour movement. "He stood
in sober fact," says Mr. W. P. Eyan,t "for
industrial despotism and spoliation." In the
opening stages of his agitation for the Eepeal of

*In their History of Trade Unionism Mr. and Mrs. Sid-
ney Webb describe the rules of the Dublin Trades Unions as
' ' abominably selfish, ' ' a view with which Mr. W. P. Eyan, in
The Irish Labour Movement, does not agree.

t The Irish Labov/r Movement, p. 89.

80 THE REVOLUTIONAEY MOVEMENT

the Union lie had had the bacMng of the work-
ing classes, partly, says Connolly, because they
accepted his doctrine that the decay of Irish
trade was due to the Union, and partly because
"they did not believe he was sincere in his pro-
fessions of loyalty to the English Monarchy,
nor in his desire to limit his aims to Repeal." *
In return for their support he incorporated the
trades organisations in his Association, giving
them the same rights as the regularly enrolled
members. To this many of his supporters ob-
jected. The Irish Monthly Magazine, an enthu-
siastic Repeal organ, was especially vigorous in
its denunciation of the industrial alliance, and
wrote that it "apprehended great mischief and
little good from the trade unions as at present
constituted." It is possible that such protests
from O'Connell's followers emboldened the
Lord Lieutenant to proclaim a huge trade union
demonstration in favour of Repeal. An alli-
ance of this kind, when the enthusiasm of one
party was largely founded on the belief that the
leader of the movement was a hypocrite, and
when there was no reciprocal sympathy on the
other, could not, and did not, last very long. As
O'Connell gravitated more and more towards
the Whig Party, then notoriously unfriendly to

* Labour m Irish History, p. 150.

A REJECTED ALLIANCE 81

the demands and aspirations of Labour — ^he was
a vigorous opponent of Lord Ashley's efforts to
amend the Factory Laws — "he gradually devel-
oped into the most bitter and unscrupulous ene-
my of trade unionism Ireland has yet produced,
signalling the trade unions of Dublin out always
for his most venomous attack. " * At last in
1837 he was Chairman of the Masters' Anti-
Combination Society, and was denounced by his
former working-class supporters, who hooted
him in the street and broke up his meetings.

In such a spirit he moved for the inquiry of
1838, and himself took part in it. As an attack
on Labour it was not a success. Acts of violence
were proved, but so also was the very deplorable
condition of the workers. The Committee, per-
haps for this very reason, presented no Eeport.

To emphasise the completeness of O'Connell's
hostility to Labour Connolly describes his dif-
ferences with Feargus O'Connor, one of his
ablest supporters and later famous as a leader
of the Chartists. 'Connor held the view that
Irish oppression was mainly economic and, see-
ing the miserable condition of the English work-
er, he strove to induce his leader to share his
views and to unite the British and Irish democ-
racies in a common movement. O'Connell re-

* Connolly, Labour m Irish History, p. 150.

82 THE EEVOLUTIONAET MOVEMENT

fused the advice, although it promised him a
large addition of strength, and the friends sep-
arated. Indeed, during the famous State trials,
Eichard*Lalor Shiel made it one of his pleas in
favour of 'Connell that he had stood between
the people of Ireland and the people of Eng-
leind, and so "prevented a junction which would
be formidable enough to overturn any adminis-
tration that could be formed."

This policy of 'Coimell and its motives will
be variously estimated. To some it wiU appear
admirable that he was ready to risk his position
and impair his hope of securing Eepeal of the
Union rather than be the means of initiating a
social revolution, with all its attendant horrors.
To Connolly, and the men of the modem Irish
Labour movement, he appears as a traitor to
democracy and the champion of industrial des-
potism. To Sinn Fein he is a traitor to the old
Graelic language and the old Gaelie culture,
and a helot in that he recognised British rule,
even though he tried to abolish it.

Thus is this distinguished man, the "Lib-
erator," whose name was one to conjure with in
Irish Nationalism, cast from his pedestal by the
Irish patriots of to-day. To one section he is a
helot, to the other a slave-driver, to all the ene-
my of Irish freedom. The whole Eepeal move-

lEELAND BETEAYED 83

ment, indeed, is held by tliem to have been a
betrayal of the cause of Ireland. 'Oonnell rec-
ommended it as a link with England, he was
ready to help England in "bringing down the
American Eagle in its highest pride of flight."
In saying it he was a traitor. Lord Lyndhnrst,
in a speech, had described the Irish as "alien in
blood, in language, and in religion." Eichard
Lalor Shiel replied to him in a speech of im-
passioned eloquence. In one passage, often
quoted, he repelled the insult by extolling the
valour of Irish soldiers in England's army.
Shiel held Lord Lyndhnrst 's words to be an
insult; Sinn Fein and Connolly "triumphantly
assert the idea embodied in that phrase as the
real basis of Irish Nationalism."

CHAPTER Vn

THE NINETEENTH CENTtJEY

To find tlie real thread of the revolutionary
movement during this period we must turn from
the town to the country. In the towns organi-
sation was only feeling its way, and as it ad-
vanced so did violence apparently diminish. In
the country, on the contrary, the organisation
was singularly effective, and as it became more
perfect so did the ferocity of its methods in-
crease.

The years that followed the close of the Na-
poleonic wars were times of distress in Ireland
as in Great Britain. As prices of foodstuffs fell,
tenants could not pay the high rents fixed dur-
ing the long years of war; as wheat-growing be-
came unprofitable, farms were amalgamated in-
to grazing estates, and in both cases evictions
followed. And, strangely enough, the grant of
Catholic Emancipation contributed to the trou-
ble. That Act, which forms O'Connell's chief
claim to the gratitude of Ireland, was accompa-

84

AGEAEIAN POVEETY 85

nied by a narrowing of the franchise. Before the
passing of the Act all tenants paying an annual
rental of forty shillings had had a vote ; by the
Act the qualification was fixed at £10. As a re-
sult evictions increased. Landlords had previ-
ously welcomed a large tenantry, which under
the system of open voting increased their politi-
cal power. This inducement being removed, they
were the more ready to obey the dictates of the
economic difficulties above mentioned, and to
reduce the number of their tenants. ' ' The Cath-
olic middle, professional, and landed classes,"
says Connolly, "by Catholic Emancipation had
the way opened to them for all the snug berths
in the disposal of the Government; the Catholics
of the poorer class as a result of the same Act
were doomed to extermination to satisfy the
vengeance of a foreign Government and an
aristocracy whose power had been defied when
it knew itself most supreme."

The result was the famous Eibbon Move-
ment, so called from the fact that the members
of the society, when on duty, wore a ribbon
round their arms. This society had been iu ex-
istence some eight or nine years at the time of
the Emancipation Act, and lasted, with quies-
cent intervals, until about 1857. Its period of
greatest activity, however, was during the thir-

86 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY

ties. Its organisation was remarkably good,
and the secrecy in which it enshrouded its pro-
ceedings *!f or long remained practically impene-
trable. Many parliamentary inquiries were held
into the nature and proceedings of the Eibbon
Society; it was denounced hy the Catholic hier-
archy, but it continued on its way, unmoved and
unrevealed. By many, among them Sir George
Comewall Lewis, it was described as a trade
union, and Connolly expresses the opinion that
it was an industrial trade union for the protec-
tion of labourers and cottier farmers. That
it was a combination for these purposes is cer-
tain, and it also intervened to prevent the low-
ering of wages and to promote the lowering of
Church dues. But to class it as a trade union
is an injustice to those bodies, as weU as his-
torically inaccurate.

In support of this it wUl be interesting to
consider the obligation which candidates for in-
itiation were compelled to undertake. For many
years the terms of the Eibbonmen's oath were
in doubt. Forms of obligation were produced,
purporting to be the real oath, but the matter
was not finally settled until the Pamell Com-
mission. During that inquiry an oath was read
to a witness, who replied that he had never
heard it, though he would not swear that he

THE EIBBON OATH 87

had not heard something like it. While the
question was being discussed, Mr. Michael
Davitt, an authority on such matters, rose and
informed the Commission that the words were
those of the Ribbon Oath. It runs as follows :

"In the presence of Almighty God, and this
my brother, I do swear that I will suffer my
right hand to be cut from my body and laid at
the gaol door before I will waylay or betray a
brother, and I will persevere and not spare from
the cradle to the crutch and the crutch to the
cradle ; that I will not hear the moans or groans
of infancy or old age, but that I will wade knee-
deep in Orangemen's blood and do as King
James did." *

The words of this atrocious obligation dem-
onstrate quite distinctly that, while the immedi-
ate objects of Eibbonism were alKed to those of
trade unions, it had religious and political im-
plications which differentiated it from these
bodies. Political genealogists, indeed, trace the
lineage of Eibbonism back through the Defend-
ers to Eory Oge 'Moore. In Eibbonism, there-
fore, and its satellites, the Whitef eet, the Black-
feet, the Terry Alts, the Lady Clares, we have
revolutionary bodies, political as well as eco-
nomic. If personal opinion may here be inter-

* Official Eeport of the Pamell ConunisBion, Vol. III., p. 153.

88 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

polated it may be surmised that, while contem-
porary writers describes Eibbonism as a trade
union aiovement in order to discredit trade
unions, Connolly follows the same line in order
to glorify both, and point trade unions in the
way they should go.

He makes it a groimd of complaint against
O'Connell's supporters that they denounced
this iJibbon Movement. He quotes with disgust
a manifesto posted in the market place of Ennis
and in other parts of Clare by Mr. Thomas
Steele, a very ardent Eepealer, in which he said,
"Unless you desist I denounce you as traitors
to the cause of the liberty of Ireland. ... I
leave you to the Government and the fire and
bayonets of the military."

Connolly reprobates such language to the
heroic men and women who had sacrificed all
"to win the emancipation from religious tyran-
ny of the well-fed snobs who thus abandoned
them." And he continues:

"It is difficult to see how a promised Repeal
of the Union some time in the future could have
been of any use to the starving men of Clare,
especially when they knew that their fathers
had been starved, evicted, and tyrannised even
"before just as they were after the Union. At
that time, however, it was deemed a highly pa-

FAMINE 89

triotic act to ascribe all the ills tliat Irish, flesh

is heir to to the TJnioii."

* * # #

Then came the Famine. It is not a story one
cares to linger over, that story of suffering and
blundering pedantry. But it has to be noted be-
cause of the lasting hostility to England which
it engendered in the Irish race, and because of
the deductions drawn from it by Connolly. He
accepts the saying of the Irish Nationalists that
"Providence sent the potato blight, but Eng-
land made the famine," with this addendum,
"by a rigid application of the economic princi-
ples that lie at the base of capitalist Society. "To
venture for a moment into controversy, it may
be suggested that he would be nearer the truth
if for the last words he had written "that lay
at the base of the Whig policy." There have
been famines since, in India and elsewhere,
which have been met, even under "capitalist
Society," with methods very different from
those that were employed in 1846. It was Ire-
land's greatest misfortune to be stricken with
hunger and disease while the country was ruled
by a party which, of all those that have gov-
erned during a century and a half, was the most
prolific of axioms and the most sterile of soul.

Connolly uses the declaration of Lord John

90 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Russell, then Prime Minister, that nothing must
be done to interfere with private enterprise in
the regular course of trade — a policy rigidly
followed even to the incredible stupidity of
stipulating in the Relief Acts that all labour
should be entirely unproductive — ^to argue that
such a policy would be impossible under Social-
ism, though entirely logical under Capitalism.
"Within the limits of that social system and
its theories their Acts are unassailable and un-
impeachable ; it is only when we reject that sys-
tem and the intellectual and social fetters it
imposes that we really acquire the right to de-
nounce the English administration of Ireland
during the famine as a colossal crime against
the human race. The non-Socialist Irish man or
woman who fumes against that administration
is in the Ulogical position of denouncing an ef-
fect of whose cause he is a supporter. That
cause was the system of capitalist property.
"With the exception of those few men we have
before named, the Young Ireland leaders of
1848 failed to rise to the grandeur of the oppor-
tunity offered them to choose between human
rights and property rights as a basis of nation-
ality, and the measure of their failure was the
measure of their country's disaster."

EESPECTABLE FAILURES 91

The Eebellion of 1848 convulsed Ireland —
with laughter. Inept in conception, it was piti-
fully feeble and spiritless in execution. Yet
its leaders were neither fools nor cowards. One
of them, Gavan Duffy, became a Colonial Pre-
mier ; among them were men of ability and read-
ing; they had courage — cowards do not of their
own wiU go the way. of the scaffold ; one of them,
Meagher, was destined, fifteen years later, in
the American Civil War, to prove himself a
fighting man and a leader of fighting men.
What then made of these men, mentally alert,
physically brave, fired with zeal for the demo-
"cratic principles of Mazzini, stirred by the up-
rising of the French democracy, blunderers, con-
temptible ia council and nerveless in action?
Connolly has no doubts as to the answer — ^re-
spectability. Perhaps he is right. Men who
would conduct a revolution for the upsetting of
social order — and for Connolly no other revolu-
tion counts — ^must be fanatical in their creed and
unscrupulous in their methods. That 'Brien
and Meagher and Doheny and Duffy were nei-
ther fanatical nor unscrupulous is the unforgiv-
able crime which arouses Connolly's wrath and
sharpens his gibes. "The chiefs of the Young
Irelander," he says, "were as rabidly solicitous
about the rights of the landlord as were the

92 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY

cMefs of the English Government. While the
people perished the Young Irelanders talked,
and their talk was very beautiful, thoroughly
grammatical, nicely polished, and the proper
amount of passion introduced at the proper psy-
chological moment."

In effect he charges the leaders of the Young
Irelanders with not understanding, or, if they
understood, being false to the principles they
professed. They were bourgeois mumbling
democratic formulas, dreaming of rebellion but
repudiating revolution, and unfit to use the ma-
terial ready to their hand. Such material was
there in the Eibbon Society, unrivalled for the
purpose of social revolution, unscrupulous, mys-
terious, pitiless, "deaf to the moans of infancy
or age. ' ' It may be that it was those very quali-
fications which repelled the leaders of Young
Ireland, men of less callous fibre. If so, in Con-
nolly's eyes, it was a grievous fault, bringing
them down almost to the level of the constitu-
tional ' ' patriots, ' ' and grievously does he mourn
it. The whole of Connolly's attitude towards
the Young Irelander deserves most careful at-
tention for the light it casts on the problem set
forth in the first chapter of this book, and on the
present Irish situation. Though Sroith 'Brien
and his friends were willing to break the British
connection by force of arms, they are little bet-

FINTAN LALOR 93

ter than such "helots" as O'Connell because
their aims were limited to political change, and
did not embrace the overthrow of the whole so-
cial system at whatever cost of life or suffering.

And the tragedy of the failure is all the more
complete because these faineant leaders sinned
against the light. There were men among them
who saw the truth and pointed the way. John
Mitchell was insistent on the necessity and pol-
icy of a social revolution which would have
brought the English Chartists into the field.
Fintan Lalor, a cripple debarred from physical
service, was especially bitter against the policy
of Smith 'Brien and his colleagues :

"They wanted an alliance with the landown-
ers. They chose to consider them as Irishmen,
and imagined they could induce them to hoist
the green flag. . . . They desired not a demo-
cratic, but merely a national, revolution."

Both these men were of the stuff from which
the true revolutionist is made. But while
Mitchell was fitted for the barricade, Lalor was
pre-eminently the man for the council chamber,
quick to grasp the broad principles and subtle
in the weaving of the plans.

First of all rebels against British rule, they
proclaimed that political rebellion and economic
revolution should march together. How far

94 THE NINETEENTH CENTTJEY

Lalor preached this doctrine as an article of
faith or as a practical instrument of rebellion is
a little uncertain. In a passage in which he as-
serts that "the soil of the country belongs as of
right to the entire people of that country, not to
any class, but the nation, " he is careful to add,
"no one has a higher respect for the rights of
property than I have, but I do not class among
them the robber rights by which the hands of
this country are held in the grasp of Irish Na-
tionalism." *

And, indeed, he throws Socialism to the winds
in his letter to the landowners of Ireland, in
which he invites them, not to become Repealers,
but to think and act as Irishmen, and condition-
ally on their doing so offers them "new titles"
and tells them that Ireland will remain theirs
for ages. "Allegiance to this fair island; it is
your title of tenure to the lands you hold, and in
right of it you hold them. ' ' There is no trace of
land nationalisation in this passage, nor in the
very eloquent docimient of which it is a part-f

It is, however, unnecessary to speculate as to
the precise shade of Lalor 's economic creed, for
above aU things he insists on the land

* Irish Felon, No. 1.

fEeprinted from the Nation in Sir Charles Duffy's Fowr
Tears of Irish Eistory.

A SPUE TO PATRIOTISM 95

question as a weapon of successful rebellion.

In Ms paper, the Irish Felon — ^founded when
John Mitchell's United Irishman was sup-
pressed, and itself suppressed after three issues
— he denounces Eepeal as impracticable and ab-
surd:

* ' I mean to assert this, that the land question
contains, and the legislative question does not
contain, the materials from which victory is
manufactured. . , . This island is ours, and
have it we will. " *

Again :

' ' There is, I am convinced, but one way alone,
and that is link Eepeal to some other question,
like the railway carriage to the engine, some
question strong enough to carry both itself and
Repeal together. And such a question there is
in the land — one ready prepared, ages have been
preparing it. An engine ready made ; one too
that will generate its own steam without cost or
care — a self-acting engine if once the fire be
kindled. Repeal had always to be dragged.
This I speak of will carry itself as the cannon
ball carries itself down the hill." f

In The Faith of a Felon he further devel-
ops the thesis: —

"I perceived that the English conquest con-

* Irish Felon, No. 1. t Hid., No. 2.

96 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY

sisted of two parts combined into a whole, the
conquest of our liberties and the conquest of our
lands. I saw clearly the reconquest of our lib-
erties would be incomplete and worthless with-
out the reconquest of our lands — and could not,
on its own means, be possibly achieved; while
the reconquest of our lands would involve the
other, and could possibly, if not easily, Ibe
achieved. The lands were owned by the con-
quering race or by the traitors of the conquered
race. They were occupied by the native people
or by settlers who had mingled or merged." *
Thus selecting the land question as the engine
which should drag Repeal — and it will be noted
that, while Lalor speaks of Eepeal, he means
complete independence" — ^he adVised that the
revolution should proceed, not by offensive and
open war, but by defensive measures, to be con-
verted into open warfare should occasion offer.
Tenants should refuse on principle to pay any
rents at all until a National Convention should
decide what rents they should pay and to whom
they should pay them. Such a Convention
"ought on grounds of policy and economy to
decide that those rents should be paid to them-
selves, the people, for public purposes and for
the behalf and benefit of them, the entire gen-

* Irish Felon, No. 3, July 8th, 1848.

A PLAN OF CAMPAIGN 97

eral people." MeanwMle, pending such a Con-
vention, the people should immediately refuse
to pay all rents and arrears, except any surplus
of the harvest which might remain after making
due and full provision for their own needs dur-
ing the ensuing year. And then he formulates
the plan of campaign in the event of the British
Government employing armed force :

"We must only try to keep our harvest, to
offer a peaceful passive resistance, to barricade
the island, to break up the roads, to break down
the bridges, and should need be, and favourable
occasion occur, surely we may venture to try
the steel."

The Young Irelanders rejected Lalor's coun-
sels in 1848. Had they accepted them their
movement would not have been the pitiful farce
it was. But, as Connolly points out, they were
barred from accepting them because they were
bourgeois, respectable, and, some of them, own-
ers of property. Even had they followed them,
they might have failed, as Lalor's plan failed
when put into operation forty years later by Mi-
chael Davitt. Such speculations are profitless ;
the thing that matters is that it was Lalor who
pointed Connolly on the road to social revolu-
tion as an instrument of Separation. The seed
sown in the Irish Felon in 1848 only came to its

98 JHE NINETEENTH CENTURY

full maturity after the lapse of more than half
a century.

The Fenian Risiag in. the middle 'sixties,
though as a rebellion it was far better planned
and more virile than that of Smith O'Brien, was
run on much the same general lines. Connolly,
Ladeed, suggests that it had some of the implica-
tions of social revolution, and regards the se-
lection for the post of Commander-in-Chief of
General Cluseret, who afterwards commanded
the army of the Paris Commune, as pointing in
that direction. This, however, seems to be
another case of his reading his own subjective
thought into a political movement. All revolu-
tionaries meet on a plane of advanced ideas,
and Cluseret was probably one of those adven-
turous soldiers who turn up wherever there is
trouble. Mr. Eyan, the historian of Irish La^
hour, apparently disagrees with Connolly's
view, for he describes Fenianism as for several
years turning several of the sturdier Irish ele-
ments from immediate social issues. There was
certainly no trace of Lalor's influence in the
Fenian rebellion.

It is, indeed, iuteresting and instructive to
note how completely the economic factor was
excluded from the national movement in the
years that followed 1848. While that abortive

THE DAWN OF SOCIALISM 99

rising was being contemplated William Thomp-
son, an Irish landlord, had written a book on the
distribution of wealth in which he, to a very
great extent, anticipated the doctrines of Marx.
The teaching of Eobert Owen, the Utopian So-
cialist, had enlisted the sympathies of many
Irishmen of ability and social position. A So-
cialist Colony, on his model, was established at
Ealahine, in County Clare, and is said to have
achieved considerable success, until it came to
an end owing to the estate having to change
hands. O 'Connell's Eepeal agitation hadfailed ;
Smith O'Brien's rebellion had failed ignomini-
ously — ^Fintan Lalor had shown the cause of
those failures. And yet none of these events
might have occurred for all the mark they left
on the parliamentary demand for Irish self-gov-
ernment.

Lalor 's teaching was, indeed, zealously ig-
nored by the Parliamentarians. To admit that
of itself the demand for self-government could
not move the people, seemed to them a fatal con-
fession. When Unionists quoted Lalor 's words
that "Eepeal had to be dragged," they resented
and denied the charge. Even Parnell, who of all
the Parliamentarians is most leniently treated
by the extremists, was only with great difficulty
brought to agree to Davitt's proposal to estab-
lish the Land League in 1879, and repudiated —

100 THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY

a little tardily, but still repudiated — the "Plan
of Campaign," which, embodied Lalor's pro-
posal to pay only so much rent as tenants could
afford, in 1887, and Parnell, though he fought
for Home Eule in the legislative arena, was — if
his assurance to the American Irish at Cincin-
nati were honest — at heart an advocate of com-
plete separation.

These were his words :

"When we have given Ireland to the people
of Ireland, we shall have laid the foundation
upon which to build up our Irish nation. . . .
And let us not forget that that is the ultimate
goal at which all we Irishmen aim. None of us,
whether we be in America or Ireland — or wher-
ever we may be — ^will be satisfied untU we have
destroyed the last link which keeps Ireland
bound to England." *

This, then, was the lesson which Connolly
learned from his survey of Irish history. He
saw the miseries of the proletariat exploited by
"patriots" — ^the inverted commas are his — to
further their movements, but in the movements
themselves he saw no sign of a desire to allevi-
ate those miseries — nay, in some instances he
found a settled hostility to the attempts of La-
bour to obtain alleviation of itsi sufferings.

* Speech at Cineinnati, February 23rd, 1880.

WHAT CONNOLLY LEARNED 101

Even in the revolutionary movements, though
there he could discern some rays of light, he
does not touch solid ground. And nowhere does
he detect recognition of what is to him essential
— that the social reconstruction of the Ireland
of to-day must be framed in the mould of the
old Gaelic system of communal property, or if
not in the same mould — ^for allowance must be
made for modem conditions — at least in the
spirit which inspired that system.

And from the reading he turns away with the
conviction that Ireland's freedom must come,
not from above, but from below.

In 1896 he founded the Irish Socialist Ee-
publican Party.

CHAPTER Vin

STORMY PETEELS

This is not the biography of a man, but of a
movement, and, therefore, only such incidents
in Connolly's career during the next few years
need be noticed as find a reflection ia the evolu-
tion of his creed. And that there was a consid-
erable development of his creed during the next
fifteen years may be largely attributed to his
sojourn in America. Before that event Connol-
ly worked on the customary lines of agitation.
He published extracts from the writings of the
United Irishmen; he ran a paper, the Work-
ers' Republic, which had a fitful existence for
seven years, during which eighty-five numbers
appeared; he organised a demonstration against
the Jubilee of 1897, and some turbulent mani-
festations on the occasion of Queen Victoria's
visit to Ireland in 1900 ; he twice sought election
to the Town Council of Dublin for the Wood
Quay Ward, and was opposed and defeated by
the nominees of the United Irish League ; and
he lectured in England and Scotland. These

102

CONNOLLY AND THE I. W. W. 103

energies were not without result. The move-
ment became known ; its authors, indeed, boast-
ed most especially of their abandonment of the
"ridiculous secrecy" in which previous revo-
lutionary movements had been shrouded, "and
in hundreds of speeches in the most public
places of the metropolis, as well as in scores of
thousands of pieces of literature scattered
through the country, the Socialists announced
their purpose to muster all the forces of Labour
for a revolutionary reconstruction. " *

In 1903 Connolly went to America, where he
remained for seven years, during which he
worked as linotype operator, machinist, insur-
ance agent and so on, until in 1907, he formed
the Irish Socialist Federation, becoming its or-
ganiser in the following year. Those four years
were eventful for Ireland, for in them Connolly
came in touch with the Industrial "Workers of
the World. He then fell under the influence of
Leon, another of whose disciples was Lenin.

His was an eclectic mind, quick to take im-
pressions from its surroundings, and to apply
them to the one dominant purpose of his life,
political and social reconstruction. In The
Harp, the organ of the Irish Socialist Federa-
tion, he introduced the new Labour policy for

•Introduction to Erin's Eope, American Edition.

104 STORMY PETRELS

Ireland, inviting the co-operation of all unsel-
fish men and women who worked for social
rightedttsness. It was not at all necessary that
there should be any particular trade mark. He
had come to believe that the theoretical clear-
ness of a few Socialists was not so important as
the aroused class instincts and class conscious-
ness of the mass of the workers. He was willing
to work with any one, whatever their shades of
view, who would advance the political and in-
dustrial organisation of Labour.

In nothing is the eclectic nature of Connolly's
mind so evident as in the effect upon it of his
association with the Industrial Workers of the
World. He accepts the idea of the one big
union, he rejects the idea of internationalism,
In both cases he was evidently dominated by the
paramount aim of unifying the political and
economic revolution in Ireland and making it
effective. The passage in which he rejects
internationalism must be quoted as pro-
phetic of what afterwards occurred:

"We propose to show all the workers of our
fighting race that Socialism will make them bet-
ter fighters without being less Irish ; we propose
to advise the Irish who are Socialists how to or-
ganise their forces as Irish and get again in
touch with the organised bodies of literartf, edu-

BOLSHEVISM FOEESHADOWED 105

cational, and revolutionary Irish; we propose to
make. a campaign among our countrymen and to
rely for our method mainly on imparting to
them a correct interpretation of the facts of
Irish history past and present ; we propose to
take the control of the Irish vote out of thehands
of the slimy seonini, who use it to boost their po-
litical and business interests to the undoing of
the Irish as well as the American toiler." *

Up to this point Connolly's policy, extreme as
it was, was capable of being applied in practice
under the ordinarily accepted governmental
forms, and, unless it be very obscurely implicit
in the constitution of the Irish Socialist Eepub-
lican Party, there was nothing in his previous
writings to indicate that his Irish Socialist Ee-
public would materially depart from those forms.
But in 1908 he produced a scheme in which the
influence of the industrial extremists is clearly
visible. It appeared first in the Harp and was
afterwards reprinted in Socialism Made Easy,
and is so important that, though lengthy, it
must be stated in Connolly's own words:

"The political institutions of to-day are sim-
ply the coercive forms of capitalist society; they

* The 'Earp, No. 1. Seonini, pronounced shoneens, an Irish
term of reproach, signifying worthless fellow. Xhe first italiea
are ours.

106 STOEMY PETRELS

have grown up out of and are based upon terri-
torial divisions of power in tlie hands of the
ruling class in past ages, and were carried over
into capitalist society to suit the needs of the
capitalist class when that class overthrew
the dominion of its predecessors. The delega-
tion of the function of government into the
hands of representatives elected from certain
districts, states, or territories, represents no
real natural division suited to the requirements
of modem society, but is a survival from a time
when territorial influences were more potent
than industrial influences, and for that reason is
totally unsuited to the needs of the new social
order, which must be based upon industry. The
Socialist thinker when he paints the structural
form of the new social order does not imagine
an industrial system directed or ruled by a body
of men and women elected from an indiscrimi-
nate mass of residents within given districts,
said residents working at a heterogeneous col-
lection of trades and industries. To give the
ruling, controlling, and directing of industry
into the hands of such a body would be too utter-
ly foolish. What the Socialist does realise is
that under a Socialist form of society the ad-
ministration of affairs will be in the hands of

SOVIETS 107

representatives of the various industries of the
nation ; that the workers in the shops and facto-
ries will organise themselves into unions, each
union comprising all the workers at a given in-
dustry ; that said union will democratically con-
trol the workshop life of its own industry, elect-
ing all foremen, etc., and regulating the routine
of labour in that industry in subordination to
the needs of society in general, to the needs of
its alhed trades, and to the department of indus-
try to which it belongs. That representatives
elected from these various departments of in-
dustry will meet and form the industrial admin-
istration or national government of the coimtry.
In short. Social Democracy, as its name implies,
is the application to industry, or to the social
life of the nation, of the fundamental principles
of democracy. Such application will necessarily
have to begin in the workshop, and proceed logi-
cally and consecutively upward through all the
grades of industrial organisation until it reach-
es the culminating point of national executive
power and direction. In other words. Socialism
must proceed from the bottom upwards, where-
as capitalist political society is organised from
above downward; Socialism will be adminis-
tered by a committee of experts elected from the
industries and professions of the land; capital-
ist society is governed by representatives elect-

108 STOEMY PETEELS

ed from districts, and is based upon territorial
division. The local and national governing or
other a,dministrative bodies of Socialism will
approach every question with impartial minds
armed with the fullest knowledge bom of expe-
rience;, the governing bodies of capitalist so-
ciety have to call in an expensive professional
expert to instruct them on every technical ques-
tion, and know that the impartiality of said ex-
pert varies with amd. depends upon the size of
his fee.

"It will be seen that this conception of Social-
ism destroys at one blow all the fears of a bu-
reaucratic State, ruling and ordering the lives
of every individual from above, and thus gives
assurance that the social order of the future will
be an extension of the freedom of the individual,
and not a suppression of it. In short, it blends
the fullest democratic control with the most ab-
solute expert supervision, something unthinka-
ble of any society built upon the political state. ' '

Study of this statement of policy enables us
to understand the debt which iu later days
Lenin confessed he owed to Connolly, and how
Mr. de Blacam is able to boast that Bolshevism
was born in Ireland.*

The period of gestation had been long. Dur-

* Aodh de Blaeam, Towards the Sepublio.

SOCIALISM HANGS FIEE 109

ing the twelve years which had elapsed since the
founding of the Workers' Republican Party the
movement had made but slow headway in Ire-
land, except among some of the more ardent and
advanced thinkers. The accredited leaders of
the trade unions frowned on the new doc-
trine ; proposals that Labour should in its cor-
porate capacity take part in politics were regu-
larly voted down at the annual Congress. The
Gaelic League and Sinn Fein failed to be at-
tracted by Connolly's appeal to the ancient so-
cial tradition of the Gael. To this Connolly's
absence contributed ; when he was translated to
America he left no one worthy to wear his cloak.
Mr. W. P. Eyan mournfully speculates on what
might have been had he remained in Ireland to
knit together the intellectual and proletarian
forces of evolution. There were, nevertheless,
as he points out, influences at work which were
gradually bringing the two together. Leaving
out of account Connolly's extreme social opin-
ions, there was much in his reading of Irish his-
tory — ^his appeal to Gaelic tradition and his de-
testation of the Parliamentarians — ^to arouse
the sympathy of Sinn Fein, and men like Sheehy
Skeffington and Pearse had places in both wings
of the revolutionary movement.
The position at the beginntag of 1907 was

110 STOEMT PETRELS

this. In America Connolly was studying social
problems, constructing a constitution from the
materials furnished by the Industrial Workers
of the World, and evolving philosophic bases
for his theories. But that alone was not
enough. The philosopher and theorist can point
the way, but he cannot set the mass moving
along it. To do that requires qualities m which
Connolly was then deficient, if indeed he ever
fully acquired them. He had his sympathies, but
he repressed them too rigidly; he was too much
the thinker, too precise in facts, too logical, ever
to become the effective mover of men.

At this moment such a man stepped upon the
Irish stage, a man knowing little of philosophy
and caring less, heedless of the past, reckless of
the future, looking only at the present, and see-
ing it through eyes glowing with revolutionary
fire — ^no logician, inconsequent, perhaps some-
times incoherent in argument, but gifted with
burning speech, violent, coarse, but singularly
effective with the people to whom he spoke. Like
Connolly, James Larkin was a revolutionary by
instinct and bitter experiences in the depths,
depths lower than ever Connolly sounded, and a
rebel against British rule by inheritance from
his father, one of Davitt's comrades in the
abortive Fenian plot against Chester Castle.

JAMES LARKIN 111

Whether he was attracted by it or whether he
created it, wherever Larkin went there was gen-
erally trouble. He came to Belfast early in
1907, and before the year was out there were
serious strikes in that city, riots, military and
police intervention, and shooting.

From Belfast as a centre Larkin opened up a
campaign in Dublin. He chose for his field of
operations the trades at the very bottom of the
social scale — the dockers, carriers and casual
workers, who were unorganised, neglected by
the skilled artisans, and who existed in the most
appalling surroundings. To read of these Dub-
lin slums in a cold official Eeport is to bum with
anger, to visit them is to blush with shame for
the unhappy people who have to be seen by their
fellow men in such unspeakable degradation. It
is not surprising that to these men Larkin came
in the guise of a missionary, speaking to them in
the language they knew and could understand,
and all the more effective because he himself
had passed through the fire. As the result of his
mission, and aided by a strike in Cork, in which
he, of course, took a hand, the Irish Transport
and General Workers' Union wasformedinl908.
It was d'estined in later years to become the
dominant factor in the Irish Labour Movement.

Meanwhile in the rural districts there was a

112 STOEMY PETEELS

growing unrest such as has so often in Irish
history indicated the coming of revolutionary-
storms. Although the cattle-driving movement
never attained the dimensions of the Land
League Campaign, and was free from the sav-
agery of the White Boy and Eibbon operations,
it caused much suffering and loss to its victims,
who were very largely of the small landowning
and tenant class. It is here mentioned, not as a
factor in the larger events which followed, but
as indicating a general restlessness which fur-
thered the purposes of those who were aiming at
a social upheaval. It is also worth noticing be-
cause its author, Mr. Ginnell, who then sat in
Parliament as a Nationalist, took the occasion to
denounce the Parliamentary Nationalists in un-
sparing language. The United Irish League was,
he declared, corrupt and tyrannical. Its meth-
od of selecting candidates was a "brazen impos-
ture." The people were enslaved by corrupt
leaders, misrepresented by men who were them-
selves the slaves of others ; leaders did not dare
to be honest lest their personal character should
be taken from them, the voters were the helpless
tools of men with private axes to grind, and
public life was abhorrent to decent men.*
It must have been about this time that Con-

* Land and Liberty, Laurence Ginnell, M.P.

OPENING THE CAMPAIGN 113

nolly, as Mr. Eyan tells us, came to the conclu-
sion that his migration to America had been the
biggest mistake of his life. He must have felt
that theorising and philosophising in America
was waste of time while the leaven was ferment-
ing so rapidly in the loaf at home, and that it
was nearly time for him to return and take a
hand in the game he had started so long before.
As a preliminary he transferred his paper, The
Harp, to Ireland, in January, 1910, when it was
published from the office of the Irish Nation,
with Larkin as sub-editor. Thus the men of
theory and action had come together, the one
complementary to the other, a rare combinar-
tion for the work they had in hand.

In the Irish edition of the paper he followed
up his American policy, laying less stress on
theoretical Socialism than on the development
of class consciousness. True to the principle he
once enunciated, that "the true revolutionist
should ever call into action on his side the entire
sum of all the forces and factors of political and
social discontent," he appealed to all who de-
sired political change to co-operate with him in
his aims. To some extent he succeeded. Among
the disciples of Sinn Fein were some ardent
spirits who chafed against the impotence of that
body and welcomed a movement more virile and

114 STOEMY PETEELS

promising of success. Attracted in the first
instance by these qualities, they gradually be-
came more thoroughly impregnated with Con-
nolly's economic doctrines, and thus became liai-
son officers between the intellectual and physi-
cal sides of the movement.

Within six months of taking over the direction
of The Harp, Larkin, as might be expected,
found himself faced with about half a dozen libel
actions, and Connolly returned to Ireland. From
that moment, though The Harp vanished before
the coming legal storm, events began to move.
Under Connolly's influence Larkin became more
circumspect, under Larkin 's influence Connolly
proclaimed the policy of "less philosophising
£ind more fighting." In pursuance of that dic-
tum he announced and applied the doctrine of
the sympathetic strike as a prelude to the estab-
lishment of the One Big Union. As an organ-
iser of the Industrial Workers of the World, he
wrote in the New Age, he had reached the con-
elusion that the interests of one were the inter-
ests of all, that the hope of victory lay in sudden
and unexpected action, and that "no considera-
tion of a contract with a section of the capitalist
class absolved any section of us from the duty of
taking instant action to protect other sections
when said sections were in danger from the cap-
italist enemy." He realised that the worker?

A CALL TO AEMS 115

would sustain many defeats, and that their vic-
tories would often be ephemeral, but "the re-
sultant moral effect would be of incalculable
value to the character and the mental attitude
of our class towards their rulers. ' '

Acting on these lines, there were continual
strikes throughout the country, until the Trans-
port Union and its leaders aroused the animos-
ity not only of employers, farmers, and clergy,
but even of the Dublin Trades Council itself.
Liberty Hall, the headquarters of the Union,
came to be looked upon much as, in these later
days, one might regard a poison gas manufacto-
ry. But the Ishmaelites pursued their course,
not only undisturbed, but encouraged by the hos-
tility they had aroused. In 1911 they produced
the Irish Worker, to replace the defunct Harp,
in which Larkin wrote a "Call to Arms" which,
though a somewhat colourless example of his
style, may be quoted in part as indicative of his
method :

"During the recent skirmish between Labour
and Capitalism in Ireland you got a foretaste of
how your bowelless masters regard you. Their
kept Press spewed foul lies, innuendoes, and
gave space to knaves of our own class for the
purpose of garrotting our glorious movement.
At present you spend your lives in sordid labour
and have your abode in filthy slums ; your chil-

116 STOEMY PETEELS

dren Lunger and your masters say yonr slavery
must endure for ever. If you would come out of
bondage, yourself must forge the weapons and
fight the grim battle."

Coincidentally with these activities the allies
addressed themselves to the task of making
Labour a political force. As mentioned before,
the Trade Union Congress had always rejected
the idea, but Connolly set to work to break
down the opposition. A Dublin Labour Party
was formed "to unite the forces of Labour in
order to secure the election of independent La-
bour representatives to Parliament and local
government bodies." The idea caught on: in
the first municipal election after its formation
the new party secured the election of nine of its
candidates, including Larkin, and at the Clonmel
Labour Congress of 1912 a motion to found an
Irish Labour Party, independent of all other
parties, was carried by a majority of more than
two to one. From that time the annual Con-
gress meetings became more and more engaged
with political questions, both national and inter-
national, and entered into relations with the
British Labour Party with reference to ques-
tions before Parliament, more especially those
relating to Ireland. During 1912 nominees of
the Labour Party secured seats in many towns,
including Belfast, Cork, Sligo, Wexford, and

THE DUBLIN STEIKE 117

Waterf ord, and in the following year the title of
the organisation was changed to Irish Trade
Union Congress and Labour Party.

Into the great Dublin strike of 1913 we do not
propose to enter in detail. It was a desperate
struggle, fought out through many months with
fierce determination on both sides. Every con-
ceivable weapon, even including religion, was
brought into play. There were rights and
wrongs on both sides, both sides committed er-
rors, and neither could claim a decisive victory.
From our present point of view, however, its
importance lies in this, that "it was the great
turning point in the history of the working class
in Ireland, and helped to give the workers of
Ireland their place in the front ranks of the
world army of militaflt andinsurgentLabour." *

It was, indeed, in the nature of a rehearsal
for the greater tragedy to be played three years
later. During the struggle the strikers had come
into frequent conflict with the police and had
suffered heavily. It was suggested that the
workers should be armed and, acting on the sug-
gestion, Connolly conceived the idea of the Citi-
zen Army, which was organised by Captain
White, son of the defender of Ladysmith.

* Ireland at Berne. Reports presented to the International
Labour and Socialist Conference held at Berne, February, 1919.
Issued by the authority of the Irish Labour Party and Trade
Union Congress.

CHAPTER IX:

XTNDSBCUBJ6ENTS

We liave now followed from their sources to
the year 1913 two revolutionary currents, the
one a brawling torrent, the other a sedate and
sluggish stream, destined soon to meet though
not for several years to mingle ; we have seen
how the proletarian torrent spent itself in its
mad rush, and it now remains to see how the
sluggish intellectual movement stood at the
opening of that year. And here we approach
the realm of inference. Hitherto it has been
possible to describe the policy and objects of
Sinn Feiu and Labour in the words of its ac-
credited leaders. Henceforth there are under-
currents, the influence of which is apparent, but
which are of necessity obscure. Both Sinn Fein
and Connolly, as we have seen, prided them-
selves on their publicity, but there came a time
when publicity became impossible for them, as it
becomes impossible some time or another for
those who are plotting revolution.

118

SINN FEIN WAKES UP 119

At what precise moment Sinn Fein began to
contemplate revolution it is impossible to say.
Eebellious it had always been in theory, but it is
one thing to contemplate revolt as an abstract
proposition and another to take the grim meas-
ures to put it into operation. When 1913 opened,
and with it the second stage of the fight over
the Home Rule Bill, the Sinn Fein leaders cer-
tainly did not contemplate armed rebellion. To
begin with, they were not in a position to do so,
and they knew it. The excitement of the parlia-
mentary fight was driving everything else out
of the minds of the people. Sinn Fein was neg-
lected, impotent and penniless. It is important
to note the latter fact in view of the sudden
affluence which so soon followed. Its leaders
hated the Parliamentarians and detested the
Home Eule BUI. Mr. Eedmond-Howard, in-
deed, tries to minimise their opposition to his
uncle's policy. He says that Sinn Fein with-
drew from opposition lest it should be said that
in a moment of acute difficulty it had hampered
any Irishman in winning any liberties for Ire-
land, and its daily paper was withdrawn.* Mr.
'Hegarty takes a different view of its action.
The daily paper was withdrawn, not to save Mr.
Eedmond embarrassment, but for lack of funds ;

* Six Days of the Irish Bepublic, p. 76.

120 UNDEECUERENTS

the Sinn Feiners marked time hecanse they
knew weJJ that "the issue would be unfavour-
able to the continued adhesion of the country to
the Parliamentarian policy."* Both writers
agree that Sinn Fein was giving Mr. Eedmond
a chance, but according to Mr. O'Hegarty it was
a chance to hang himself, not to win Ireland's
liberties. Nor is this conclusion vitiated by an
article by Mr. Arthur Griffith in the Irish Re-
view of May, 1912. In that article he condemned
the Home Eule BiU, but added, "If the BiU be
amended to give Ireland real control of her soil
and taxes and power of initiation in her legisla-
tion, I shall welcome its passage as a measure
for the improvement of conditions in Ireland,
and a step clearing the way to a final settlement
between the two nations."

This, after all, was no more than a reasser-
tion of his willingness to accept Grrattan's Par-
liament, which, as we have seen, he had induced
Sinn Fein to embody in its programme. But,
though Mr. Griffith held that comparatively
moderate view himself, it was with difficulty that
he got his colleagues to accept it in 1905, and it
is more than doubtful if he could have got a ma-
jority for it in 1913. For during the intervening
period Sinn Fein had shed many of its most

* Sinn Fein, p. 38.

FENIANISM STEPS IN 121

moderate elements. Some had gone owing to
the cry that Sinn Fein was anti-clerical ; others
had retired discouraged by the slump in its for-
tunes after the short-lived boom of 1907-8 ; many
left to join Mr. Eedmond when the Home Rule
Bill was introduced, on the ground that half a
loaf was better than no bread, and that, though
the Bill itself might not be wholly satisfactory,
it would provide a jumping-off place for further
developments. And, while these influences were
at work within the party to eliminate the mod-
erates, there were external influences at work to
make those who remained more extreme in their
views. Some fell under the influence of Connol-
ly's movement, attracted by his presentation of
Irish history, his appeal to the old Gaelic social
system, and his insistence on the principle of na-
tionality. Others, whom his extreme communis-
tic doctrines repelled, fell under American Fe-
nian influence, always ready to seize every
chance to foment trouble in Ireland. It is nota-
ble that during this period the extreme Irish
Party in America was divided into two sections,
that represented by the Irish, World, backing
Mr. Eedmond, the other, represented by the
Gaelic American, supporting Sinn Fein.

While, therefore, at the beginning of 1913
Sinn Fein was inconspicuous, penniless, and

122 UNDERCUEEENTS

infinitely less strong than it had been five years
earlier, and while Mr. Griffiths' views remained
substantially unchanged, it is certain that in
spirit it was more unyielding and uncompro-
mising, and that it was moving, though perhaps
very slowly, from intellectual theories to more
practical measures.

It was at this juncture that Sir Eoger Case-
ment came to Ireland, on his retirement from
the British Consular Service. No more sinister
figure ever stepped upon the Irish stage than
this British officer who came to play a dual role,
that of an Irish rebel and a German agent.
Whether he was more the Irish patriot or the
German agent it is not easy to decide, nor is it
necessary, for it was Casement's good fortune
to find his domestic policy and his foreign obli-
gations moving together towards a common goal
— ^the liberation of Ireland and the placing of
Great Britain under the heel of Germany.

In respect of Irish politics Casement's pro-
clivities were akin to those of the Gaelic League
and Sinn Fein. His entry into the national
arena roughly synchronised with the founda-
tion of the League with whose literary aims he
was in sympathy. He was one of those who from
this beginning developed into hostility to the
parliamentary movement and to British rule, of

CASEMENT 123

which he was nowhere much enamoured. Dur-
ing his trial it was suggested both by himself
and his counsel that the action which brought
him to the scaffold was the action of a patriot
driven to unfortunate measures by the arming
of the Ulster Volunteers and the disappointment
of his political hopes. Under these influences, so
went the theory, he turned to Germany merely
because Germany was then at war with Eng-
land, and because he thought he might find
among the Irish prisoners of war men who
would range themselves on the side of the Irish
Volunteers. The allegation that he ever sought
to enlist Irish soldiers to fight against England
was stoutly denied ; all, it was protested, that he
ever desired was to induce them, when the war
was over, and if necessity unhappily arose, to
enlist them to fight for Ireland. That ingenious
theory vanishes into thin air the moment it is
examined in the light of Casement's career, and
the activities on which he entered immediately
upon his arrival in Ireland in 1903.

From an early period of his life Casement fell
under German influence. He was associated
with Mr. Morel in the Congo atrocity agitation,
a campaign doubtless humanitarian, but curi-
ously subserving Germany's twofold purpose
of generating ill-will between Belgium and

124 UNDEECUEEENTS

Great Britain and of suggesting the blessedness
of German Kultur as an alternative to Belgian
barbarity. Casement was an ardent auxiliary
to Mr. Morel. British journalists, who were not
reticent in their criticisms of Belgian rule, were
surprised and bored by his hauntiug of news-
paper offices and the way in which he urged them
to more vigorous measures. (It was only after
1916 that his motives hegan to dawn upon
them.) The allies of the Congo then parted.
Morel to devote his energies to the development
of German influence in Morocco, Casement to
play a like part in relation to Ireland.

The connection between Casement and Ger-
many, begun in West Africa, became closer and
more varied in succeeding years. His family
was connected with Germany by marriage, he
himself had business interests in that country,
and was on very intimate relations with Ger-
mans in high positions, including Herr Bal-
lin, the head of the Hamburg- American line and
a personal friend of the Kaiser, a very singular
fact seeing that he was unacquainted with the
German language.

One other point, and this brief review of
Casement's antecedents may close. Holding
the views he did, he accepted an offer of knight-
hood from the King with, it is said, some scru-

HAIL, MASTER 125

pies of conscience. In his trial lie found himself
under the necessity of explaining his action, and
did so by saying that he could not refuse. That
statement was untrue. Both before and since
his time men have respectfully declined similar
offers. There is living a distinguished man of
letters who declined an honour even after it
had appeared in the Gazette. Casement did not
decline, he accepted the offer in terms which
have been euphemistically described as "court-
ly," but which would be more correctly de-
scribed as servile. The language of his reply
is the language of a man who, plotting treason,
desires to disarm suspicion :

"I find it very hard to choose the Avords in
which to make acknowledgment of the hohour
done me by the King. I am much moved at the
proof of confidence and appreciation of my serv-
ice on the Putumayo conveyed to me by your
letter, wherein you tell me that the King had
been graciously pleased upon your recommen-
dation to confer upon me the honour of knight-
hood. I am, indeed, grateful to you for this
signal assurance of your personal esteem and
support. I am very deeply sensible of the hon-
our done to me by His Majesty. I would beg
that my humble duty might be presented to His
Majesty when you may do me the honour to con-

126 UNDERCUREENTS

vey him my deep appreciation of the honour he
has been so graciously pleased to confer upon
me." ,

And having written this letter we are in-
formed that he never even opened the parcel
which contained the insignia.* If he were not
then conscious of treason, why did he not even
examine the symbol of the honour he had accept-
ed with such abject gratitude? It may be a
redeeming point in his moral character, but it is
very suggestive of his political guilt. In that
very year he was plotting with Professor Kuno
Meyer, who was undoubtedly a German agent,
to prevent a rapprochement between the United
States and Great Britain and to embroil the re-
lations between the two countries. He also
wrote the first of a series of remarkable articles,
entitled "Ireland, Germany and the Freedom of
the Seas," to prove that Ireland's hope of free-
dom and the liberty of the world lay in alliance
between Germany and Ireland to procure the
downfall of the British Empire. These articles
appeared in the Gaelic American after the out-
break of war, and wiU be referred to again
later.

In 1913 Germany was making feverish though
secret, preparations for the great adventure.

• The Irish Bebellion of 1916, Wells and Marlowe.

GEEMAN INTEiaUE 127

Twice during the preceding six yea^s she had
put out feelers in North Africa, to draw them
in again when she found the ground not suffi-
ciently prepared. Not all the efforts of Morel
could convince the world that Morocco could
only survive under the influence of Teutonic
Kultur. Her path to world-empire lay elsewhere,
and she was getting ready for the journey while
her agents and emissaries smoothed the way
and blazed the trail. Just as in Belgium and
France her engineers were secretly making con-
crete foundations for the big guns of 1914, so
throughout the world her agents were purchas-
ing spies and promoting disaffection among her
potential foes. Her missionaries and consuls
were busy in India, there were intrigues in
South Africa, in every land under the British
flag — for England was the enemy — spies were at
their work. It was not likely that the Hun, thor-
ough in all that was underhand, would omit so
promising a sphere of operations as Ireland.

For Ireland was Great Britain's Achilles'
heel, alike by her strategical position and the
temper of her people. Philip of Spain, Louis
of France, the Directory, all had been ready to
use Irish disaffection against England, their
enemy. In St. Helena Napoleon lamented his
failure to copy their example. "Had I gone to

128 TJNDEECUREENTS

Ireland instead of Egypt the Empire was at an
end." As it was in the sixteenth, seventeenth,
ajid eighteenth centuries, so Germany meant
that it should be in the twentieth, and Casement
went to Ireland to fulfil the plan. It is possible
that he desired to serve what he conceived to be
Ireland's interests, but it is certain that he was
anxious to serve the interests of Germany.
During the year before the war in all the arti-
cles in the Sinn Fein papers that can be traced
to his pen there is only one — and that a vile and
filthy attack upon Lord Roberts — which is not
concerned with Germany.

Almost immediately after his arrival in Ire-
land he opened his campaign with an article in
the Irish Review, which has often been quoted,
entitled "Ireland, Germany and the Next "War."
The article was signed "Shan Van Vocht," but
there is no doubt that it was written by Case-
ment. In this he discussed the thesis that it
would be to Ireland's interest to support Great
Britain in the event of a war because, were Brit-
ain defeated, she would either remain attached
to England and so have to share the burden of
defeat, or she would become the prey of the vic-
tor, "Shan Van Vocht" rejected this thesis,
pointing out that there was a third alternative
^-viz., that Ireland might be separated from

CASEMENT'S PLAN 129

Great Britain and established under European
guarantees as a neutralised, independent Euro-
pean State.

"With. Great Britain cut off and the Irish Sea
held by German squadrons, no power from with-
in could maintain any effective resistance to a
German occupation of Dublin and a military
occupation of the island. To convert that into
a permanent administration could not be op-
posed from within, and, with Great Britain
down and severed from Ireland by a victorious
German Navy, it is obvious that opposition to
the permanent retention of Ireland by the victor
must come from without. It is equally obvious
that it would come from without, and it is for
this international reason that, I think, a perma-
nent German annexation of any part of the Unit-
ed Kingdom need not be seriously feared. Such
a complete change in the political geography of
Europe as a German-owned Ireland could not
but provoke universal alarm and a widespread
combination to forbid its realisation."

He then goes on to point out that Germany
would have to attain her end, "the permanent
disabling of the maritime supremacy of Great
Britain," by the less provocative measure of es-
tablishing Ireland as a neutralised, independent
State under international control. This he con-
sidered would be an arrangement that "a Peace

130 UNDEECUEEENTS

Congress should, in the end, be glad to ratify
at the instance of a victorious Germany."

Those who have read the works of General
Bemhardi will realise how frail would have been
that international combination on which Ireland
was to depend for her independence. For Ger-
many's plans did not contemplate the existence
of any European Power that would be in any
position to thwart or bend her purpose.

"Shan Van Vocht" admits that Germany
would consult her own interests:

"That Germany should propose this form of
dissolution in any interest but her own, or for
the heaux yeux of Ireland, I do not for a mo-
ment assert."

But he goes on to say that a neutralised Ire-
land would serve Germany's plans, while she
would also be consulting the "normal and intel-
lectual" claims of Ireland. He sets forth his
opinion in the following delicious sentence :

"Germany would attain her ends as the cham-
pion of National Liberty and could destroy
England's naval supremacy for aU time by an
act of irreproachable morality."

On such slender security as German morality
was Ireland bidden to rally to "the champion
of National Liberty. ' ' These are the words of a
German agent enlisting recruits for his employ-

BERNHARDI APPROVES 131

er rather than of an Irish patriot enlisting an
ally for his cause.

This article, which appeared in July, was sent
to General Bernhardi by an anonymous cor-
respondent — it is not difficult to guess his iden-
tity — with a request that he should notice it.
The General did so in September in the columns
of the Berliner Post:

"To-day, indeed, German policy seems to be
steering full sail towards an arrangement with
England, but as the goal could not be reached
without the abandonment of our whole future
as a world-Power, it is valuable for the reaU
poUtiher to examine exhaustively both the
strength and the weakness of England."

He found signs of these "weaknesses" in
various parts of the world, such as India, Egypt
and elsewhere, and then he continues :

"It is not without interest to know that, if it
ever comes to a war with England, Germany
will have allies in the enemy's camp itself, who
in the given circumstances are resolved to bar-
gain, and in any case will constitute a grave
anxiety for England and perhaps tie fast a por-
tion of the English troops. This is no time for
Germany to pursue a policy of renunciation."

General Bernhardi was duly rebuked by the
official Press for his frankness, but ' ' Shan Van

132 UNDERCUEEENTS

VocM" had attained his purpose, and from that
time forth the columns of Irish Freedom* the
organ of the Sinn Fein extremists and of Case-
ment himself, teem with references to Germany
as the saviour, and Ireland became the happy
hunting ground of German Press correspond-
ents and spies.

With all these Casement was in close relation.
Especially would it seem that he was intimate
with a certain Baron Von Horst, of the nature
of whose mission in England there is no possi-
ble doubt. This man was of middle-class origin
who had established a business in England, and
who was ennobled for some mysterious reason,
though indeed the mystery is not impenetrable
in view of his operations. During his sojourn
in England he developed a remarkable taste for
British polities, and it is notable that his sym-
pathies were invariably with those whose pa-
triotism was dubious and whose desire to make
trouble was evident. At one time he financed
the Herald, which was being run by Mr. George
Lansbury, and over which every one who had
touched it financially had burned his fingers.

* This paper was controlled by Macdermott and James
Connolly. The former was a Sinn Feiner, so that this com-
bination represented the alliance between the intellectual and
proletarian movements. Both men were signatories to the
Proclamation of the Irish BepubUc in 1916.

BAEON VON HOEST 133

Undeterred by these painful examples, this be-
nevolent foreigner found money for Mr. Lans-
bury, and lost it. On the occasion of the dock
strike, which resulted in the transfer of a good
deal of trade from the Thames to the Elbe, the
big-hearted Baron subscribed to the strike fund
on a scale incommensurate with his means.
Among his other enterprises he had a cinema
theatre, which later became a meeting place for
revolutionaries, or for any one likely to make
trouble for the authorities. He also, some two
months or so before the war, attempted to pur-
chase rifles from a dealer in London, declaring
himself to be the initiator of the Irish Volun-
teers. The deal, however, did not come off when
his nationality was revealed. Baron Von
Horst's career in Ireland finally terminated in
August, 1914, when he was arrested for dis-
tributing anti-recruiting literature and interned.
In these and similar activities Baron Von
Horst had the valuable assistance of a Miss
Lillian Troy of California. When the Irish
question threatened to develop into serious trou-
ble, these inseparable comrades threw them-
selves into the fray, as always, on the anti-Brit-
ish side. It was not long before the trio found
a subject which by great good fortune served the
double purpose of abusing England and of

134 UNDEECUEEENTS

pointing to Germany as the appointed saviour
of Ireland.

Tlie ©unard Company gave notice of its in-
tention to discontinue the practice of calling at
Queenstown, in this doing just what the White
Star Line had done previously. Casement at
once made the heavens ring with his protests,
and Baron Von Horst and Miss Troy joined in
the chorus. The action of the company was
only part of Britain's steadfast policy to injure
Ireland's trade and to isolate her from the
world. But it was a happy circumstance that
Germany was animated by no such selfish pur-
pose. The Hamburg- Amerika line would call at
Queenstown and redress Ireland's wrong. Thus
would England's machinations be defeated, and
the visits of the German liners would link up
Ireland with the continent of Europe, opening
up new avenues of trade and vistas of prosper-
ity. Miss Troy wrote in Sinn Fein an eulogium
of the noble services of Von Horst and Case-
ment, praising the energy with which the latter
had pressed Ireland's case upon Herr BaUin,
and extolling the skill and bravery of the Ger-
man sailors in facing a harbour which English
captains were afraid to enter. And then the
Sinn Fein papers took up the tale, prompted no
doubt by the ingenious operators of the scheme.

THE QUEENSTOWN "STUNT" 135

THe coming of the Grerman liners, it was said,
would lead to the establishment of close trade
relations between Ireland and Germany. No
longer would Ireland be compelled to sell her
goods to England, her only customer, at an
alarming sacrifice. Her cattle would cross the
North Sea and fetch £2 a head more than they
did in Liverpool and Bristol. No one explained,
and indeed no one inquired why, if Germany
wanted beef she did not send to Ireland and get
it where prices ruled so low; no one asked
whether, as a fact, Germany needed to import
cattle from oversea, or why England, which was
searching every continent for food, and bring-
ing livestock thousands of miles, should be able
to buy Irish cattle so cheap. It was enough that
England was being attacked, and Casement was
happy enough to win great conmaendation from
his countrymen and high credit from the for-
eigner whose cause he so ably served.

What may be called the "Queenstown stunt"
and the article in the Irish Review admirahly
prepared the way for that momentous step — the
formation of the Irish Volunteers. From that
moment Sinn Fein ceased to be a purely intel-
lectual movement, and became an active revo-
lutionary force.

There have been conflicting opinions as to the

136 UNDEECUEEENTS

motives which underlay the formation of the
Irish Volunteers. The natural theory and the
one genferally accepted at the time, was that they
were to be used against the Ulster Volunteer
Force. It may well be that some of those who
enlisted cherished the same idea, and perhaps,
like the Eibbonmen of some fifty years before,
contemplated the possibility of wading in Or-
angemen's blood.

But these theories are wrong. Mr. 'Hegarty
is very emphatic in his denial of any intention
to fight Ulster. "They did not establish the
Irish Volunteers as a counter-blast to the Ulster
Volunteers, or with any idea of either fighting
or overawing Ulster. ' ' The Ulster Volunteers
counted for this much in the formation of their
Southern rivals — ^they encouraged those who
wanted to have an armed force to make the at-
tempt to form one. As the Government, so went
the calculation, had permitted the Ulstermen
to create a Volunteer force, "there was a sport-
ing chance ' ' that it would not prohibit the for-
mation of a similar body in the South of Ire-
land.* It may have been present to the minds
of those who wished to arouse more bitter feel-
ings against England that such a prohibition
would admirably serve their purpose. As a

* O 'Hegarty, Sinn Fein.

A NATIONAL AEMT 137

fact Sinn Fein was disposed to be grateful for
the opportunity. In the Manifesto of November
25th, 1913, which called for Volunteers, the con-
ditions created by the Ulster movement were de-
scribed as "not altogether unfortunate." The
Manifesto also contained words which show that
the real object of the promoters was not tempo-
rary action in reference to the Home Eule Bill,
but something more far-reaching. "The Vol-
unteers, once they have been enrolled, will form
a permanent element in the national life under
a National Government." When it is remem-
bered that the Home Eule Bill, for which Mr.
Eedmond was then battling, particularly pro-
hibited the maintenance of armed forces by the
Irish Government, this sentence is significant.
It becomes perfectly clear that the kind of Na-
tional Government which the Irish Volunteers
were to serve was not the kind of National Gov-
ernment which the British would be at all likely
to grant.

Among the founders of the Irish Volunteers
there were moderate men, who never contem-
plated, and would have shrunk in abhorrence
from anything revolutionary. There always are
such moderate men in revolutionary enter-
prises, men whose moderation makes them use-
ful auxiliaries outside, but whose moderation

138 UNDEECUERENTS

excludes them from the imier couneil. They
think they are leaders, while really they are only
decoys^ One of them, Col. Moore, formerly of
the Connaught Rangers, in later days described
the personnel of the original Committee, of
about twenty-five. It took him two or three
days "to size them up and separate the
groups." And he thus describes them:

"There were about two extremists and four
or five boys under their domination. . . . Five
or six Sinn Peiners were in a separate group;
they might be described as extreme Home Rul-
ers ; they did not approve of the methods of the
Parliamentary Party, but were not revolution-
ists. There were a few like MacNeill, Pearse,
Macdonagh, Plunkett and O'Eahilly, who be-
longed to no especial political party ; they were
Idealists. The remainder of the Committee
were moderate men, inclined to foUow the Par-
liamentary Party."*

Col. Moore says in his letter that it is inter-
esting to note how some of the Sinn Feiners and
Idealists gradually became extremists and
merged with the Fenians. The process of evo-
lution was not gradual, but rapid, so rapid that
it is more than doubtful if there were any evolu-
tion at all. It is infinitely more probable that

• Col. Moore, Freeman's Journal, Maj 30th, 1916.

SINN FEIN GEOWS RICH 139

whatever there was of evolution in their politi-
cal principles had already been accomplished
when Col. Moore met them, and that they al-
ready had their goal in view, though they kept
it concealed from their moderate colleagues.
For of the five Idealists whom he names four
took part in the Eebellion : Professor MacNeill
was only deterred from doing so by the arrest
of Casement and the capture of the Aud.

Very significant of the real nature and aims
of the Volunteer movement is the effect it had
upon the fortunes of Sinn Fein. As we have
seen, it had been a year before in abject poverty.
It had never been well off. Mr. O'Hegarty
states that one contested election, involving an
expenditure of, at the outside, £1000, had
seriously crippled it. But now it bounded into af-
fluence, and the money came from the Clan-na-
Gael, which had long been watching its develop-
ments and was now assured that it was on the
right line. Pearse, who was one of the original
Committee, had, like the Countess Markievics,
one foot in Connolly's Labour Movement and
the other in Sinn Feia, and Connolly and Lar-
kin were favourably known to the extremists of
America as revolutionaries of the most ap-
proved brand. It is impossible to doubt that the
true motive of the Irish Volunteers was revolu-

140 UNDEECUEEENTS

tionary, though it is possible that the revolu-
tionary tendencies were further quickened by
the insistence of the trans- Atlantic paymaster.
It is extremely instructive to read the fuller-
blooded Sinn Fein journals at this period. Sinn
i^eiw itself, Mr. Arthur Griffith's organ, remains
more or less intellectual and economic in its out-
look. Irish Freedom, the channel through
which Casement addressed the public, was more
outspoken. Mr. Daly weekly regaled its read-
ers with his Fenian reminiscences; essays on
military tactics filled columns. But, perhaps
most remarkable of aU, was the sudden revival
of the Wolfe Tone cult, which was coincident
with the formation of the Volunteer Force.
When we remember that Wolfe Tone's two
claims to his country's gratitude were that he
had organised a rebellion at the time when Ire-
land had her own Parliament, and had called in
foreign allies to aid him in his purpose of de-
stroying Grattan's Parliament as an engine of
British tyranny, this sudden and passionate re-
vival of his memory is not a little suggestive —
suggestive not only of the aims of the inner cir-
cle, but of the means by which they were to be
attained.

CHAPTER X

ABMS AND THE MAN

Grant us a great war for the liberty of the peoples.

We pray thee, O Lord.
For arms and our flag raised again in tattle.

We pray Thee, O Lord.

With a Ktany, from whicli the above is an ex-
tract, did Irish Freedom hail the opening of
1914, the year of Fate.

It is curious how this idea of war runs like
a scarlet thread through all the articles in Irish
Freedom at this period; it would be surprising,
were it not certain that Casement's was the
miad which inspired, and his often the hand
that wrote them. The world was not thinking
of war. Such uneasiness as existed when the
Kaiser made his theatrical demarche at Agadir
had faded out of mind ; the war in the Balkans,
the powder magazine of Europe, had produced
no explosion. Lord Haldane had brought back
a cheery optimism from Berlin, and no one
knew that it was assumed; at the very moment

141

142 AEMS AND THE MAN

when the Sinn Fein paper was publishing its
grim litany the British Chancellor was assuring
the country that never was the time more oppor-
tune for reducing the vote for armaments. The
Chanceries of Europe might be vigUant, but the
people were careless, working and playing as
they worked and played in Pompeii the day be-
fore the dead volcano awoke to new life. The
only thought of war in England was when men
prayed for peace in their time. But in Ireland
men were talking war, thinking war, praying for
war, because Casement taught them — and Case-
ment knew.

Up to this moment he had played his part
with patience. He had, indeed, been active
when Germany made her tentative move in
Morocco in 1911. His visits to Ireland then
were frequent, his confabulations with Kuno
Meyer constant. Though the necessity for ac-
tion then had passed away, his time had not
been wasted, for he had made friendships and
preparations which stood him in good stead
two years later. In the interval he had acquired
a title and gained a reputation which helped him
nicely, and his retirement from the service was
fortunately coincident with an emergency which
would demand his unfettered services. So in
1913 he could gather together all the strings,

CASEMENT AT WOEK 143

and play Hs secret paxt in forming the Irish
Volunteers, not merely to counteract the Ulster
movement or to win Ireland's freedom, but to
assist in keeping those British troops at home
which General Bemhardi regarded as of such
first-rate importance.

It is very notable how Casement's activities
increased as the months went on. He may not
have known that in August of 1913 Germany
had actually informed Italy of her intention to
make war on Serbia, and had only held her hand
when Italy declined to take a part in the game.
But he knew, as every German agent knew, that
the Day was near at hand, and that this time
there would be no drawing back.

There appeared in Irish Freedom for March,
1914, an article which can with the utmost cer-
tainty be ascribed to Casement. It is signed
"The Poor Old Woman." Now, this is the
English translation of "Shan Van Vocht," the
nom de plwne of the writer of the article in the
Irish Review quoted in the previous chapter.
There is, moreover, in the article a most remark-
able illustration of Great Britain's method of
dealing with her subject nationalities. She is
compared to the "Sipo Matador," or "murder-
ing creeper" of Brazil. If we remember that
Casement was "Shan Van Vocht," that he was

144 AEMS AND THE MAN

Consul-General in Brazil and was familiar -with
its forest life from his experiences at Putuma^
yo, we may adapt the words of Macaulay when
he fixed the authorship of Junius 's letters on
Sir Philip Francis, and say, "Either Casement
or the Devil."

The article commences with these remarkable
words :

"In these opening days of 1914 I bring, with
a message of hope, these scattered thoughts
upon the British Empire and its approaching
dissolution to lay before the youth of Ireland.
I say dissolution advisedly. . . . Home Eule
will not save it. The attempt to bribe Ireland,
and the greater Ireland beyond the seas . . . will
not suffice. The issue lies in stronger hands."

He then draws the parallel above mentioned
between Britain and the "Sipo Matador," and
continues: "A brave hand may yet cut the
'Sipo Matador,' and the slayer be slain before
he has quite stifled his victim." Then follows
a lurid picture of the complacent security of the
Empire and its approaching doom.

"'All's well with God's world' — and poet
and plagiarist, courtier and courtesan, Kipling
and cant — ^these now dally by the banks of the
Thames and dine off the peoples of the earth,
just as once the degenerate populace of Lnpe-

THE ANGLO-SAXON CRIME 145

rial Eome fed upon tlie peoples of the pyramids.
But the end is near at hand. The 'Secret of
Empire' is no longer the sole possession of
England. Other people are learning to think
imperially". The Goths and Visigoths of modern
Europe are upon the horizon. . . . London, like
Rome, will have strange guests. They will not
pay their hotel bills."

And finally Casement denounces England's
attempt to "bribe" America by giving Ireland
Home Eule :

"Were the Anglo-Saxon alliance ever con-
summated it would he the biggest crime in hu-
man history. . . . The emanations of Thames
sewage are all over the world, and the sewers
are running still. The penalty for the pollution
of the Thames is a high one, but the prize for
the pollution of the Mississippi is higher still.
. . . The 'Anglo-Saxon' Alliance means a com-
pact to, ensure slavery and to beget war. . . .
The true alliance to aim at for all who love
peace is the friendly union of Germany, Amer-
ica, and Ireland. These are the true United
States of the World. Ireland, the liiik between
Germany and America, must be freed by both. ' '*

We need not pause to consider the view which
Casement takes of an Anglo-Saxon alliance,

* Irish Freedom, March, 1914. The italics are ours.

146 ABMS AND THE MAN

though Americans may be astonished to learn it
only needs their co-operation with the people
from whom they sprang to rivet the chains of
slavery upon a world devastated by wanton
war. Nor need we waste time over American
sensations when this discovery comes to their
notice. The really significant point is that Case-
ment represents Germany as the only humanis-
ing factor in any world-ruling alliance. And in
this alliance Ireland is to be a partner. This is
an advance on the position of a neutralised
State assigned to her in the Irish Review arti-
cle. She is now to be the link between the two
World States, America and Germany ; they three
are to be the true United States of the World.

After such an outpouring can it be doubted
that the Irish Volunteers were to be something
more than a Fenian Brotherhood, that they were
to be the pledge of Ireland's fidelity to the Kai-
ser? Many of the Volunteer leaders did not
know it; Professor John MacNeill, Gaelic
Leaguer and idealist, did not realise at that time
that he was not an apostle but a dupe, not a
leader but a fraudulent advertisement. He
realised it later, but he was then too enmeshed
to escape from the net.

This scheme was planned and executed by
one who had accepted honours and was at that

"AEM QUICKLY" 147

moment receiving a pension from the British.
Government. A few months later this same
man wrote in Fianna an article which Irish
Freedom declared was delightful and indispens-
ahle to every Irish hoy. It was on the subject
of "Chivalry."

Its author was at that time, July, 1914, in
America, whither he had been sent to act as
liaison officer between the American Irish ex-
tremists and the German Government. But be-
fore he went he wrote, or inspired, a final ap-
peal to the Irish people. It was headed
"Arm Quickly." A few extracts will show its
nature :

"Again the events of this past few months
have restored Ireland to international status.
Since the mission of Wolfe Tone to Paris
Europe has forgotten Ireland and has never
given a tBTought to the possible imporiance of
Ireland in the conflict of European interests. . . .
Ireland is again coming to be a factor in the
thoughts and plans and life of Europe. . . . For
Ireland the tide has turned and is running with
an almost fearful swiftness. . . . Stranger events
than any that have come yet may come very
soon, and probably will come. . . . There is one
urgent duty that devolves upon every Irishman
at this moment, more urgent than any other.

148 AEMS AND THE MAN

. . . That duty is to become armed, and to be-
come armed very quickly."*

If Cagement's forecast of the ending of the
great war was mistaken, how marvellously pro-
phetic was he of its coming! Within three
months the Austrian Archduke died in Sera-
jevo, within four Germany had launched her ul-
timatum. Even in miaor details his prophecies
were fuMUed. Strange visitors, Goths and
Visigoths, visited London. They did not pay
their hotel biUs. And Casement himself was
one of them.

About this time the conspirators began, to
separate, each betaking himself to his appointed
task. The prelimiuary work was done. Kuno
Meyer and Casement had striven to block that
Anglo-Saxon alliance which would have op-
posed so terrible a barrier to Teutonic ambition,
they had contrived to turn the eyes of Ireland
to Germany as her liberator, as in former days
they had turned to Spain and France. And this
they had done, not only to secure liberty for Ire-
land, but to secure the Empire of the World for
Germany. Casement probably thought prima-
rily of the first of these objects as Kuno Meyer
would naturally think most of the second, and
so they made their bargain. Before he wrote

* Irish Freedom, May, 1914. The italics are ours.

THE HEEL OF ACHILLES 149

"Ireland and the Next "War" or "The Else-
where Empire," from which we have just quot-
ed, Casement had written an article, "The
Keeper of the Seas," which was published in
August, 1911. Its general tenor is the same, but
there are a few sentences which deserve quota-
tion, as refuting once and for all the theory that
the Irish Volunteers were formed to counter-
balance the Volunteers of Ulster, or that the
present movement is due to dissatisfaction
with the Home Eule BUI or discontent at its
postponement. The article also affords food for
thought to those who contemplate measures
tending to weaken the connection between Great
Britain and Ireland. Casement's words may
yet be heard on many platforms.

"Without Ireland there would be to-day no
British Empire. The vital importance of Ire-
land to England is understood but never pro-
claimed by every British statesman . . . and
the vital importance of Ireland to Europe is not,
and has not been, understood by any European
statesman. To them it has not been a European
island, a vital and necessary element of Euro-
pean development, but an appanage of England,
an island beyond an island. Montesquieu alone
of French writers grasped the importance of
Ireland in the international affairs of his time ;

150 AEMS AND THE MAN

and he blames the vacillation of Louis XTV.,
who failed to put forth his strength to establish
James upon the throne of Ireland, and thus by
an act of perpetual separation to 'affaiblir le
voisin.' Napoleon, too late in St. Helena, real-
ised his error: 'Had I gone to Ireland instead
of Egypt, the Empire of England was at an
end. ' Perhaps the one latter-day European who
perceived the true relation of Ireland to Eng-
land was Niebuhr. 'Should England,' he said,
'not change her conduct, Ireland may stUl, for a
long period, belong to her, but not always ; and
the loss of that country is the death-day, not
only of her greatness, but of her very existence.'
. . . Detach Ireland from the map of the British
Empire and restore it to the map of Europe and
that day England resumes her native propor-
tions and Europe assumes its rightful stature
in the Empire of the "World. Ireland can only
be restored to the current of European life,
from which she has for so long been purposely
withheld, by the act of Europe. What Napoleon
perceived too late may yet be the purpose and
achievement of a Congress of Nations. . . . Ire-
land's strategic importance is a factor of su-
preme weight to Europe, and is to-day used in
the scale against Europe. . . . The arbitrium
mvmdi, claimed and most certainly exercised by

THE CHAMPION OF EUKOPE 151

England, is maintained by the British fleet; and
until that power is effectively challenged and
held in check, it is idle to talk of European influ-
ence outside of certain narrow Continental lim-
its. The power of the British Fleet can never
be permanently restrained until Ireland is re-
stored to Europe."

This constant reiteration of the word
"Europe" is, of course, the merest camovn
flage, to use the expression of the day. How
could "Europe" resume its rightful stature in
the Empire of the World? Individual nations
have held their place in world-empire, but never
a Continent. If Europe had felt the pressure of
Britain's fleet intolerable, Europe could end it.
Against the fleets of United Europe that of Great
Britain would be powerless. The late war
taught us how difficult, even with vast naval su-
premacy, and in alliance with France and Italy,
the problem of living could become. For
"Europe" then we must read some other name,
and that Casement and Kuno Meyer supply in
their concluding sentence:

"Germany then of necessity becomes the
champion of European interests as opposed to
the world-dominion of England."

And poor, blind, besotted Europe never saw it !

In the summer of 1914, then, the friends sep-

152 AEMS AND THE MAN

arated, Kimo Meyer to go to Germany, Case-
ment to Am erica. But, before he sailed, he
went to* London — ^he himself told the story in
a New York paper — ^where he made final ar-
rangements with a small band of Irish friends,
whom he had gathered together in May, 1914,
to purchase arms on the Continent and to land
them in Ireland. He does not say what these
arrangements were, but it is a fact that about
that time there began to appear in the Gaelic
American, an extreme Clan-na-Gael paper, a
series of lengthy articles contributed by Lieut.-
Col. J. T. Warburton, formerly of the Eoyal
Engineers, who referred in them to his connec-
tion with Casement. These articles were calcu-
lated to give great comfort and satisfaction to
the clients of the Gaelic American. They con-
tained grossly vulgar references to the Queen,
violent diatribes against Mr. Redmond, and the
coarsest abuse of the service to which Col. War-
burton had once belonged. British soldiers, said
Col. Warburton, were "justly described by the
New York Volunteer Committee as the laugh-
ing-stock of soldiers throughout the world."
They had shown cowardice in the New Zealand
War, where he himself had fought; the Boers
had "kicked them from one end of South Africa
to another"; if an expedition were sent to

TOMMY ATKINS, COWARD 153

France (this in August, 1914), "I expect it will
soon be defeated and surrender. " " The British
Army," he wrote, "is a negligible quantity, be-
cause it contains but few Irish and Scots. ' ' He
rejoiced greatly during the retreat from Mons
— "The British have bolted and have been driv-
en like isheep before the Crermans." Their
flight was disgraceful because their casualties
had not been heavy, and he hints not obscurely
that officers were voluntarily surrendering
themselves. The English had no military ar-
dour — "We are tremendously martial so long
as there is no fighting." As for Kitchener's
Army, it was hopeless. Public houses had to be
closed at 11 p. m. because the men got drunk, and
Kitchener himself did not know what to do with
them. And in the Gaelic American of August
22nd he makes this impassioned appeal :

"Are our American friends prepared to send
rifles to help England against a country which
has never harmed her? I think not."

In all that has been written about the Great
War the patriotic efforts of this fine British sol-
dier, probably drawing a pension, have received
no mention. But they should not pass unre-
corded.

Having set these forces at work, Casement
went to America, and on August 1st he was

154 ARMS AND THE MAN"

staying in Philadelphia with Mr. Joseph Mo-
Garrity. The nature of his business with Mr.
McGarrity may be judged from a telegram sent
by the German Foreign Office to Count von
Bemstorff, the German Ambassador at "Wash-
ington, on January 26th, 1916: —

"January 26, for Military Attache. You can
obtain particulars as to persons suitable for
carrying on sabotage ia the United States and
Canada from the foUomng persons: (1) Jo-
seph McGarrity, Philadelphia, Pa. ; (2) John P.
Kealing, Michigan Avenue, Chicago; (3) Jere-
miah O'Leary, 16 Park Eow, New York. One
and two are absolutely reliable, but not always
discreet. These persons are indicated by Sir
Eoger Casement. In the United States sabotage
can be carried out on every kind of factory for
supplying munitions of war. Eailway embank-
ments and bridges must not be touched. Em-
bassy must in no circumstances be compro-
mised. Similar precautions must be taken in
regard to Irish pro-German propaganda.
"Signed, Representative of General Staff," *
It is melancholy to have to record that the
discreet Mr. Jeremiah O'Leary was, in June,
1918, indicted, together with John Ryan, an at-
torney in Buffalo, Lieut.-Commander Wessels,

"Published by American Government.

ENGLAND THE ENEMY 155

of the Grennan Navy, and Baroness Maria von
Kretsohmann, a relative of the G-erman Em-
press, for acts of treason, such as giving mili-
tary information, destruction of piers, docks
and troop transports with bombs, assisting
Germany ia landing an armed expedition in Ire-
land, fomenting a revolt in Ireland, and so on.

On August 22nd there appeared in the Gaelic
Americcm the first of a series of six articles by
Casement, under the title of "Ireland, Germany
and the Freedom of the Seas." Part L, he
said, was written in 1911, and the otber five at
odd moments between that time and 1913. The
first of the series was written before the Home
Eule Bill was drawn, and therefore represented
a settled policy formulated without regard to
the merits or demerits of that measure, while
all six were written while the author was a high
official in the service of Great Britain, accepting
knighthood with fulsome professions of grati-
tude. In them Casement elaborates the doc-
trines already described, but he brings them up-
to-date with a few sentences which may be
quoted :

"England fights as the foe of Europe and the
enemy of civilisation. In order to destroy Ger-
man shipping, German commerce, German in-
dustry, she has deliberately planned the con-

156 AEMS AND THE MAN

spiracy we now see at work. The war of 1914
is England's war. . . . The crippling of the
British fleet will mean a joint German-Irish in-
vasion of Ireland."

And then Casement ceases from his literary
propaganda with the remark : ' ' The rest of the
writer's work must be essayed not with the
author's pen, but with the rifle of the Irish Vol-
unteer."

By this time Sinn Fein had completely aban-
doned any pretence of moderation. Professor
MacNeill was writing impassioned appeals to
Mr. Joseph McGarrity for arms. "We entreat
and beseech you to join with us, making this
the grand effort of our lives, and shrinking
from no sacrifice that the peril and the hope of
so great a crisis may demand. ' ' * Mr. Arthur
Griffith, who, though he numbered Sir Eoger
Casement among the contributors to his paper
Sinn Fein, had managed to preserve an appear-
ance of decent moderation so long as it paid, al-
lowed his real self to appear whenwarbroke out.

"Ireland is not at war with Germany. She
has no quarrel with any Continental power.
. . . England is at war with Germany. Ger-
many is nothing to us in herself, but she is not
an enemy." f

• Gaelic American, July 18th, 1914.
t Sirm Fein, August 8th, 1914.

MR. GRIFFITH BACKS GERMANY 157

A little later Mr. Griffith had an opportunity
to help Germany and he eagerly seized it. Case-
ment wrote two letters to Ireland from Amer-
ica, one of which was stopped by the British
Censorship, while the other got through. In it
Casement begged Irishmen to stay at home, and
to refuse to assist England in her dishonest at-
tack on a people with whom Ireland had no
ground of quarrel. This letter was published in
Sirni Fern at great length and, in an abbreviated
form, in the Irish Independent, and had an im-
mediate effect in stopping recruiting. In order
to clinch the matter, Casement, to quote his own
words, "hoped that the German Government
might be induced to make clear its peaceful in-
tention towards Ireland, and that the effect of
such a pronouncement in Ireland itself might be
powerful enough to keep Irishmen from volun-
teering for a war that had no claim upon their
patriotism or their honour. With this aim chief-
ly in view I came to Germany in November,
1914, and I succeeded in my purpose. ' The Ger-
man Government declared openly its goodwill
to Ireland and in convincing terms.' "

Here we touch an extremely important point.
During the latter part of 1918, and in this pres-
ent year, Sinn Fein has discovered that it had
backed the wrong horse and has been trying to

158 AEMS AND THE MAN

hedge. Its leaders, except the impulsive Coun-
tess Markievics, have repeatedly declared that
there w^^ no alliance with Germany. They
have further declared — Mr. De Valera has done
so repeatedly in America — ^that they never re-
ceived any German money.* Both these state-
ments are absolute and deliberate falsehoods,
and this is a convenient place to consider them.

And first as to the alliance. The "convinc-
ing terms" in which Germany expressed her
goodwill to Ireland were sent to America by
wireless and published on November 21st, 1914 :

"Sir Roger Casement was received at the
Foreign Office and pointed out statements which
have appeared in Ireland . . , that German
victory would inflict great loss on the Irish peo-
ple. In reply the Acting Secretary of State of
the Foreign Office, by order of the Imperial
Chancellor, officially declared that the German
Government repudiated the evil intentions at-
tributed to it, and only desires the welfare of
the Irish people and country. Germany would
never invade Ireland with a view to its conquest
or the overthrow of any native institutions of
that country. Should fortune ever bring Ger-

•See Irish Independent, July 17th, 1919. Mr. De Valera 's
irords are, "I have denied time and again that our organisa-
tion has received a mark or a rouble, and call on those who
make the charges to substantiate them."

THE COMPACT WITH THE HUN 159

man troops to Ireland's shores they wonld land
there, not as an army of invaders to pillage and
destroy, hut as forces of a nation inspired hy
goodwill towards the country and people for
whom Germany desires only national prosper-
ity and freedom."

The view taken of this document by the
American-Irish is evident from the following
resolution adopted by the New York Irish Vol-
unteer Fund Committee : —

' ' No honest friend of the Irish people would
assail a man who secured such a guarantee from
a friendly Power as Sir Eoger Casement has
secured from the Grovernment of the German
Empire, a guarantee which will remove any
doubt which may have been entertained regard-
ing German goodwill by a section of the Irish
people."*

But Germany did not give this friendly guar-
antee for nothing. The contract had to be bi-
lateral. The inducement held out by Casement
that such a guarantee would keep Irishmen from
enlisting was well enough, but it would be more
to the purpose were Irishmen to exchange that
attitude of passive neutrality for one of active
co-operation. Casement readily fell in with the
idea, if indeed he had not already conceived it.
Very probably he was delighted to get such

* Gaelic Americcm, Decemter 5th, 1914.

160 AEMS AND THE MAN

easy terms. It is extremely curious to observe
how his intercourse with the Germans had
caused him to absorb their peculiar mentality
which enables them to ignore any point of view
except their own, and to invert with a garb of
virtue anything that makes for their advantage.
Some eight months later, August 7th, 1915,
Casement wrote a letter, which was published
in the Gaelic American, in which he described
his experiences among the Irish prisoners. He
repudiated as a "stupid and ehUdish lie" Mr.
Eedmond's assertion that he had been mobbed
by the soldiers whom he had endeavoured to
enlist for his Irish Brigade. He had, he said,
walked among them alone and unguarded. It
was indeed true that some of the ' ' silly youths ' '
had declared that "they were Englishmen and
had no use for an Irish traitor." But he goes
on, "I paid no attention to these valiant sup-
porters of Mr. Eedmond. . . . Had those
friends of Mr. Eedmond been as brave in body
as they were in words, I might have had to use
my cane." And he concludes this astonishing
epistle : ' * All the Irish prisoners of war at Lim-
burg are not renegades and comer boys, but
then all of them are not followers of Mr. Eed-
mond and fighting for British ideals of civilisa-
tion, progress, and humanity."

IN THE PEISON CAMP 161

It must have been a shock to liiin to find that
out of two thousand five hundred men only
fifty-two responded to his seduction. Having
himself found it so easy to conspire against the
country whose pay and rewards he was taking,
he must have been amazed to find among these
poor half -starved, ill-used, poorly paid "Tom-
mies" such loyalty to the King to whom they
had sworn fealty. In his distress he resolved
to call religion to his aid. He sent a message
to his friends in America through Count Bern-
storff, the German Foreign Office acting as in-
termediary, asking them to send a priest to help
him, and in response they despatched a Eoman
Catholic clergyman, whose efforts were no more
successful.*

Such was the bargain, made and kept by both
the contracting parties. If ever in this world
there was an alliance, that between Sinn Fein
and Germany was one.

Now as to the question of the receipt of Ger-
man money by Sinn Fein. As might be ex-
pected, these financial transactions were car-
ried out with every precaution to obey the in-
structions of the German Foreign Office that

* Trial of Josepli Bowling, Times, July 9th, 1918. See also
Eeport of Casement's trial.

162 AEMS AND THE MAN

the Embassy at WasMngton was not to be com-
promised. Eevelations made at a later date
by tbe American Government show that moneys
paid from that source flowed through most tor-
tuous channels, so that, like the victims of the
U-boats, it should "leave no trace." But ia
spite of these precautions there is full knowl-
edge of financial transactions between Count
Bemstorff and the American directors of the
Irish movement. The terms of the treaty made
by Casement were printed in Berliu in a leaflet
which was circulated in Ireland as coming from
the German Foreign Office. But this is not all.
We have Count Bemstorff 's own words to prove
the allegations.

After the failure of the Dublin rebellion Sinn
Fein found itself in low water. Its desire for
revolution was undiminished, but its purse was
empty. In these circumstances it appealed to
Count Bemstorff for help, in itself an indication
that it had made similar appeals before. On
June 17th, 1916, the Foreign Office informed
Count Bemstorff that help would be forthcom-
ing if Sinn Fein would indicate what was want-
ed. In July Count Bemstorff replied to Berlin.
Things, he said, were moving again in Ireland
and the rebels were reorganising their forces.

THE GEEMAN PAYMASTEE 163

They were, he added, in need of money, but he
had put that matter right.

This revelation is doubly interesting, first be-
cause it proves beyond contradiction that Sinn
Fein did receive German money; next because
it destroys the fiction, concocted by some recent
apologists of Sinn Fein, that the rebellion was
not its work, but that of the party of revolu-
tionary labour.

At this point we leave Casement and his in-
trigues in Germany for the moment, and re-
turn to Ireland.

CHAPTER XI

PEIVY CONSPIBACY AND EEBBLLIOH"

The quarrel between the Parliamentarians and
Sinn Fein, which had long been smouldering,
began to glow when the Irish Volunteers were
called into existence, and burst into flame with
the outbreak of war. "Whatever were the real
feelings of Mr. Eedmond as Sinn Fein snapped
at his heels, he concealed them under a contemp-
tuous indifference. The Sinn Feiners were
merely a negligible handful of cranks, who, like
Benedick, would still be talking though no one
heeded them. But when the cranks proceeded
to raise a Volunteer Force, matters became
more serious. From the merely party point of
view the new departure was threatening. Even
though the Force might be for display rather
than for use, it would popularise Sinn Fein and
by its novelty detach many of his more ardent
supporters. And it was not certain that it would
be confined entirely to ceremonial parades and
innocuous display. The leader of the Irish
Party was not ignorant of the existence of a

164

MR. EEDMOND'S DILEMMA 165

section in America whicli regarded his policy
with disfavour, because of its moderation, and
which might, as it did, see in the Volunteers an
engine for active mischief.

These early doubts developed into active ap-
prehension with the appearance of Casement's
articles in Irish Freedom, and th© growing
activity of the American-Irish controlled by
Devoy, Judge Cohalan, and Jeremiah O'Leary.
Mr. Redmond's heart must have been heavy as
he marked the rapid growth of the Volunteers
and of the revolutionary truculence of its lead-
ers. Revolution was fatal to his policy and re-
pugnant to his mind. In spite of certain ambi-
guities of speech, of which his opponents were
not slow to avail themselves, Mr. Redmond
proved, in the supreme crisis of his life, that he
was true to the British connection. Had he, in
August, 1914, but proclaimed Irish neutrality,
he would probably have been the most popular
and, perhaps, powerful Irish leader of a century.
Instead of that he embraced the cause of the Al-
lies, risked all, and lost. To him, therefore, the
rising tide of revolution brought the most acute
embarrassment. He dare not oppose the move-
ment — to do that was to court disaster — and so
he resolved to control it. With this view he
demanded the right to nominate twenty-five

166 CONSPIRACY AND EEBELLION

members to the Committee. This transferred
the embarrassment to the Sinn Feiners. They
dared not refuse, for Mr. Eedmond's was still
a name to conjure with, so with some bluster
and many wry faces they gave way. It was then
that the smouldering fires began to glow.

They broke into flame when he endeavoured
to raise battalions for the service of Great
Britain. Unionists of high position and strong
views joined the Volunteers when Mr. Eedmond
proposed to unite them with the men of Ulster
in an army of defence. The Ulster Volunteers
stood out and prepared to form an Expedition-
ary Division. Mr. Redmond followed their ex-
ample, and then Sinn Fein finally broke away.
A manifesto was drawn up on September 9th
and published on the 25th in which Mr. Eed-
mond was excommunicated and his nominees
removed from the Committee. The signatories
to this document were Professor MacNeill, The
O'Rahilly, Thomas Macdonough, Joseph Plun-
kett, P. H. Pearse, Bulmer Hobson, Eamonn
Ceaunt, Sean MacDearmada, and Mellowes.
Following the issue of the manifesto, the Vol-
unteer Force split into two factions, the larger
adhering to Mr. Redmond under the name of the
National Volunteers, while the smaller body
kept the old name. Henceforth it is with the lat-

LOED KITCHENER'S DECISION 167

ter body that we are concerned, for the National
Volunteers gradually ceased to play any active
part in Irish politics.

It is possible that at this time there was, even
among the Irish Volunteers who had oast out
Mr. Redmond, a moderate section. Giving evi-
dence before the Rebellion Commission, Col.
Moore, who adhered to Mr. Redmond, stated
that the leaders of the Volunteers — ^before they
divided — and among them men who afterwards
fought in the Dublin rising, were willing to join
in the defence of the Empire, but were refused.
"What happened was this : Soon after war broke
out a staff officer in Ireland proposed that mili-
tary training should be given to all the Volun-
teers in Ireland; that the military should be
withdrawn and the barracks, thus vacated,
should be filled by the Volunteers. In this way
he calculated 20,000 men could be trained for
two months, sent into camps and their places
taken by another batch of recruits. Many of
the Volunteer leaders agreed, but Lord Kitchen-
er rejected the proposal. "Why he did so is un-
certain. He may have thought that the risk of
leaving Ireland denuded of troops, sorely as he
needed them elsewhere, was too great, as indeed
well he might after reading the articles in Irish
Freedom, and other organs of Sinn Fein. He

168 CONSPIEACY AND EEBELLION

may even have feared — and of course lie had se-
cret information as to affairs in Ireland — ^that
the acqiriescence of some of the Volunteer lead-
ers was only a pretence to get the British troops
out of Ireland, and indeed, some suggestive ref-
erences to the proposal had appeared in the
Irish Volwnteer. He probably knew, as the Eng-
lish Labour men who went over to help Connol-
ly with funds had soon discovered, that the Dub-
lin strike of the preceding year was a rehearsal
of revolution rather than a strike against indus-
trial conditions, and he certainly must have had
knowledge of Fenian activities in America. At
all events he turned the proposal down, and
quite probably he was justified by the rupture
which within a few weeks took place in the Vol-
unteer Movement.

It would be unprofitable, even were it possi-
ble, to foUow in detail the course of events dur-
ing the next few months, during which the rift
in the Volunteers widened into a yawning chasm,
and Mr. Eedmond came to be classed with
O'Connell as a traitor to Ireland. In January,
1915, things had gone so far that the Gaelic
American published a dreadful letter, purport-
ing to be written in hell by Lord Castlereagh,
the statesman who carried through the Act of
Union, James Carey, the author of the Phoenix
Park murders and the informer on whose evi-

"JOHN EEDMOND, TEAITOE" 169

dence the murderers were hanged, and Eichard
Pigott, the author of the forged letters in the
Parnell Conunission. They praise Eedmond
highly for his policy, and say "his Satanic Maj-
esty has prepared a very warm reception for
him and we hope Mr. Eedmond" will not keep
him waiting long. ... Our membership {i.e.,
the membership of traitors to Ireland) has
greatly increased in the last few months through
the arrival here of almost all the brave West
Britons Mr. Eedmond has induced to go to the
front to defend our glorious flag."

Though in Ireland party passion did not
reach such heights of expression, it was rising
every day, fanned by the news of the Irish-Ger-
man alliance, which arrived through wireless
stations, of which, as Count Bemstorff informed
Berlin, there were many in Ireland.* The terms
of the German statement were printed in Berlin
in leaflet form and were circulated in the coun-
try. Large numbers of this leaflet, as well as
of Casement's articles on "Ireland, Germany
and the Freedom of the Seas," were found, to-
gether with ammunition and explosives, in the
house of a man called De Lacy at Enniscorthy,
County Wexford, in February.f Proclamations

* Grovernment statement, May 25th, 1918.

t Enniscorthy was one of the centres of rebellion in 1916.
De Lacy escaped to America, where he intrigued with German
agents and was given two years' imprisonment.

170 CONSPIRACY AND EEBELLION

were posted up in many parts of tlie county to
the following effect:

"PedJ)le of Wexford.

"Take no notice of the police order to destroy
your property and leave your homes if a Ger-
man Army lands in Ireland. When the Ger-
mans come they will come as friends and put an
end to English rule in Ireland. Therefore, stay
in your homes, and assist as far as possible the
German troops. Any stores, hay, com, or for-
age taken by the Germans will be paid for by
them."

German agents and spies were ubiquitous and
busy at this time. Baron Von Horst was ar-
rested for distributing anti-recruiting and se-
ditious literature ; Lody, a greater than he, was
captured at Killarney, where, it was stated be-
fore the Eebellion Commission, one of the hotel
waiters was also a German spy. Up and down
the country agents were at work, predicting
British defeat and extolling the single-minded
generosity of the Huns. Stories were current in
the west of Ireland which illustrate the effect
of these efforts, among them the following,
which is within the knowledge of the writer. A
vessel, it was said, had been stopped by a U-boat
off the south-west coast. When the German com-
mander learned that she was carrying grain to an

WEAVING THE WEB 171

Irish port, he bade her proceed. "I will never,"
he handsomely declared, "interfere with the
food of the priests and good people of Ireland. ' '
The disposition of the conspirators in 1915
was as follows : In Germany Casement was mak-
ing desperate efforts to make good his pledge to
the German Government; in America Kuno
Meyer was stumping the country, ostensibly lec-
turing on the Gaelic language, but really carry-
ing on intrigues the nature of which may be easi-
ly defined, while his friends and partners the
Irish-American leaders directed operations, and
Count Bernstorff obligingly violated the canons
of diplomatic usage by allowing them to use
his post-bag, and acted as paymaster for these
so-called American citizens and their needy
parasites. There was even a secret code, the
' ' Cypher Devoy, ' ' which was specially used for
communications between the rebels and their
German allies.* In Ireland the Sinn Fein
leaders denounced the Constitutional National-
ists, extolled Germany, vilified every Irishman
who donned the British uniform, with special
terms of reproach for any who, like Corporal
O'Leary, might have earned particular glory,
and worked feverishly on the task of drilling

* Von Igel papers. Published by the American Committee
of Public Safety, September 23rd, 1917.

172 CONSPIRACY AND REBELLION

and equipping the Volunteers. They had their
reward in later days, when Professor Edouard
Meyer of the University of Berlin declared that
"during the war Ireland had shown herself
Germany's true aUy, not only with arms in her
hands, but by her passive resistance. ' '

The sinking of the Lusitcmia, though it was
hailed with delight by the American conspira-
tors, caused them much embarrassment. Prior
to that event, though they had grumbled openly
at what they regarded as President Wilson's
one-sided neutrality, they clung to the belief
that a large section of the American people were
friendly to Germany, or at least strictly impar-
tial in their sentiments. After the atrocity that
fond hope vanished. The German Empire sank
with the great ship : the same torpedo destroyed
both. All semblance of sympathy for the Cen-
tral Empires disappeared, and it needed the
firm hand of the President to hold his people
back. America did not enter the war until two
years later, it is true, but the altered sentiments
of the nation must have been disconcerting to
Devoy and his colleagues, and may possibly
have had some effect in precipitating events in
Ireland. The change in American feeling and
its influence on the Sinn Fein leaders may be
traced in the editorials of the Gaelic American,

LESSONS IN WAE 173

in the added virulence of their attacks on tlie
American papers, and the steadily growing list
of journals that came under their ban.

In Ireland things began to move swiftly as
the year went on. Organisers formed new de-
tachments of Volunteers throughout the south-
ern provinces and the numbers were steadily
swelled by desertions from the National Volun-
teers. Arms were smuggled in, including some
machine guns;, weapons were stolen from the
National Volunteers, and were obtained by
thefts or purchase from soldiers home on leave ;
explosives were concealed in convenient places
and bombs were manufactured. Old soldiers
acted as instructors, and the Sinn Fein papers
devoted much of their space to articles on mili-
tary tactics, such as street fighting, defence or
destruction of roads and bridges, rearguard ac-
tions, and such modifications of established
rules as were necessitated by the nature of the
country. Germany helped with very full in-
structions in staff work, and with admirable
maps of Dublin and the country.

The most important event of this period,
however, was the alliance that was formed be-
tween the Irish Volunteers £ind the Citizen
Army, important less from the strictly military
point of view than from its ultimate political

174 CONSPIEACT AND EEBELLION

results. As a fighting force tlie Citizen Army
■was almost negligible ; it added some hundreds
of desperate men, mainly concentrated in Dub-
lin, of theTrish. Volunteers, and indeed it was the
Citizen Army wbieli was most active in the Dub-
lin rebellion. But the junction between the forces
had enormous political consequences. It
brought together the two revolutionary cur-
rents, thenceforth to flow in a single stream.
Except for a few idealists like Pearse, Sinn
Fein had scant sympathy with the economic
aims of Connolly and Larkin — Arthur Griffith,
indeed, was strongly opposed to the great Dub-
lin strike. Larkin and Connolly, on their side,
would regard the responsible Sinn Feiners, such
as Count Plunkett, Professor MacNeill, Mr.
Sweetman, and The O'Eahilly, as natural ene-
mies. They found a link of union in hatred of
Great Britain, and thenceforward the national
movement changed its character. As always
happens in revolutions, so soon as the intellec-
tuals call the sans culottes to their aid, they be-
come merged in the proletarian movement. Up
to 1915 Great Britain had to deal with a politi-
cal and intellectual movement; since that time,
and now, she is faced by a revolutionary force
no longer wholly political, but infused and large-
ly inspired by anarchical doctrines. Thus Sinn x

GEEMANY DEMANDS THE GOODS 175

Fein saddled itself with an incubus, fatal to its
original principles, and destined to be embar-
rassing in the last degree. The day will surely
come when, like Mr. Bumble, it will bitterly la-
ment that it sold its liberty so cheap.

With the opening of 1916 the Irish leaders
determined that the "Day" had arrived. Those
in America probably found their position get-
ting more irksome. An American writer has
said: "If Americans had small patience with
Ulster in 1914, they had still less with Sinn Fein
in 1916."* Casement, in Berlin, was being
pressed by Germany to "deliver the goods."
His failure to seduce the Irish soldiers had
somewhat shaken Teutonic faith in his reliabil-
ity, and he had to do something to redeem his
promises. In Ireland the conspirators had pre-
pared elaborate and, on paper, extremely effec-
tive plans of campaign ; they probably calculated
too optimistically the amount of the aid that Ger-
many would lend ; moreover, though Mr. Birrell
refused to be alarmed, their spies in the Govern-
ment Departments reported that other officials
were awakening to a sense of realities ; and so
they resolved that the time had come to strike.

During March, 1916, messages were going
back and forward between Germany and Amer-
ica, as to the transmission of arms to Tralee

* Waldo G. Leland, QvMrterly Seview, July, 1918.

176 CONSPIEACY AND EEBELLION

Bay, the possibility of U-boats entering tbe Lif-
f ey, and arranging a code of signals for use dur-
ing these operations. The Irish Volunteers car-
ried out a'f ew dress rehearsals in Dublin, includ-
ing a sham attack on the Castle, and Professor
MacNeill, as Chief of Staff, ordered general
marches and parades of the Volunteers for
Easter Sunday, April 23rd.

On April 18th, the following despatch was
sent to Count Bernstorff , marked ' ' very secret ' ' :

' ' Judge Cohalan requests the transmission of
the following remarks : The revolution in Ire-
land can only be successful with the support of
Germany; otherwise England will be able to
suppress it, even though it be only after a hard
struggle. Therefore help is necessary. This
should consist principally of aerial attacks on
England and a diversion of the fleet simultane-
ously with the Irish revolution. Then if possi-
ble a landing of arms and ammunition in Ire-
land and possibly some officers from Zeppelins.
This would enable the Irish ports to be closed
against England and the cutting of the food
supply for England. The services of the revo-
lution, therefore, may decide the war."*

The rest is known. On April 21st, the Aud

* Found by American Secret Service agents in the office of
Von Igel, a German agent. Nem York World, Sept. 23rd, 1917.

CASEMENT LANDS 177

was sighted by the Bluebell. She professed to
be a Norwegian ship, bound from Bergen to
Genoa. Dissatisfied and suspicious, the com-
mander of the Bluebell ordered her to accom-
pany him to Queenstown. On the morning of
the following day the Aud hoisted German col-
ours, the crew took to the boats and the ves-
sel soon afterwards sank. She was manned by
German officers and sailors, and carried a large
cargo of arms and ammunition. On the 21st,
too, Casement, with two companions, landed
from a German submarine at Curraghgane, in
Tralee Bay, and was arrested within a few
hours. The news reached Professor MaoNeUl
on Saturday, and he issued orders cancelling the
marches and parades on the following day. He
was willing to wound, but, in face of Casement's
arrest and the failure of the German munitions
to reach Ireland, he was too prudent to strike.
Others did strike, but the plans had gone awry,
and the rebellion was crushed. But for an ac-
cident to a motor-car, it would not have been
crushed in a week, on such small chances do
great matters hinge.* Had the car met Case-
ment, Professor MacNeill would have been less
prudent, his volunteers would have gone out for
their manoeuvres, provisioned for a few days'

* Irish Volunteer, April 22nd, 1916.

178 CONSPIRACY AND REBELLION

bivouac. As it was, tlie revolution was mainly
confined to Dublin, tbougb there was figbting
also in Galway, Wexford, and County Dublin,
wbere two officers and eight men of the Royal
Irish Constabulary were killed and fourteen
wounded, while in Tralee the Volunteers were
mobilised. The sinMng of the Avd and the ar-
rest of Casement did not prevent a calamity, but
they averted a very grave danger.

So Casement passes from the stage, the most
ignoble of all the leading players in the drama.

The loss of life — of material damage to Dub-
lin we say nothing — ^was not inconsiderable. Of
those who fought for the Crown, 19 officers and
19 of other ranis were killed, and 46 officers
and 326 other ranks were wounded. From the
hospitals 180 civilians were reported killed and
614 wounded, and this certainly does not ex-
haust the list of casualties.

For a country which is uniformly described
in Ireland as revelling in tyranny the retribu-
tion exacted by Great Britain was not excessive.
Some three thousand rebels were arrested, two
thousand of whom were deported, the great ma-
jority being released in a few months. Of the
leaders, fifteen were executed. Others, sen-
tenced to death, had their sentences commuted
to penal servitude for Hf e, but were all released
in a little more than a year. Among them was

GENEEAL MAXWELL 179

De Valera, who commanded one of tlie rebel de-
tachments in Dublin, and who was among the
last to surrender. Thus, by midsummer 1917
not a single rebel remained in prison for of-
fences connected with the rising, and only fif-
teen of those who had hatched the plot which
caused such ruin and su£fering had paid the ex-
treme penalty.

Nevertheless the epithets applied to G-eneral
Maxwell, the Commander-in-Chief, would have
been more appropriate, if indeed not excessive,
if applied to Wallenstein or Alva. The Bishop
of Limerick, being restrained by his episcopal
position, contented himself with writing to the
Guardians of the Tipperary Union of "that
brute Maxwell, who in my opinion is only one
degree less objectionable than the Government
that screens behind him. ' ' What he might have
said had he been a mere layman is interesting
as a speculation, but must be neglected in view
of the succeeding portion of the letter, which is
not only interesting, but important, since it gave
the cue for the future Irish policy:

"Ireland is not dead yet. While her young
men are not afraid to die for her in open fight ;
and when defeated stand proudly with their
backs to the wall as targets for English bullets,
we need not despair of the old land. " *

* Letter to Tipperary Board of Guardians, June, 1916,

180 CONSPIEACY AND EEBELLION

This pronouncemeiit had all the more effect
because the Bishop had generally been regarded
as a moderate, exercising a conservative influ-
ence upon Nationalist thought. Its immediate
result was to unmuzzle the younger and more
hot-blooded clergy and to revive the chastened
passion of the Eepublicans ; its ultimate effects
were far-reaching, for it destroyed the hopes of
ainicable settlement which at that time had be-
gun to take visible shape.

The rebellion had shocked the more sober
elements of society. It had brought them face
to face with the reahties of Civil War. The
gaunt ruins of Sackville Street were so many
signposts pointing towards conciliation. The
Government seized the opportunity to reopen
the negotiations which had failed on the eve of
the war. Mr. Asquith himself crossed over to
Dublin and went out of his way — some thought
too far out of his way — to be conciliatory to the
rebels. Mr. Lloyd George — ^who has since
shown his abilities as a negotiator on a larger
field — ^was charged with the task of bringing
parties together. He was within an ace of success.

The Ulster Unionist Council met. Under the
terms of the Ulster Covenant the Unionists of
all the nine Ulster counties had bound them-
selves to stand or fall together. But if the pro-

A SETTLEMENT IN SIGHT 181

posals of the Government were to be accepted, it
was necessary that the counties of Cavan, Mo-
naghan, and Donegal should stand out and ac-
cept the rule of the Parliament in Dublin. After
long consideration they agreed to waive their
rights under the Covenant and to place them-
selves at the disposal of the Council. It has
been said that they only yielded to the argument
that thus they would "kill Home Rule." But
that is not true. The effect of their decision on
the fate of the Home Rule Bill was never even
mentioned. The only question discussed was
that of national expediency, the desirability of
bringing Ireland into line on the side of the Al-
lies, then hard pressed, and of presenting a unit-
ed front to the world. And indeed, had the de-
cision of the Ulster Council been taken as a
matter of party tactics, it would have been an
extremely venturesome gamble. For the Con-
vention of the Nationalists of Ulster, which fol-
lowed later, agreed to the exclusion of the six
counties of Antrim, Down, Armagh, London-
derry, Tyrone, and Fermanagh from the opera-
tion of the Home Rule Act. There was, how-
ever, one point on which the parties were not
agreed. The Unionists wished the exclusion of
the six counties to be "definite," while the Na-
tionalists declared that it should be "provision-

182 CONSPIEACY AND EEBELLION

al," i.e., that, as Mr. Lloyd George had. pro-
posed, it should be subject to revision, as part
of a scheijie of general Imperial reconstruction,
a year after the termination of the war.

The difference was serious, indeed it was
fundamental, but it might perhaps have been
adjusted in view of the great Imperial necessi-
ties o:^ the time, the shock of Civil War, and the
desire of the Unionists and of Mr. Eedmond
that Ireland should play her full part in the
great world struggle.

Thus, as Mr. Redmond saw clearly, did Ire-
land out of evil get a second and most unexpect-
ed opportunity. Once, in 1914, had the chance
presented itself, and she let it slip. And now it
came to her two years later. Had Ireland taken
the first chance, and said to Britain, "Your
cause is mine," there is no reasonable measure
of self-government, short of separation, which
she might not have asked for and received. Irish
Unionists, even though they might have but lan-
guid confidence in the merits of Irish admin--
istration, would have felt it churlish to deny
men who had taken their share of the war;
they would have thought that, after all, they had
been true to the flag, and would have been con-
tent to bury the old animosities and suspicions
in the trenches where the wearers of the Orange
'and the Green lay entombed together.

SINN FEIN BLOCKS THE WAY 183

After the rebellion Ireland could not hope for
such fuU concessions, though even then she
might have got much, but, in the spirit of Dr.
O'Dwyer's letter, she again flung away the sub-
stance for the shadow. The Eoman Catholic
Hierarchy of Ulster had been the bitterest op-
ponents of exclusion in the Nationalist Conven-
tion ; their colleague in the south set the heather
on fire. At once Sinn Fein raised a cry against
Partition. The pause in the negotiations,
caused by the different limitations set on exclu-
sion by the Unionists and Nationalists, gave the
chorus time to gain volume, and as it gained in
volume so did Mr. Eedmond find himself com-
pelled to stiffen his back on the point of "provi-
sional" exclusion, or to see his power, already
waning, disappear altogether. On the Union-
ists the effect of Dr. O'Dwyer's letter and the
outburst of Republican fury was to convince
them that concessions made to promote unity
would be made in vain, while the Government
saw in the unrepentant attitude of Sinn Fein a
confirmation of the view of the southern Union-
ists that the establishment of a Parliament in
which Sinn Fein would be powerful, and while
Ireland was in such an unsettled condition,
would be a dangerous experiment, which might
materially prejudice the conduct of the war. Ac-

184 CONSPIRACY AND REBELLION

cordingly on July 24tli — ^by a strange coinci-
dence it was on that same day two years before
that the Conference at Buckinghana Palace had
broken down — Mr. Asquith announced in Par-
liament that the Grovemment had abandoned the
attempt at a settlement.

The history of these few weeks has been thus
dwelt upon as one of the most pregnant phases
of the revolutionary movement. It reveals Sum
Fein as the sworn enemy of any attempt at set-
tlement by consent, a fact of the highest impor-
tance in the consideration of contemporary Irish
politics. From a broader point of view it is
deeply interesting in that it is perhaps the first
instance of the Roman Catholic hierarchy rang-
ing itself on the side of revolution based upon
the most extreme doctrines of Socialism.

As has just been said, the southern Unionists
had, while the negotiations were in progress,
impressed on the Government the risk of erect-
ing an Irish Legislature in the then state of the
country. It has been the fashion to treat warn-
ings from that quarter as the creations of a fe-
vered and prejudiced imagination, but in this
instance at least they had solid foundation.
Even while they were being uttered Count Bem-
storff was informing his Foreign Office that the
reorganisation of the Irish Republicans was

A FIGHT FOE A SEE 185

proceeding apace, and that lie liad supplied them
with the money of which they stood in need.
The Eepublican junta in America observed the
action of the Bishop of Limerick with great ap-
proval, and took measures to provide him with
a colleague of pronounced views. It chanced
that about that time the bishopric of Cork fell
vacant. Among the prominent candidates was
one of moderate opinions and friendly to the
British connection. Another was Dr. Daniel Co-
halan. Count Bernstorff greatly interested him-
self in the matter, and on August 23rd tele-
graphed as follows to the German Foreign Office :
"The Bishop of Cork having died, there is a
sharp contest over the succession. The present
Assistant Bishop, Daniel Cohalan, is the choice
of the local clergy ; but England is using unusual

efforts to have appointed. is strongly

anti-German, although Germany, at our request,
released him shortly after the outbreak of war,
Assistant-Bishop Cohalan is cousin of Judge
Cohalan, and strongly Nationalist and pro-Ger-
man. He was the intermediary between the in-
surgent Cork Volunteers and the British mili-
tary authorities, and publicly exposed the gross
breach of faith of the English with the surren-
dered men. Hence the effort to defeat him
through the English Envoy at the Vatican. . . .

186 CONSPIRACY AND EEBELLION

It would have a great moral effect in Kome if
Cohalan were chosen. If Germany can exert
any influence to bring about this result it would
defeat the English intrigue aimed against her
interests."

What efforts Germany made must be a mat-
ter of surmise. Certain it is that Dr. Daniel
Cohalan is now the Bishop of Cork.

/

CHAPTEE Xn

MAKERS OF MISCHIEF

Fob a moment let us turn our eyes from the
United Kingdom to the Continent, that we may
view Irish affairs in their relation to the war.
While Sinn Feia was making its final prepara-
tions for rebellion — the coincidence could hardly
have been accidental — France was battling for
her very life ; while Dublin was being battered
out of shape Verdun was crumbling out of exist-
ence. The battle of Jutland was fought in May,
and was celebrated by the Irish Eepublicans in
verses recited, amid wild applause, in the revo-
lutionary concert halls.* While the Govern-
ment at home was striving for settlement, and
Sinn Fein was making it impossible, the battles
of the Somme were raging. While Dr. 'Dwyer

* A couple of verses will show the nature of this effusion :
The Bats Came Out.
Britannia rules the waves, Britons never shall be slaves!
We've been told the tale so often that we've scarcely room
for doubt;
Irish rebels in their graves, done to death by cowardly knaves
Would sleep peacefully, I'm certain, if they knew the rats
came out. . . .

187

188 MAKEES OF MISCHIEF

was denouncing the brutality of General Max-
well, Nurse Cavell and Captain Fryatt were be-
ing done to death by the allies of the Irish Sep-
aratists.* As always, England's extremity was
Ireland's opportunity, and the Eepublicans
used it to the full.

Their attitude was both singular and signifi-
cant. It might have been expected that the fail-
ure of the rising would have left them in a chas-
tened mood, of which their moderate leaders
would have taken advantage to recall them
from the dangerous paths into which they had
strayed. Conciliation was in the air. Mr. As-
quith had been polite to the point of flattery in
his talks with the captive rebels, the spirit of ne-
gotiation was abroad, and they not only stood
aloof, but bestirred themselves to prevent agree-
ment. Some little sign from them would have
done much to diminish the rigour of Mr. Eed-
mond's attitude, but it was not given. Whether
he desired it or no, he was forced, if he and his
party were not to be swept from the stage, to
meet the Ulster demand with an uncompromis-
ing negative.

Nay more. Sinn Fein took heart from the

The blood of murdered Irishmen appeals to Heaven once again;

The fleet that shelled old Dublin town have got a clean
knockout.
True Irish hearts will ever pray God wiU speed the coming day

When Britain 's fleet is swept away when next the rats come out

COMPEOMISES FAIL 189

negotiations set on foot by Mr. Lloyd George.
Outwardly denouncing the Government as bar-
barously tyrannical, it secretly construed its de-
sire for settlement as a proof of abject weak-
ness and grew more insolent and defiant tbe
while it pursued its negotiations with Germany.
Sinn Fein Clubs sprang up all over the country
until within a few months they were counted in
hundreds ; the Irish Volunteers swelled from a
brigade into a couple of Army Corps.

Numerous attempts were made by the more
moderate Nationalists to stem the Republican
advance by diverting the popular demand into
less dangerous channels. The Irish Nation
League was formed at Omagh in August, as a
half-way house between the Parliamentarians
and the Eepublicans. It came to nothing. Mr.
Redmond tried to retain the constituencies by
motions in Parliament for inquiries into the
events of the rebellion, the abolition of martial
law, and the release of the deportees. The Gov-
ernment made some concessions. Sir John
Maxwell was recalled; a new Chief Secretary
was appointed; over three-quarters of the in-
terned prisoners were released. It was all in
vain: Sinn Fein pursued its course unmoved
and unrelenting. Throughout the autumn it was
beseeching Germany to send an expedition, and

190 MAKERS OF MISCHIEF

to establish bases for submarines and Zeppelins
in the west of Ireland. In December it was
pressingjihe German Government for a favour-
able reply, at the very moment that the Man-
chester Guardian was calling for a general am-
nesty as a step to perfect harmony, and that the
Daily News was proclaiming that it was useless
to expect any improvement in Ireland's senti-.
ments while the rebels were interned at Fron-
goch. Six hundred were released, and Sinn
Fein became more irreconcilable.

In February Count Plunkett was elected
member for North Eoscommon with over three
thousand votes against less than seven hundred
cast for Mr, Redmond's candidate. And then
Mr. Redmond made a last attempt to stem the
current, with a motion proposed by Mr. T. P.
'Connor :

' ' That, with a view to strengthening the hands
of the Allies in achieving the recognition of the
equal rights of small nations and the principle
of nationality against the opposite German
principles of military domination and Govern-
ment without the consent of the governed, it is
essential without further delay to confer upon
Ireland the free institutions long promised to
her."*

• March 7tli, 1917.

LLOYD GEOEGB SPEAKS OUT 191

Mr. Lloyd George, who by this time was
Prime Minister, speaking as a Home Euler, said
that the Cabinet was ready to give self-govern-
meat to that part of Ireland which desired it,
but not to that part which rejected it. It was
impossible to force any one part of Ireland to
live under a law which it did not approve, least
of all in the circumstances then existing. There
could be no question of imposing "Home Eule"
on the people of the north-east, as hostile to
Irish rule as the rest of Ireland is to British
rule, yea, and as ready to rebel against this as
the rest of Ireland is to revolt against British
rule. He then moved the following amendment :

"That this House would welcome a settle-
ment which would produce a better understand-
ing between Ireland and the rest of the United
Kingdom, but considers it impossible to impose
by force on any section or part of Ireland a form
of Government which has not their assent."

Mr. Eedmond rejected the amendment. The
time for conferences and negotiations, he said,
had gone by. He denied the right of minorities
to call check to the spirit of a nation; he de-
manded the Home Eule Act, the whole Act, and
nothing but the Act. The state of Ireland, he
said, was very serious. The constitutional
movement had, by forty years of toil, practically

192 MAKERS OF MISCHIEF

eliminated the revolutionary agitation, and now
its work was being wrecked in sight of port.

Were one disposed for controversy, it might
be pointed out that Mr. Eedmond put the effect
of the constitutional upon the revolutionary
movement too high, and placed too generous an
estimate on the value of the Home Eule Act as
an implement of conciliation. For at the very
time when the success of the measure was se-
cured, and even before it was introduced, the
forces of revolution, which Mr. Eedmond de-
clared had been practically eliminated, were de-
ciding the measure and concerting rebellion.
But that may pass.

Having made his protest, Mr. Eedmond left
the House with his followers, and the debate
ended without a decision being taken. The next
day the Nationalists published a manifesto, pro-
claiming their loyalty to the cause of the Allies,
though compelled to go into opposition to the
Government, and appealing to the Irishmen of
America and the Dominions to put pressure on
the British Government to act towards Ireland
in conformity with the principles for which the
Allies were fighting in Europe.

Even this dramatic and adroit move met with
no response from Sinn Fein. Then, if ever, was
its opportunity. The wording of Mr. Eedmond 's

: AMNESTY ABUSED 193

i^anifesto could be read to include a demand
for self-government on the broadest lines. * ' The
principles for which the Allies are fighting"
mi^ht even be construed to mean complete in-
dejiendence. Why then did Sinn Fein remain
unmoved? Surely, for one reason only — ^thatit
knew that Mr. Eedmond, though he would have
taken the widest form of self-government if it
were offered him, did not contemplate severance
from the Empire; Because of that he was still
the West Briton, the helot and the traitor.

An opportunity soon occurred for Sinn Fein
to show its opinion of Mr. Eedmond and to give
an answer to the Prime Minister's suggestion
for settlement. Major Willie Eedmond was
killed at Messines, dying, by a pathetic coinci-
dence, among the Ulstermen. Mr. De Valera
was nominated for East Clare, Major Eed-
mond 's constituency. On the next day, June
15th, 1917, the Government proclaimed a gen-
eral amnesty and all the Irish prisoners were
released. They availed tlaemselves of their lib-
erty to make speeches of the most seditious
char3,cter up and down the island, declaring that
"England is beaten to the ropes;" "France is
bled white;" "Germany is no enemy of Ire-
land. " " England, ' ' cried one orator, ' ' has been
an enemy in the past, why should we not assist
her enemies now?" Another speaker supplied

194 MAKEES OF MISCHIEF

the answer: "Get ready; keep getting ready;
when the call comes stand to arms."

By this time America was in the war. But
that did not prevent "The Provisional Govern-
ment of the Irish Eepublic" from sending its
"Ambassador," Dr. Patrick MoCartan,* to
President Wilson and Congress, with a conunu-
nication which contained the following passage :

"Our Nationalism is not founded upon griev-
ances. We are opposed not to English mis-
government but to English government in
Ireland. . . . While prepared, when the oppor-
tunity arises, to assert our independence by the
one force which commands universal respect
and to accept aid from any quarter to that end,
we hope Americans will see their way to aid in
doing for Ireland what they did for Cuba."

Considering the circumstances, it is probable
that no more astonishing communication was
ever made to the head of a great nation than
this. It was presented in the name of the Irish
Eepublic, an organisation hostile and rebel-

* Dr. McCartan was at that time a fugitive from Ireland.
He is now Dispensary Doctor for the Omagh District Council
and has leave of absence, his return to his duties being delayed
for what have been stated in the Council to be "well-known
reasons. " He is also a Sinn Fein MP. and is, or recently was,
an inmate of an American gaol.

DE. MoCABTAN'S EMBASSY 195

lions to a State on whose side America was then
fighting and in active alliance with Germany,
with whom America was at war. It was framed
by a junta one of whose leading members had
been specially recommended as a rehable agent
for organising sabotage in the United States.
And America was asked to put pressure on
England to give Ireland that right of seces-
sion which half a century before she had re-
fused to her own dissentient States at the cost
of four years of bitter war.

It is probable that in sending this message,
and in the choice of the ambassador who should
convey it, Sinn Fein was inspired as much by a
desire to insult the President as by any hope of
receiving a favourable reply. In the days when
America was still neutral the Irish-Americans
had abused the head of the State with a free-
dom which on this side of the Atlantic it is dif-
ficult to understand. The exchange of neutral-
ity for active co-operation with the Allies drove
them to frenzy. It paralysed their energies, it
deprived them of the services of Count Bem-
storff, Von Igel, and the rest of the Teutonic
horde ; they saw their fellow Irishmen in Amer-
ica swept into the maelstrom of the conscrip-
tion which they had successfully resisted in
Ireland as the barbarous implement of blood-
thirsty tyranny. In their distress these hyphen-

196 MAKERS OF MISCHIEF

ated citizens of the United States, notwitli-
standing that myriads of Irishmen were fighting
for America, still continued to plot for Ger-
many's success, though force of circumstances
compelled them to transfer their main energies
from New York to Berlin.

In America what work was done was through
the Society of the Friends of Irish Freedom,
founded in 1916, of which Mr. Jeremiah
O'Leary was President, with Professor Kuno
Meyer and Mr. St. John Gaffney, ex-Consul-
General of the United States at Munich, as his
principal colleagues. When America entered
the war Kuno Meyer returned to Germany,
where he again worked with St. John Gaffney
and a Mr. Chatterton-Hill, and founded the Ger-
man-Irish Society, which was the European
counterpart of the Friends of Irish Freedom.
Among the officials of this Society were Herr
Erzberger, Baron von Eeichthofen, Count
Westarp, the leader of the Junkers in the
Eeichstag, Professor Edouard Meyer, Profes-
sor Schiemann, and many other eminent per-
sons. The Society ran a monthly review, Irische
Blatter, of which Chatterton-Hill was editor.

It is important to observe that the first num-
ber of this magazine appeared in May, 1917, a
month after the United States had declared war

THE GEEMAN-IEISH SOCIETY 197

against Germany, driven to that extreme meas-
ure, so repugnant to the genius of the Ameri-
can people, by the conviction that German suc-
cess would be fatal to civilisation, liberty, and
moral law. Yet in the opening address of the
German-Irish Society and in the pages of
Irische Blatter we find the following passages :

"The war has proved that Germany has very
few friends. But the Irish have acted as friends
at home as well as in the United States, and
Germany must not underestimate the value of
Irish friendship. From the beginning of the
war the American-Irish adopted the German
cause with enthusiasm, and in alliance with the
German-Americans conducted a courageous
fight for true neutrality. There is no doubt
that, but for the support of the Irish organisa-
tions, the politically unorganised German-
Americans would have been condemned to im-
potence. . . . The German-Irish Society will
devote its energies to reopening Ireland to the
world, and especially to Germany. It will . . .
generally and in every way further the pro-
gressive development of the Emerald Isle in
the interests of the German as well as the Irish
people."

So much for the inaugural address. Two
points may be noted. First, the Irish activities
which so embarrassed the American Govern-

198 MAKEES OF MISCHIEF

ment in the period of neutrality. Second, the
promise to throw Ireland open especially to
Germany^ whose crimes had dragged America
reluctantly into war. The following are pas-
sages from page 102 of Irische Blatter of May,
1917:

"When the West-Irish harbours serve as
bases for TJ-boats, and a large part of the coun-
try is in the hands of one of the organised revo-
lutionary armies, then will England's rule over
the sea quickly come to an end. Not only can
many English ships carrying munitions and the
necessaries of life be sunk, but others can be
captured and towed into Irish ports to supply
the Irish army with munitions and the Irish
people with food. Thus would England be
handed over to her enemies and the war quickly
brought to an end."

Here we pause to contemplate the prospect
opened up, not only for Great Britain but for
America, by the Friends of Irish Freedom and
the German-Irish Society. Secured in their
possession of the Irish coast, U-boats were to
have the Atlantic traffic at their mercy. Amer-
ican transports to be "sunk without trace,"
their ships, like those carrying the Eed Ensign,
to be sunk or captured at will. The war would
be swiftly brought to an end, and America

GKOWTH OF SINN FEIN 199

would share in the defeat. And this was the
programme of American citizens, directed not,
as in the case of England, against a nation which
had imposed her rule upon them, but against
the country of their own choosing.

Meanwhile in Ireland Sinn Fein was prosper-
ing amazingly. De Valera was elected for East
Clare by a huge majority; Mr. Cosgrave won
the suffrages of Kilkenny; in South Longford
Mr. MacGuinness wrested a seat from the Par-
liamentarians. A solemn resolution was taken
that no representatives of Sinn Fein would rec-
ognise British rule by taking their seats at
Westminster, thus incidentally sparing them-
selves the painful necessity of committing wil-
ful and deliberate perjury. The Clubs contin-
ued to multiply,* and the armies, to which
Irische Blatter so hopefully referred, to in-
crease.! The negotiations which had been in
progress in December had for the time come to
an end in consequence of Germany's refusal to
send troops — she was by now beginning to feel

*At the Sinn Fein Convention, October 25th, 1917, 1009
Clubs were represented by 1700 delegates. It was stated by the
Secretary that the total number of Clubs was about 1200, with
a membership of about 250,000.

t Mr. Duke, Chief Secretary for Ireland, estimated that the
Sinn Fein Volunteers numbered 200,000 men in October, 1917.
— Eansard, October 24th, 1917.

200 MAKEES OF MISCHIEF

tlie pincli — though she was ready and willing
to send arms and provide money.

Disappointed in their hope of another Civil
War, the high spirit of the Sinn Feiners found
an outlet in those forms of crime which habit-
ually distinguish moments of political excite-
ment in Ireland — shooting of police, robbery of
arms, cattle-driving, and boycotting. One case
of boycotting deserves commemoration. In
November, 1917, Mrs. Eyan, a school mistress,
was driven out of her school by a body of Sinn
Feiners ; the school was closed by order of Sinn
Fein and pickets were posted to prevent it be-
ing reopened until another teacher was ap-
pointed. Mrs. Eyan's offence was that, on the
occasion of Lord Kitchener's death in 1916, she
had played the Dead March in Saul in the pres-
ence of her pupils. "What is one to think of a
great national movement for liberty that can
descend to such pettiness?

Again, it is significant that these activities
coincided with an attempt to reach a settlement
of the Irish question more elaborate and con-
taining greater presages of success than ever
before. Out of twelve months of groping for a
possible solution emerged the Convention, to
which were nominated, or in some cases elected,
103 members, representative of every shade of

WEECKEES OF PEACE 201

opinion, and perhaps more representative of
Ireland as a whole than any other body which
had assembled since the Union. Great hopes
were attached to the meeting of this assembly,
and therefore it at once became the object of
Sinn Fein to wreck them.

From the outset Sinn Fein stood aloof, refus-
ing to send delegates to the Convention. It de-
parted from its attitude of neutrality when it
began to get abroad that a most promising
spirit of harmony and goodwill pervaded the
meetings. To prevent any such alarming de-
velopment Sinn Fein became threatening and
disorderly, to such a point that Mr. Lloyd
George had to give a solemn warning in Parlia-
ment that he would not allow incitements to re-
bellion, nor preparation for rebellion, nor any
separatist propaganda for the "sovereign in-
dependence" of Ireland.

Then the Eoman Catholic Church took fright.
The Bishops of Kildare, Clonf ert, and Achonry
preached in condemnation of the revolutionary
doctrines. A letter from Cardinal Logue was
read in all the churches of the Archdiocese of
Armagh on November 25th, in which he con-
demned : —

"An Utopian and ill-conceived agitation,
which could not fail to be followed by present

202 MAKERS OF MISCHIEF

suffering, disorder, and danger, and whicli in
the future would surely produce disaster, de-
feat, and, ruin — and all this in pursuit of a
dream which no man of sound sense could hope
to see realised: the establishment of an Irish
Eepublic whether by an appeal to the potentates
of Europe sitting in the Peace Conference or by
an appeal to force."

Thus did the elders of the Church throw over
the younger clergy and others, more mature in
age, but equally hot in blood, and say to Sinn
Fein "Thus far and no farther."

Sinn Fein was as deaf to the orders of the
Church as it had been to British advances and
Nationalist desire for settlement. New Ireland
replied to the Bishop that "Ireland had learned
in a terrible school not to regard eminent ec-
clesiastics as the supreme authority in questions
of politics." Mr. De Valera, protesting his at-
tachment to religion, maintained that the laws
of the Church did not condemn his doctrines.

So closed the year 1917, Unionists and Na-
tionalists striving hard and honestly to find a
basis for agreement; Sinn Fein striving hard
and lawlessly to make their efforts of no effect.
In order to achieve its purpose Sinn Fein at
this time made a further movement towards the
party of revolutionary Labour. New Ireland, in

GEEMANY ONCE MOEE 203

October, enunciated the opinion that of all
European parties Socialism most nearly ap-
proached the idealism of Christianity, an asser-
tion not in itself remarkable, but interesting as
marking the development of the alliance which
had begun before the rebellion. This further
advance towards the extreme Labour Party
was perhaps in some measure Sinn Fein's reply
to the admonitions of the Church. We have
seen how in its early days the movement suf-
fered no little damage from the suggestion that
it had anti-clerical implications, and it is pos-
sible that it now turned towards a party which
had scant reverence for ecclesiastical thunder-
ings to make up for any losses it might sustain
among its more devout adherents.

But there was another reason as well. The
negotiations between Sinn Fein and Germany,
which had broken down in the closing days of
1916, had been resumed, and this time with more
practical result. True, Germany was unable to
send men, for these were becoming more scarce
every day, but she could send arms and was
making elaborate preparations to send them.

St. Patrick's Day, 1918, was celebrated in
Berlin with great enthusiasm, in spite of the
fact that, except for Dr. Chatterton-Hill, the
celebrants were entirely German. Count West-

204 MAKERS OF MISCHIEF

arp presided at a banquet at the Hotel Adlon,
when speeches were delivered quite in the vein
of those o:^the "Watertoast Sympathisers. Their
tone can be the better appreciated if it be re-
membered that, when they were spoken, Ger-
many was preparing for her last desperate
throw and sorely needed every atom of help
that she could get.

Count Westarp laid down the doctrine that
'^a people which was incapable of a righteous
hatred towards their mortal enemies was also
incapable of any profound devotion to their
own cause." England, he went on, which had
been Ireland's mortal enemy, was now Ger-
many's mortal enemy as well. Germany had
never thought before the war that it would be
her mission to destroy England's maritime su-
premacy — ^here one pauses to reflect on the arti-
cles concocted by Casement and Kuno Meyer in
1911, and the toast of "Der Tag"— hut she had
been forced into the task and was in a position
to accomplish it, thanks to her numerical su-
periority and to the U-boats. Councillor of
Legation Von Strumm, who represented the
Foreign Office, played his best card to his part-
ner's lead. It was recently reported, he said,
that Ireland was quiet and that an Irish Con-
vention had assembled which was to settle her

PATEICK'S DAY IN BEELIN 205

destinies to tlie general satisfaction. But now
talk of the Convention had ceased, and Lord
French had gone to Dublin to "tranquillise"
Ireland. They knew what that tranquillising
meant : the people of Ceylon and the Transvaal
could tell them. If, as Mr. Asquith had said,
England's territorial conquests in the war were
to come before the Peace Conference, Ireland
should come before it too. Lord French might
conquer Ireland, but he would never subjugate
her, and Ireland could always count on the sym-
pathy of the German people.

Dr. Chatterton-Hill, in his response to these
assurances, described Sinn Fein as "that great
political, economic, and cultural movement
which recognised England as the evil genius of
Ireland, and which thwarted her and combated
her in every direction." And then he an-
nounced that "Ireland was on the eve of great
events." For his audience this dark utterance
held no mystery. To aid her great offensive on
the Western Front, Germany had arranged to
land a big supply of arms and ammuniton in
Ireland. Less than a month after Dr. Chatter-
ton-HiU's prophecy, an emissary landed on the
coast of Clare to announce its imminent fulfil-
ment. He was an Irishman, one Dowling, alias
'Brien, one of the few who had yielded to Case-
ment 's seductions at Litnburg. A few weeks

206 MAKERS OF MISCHIEF

later, in May, U-boats left Cuxhaven laden with
arms and ammunition, but never reached their
destinatioij. And then came the 18th of July,
when Lndendorff played his last throw at the
Marne and lost.

So perished Casement's dreams of German
dominion and the hopes cherished by Sinn Fein
of a German invasion of Ireland.

But Sinn Fein had gained something by its
activities. In March Mr, Eedmond died,
brokenhearted by the failure of his policy and
by domestic sacrifices made in vain, and with
him disappeared the most formidable opponent
of Eepublicanism in the Nationalist ranks.
The Convention, too, had failed to arrive at a
settlement. Sir Horace Plunkett summed up
the cause of its failure in two words : "Ulster
and Customs." '

More or less directly, Sinn Fein had been in-
strumental in developing these obstacles. It
had stiffened the Nationalist demands and the
Unionist resistance. It had widened the gulf
between the two great schools of Irish thought
until it became unbridgable. There was room
for accommodation, though cramped and un-
comfortable, in previous measures of Home
Eule — the exclusion of Unionist Ulster, for ex-
ample. But that device, artificial and difficult

THE NEW MOVE 207

at the best, became absolutely impossible in a
scheme which gave the Irish Government the
power of erecting a tariff wall. The success of
Sinn Fein in upsetting the attempts at settle-
ment by consent so often repeated swept away
all the ambiguities which had theretofore ob-
scured the Irish question, and made it a clear
issue.

These successes, however, were only partial
and negative. They were more than counter-
balanced by the defeat of Germany. Deprived
of her assistance, Sinn Fein had to seek other
alliances, and in the article in New Ireland we
have an indication of the direction in which its
thoughts were turning.

CHAPTER Xm

TSa BOLSHEVIK ATiT.TAKOB

Time was when the American-Irish were united
with the Russian sojourners in the great Repub-
lic in very cordial friendship. Those were the
days when Bokhara and Merv were on men's
lips, when maps of Central Asia were in de-
mand, when people shuddered at the name of
Penjdeh, and the slumbers of British statesmen
were troubled by visions of the Colossus with
one foot planted at Archangel and the other at
Cape Comorin. The Irish in America also had
their visions, but they were dissipated by the
war of 1906 and the destruction of Rodjestven-
sky 's Armada. They transferred their hopes to
Grermany, only to see them in their turn shat-
tered at the Mame. But ia her death agony
Germany had constructed a force to which the
Irish revoljitionaries turned in their distress, a
Russia, no longer the especial enemy of Eng-
land, but the enemy of every nation that aspired
to be civilised.

208

LOOKING TOWAEDS EUSSIA 209

, The way to this renewal of the old friendship
had been smoothed by Connolly during his so-
joi^rn in America. His hereditary Fenianism,
hid ardent assertion of nationality and his con-
tempt of the policy of Mr. Eedmond and the
Parliamentarians, gave him easy access to such
men as John Devoy and Jeremiah O'Leary,
while his career as an organiser of the Indus-
trial Workers of the World brought him in con-
tact with the potential Bolsheviki. Accord-
ingly we find the merits of Lenin's Government
extolled increasingly as the fortunes of Ger-
many wavered in the balance and declined.
Among a certain section of the Irish Eepubli-
cans there would appear to have been at first a
certain hesitancy, begotten perhaps of the
growing fear that the creation of the Soviet
Government had reacted injuriously to Ger-
many, perhaps — ^for there is a party of the
Eight as well as of the Left in Sinn Fein — of an
instinctive dislike of the new doctrine.

But they were voices crying in the wilderness.
As has been shown, Connolly's robust national-
ism and the practicality of his methods had
drawn towards him. men like Pearse, who grad-
ually became imbued with his economic doc-
trines and carried the infection into the Sinn
Fein organisation. There were others whose

210 THE BOLSHEVIK ALLIANCE

sole object was to attain independence, and who
were nof too nice or curious as to the source
from which they got assistance, and others
again who were revolutionaries first, last, and
all the time, and whose aim was destruction. In
a movement such as is Sinn Fein, whose ulti-
mate sanction is force, such elements are certain
to overhear the intellectuals and idealists, even
if they have no direct encouragement from its
leaders.

In this instance the extreme revolutionary
section and the Bolshevik alliance had firm
friends in the inner circle of Sinn Fein, The
men who, in America, played the leading part
in the formation of the new alliance were Dr.
Patrick McCartan and Liam {cmglice Wil-
liam) Mellowes. A few words are here neces-
sary to explain the position held by these men
in their work in America.

"When the United States went into the war
and Count Bemstorff left Washington, the
methods of transatlantic conspirators had to
be completely changed, and Mellowes and Mc-
Cartan were charged with the direction of af-
fairs. Both had left Ireland after the rebellion,
in which Mellowes commanded a force operat-
ing in County Galway. There is reason to be-
lieve that he had spent some time in Germany

NEW AGENCIES AT WORK 211

after his escape from Ireland, and it is certain
that in New York he was working in association
with a Baron von Eechlinghausen, a German
agent, one of their ohjeots being to forward
money to the Turks and to establish a mysteri-
ous Turkish organisation in America. The oth-
er, and the main object, of this trio — ^Mellowes,
McCartan, and Eechlinghausen — ^was to organ-
ise another revolution in Ireland in the spring
of 1918. In the preceding chapter we have seen
how this plot failed, how Cowling was captured
on landing in County Clare, and the arms
shipped at Cuxhaven failed to reach their desti-
nation.

The main cause of the failure was the arrest
of McCartan and Mellowes in October, 1917.
The "ambassador" was arrested at Halifax
while on his way to Ireland, while at the same
time Mellowes was captured in New York on the
eve of his departure, to use his own words, "for
the Easter sports of 1918." Documents were
found in Mellowes ' possession dealing with the
secret history of the 1916 rebellion, which could
not have reached any one who was not entirely
in the confidence of Sinn Fein. One of them
clears up the mystery, which puzzled the Ee-
bellion Commission, of the famous order for
the precautionary arrest of the revolutionary
leaders which was read by Alderman Kelly at a

212 THE BOLSHEVIK ALLIANCE

meeting of the Dublin Corporation on April
19tli, 1916, four days before the rising. The or-
der was given to Alderman Kelly by Mr. Little,
the editor of New Irelcmd, as having been is-
sued from Dublin Castle. The document found
in MeUowes' possession, however, shows that it
was a forgery, done by the Sinn Fein extremists
to force the wavering hands of Professor Mac-
Neill and to precipitate the rebellion.* In both
these purposes it succeeded : MacNeill gave the
orders for the Easter Monday operations,
though, as we have seen, he cancelled them.

So seriously did the arrest of Mellowes and
MoCartan compromise the revolutionary plans,
that in November Siim Fein was compelled to
send a long despatch to their New York agents
with a new set of instructions. This despatch
was carried by a certain Thomas Welsh, who
was arrested as he was disembarking from the
Celtic and was taken from him as he was at-
tempting to tear it to pieces.f

"General" Mellowes, therefore, holds a high
place in Sinn Fein, but that held by Dr. McCar-
tan is still higher. He is a medical man, a Fel-
low of the CoUege of Surgeons, and the Sinn
Fein "ambassador" to the United States, in

* Freeman's Journal, November 29th, 1917.
^Ibid., November 27th, 1917.

A SINN FEIN "AMBASSADOR" 213

which capacity we have already seen him ap-
proaching the head of the State. And in that
capacity also he was negotiating with the "am-
bassador" of the Russian Soviet Eepuhlic. Of
the nature of Mellowes' connection with the Bol-
shevists we have no precise knowledge except
that imparted by the Irish Labour organ, the
Voice of Labour, in the following paragraph:

"Almost every message we get from America
tells us how strongly an old friend, Liam Mel-
lowes, stands up for the Russian fighters for
freedom." *

Dr. McCartan's relations are infinitely more
definite. So far back as January, 1918, his
sympathy with the Russian Soviet Government
was recorded by New Ireland, a Sinn Fein pa-
per, and urged as a reason for his selection as
candidate for South Armagh :

' ' Dr. McCartan is imprisoned in America for
his activities as a worker in the cause of Irish
Republicanism. He went to America as an ac-
credited representative of the movement. We
know that his views are very strong upon the
importance of using the Russian democratic
programme for the benefit of Ireland, and of al-
lying ourselves with Russian democrats, and
with real democrats throughout the world." f

* Voice of Labour, June 2l8t, 1919.
i New Ireland, January 26th, 1918.

214 THE BOLSHEVIK ALLIANCE

During the following year the world shud-
dered at the infamies of Lenin and Trotzky and
their Conyjiissaries, but the Bolshevik enthusi-
asm of the Sinn Fein ambassador suffered no
abatement. The Soviet Government sent an
ambassador to America, a Mr. L. Martens, who
was rapturously greeted by the Irish revolution-
aries. In the spring of 1919 an exchange of
notes took place between him and the Irish en-
voy. The circumstances which led to it are not
without interest. A story was going the round
of the American and British Press that the So-
viet EepubKc was subsidising Sinn Fein to the
tune of some millions of roubles. The moderate
Sinn Feiners contradicted the assertion and took
occasion to express disapproval of the Soviet
methods. This would seem to have given pain
to Mr. Martens, for he straightway addressed a
letter to Dr. McCartan asking whether these
sentiments were shared by his government,
and incidentally denying that the Eussian Ee-
public had sent any funds to Sinn Fein.

In his reply Dr. McCartan disclaimed the au-
thorship of the report about the subsidies, and
with regard to the more important query said :

"The 4,000,000 people of the Eepublic of Ire-
land, in their struggle to free themselves from
military subjugation by an Empire of 400,000,-
000, want and welcome the aid of all free men, of

THE COMPACT WITH BOLSHEVISM 215

all free peoples, and, certainly, of the free men
of the Eussian Socialist Federated Soviet Ee-
public."

He then proceeds to say that the Irish people
do not believe the accotmt of Soviet rale retailed
by the Northcliffe Press, nor the stories of
Soviet outrages told by the British Grovemment,
which was itself participating in the butcheries
of Koltchak, Denikin, and Mannerheim, and
then he thus concludes :

"Hence, between the gallant, starving, iso-
lated Eussians striving against alien enemies to
found securely in Eussia a government of the
people, by the people, for the people, and the
Irish also isolated in their struggle against
British armies of occupation to found securely
the Eepublic of Ireland, there can exist only
that sense of brotherhood which a common ex-
perience endured for a common purpose can
alone induce." *

These assurances would appear to have been
entirely satisfactory to Lenin, for in June
Tchitoherin, the Bolshevik Foreign Minister,
sent a radio message to Bela Kun, which was
published by L'Humanite on June 16th. The
message ran thus:

* New York Call, May 10th, 1919, reprinted in tiie Voice of
Labour, June 21st. The same issue of the latter paper testifies
to the sturdy championship of the Bolshevists by Liam Mellowes.

216 THE BOLSHEVIK ALLIANCE

"Whereas in nearly every country our com-
patriots have neither protection nor represen-
tation, we have put all foreigners in the same
position, and we wiU afford them no special pro-
tection. Exception wiU be made, however, in
the case of the Irish and the Egyptians, and
of any other nationality oppressed by the Al-
lies."

Mr. Cathal 'Shannon remarks that "for
this special mark of honour both Irish and
Egyptians will be grateful to the Soviet Ee-
public." *

"We shaU doubtless be assured, as we were
assured in respect of Germany, that there is no
alliance between the Soviet Eepublic and the
Eepublicans of Ireland. Perhaps not — ^why
bandy phrases? — ^but there is a very substantial
understanding. It is abundantly clear that the
intellectual and idealistic side of the revolution-
ary movement had surrendered to the proleta-
rian. There are, of course, some who view this
development with distrust and dislike, among
them Mr. O'Hegarty, but as a whole Sinn Fein
has obeyed the ordinary law of revolutionary
evolution and no longer controls the force which
it set in motion.

It will be convenient at this point to consider
the particular causes which impel Sinn Fein

• Voice of Laboiur, July 5th, 1919.

THE RISING SUN 217

wiUy-nilly to gravitate towards the left, over
and above the ordinary revolutionary tendency
just alluded to. There is first the belief that
Eussian Communism is destined to triumph, as
set forth in a Sinn Fein paper:

"Their ideas are in the ascendant and
against them mere military force is powerless.
They have affected Germany deeply, they will
certainly affect France, Italy will follow easily
enough, England is doubtful, and the United
States wiU remain quite impervious. America
will have only American democracy, which is
merely snobbery and conceit under another
name."*

Holding this faith, Sinn Fein sees in the
spread of Bolshevism through Europe an em-
barrassment for Great Britain more serious
even than the threats of German militarism,
and all the more serious because of the possibil-
ity that it may invade Great Britain, as no Con-
tinental Power could ever do. Sinn Fein has
accordingly been impelled to enter into relations
with John Maclean, the Bolshevik Consul-Gen-
eral in Glasgow, and the Clyde Committee. Mes-
sages passed between them just before the Gen-
eral Election giving reciprocal assurances of
co-operation and asseverating the harmony of
their respective aims.

* Neio Ireland, January 12tli, 1918.

218 THE BOLSHEVIK ALLIANCE

Next, Sinn Fein has to consider its own po-
sition in Ireland. It now holds seventy-three
seats, but it must have doubts whether it wiU
hold as many at the next General Election.
Some of them it owes to the self-abnegation of
the Labour Party, which wiU hardly be so self-
denying on the next occasion. And Labour has
been growing in strength. The affiliated mem-
bership of the Irish Trade Union and Labour
Party Congress in 1912 was 70,000; in 1916 it
had risen to 120,000; in 1918 250 delegates
claimed to represent 250,000 members, while be-
tween 1916 and 1918 the income had increased
from £410 to £1,610. Labour is therefore a thing
to be reckoned with, not only for its voting
strength but as a field for recruiting.

And there is this further consideration which
can hardly be absent from the calculations of
De Valera. In all countries the rural population
is the last to catch the fever of revolution. In
Ireland the change from tenancy to ownership
is bound to operate as an additional prophylac-
tic against infection. Three hundred thousand
agricultural proprietors have been created, one
hundred thousand more have entered into ar-
rangements to purchase, and all of them on easy
terms which enable them to resell their proper-
ties at a large profit. These men are not inflam-

DEIVEN BY THE FURIES 219

mable material, nor are the dealings of the
Soviet Eepublic with the peasantry of Eussia
likely to arouse their enthusiasm — ^when they
get to know them. Sinn Fein is therefore
thrown back perforce on the urban population,
where revolutionary Labour is in the ascendant.
Such a combination of forces compels Sinn Fein
to accept the alliance, much as some of its mem-
bers may mistrust it, of the Bolshevik element
in the revolutionary movement.

"Were the revolutionaries to achieve their ob-
ject, it is probable that the new Irish Eepublic
would be the theatre of a sanguinary struggle
between the constructive and destructive wings
of the movement. But until that moment Sinn
Fein ignores the probable catastrophe of the
future in order to win the possible triumph of
the present. Indeed, it is compelled to ignore it.
It is being driven headlong by furies of its own
creation into paths which, most likely, it never
contemplated ten, or even five, years ago. It
has proclaimed a Eepublic, elected a President,
nominated its envoys, established its Parlia-
ment. To descend from such altitudes to an ac-
ceptance of local self-government would be sui-
cide. It would perish under the ridicule of the
world and the execrations of the people it has
deceived. Not one man of its leaders would ever

220 THE BOLSHEVIK ALLIANCE

again have a place in the public life of Ireland,
for Great Britain could never trust the word of
men who formed alliances with Germany and
avowed their desire to destroy her in the hour
of her sorest need.

Sinn Fein, therefore, must go forward be-
cause it cannot go back. But it cannot go for-
ward alone, it must have an ally. "Where is
one to be found? France, to whom revolution-
ary Ireland was wont to look, turns her back on
her to-day. America may express a platonic de-
sire to see the Irish question settled, and even
settled on broad lines, but Sinn Fein knows in
its heart that neither America, nor any other
Power in friendship with Great Britain, would
formulate or support a demand that she should
concede independence to Ireland, when the very
men who demand it have proclaimed that the
loss of Ireland means the loss of her place in the
world. So fully does Sinn Fein realise that fact
that already they are exchanging the language
of appeal and flattery for the language of men-
ace to the United States.

To what, then, can Sinn Fein turn for assist-
ance other than the revolutionary movement
which knows neither boundaries, nor interna-
tional obligations, nor scruples, and which itself
is using every device, however disgraceful, to

SINN FEIN PEO-DEVIL 221

gain adherents wherever it can find them?
Were the position thus nakedly presented to
some leaders of Sinn Fein, they would repudi-
ate it, though, there are many that would not —
Mr. "Walsh, for instance, the member for Cork
City, who said at Blackpool that "if the devil
himself and all the devils in hell were up agaiast
the British Government the Irish people would
be pro-devU and pro-hell. ' ' * But they comfort-
ably blind themselves to it when they enter
into relations with the extreme Labour Party.

Mr. de Blacam states the case very clearly in
the following passage :

"In the great national boycott of the English
language, English manufactures, English insti-
tutions. Labour will play a large — perhaps the
largest — ^part. Labour has practical work be-
fore it no less than Sinn Fein. Neither is a
mere agitation nor a theory turned into a party.
Sinn Fein is the nation's expression of its iden-
tity and right to self-determination, and its man-
date does not authorise it to declare for any
specific programme save in so far as that pro-
gramme proves to be the out-working of the
self -determining nation. Once in history Capi-
tal stood for liberty. In the Polish war against
Russia a hundred odd years ago, the capitalists

'Irish Times, December 11th, 1918.

222 THE BOLSHEVIK ALLIANCE

— Jewish bankers — of Poland cast in their lot
with the weaker side. "Were the wonder to be re-
peated, and were Irish capitalists to stand in
with the nation, Sinn Fein would accept their
aid. But Irish patriotism has proved to be sole-
ly resident in the democracy, and Labour is the
only party which has waived its private aims
for the national cause. In the Labour move-
ment, harmonising as it does with reviving Gael-
ieism, we see the nation determining itself. Sinn
Fein, that asks all citizens to work for Ireland
in their individual ways, is by its principles and
nature bound to sanction the patriotic endeav-
ours of the Labour Party, and to use the weap-
ons which a truly national body places in its
hands. By sheer force of patriotism, the La-
bour Party is engrossing political power, and by
forming — let us not say the workers but, what is
synonymous, the nation — ^into 'One Big Union,'
it is forging the most powerful weapon ever held
by the Gael. Before the united action of the One
Big Union, English capitalism, and with it Eng-
lish political power, are to be rendered im-
potent. The one-day anti-conscription strike
showed how a nation, wakened by Labour to a
sense of its economic solidarity, even though de-
prived of political power, can assert its wiU." *

* Towards the Sepublic, Chap. VT.

SINN FEIN AND SOVIETS 223

And this is how the Labour Party puts it:
'*^' The Eussian Government was the only Grov-
ernment that had sincerely and whole-heartedly
called for the self-determination of Ireland.
Their British Government had not done it be-
cause it was capitalist. Their Yankee Govern-
ment had not done it because it was capitalist.
The German Government had not done it be-
cause it was capitalist too." *

It would not be difficult to quote declara^
tions by leaders of Sinn Fein which show how
far it has moved towards the ideals of Revolu-
tionary Labour. The Countess Markievics, who
is a member of Dail Eireann and of the Su-
preme Grand Council, has openly declared for
Soviet Government and the disfranchisement of
all non- workers. Mr. Figgis, who is one of the
Secretaries of the Grand Council of Sinn Fein,
depicts a somewhat similar constitu|;ional evo-
lution :

"Just as in the old State each council held
authority in its own concerns, leaving to the
monarch the co-ordination of the whole, so the
modern councils would each rule their own af-
fairs, subject to the control of the Assembly of
the Nation. There would thus be two kinds of

*Mr. Cathal O 'Shannon, Irish Lalsour Congresa, Novemlber
Ist, 1918.

224 THE BOLSHEVIK MiLIANCE

representations gathered together, the direct
representation of the nation, <md there wovld he
the special representation of the interests, the
union and pattern of which create the national
life. Both -would meet in the Government. ' ' *

Here we see, and not dimly, the Soviet idea,
the Soldiers' and Sailors' Conncils, and all the
rest of the Bolshevist machinery, which, as has
been recorded, were adumbrated by James Con-
nolly a few years earlier.

It is, therefore, abundantly clear that whether
by conviction or compulsion, Sinn Fein and La-
bour must be regarded as a single entity for
the purpose of its revolutionary enterprise
against Great Britain, Mr. Eoberf Smillie
showed his grasp of realities when he called for
a strong representation of Labour in Parlia-
ment on the ground that there would then be
some inducement for Sinn Fein to go to "that
accurs'ed reactionary chamber." For then a
bargain might be made on the basis of "Your
fight is our fight, come over and help us." f

That Mr. Smillie 's words did not receive more
attention when they were spoken must be
ascribed partly to the delirium of the recent vic-
tory, partly to the preoccupation of the coming

* The Gaelic State in the Past and Futwre. The italics are
ours,
t At Glasgow, December 6tli, 1918.

lEISH LABOUR'S PEOaEAMME 225

elections, and in larger degree to an inadequate
appreciation of the realities Of the Irish situa-
tion. For if they he considered coolly and with
detachment they are full of significance. Let
us review the facts of the position.

In Ireland there is a dual alliance between a
party seeking political independence by revolu-
tionary methods and a party seeking national
independence, not only for its own sake, but as
the prelude to the establishment of a Workers'
Eepublic on the Eussian model.

"To win for the workers of Ireland, collec-
tively, the ownership and control of the whole
produce of their labour.

"To secure the democratic management and
control of all industries and services by the
whole body of workers, manual and mental, en-
gaged therein, in the interest of the nation and
subject to the supreme authority of the national
Government." *

Between the revolutionary parties thus co-
operating in Ireland and the Eussian Soviet
Eepublic there is an understanding as close and
intimate as there was with Germany, an under-
standing thus described by the Countess Mar-
kievics :

* Objeets and methods of the Irish Labour Party and Trade
Union Congress. See 2b and c.

226 THE BOLSHEVIK ALLIANCE

"We have a treaty witli Germany, the treaty
Casement promoted. At the end of the war, if
Germany is strong enough, she will make Ire-
land a free and independent Eepublic ; and Case-
ment gave an assurance that Ireland would be
true to her deliverers." *

All these formalities have been observed in
the arrangement between the Irish revolution-
ary parties and the Bolshevik Government. Dr.
McCartan has plighted the faith of Sinn Fein.
The delegates of the Labour Party have waited
upon and exchanged fraternal greetings with
Tchitcherin and Litvinoff, and have sealed the
compact ia the foUowing passage of a state-
ment on the international situation, unanimous-
ly adopted by the Irish Labour Party and
Trades Union Congress :

"Finally, and true to its tradition for liberty,
for internationalism, for the fraternity of the
working-class of every land and for the Eepub-
lic of the "Workers, Irish Labour utters its ve-
hement protest against the capitalist outlawry
of the Soviet Eepublic of Eussia, and calls upon
the workers under the Governments sharing in
this crime to compel the evacuation of the Ee-
public, at the same time as it renews its welcome
and congratulations to its Eussian comrades

• Speech in East l^one, April 2nd, 1918.

SMILLIE BACKS SINN FEIN 227

who for twelve months have exercised that po-
litical, social, and economic freedom towards
which Irish worhers in common ivith their fel-
lows in other lands still strive and aspire." *

The Soviet Grovernmeiit on its side, through
Mr. Litvinoff, its ambassador to England, en-
gaged to support Ireland's admission to the In-
ternational as a nation. In making this prom-
ise Mr. Litvinoff, who is said to have been well
informed about Irish affairs, said that James
Connolly's name was favourably known to the
Eussian Eevolutionary Movement.f

These allies have an understanding, or com-
pact — ^the exact word is immaterial — ^with the
revolutionary section of British Labour, the
party of direct action. Mr. Smillie has pro-
claimed that he is willing to see Ireland estab-
lished as an iadependent Eepublic in return for
the assistance of Sinn Fein in the promotion of
his theories. ' ' Your fight is our fight, come over
and help us." There is indeed an obstacle to
this plan of campaign — ^the Sinn Fein vow of
abstention from parliamentary action. But Mr.
Smillie, conscious that this vow might be re-
tracted were revolutionary Labour represented

• November 1st, 1918. From Report published by the au-
thority of the executive. The italics are ours.

tBeport by D. E. Campbell and William O'Brien, Trades
Union Congress, August 5th, 1918.

228 THE BOLSHEVIK ALLIANCE

in Parliament by two hundred and fifty men like
Hmself or Mr. John Maclean or Mr. Eobert
Williams, holds out the active co-operation of
Sinn Pern as an inducement to the electorate
to support him and his friends.

Meanwhile, pending the electoral triumph for
which he hopes and works, the work of the allies
is being carried on in the extra-Parliamentary
field. The British extremists threaten the stop- .
page of British trade and industry in the inter-
ests of Bolshevist Eussia, as witness the words
of Mr. John Maclean in the Call of January,
1910. Declaring that "Bolshevism is Socialism
triumphant," he proclaims it to be the duty of
British revolutionary Socialists to hamper any
attempts to impede its progress "by develop-
ing the revolution in Britain not later than this
year."

The Soviet Eepublie despatches its emissaries
to England, sets its printing presses to work
striking off forged notes to dislocate British
currency; and Eussian roubles, not forged nor
in the form of roubles, find their way to the
revolutionary treasury.

And Sinn Fein "does its bit" by keeping Ire-
land in a ferment, and watches events in Great
Britain in order to seize its opportunity.

CHAPTER XIV

A STATE OF WAR

"With the signing of the armistice a wave of so-
cial unrest and discontent swept over the coun-
try. Such a phenomenon is one of the sequelae
of all great wars, though perhaps seldom has it
been so widespread and intense. Practically the
whole industrial as well as the military strength
of the nation had been mobilised, whence it came
that there was no class of the workers left un-
affected by uneasiness and uncertainty as to its
future conditions. Add to this the prolonged
tension of the war, the excessive strain of
effort which it had demanded, and the disturb-
ance of economic condition which it had caused,
and it becomes easy to understand and condone
a certain petulance and unreason among those
whose work had come to a sudden end.

There were, however, elements in society
which resolved to play upon this temper for
their own ends. The pacifist cranks, the folk

229

230 A STATE OF WAR

who boasted that "they had no country" and
during the war had proved it by siding with a
foreign country against their own, people of a
baser sort who had hired themselves to the ene-
my, agitators who lived by disorder, aU saw a
chance and proceeded to tate it. German agents
also saw their chance and proceeded to take it.
There were many things in the great war that
astounded the minds of men and racked their
nerves, but nothing was more astonishing or
nerve-racking than the cobweb of intrigue, spun
by a hidden hand, in which the nation was en-
meshed, and in which it felt itself entangled at
every crisis. Its most formidable and baffling
manifestations occurred in connection with La-
bour. We have already seen how Baron Von
Horst was subscribing liberally to support a
great strike in the years before the war, and in
similar manner during the war enemy agents
were at work fomenting disaffection and pro-
moting trouble in the factories and shipyards.
The rank and file did not know it, they were un-
suspecting tools. There were men higher up
who knew it, and who talked of the rights of the
workers while they were thinking of the inter-
ests of Germany. The process was not confined
to Great Britain. In America Count Bemstorff
was plotting sabotage with reliable agents; in

"SAVE EUSSIA" 231

Mexico the German Minister was stirring up
trouble on the oilfields; while in Spain Prince
Eatibor's efforts to promote strikes in the great
mines evoked open denunciations in the Spanish
Press. A careful study of the war will show a
singular coincidence between industrial troubles
in Allied or neutral countries and the contempo-
raneous interests of Germany.

So too when Germany fell. Her intrigues
had failed to save her from falling, but they
might yet serve to mitigate the effects of the
fall. The engine was put in motion once more. A
certain section in Great Britain made lofty ap-
peals for generosity to the conquered in public,
while in private they fomented a disorder that
would enforce their open teaching. Further
to create embarrassment, they proceeded to stir
up revolt in order to preserve the existence of
the Eussian Soviet Government. It mattered
nothing that that Government itself officially ad-
mitted that its executions were numbered by
thousands, and that its own laws condemned mil-
lions to a slow death from inanition. "With-
draw from Eussia" became the battle-cry of the
revolutionaries.

Professing a pure democracy, these extreme
democrats proceeded to abjure their own faith.
"If the Coalition Government be returned,"
roared Mr. Smillie, "I will use my influence to

232 A STATE OF WAS,

make the position of the Grovernment unten-
able." The London Workers' Committee, to
whom tfee assurance was given, hailed it with
rapture, and pointed out to Mr. Smillie that he
could best effect his purpose by bringing about
a general stoppage of the mining industry as a
protest against "the violation of Eussia." *

Mr. George Lansbury outlined a similar plan
of campaign: "If the Coalition wins ... it
will be the first duty of Labour ... to put a
term to the life of this Parliament. . . , The
Constitution provides no remedy. Very well,
then; we must seek one outside the Constitution.
If we cannot persuade the Government, we shaU
have to coerce it. And we have the means. . . .
We must use our industrial power to regain our
political liberty." f

It is noteworthy that this threat was made
before ever the new Parliament was elected, and
that Mr. Lansbury and his colleagues were
prominent in their attempts to secure the most
favourable terms for Germany.

The principal efforts of the revolutionaries
were directed towards promoting revolt among
the workers against their authorised lea.ders.

•Article in the Workers' Dreadnought, by W. F. Watson,
President of the London Workers' Comnuttee. Quoted in the
Morning Post, January 10th, 1919.

t The Herald, Dec. 21st, 1918.

lEELAND AT BEENE 233

Their policy and its results are thus described
by Mr. Jack Jones, a Labour Member whose
principles are of a robust type:

"Some of the principal leaders of the unoffi-
cial strikes now taking place were well-known
anarchists, who were striving ui every way to
discredit organised political action, and if the
workers of this country were prepared to follow
their teaching, there would be reproduced here
the trials and tribulations of the Eussian and
German peoples. ' ' *

Such forebodings fell like sweet music on the
ears of the Irish Eepublicans. Already they had
begun to make ready to take the tide of social
and industrial unrest at the flood. Early in
November the Irish Labour Party had met ; as-
serted the principle of national independence,
and drawn up a constitution on the Soviet mod-
el. In the same month in which Mr. Jones
sounded his note of warning Mr. Cathal 'Shan-
non and Mr. Thomas Johnson were pleading the
cause of Ireland at the International Labour
and Socialist Conference at Berne, urging her
claim to be admitted to the International as a
national unit, expressing "a fervent hope that
the Bolshevik Eevolution would uphold the
purity of its noble principles against all its ene-

* Mornmff Post, February 7th, 1919.

234 A STATE OF WAE

mies," and declaring "the people of Dublin to
be at one with the people of Russia in accepting
the programme of the Revolution." *

"While Labour was thus consolidating the po-
sition of the Irish Republic abroad, Sinn Fein
was preparing for its establishment by force at
home. It may seem curious that Sinn Fein
should be planning another rising at the same
time that it was proclaiming its confidence that
the Peace Conference woutd give Ireland her
independence. But in fact that confidence was
largely assumed. In their hearts De Valera and
his colleagues must have nursed uneasy doubts
whether they could make good the promises
wherewith they had swept the constituencies.
Boldly as they might cite the cases of Poland,
Czecho-Slovakia, and Jugo-Slavia, old and de-
crepit organisms now emerging from Medea's
cauldron in youthful vigour, on their own be-
half, they must have known that the parallelism
between them was defective. They must have
known that they had not a friend at Paris — ^not
America, whose hospitality Ireland had abused ;
not Belgium, to whom Ireland had given a hos-
pitality not distinguishable from hostility; not
even Poland, nor Czecho-Slovakia, nor Serbia,

• Official Eeport of Berne Conference. Published by the
Irish Labour Party.

LOOKING TOWAEDS ENGLAND 235

on the side of whose mortal foes Ireland had
ranged herself. Sinn Fein had obtained a
pledge that Germany would represent its inter-
ests at the Conference, but when it became ap-
parent that Germany was to have no voice in
the deliberations the pledge became valueless,
and Ireland was left without a champion.

In these dismal circumstances the labour
troubles in Great Britain offered Sinn Fein an
alternative road to success, and one moreover
that, with good luck, might not be extraordina-
rily difficult. The Eepublicans placed their
faith in the Triple Labour Alliance of Great
Britain. The attitude of the railwaymen, miu-
ers, and transport workers was full of menace.
If it should, as seemed not unlikely, develop
into action, many of the obstacles to rebellion
would be removed.

Such a strike, by stopping locomotion, would
paralyse the military forces, and would localise
military operations to the great advantage of
the insurgents. It was, indeed, by no means cer-
tain that the unwitting aid of the "Big Three"
would not be more valuable to the Eepublicans
than the assistance which Germany had been
willing to give. To encourage the restless work-
ers in Great Britain a strike was precipitated
in Belfast by the Labour section of the Eepubli-

236 A STATE OF WAR

can party, while Sinn Fein witli f everisli energy
resumed its preparations for a military cam-
paign.

Immediately after the General Election Sinn
Fein proceeded to exploit the mandate of the
constituencies. On January 4th Dr. Patrick
McCartan, under the style and title of Envoy
of the Provisional Irish Government, notified
all the Embassies and Legations at Washington
that Ireland had severed political relations with
Great Britain on December 28th.* Thereafter
the Republicans proclaimed that a state of war
existed between Great Britain and Ireland, de-
scribing the military forces of the Crown as the
Army of Occupation. Thus it is proclaimed in
An Toglac, a newspaper printed and circulated
secretly and widely through Ireland :

"It is the wiU of Ireland, expressed by her
responsible Government, that a state of war
shall be perpetuated in this country until the
foreign garrison have evacuated our country. It
will be the duty of the Volunteers, acting in ac-
cordance with the will of our Government and
the wishes of the Irish people, to secure the
continuance of that state of war by every means
at our disposal, and in the most vigorous way
practicable. Every Volunteer must be prepared

•Wireless Press telegram from New York, January 4th:
Mommg Post, January 6th, 1919.

SIGNS OF THE TIMES 237

for more drastic action, more strenuous activi-
ties, than ever before since Easter, 1916. As
has several times been stated before, Volunteer
officers must contemplate the possibilities of of-
fensive as well as defensive action." *

In the face of this declaration of war the bit-
ter protests of the Eepublicans against the em-
ployment of the military forces in Ireland ap-
pear lacking both in logic and in that sense of
humour with which the Irish race is generally
credited. Whatever may be said against mili-
tary intervention in civil troubles, there can be
no question that soldiers are in their proper ele-
ment in a state of war.

The history of Ireland can at all periods be
pretty accurately followed through its criminal
records. Analyse the activities of the White
Boys, the Eibbonmen, the Land League, and the
cattle-drivers, and it is possible to gauge with
considerable exactitude the economic problems
of their respective eras. And so with the his-
tory of the last year. The breaches of the law,
and they were terribly numerous, proclaim the
purpose of their authors with astonishing can-
dour, and that purpose was civil war. Of the
old agrarian outrage there is little ; instead, we

•Lord Chancellor's speech, House of Lords, April 14th,
1919.

238 A STATE OF WAR

read of raids for arms and explosives,' and of
plans and methods for rebellion. Thus, Charles
Hurley, who was tried by court-martial at Cork
on December 17th, 1918, had in his possession
plans for the destruction of the police-barracks
and post office at Castletown, Berehaven, as well
as of the pier at that place where the British-
American stores were housed. He also had
plans for the destruction of roads and bridges
leading to that important centre by gelignite
and sulphine bombs. Michael Hoey, tried by
court-martial at Galway on March 25th, was in
possession of doctiments describing the best
method of destroying railways and telegraphs
and of instructions for mining bridges and for
attacking police-barracks.

There were numerous cases of attacks on po-
lice-barracks, houses, and individuals, all with
the single object of capturing weapons and ex-
plosives. In the middle of February a body of
men boarded a ship at Cork, and searched it for
arms, by authority of " a warrant from the Irish
Eepublican Army." An aerodrome at Collins-
town, Co. Dublin, was attacked in the night
about March 20th and eighty service rifles were
carried off. Explosives were especially in de-
mand, it being naturally the first object of the
Eepublican tacticians to destroy all ways of

THE TIPPEEAEY OUTRAGE 239

communication. One of these enterprises de-
serves particular attention, both as being typical
of the methods of Sinn Fein and because of its
consequences.

By a happy coincidence, just as Sinn Fein
was urgently searching for explosives, the Tip-
perary County Council requested the Govern-
ment to provide it with a considerable quantity
of gelignite for some blasting operations. The
gelignite was sent from the store in Tipperary
in the Council's carts, under convoy of two po-
licemen, on January 20th. The Sinn Feiners
were evidently apprised of the arrangements,
for the convoy was attacked at Sologhead, a mile
or two out of the town, by a party of men who
promptly shot both constables dead and cap-
tured the gelignite, leaving the Council's em-
ployers unharmed to carry the news back to Tip-
perary. The district was declared a military
area, an act which has been denounced as bar-
barous miltarism by the very men who glorify
the murder of the constables as an act of war.
The Eepublicans replied with a counter-procla-
mation, which is given in full. Lest there should
be any doubt, occasioned by its amazing charac-
ter, of the oflScial origin of this document, it may
be compared with a speech made by Mr. Eoger
Sweetman, M.P. for North Wexford, at Gorey
on January 5th:

240 A STATE OF WAE

"Any one who did England's dirty work, let
him he lord-lientenant, judge, or policeman, he
would tell them that they would treat them as
enemies «f the country thenceforward." *

It may also he noted that thirty copies of
this Proclamation were found in the possession'
of Michael Duggan, a Sinn Feiner, belonging to
County Tipperary.

* ' Peociamation.

"Whereas a foreign and tyrannical Govern-
ment is preventing Irishmen exercising the civil
right of buying and selling in their own mar-
kets in their own country, and

"Whereas almost every Irishman who has
suffered the death penalty for Ireland was sen-
tenced to death solely on the strength of the
evidence and reports of policemen, who there-
fore are dangerous spies, and

"Whereas the thousands of Irishmen who
have been deported and sentenced solely on the
evidence of these same hirelings and assassins
and traitorous spies, the police, and

"Whereas the life, limb and living of no citi-
zen of Ireland is safe while these paid spies are
allowed to infest the country, and

'Freeman's Jowmal, January 7th, 1919.

DECLAEATION OF WAR 241

"Whereas it has come to our knowledge that
some men and boys have been arrested and
drugged, and

"Whereas there are few Irishmen, who have
sunk to such depths of degradation, that they
are prepared to give information about their
neighbours and fellow countrymen to the police,
and

"Whereas all these evils will continue just so
long as the people permit:

"We hereby proclaim the South Eiding of
Tipperary a military area with the following
regulations :

" (a) A policeman found within the said area

on and after the day of February, 1919,

will be deemed to have forfeited his life. The
more notorious police being dealt with as far as
possible first.

" (6) On and after the day of February,

1919, every person in the pay of England (mag-
istrates, jurors, etc.) who helps England to rule
this country or who assists in any way the up-
holders of the foreign Government of this South
Eiding of Tipperary will be deemed to have for-
feited his life.

"(c) Civilians who give information to the
police or soldiery, especially such information
as is of a serious character, if convicted will be
executed, i.e., shot or hanged. ^^^^

242 A STATE OF WAR

"(d) PoKce, doctors, prison officials wlio as-
sist at or who countenance, or who are responsi-
ble for, or who are in any way connected with
the drugging of an Irish citizen for the purpose
of obtaining information, will be deemed to have
forfeited his life, and may be hanged or
drowned, or shot at sight as a common outlaw.
Offending parties will be executed should it
take years to track them down.

"(e) Every citizen must assist when required
in enabling us to perform our duty.

"By Order."

This Proclamation merits particular attention
as embodying the methods by which the Repub-
lic of Ireland enforces its authority, the same
methods of SchrecMichkeit on which German
militarism relied for the administration of Bel-
gium. It is not a dead letter, a mere hrutwm
f'idmen, a thing of sound and fury signifying
nothing. Its warnings have been fulfilled. A
County Inspector of Constabulary has been
murdered while altering the hands of his clock
to summer time ; the Estate Commissioners in
Clare have been threatened with death if they
allot land to ex-soldiers ; a respectable man in
County Galway has had his house fired into be-
cause his children attended a school which was

A EEIGN OF TEEEOR 243

under the Eepublican ban ! * The Countess
Markievics has preached the boycotting of po-
licemen's children;, constables and soldiers are
waylaid and attacked. In the South Eiding of
Tipperary itself, since the proclamation has
been issued, two constables were murdered in a
train at Knocklong Station in the presence of
the passengers and railway officials, and the
prisoner in their custody was rescued. District-
Inspector Hunt was shot dead in the crowded
market place of Thurles, and his murderers
walked quietly away unmolested.

The agents of Sinn Fein always are unmo-
lested. The people dare not speak nor jurors
convict. The long arm of Sinn Fein reaches
everywhere and its hand is laid upon the na-
tion's lips. There is no great mystery about
these deeds, their perpetrators are very fre-
quently well known, but sympathy or fear keeps
men silent.

While Sinn Fein was thus preparing for
armed rebellion in anticipation of a great labour
upheaval in Great Britain, the left wing of the
Eepublican party was busily engaged cement-
ing the Bolshevik alliance at Berne, promotiag
British industrial unrest through its agents in

* These cases were mentioned by the Chief Secretary for
Ireland in the House of Commons.

244 A STATE OF WAE

England and Scotland, and promoting serious
labour troubles in Belfast, both as an embar-
rassment to the Irish Government and as an en-
couragement to the revolutionaries on the other
side of the Channel, Mr. Thomas Johnson has
set forth the hopes and policy of the Eepubli-
cans with commendable frankness. Explaining
why the Limerick strike failed and was bound
to fail, he yet approved it because "there were
always the possibilities or probabilities that ag-
gressive action in Ireland might prompt aggres-
sive action on the other side." *

Mr. Bernard Doyle has thus expounded the
joint plan of campaign in Dublin :

"The voice of the Irish people, as expressed
at the polls, had given them authority to de-
mand the release of the men and women un-
justly held in English jails. The workers of Ire-
land were behind them and, speaking as a trade
unionist, he was glad to say that they were pre-
pared to 'down tools' at any minute in this mat-
ter at the command of the Irish Eepublic." f

The opportunity presented itself some three
months later. There was in Limerick prison a
man named Byrne, who was serving a term of

* Speech at Irish Trade Congress. Corh Examiner, August
6th, 1919.

t Irish liidependent, January 6th, 1919.

THE LIMEEICK SOVIET 245

hard labour. He went on hunger strike, and was
removed on March 12th to the hospital of the
workhouse, which is on the Clare side of the
river Shannon. Here he remained for some
weeks in charge of a prison warder and an
armed body of Constabulary. Saturday is the
visiting day at the hospital and visitors are ad-
mitted freely between 1.30 and 3.30 p. m. On
Saturday, April 6th, a party of twenty to thirty
men rushed into the ward where Byrne was
confined, guarded by the warder and five police-
men. A fierce revolver duel followed. One po-
liceman was killed, another dangerously wound-
ed, as were all the other constables and the
warder, though less seriously. The rescue party
then departed, taking with them Byrne, who had
himself been wounded in the fight, and whose
dead body was found a few days later in a cot-
tage a couple of miles distant.

The Government met this "act of war" by
proclaiming Limerick a military area. Under
these regulations permits were required to en-
ter or leave the city, and it therefore became
necessary for workers who lived across the
river to obtain passes in order to go to their
work. Such permits were readily obtainable,
and many employers obtained them for their
men. But this did not suit the workers, who

246 A STATE OF WAR

saw a chance of striking a blow in support of
Sinn Fein. A general strike was proclaimed.
The Roman Catholic Bishop and clergy pub-
lished a statement that "the proclaiming of
Limerick under existing circumstances was
, quite unwarrantable."

The National Labour Executive took the mat-
ter up. Mr. Cathal 'Shannon * urged on the
Irish Socialist Party the advisability of estab-
lishing Soviet Government in Ireland. Mr.
Johnson, his colleague at Berne, hastened to
Limerick to try the experiment there, while Mr.
'Shannon went to England to enlist the aid of
the Socialist extremists, whom he met at Shef-
field.

He told his sympathetic audience, the Confer-
ence of the British Socialist Party, the moving
tale of how the "Limerick Soviet" had struck
against ' ' a military occupation. ' ' He called for
"a combination of all the elements of the Left
in South Wales, Ireland, England, and Scotland
to bring about by their united efforts an alliance
of revolutionary Socialists, and thus end the
white terror now prevailing." The Conference
sent a message of greeting to their fellow-work-
ers in Limerick "struggling for civil liberty
against the military authorities in Ireland."

That they did nothing more must have been

* Vreenum.'s JowmaX, April 14th, 1919.

THE "EESPONSIVE MOVEMENT" 247

disappointing to the Limerick Soviet, which
was already printing notes, varying from one to
ten shillings, in anticipation of the Great Day,
an act which was approved with great enthusi-
asm by the Congress of the Independent Labour
Party at Huddersfield.

Mr. Thomas Johnson has revealed how great
a disappointment it was to the Eepublican lead-
ers. A national strike, he says, would have re-
sulted in armed revolt. The National Execu-
tive actually proposed that Limerick should be
evacuated by all its inhabitants, "leaving an
empty shell in the hands of the military."*
The local Soviet, however, rejected the pro-
posal, and the Limerick strike fizzled out, be-
cause, as Mr. Johnson put it in the speech just
quoted, "there was no probability of a respon-
sive movement in England and Scotland."

Here ends our survey of the Irish revolution-
ary movement. But the movement itself has not
reached its appointed end. In Ireland its desul-
tory warfare still goes on; in Great Britain it
still works to obtain that "responsive move-
ment" which Mr. Johnson holds is essential to
its success.

* Speech at Irish Iiabour and Trade Union Party CongiesB.
'Daily News, August 6th, 1919.

248 A STATE OF WAR

The overt action of Sinn Fein in London is
carried on under the aegis of the Self-Deter-
minationHieagne, but its real activities are on a
lower and darker plane. Time was when it
found its allies in the Fellowship of Eeconcilia-
tion. The Sinn Fein badge and colours, white,
green, and yellow, were to be seen at the
Friends' Meeting-house in Bishopsgate, where
the Fellows of Eeeonciliation denounced self-
defence because "human life is a sacred thing
and war abhorrent in the sight of God," while
they would go to Ireland, inspect Madame Mar-
kievics' Sinn Fein scouts — ^the British Boy
Scout movement was condemned as "tending to
foster militarism" — and extol "the armed
guards of honour which they saw parading to
do honour to the leaders of Easter, 1916."

Among the members of the Fellowship were
a large number of Irishmen holding appoint-
ments in a certain public office. In England
they held classes to create conscientious objec-
tors, and mock trials to instruct them in the art
of defence should they be made to suffer for
conscience sake. In Ireland they adopted ster-
ner methods. Large numbers applied for leave
in the spring of 1916. Some never came back;
it is alleged that many of those who did return
bore traces, and stiU bear them, of having left

A NEST OF EEVOLUTION 249

their conscientious objections to militancy be-
hind them at Holyhead.

At present the principal societies in London
■with which Sinn Fein works are the London
Workers' Committee, of which Mr, W. F. "Wat-
son is the head, and the Workers ' Socialist Fed-
eration, over which Miss Sylvia Pankhurst pre-
sides.

This latter organisation is very cosmopolitan
in character. Miss Pankhurst is a very ardent
and outspoken champion of Bolshevism, and all
who aim at the overthrow of society find a meet-
ing-place in Old Ford Eoad. There shall we
find the female Sinn Fein orator, whose ora-
torical excesses have earned for her a martyr's
crown of eleven days' imprisonment; the lady
who calls herself Belgian, but who has nephews
in the Bolshevik army, who contributes to the
Dreadnought, the organ of the Federation, par-
agraphs from the most advanced Communist
journals of Europe, such as Avanti and La
Vague, and who occupies her scanty leisure in
working for the Eussian Information Bureau;
and on occasion Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington. There
too might be found one James McGrath, a rail-
way clerk in the Camden Town goods office, until
his activities were cut short in February last,
when he was sentenced to six months' imprison-
ment for attempting to send pistols to Ireland.

250 A STATE OF WAR

Thither also come at intervals mysterious
Eussians, bringing advice and comfort and what
is euphemistically described as "assistance."
One such attended the meeting of the Federa-
tion last "Whitsuntide, grateful for the skill with
which he had been smuggled in and concealed,
and imparting much interesting information
about the Third International and the methods
of Eussian Bolshevism in return. In reply Miss
Pankhurst spoke of the honour done the Feder-
ation in having a delegate sent to its Annual
Congress direct from the Soviet Government
of Eussia.

The "Workers' Socialist Federation, indeed,
has always owed much to distinguished foreign-
ers. In its early days it secured the patronage
and pecuniary assistance of an old friend. Baron
Von Horst. "When he was detected in the distri-
bution of seditious literature in Ireland and in-
terned, his friend, Miss Lillian Troy, following
the direction of his sympathies, gave Miss Pank-
hurst the use of the Orpheum Cinema Theatre
at Croydon. This place at once became a cen-
tre of revolutionary propaganda. Mrs. Sheehy
Skeffington spoke, under the Sinn Fein flag, to
an audience largely composed of Eussian Jews.
In the same hall David Eamsay made a speech
for which he got six months' imprisonment.

LONDON WOEKEES' COMMITTEE 251

The London Workers' Committee is the Lon-
don counterpart of the Clyde Workers' Com-
mittee. Its programme is the destruction of
parliamentary government, and therefore it is
not surprising that the Sinn Fein badge is
largely in evidence at its meetings. This or-
ganisation claims the authorship of many
strikes during the war, notably the engineering
strike in May, 1917, which stopped work at
Erith, Woolwich, and other munition centres at
a highly critical period. At the Holborn Em-
pire on December 1st, 1918, Mr. Watson boasted
that he had formed the nucleus of two hundred
Soviets, that he had corrupted many Irish sol-
diers, and that the London Sinn Feiners could
supply him with several hundred men trained in
the use of arms.

This gentleman's revolutionary career suf-
fered a temporary check in consequence of an
indiscreet speech at the Albert Hall on Febru-
ary 8th. On that occasion the platform was dec-
orated with the Sinn Fein tricolour and the Red
Flag, and among the speakers were John Mao-
lean, the Bolshevik Consul at Glasgow; Mr.
Israel Zangwill, who has since endeavoured
with very indifferent success to explain away
his presence and his speech, and Mrs. Sheehy
Skeffington, who said that the two nations who

252 A STATE OF WAR

had done best in the war were Russia and Ire-
land — Russia because she had ceased to fight
and Ireland because she had resisted conscrip-
tion.

The offices of the London Workers' Conunit-
tee are shared by the Soldiers', Sailors' and
Airmen's Union, a frankly seditious organisa-
tion, run by a man who got up a meeting at
Folkestone last January, when the Colours of
the Guards had to be brought back to London,
and who, in consequence of the exploit, gained
the favour of the Daily Herald. Later the Union
started a movement to induce the Derby re-
cruits to desert on the ground that their term of
service had expired, and was in consequence
turned out of its offices in Whitefriars Street as
an undesirable tenant. This organisation, like
Mr. Lansbury, had a great deal to do with the
attempted police strike of the present simimer,
and is a favourite rallying point for Bolsheviks,
discontented soldiers, conscientious objectors,
and Sinn Feiners.

CHAPTER XV

CONOIiTJSIONS

Pebvious writers have called attention to the
persistence and continuity of the Irish revo-
lutionary movement. It has been the purpose
of this book to show that the Irish Eepublican-
ism of to-day, though in lineal descent from the
insurgents of the past, aiming at the same goal,
and sharing with them certain attributes com-
mon to all insurrectionary organisations, yet
differs from them in many particulars of the
highest and most urgent importance in their
bearing upon the Irish problem and its solution.
The present movement represents, indeed, in
great measure a revolt against its predecessors.
It is inspired by the conviction of their futility,
which it holds was due to the fact that the old
revolutionists, though they knew what they
wanted, did not really know why they wanted it
or how it could be gained. They had an aim,

253

254 CONCLUSIONS

but it was not a conscious aim, and therefore
all their efforts became of no effect. They
hated Britieh rule, but because they never clear-
ly grasped the reason for hating it, their hatred
never carried them far. And, what in the eyes
of the modem Republicans is worse, a purpose
based on hatred tends to become blurred and
dim as memory grows dull.

To meet this grave defect the Gaelic League
and Sinn Fein sought to revive a positive prin-
ciple — nationality — through the medium of the
Irish language. For the language itself, out-
side a few enthusiasts or sentimentalists, they
may have had but small regard ; their devotion
to it has been mainly due to the belief — possi-
bly well founded — that the National Idea which
it would generate would do more to keep alive
the spirit of revolt than the negative principle
of hatred which had inspired the insurrection-
ary movements of the past.

While men like Dr. Hyde and Professor Mae-
NeiU thus sought to inspire the National Move-
ment with an intellectual soul, the more prac-
tical Mr. Arthur Grriffith set himself to develop
a spirit of national commercialism, not only as
an object good in itself, but as a most effective
weapon against British domination. Irish Na-
tionalism was to have its own banks, its own

INSUEEECTION OLD AND NEW 255

Law Courts * and schools, its own consular
service, mainly because thus would be asserted
the principle of a separate nationality.

In like manner did James ConnoUy strive to
advance the interests of the proletariat. In-
dustrial freedom, he taught, was indissolubly
linked up with national independence. In a free
Ireland only could the Irish workers be free;
freedom for the workers of Ireland would be
incomplete unless their country also were re-
lieved of its shackles.

The introduction of this positive assertion of
nationality marks a great advance, and differ-
entiates the new movement from the old in a
surprising degree. In the first place it pro-
motes persistency of effort. Nothing is more
noticeable in the old rebellions than their spas-
modic manifestations. The risings of 1798,
1848, and 1867 were short-Uved. With their de-
feat the movement died away, not to reappear
for a cycle of years. During the intervening
periods men who had been conspirators became
constitutional reformers, some abandoned revo-
lution altogether, others became valued serv-
ants of the Crown against which they had con-

* The Cork Examiner of September 16th contains a report qf
a Sinn Fein Arbitration Court which adjudicated on a ques-
tion of the sale of an estate.

256 CONCLUSIONS

spired. The spirit which moved them to vio-
lence appeared to be rather the effervescence of
hot-blooded youth than a solemn and deliberate
policy.

Movements so inspired could be crushed with-
out difficulty when they broke ground ; there was
always the hope on one side and the fear on the
other that by the reform of abuses, by repara-
tion for old wrongs, by generous legislation, the
underlying hostility might be weakened. And,
as a fact, these hopes and fears were to a great
extent justified by events. Compared with the
rebellion of 1798, the risings of Smith O 'Brien
and James Stephens were little more than riots.
The revolutionary fever seemed to be burning
itself out ; the idea of national independence ap-
peared to be moving towards the academic stage
and to be becoming a tradition rather than a
principle.

The new Nationalism has changed all that.
It takes no account of the history of British
rule, it takes account only of the fact of British
rule. It is as little revengeful for past wrongs
— and there have been wrongs — as it is grate-
ful for benefits — and they are neither small nor
few.

"Our Nationalism is not founded upon griev-
ances. We are opposed not to English mis-

SINN FEIN PERSISTENT 2S7

government, but to English government in Ire-
land."*

Here, then, we are face to face with an abid-
ing principle of insurgency. Evil memories
may be transient, withered by time or effaced
by gratitude, but hatred of a fact persists so
long as the fact continues.

To perceive the operation of this spirit it
needs only to read Irish history since Easter,
1916. Such a defeat as was inflicted on the
rebels in that year would have crushed previous
revolutionary movements for half a century.
It did not check the new Nationalism for a
month. With their leaders dead or in prison,
the Eepublicans were planning a new rebellion
for the following year. When that effort failed,
they set themselves to foil every attempt at con-
ciliation, and succeeded.

In former times the irreconcilable conspira-
tors, when their plans went awry, withdrew into
obscurity to prepare new conspiracies. The
new Nationalists, on the contrary, have come
out more boldly into the light of day, establish-
ing a National Parliament and issuing the pros-
pectus of a National Loan, the interest of which
shall become payable on the international rec-
ognition of the Irish Republic.

•See p. 194.

258 CONCLUSIONS

They have proclaimed a state of war, and
are carrying on a guerilla warfare of a peculiar-
ly barharpus character. There have been peri-
ods of barbarous crime in Ireland's troubled
history. But in the worst of those periods there
was some ostensible motive for the barbarity. A
landlord might be suspected of severity, a
farmer might be held in abhorrence for taking
an evicted farm, a man might be regarded as
an informer or traitor, there might be some
personal or family feud — there were many mo-
tives which could never excuse the crime, but
which might, at least, explain it.

There is no such explanation, no such excuse
as "the wild justice of revenge," for the crimes
of to-day. They are not wanton, they are cold
and calculated ; they are not the outcome of per-
sonal passion, they are "the diabolical work of
an organisation." * Recalling the terms of the
Proclamation issued by Sinn Fein and quoted
in a previous chapter, the organisation which
directs such deeds can readily be identified.
And so in Ireland to-day no man is safe, what-
ever be his character or innocency of life, if he

• Key. Thomas MacBrien, C.C. Letter written in reference to
the murder of Sergeant Brady, and published in the Dublin
VaXbg Express, September 17tb, 1919. Mr. MacBrien is a
^man Catholic priest.

THE IMPLACABLE FOE 259

stands in the "way of the new Nationalism by-
reason of his attachment to British rule, or by
his willingness to discharge the ordinary duties
of a citizen.

There is no weakness or wavering in the
ranks of the Irish Eepublicans. They speak,
not as defeated rebels, but as men dictating
terms to a conquered enemy. They do not even
deign to parley with Great Britain, or to offer
her Ireland's friendship in return for Ireland's
freedom. Such language was held by the revo-
lutionists of the past : those of the present are
more inexorable. To them Great Britain is not
only a country from whose rule they desire to
escape, but a country which must be brought
down in headlong ruin. In India, in Egypt, in
South Africa, wherever England has a vulner-
able spot or disaffected subjects, these are the
places and the people for which Sinn Fein has
the most special regard and to which it is most
profuse in its promises of help.

It is not, however, on its intellectual and
political side that the new movement is most
sharply differentiated from the old. Infinitely
more novel and more menacing are its economic
developments, not only by reason of their in-
trinsic nature, but in their effect upon any pos-
sible proposals for a settlement of the Irish

260 CONCLUSIONS

question. Those proposals range from the grant
of complete independence, favoured by Mr.
Childers, to some such form of self-government
as is contained in the Home Eule Act. To dis-
cuss the merits of any of them is outside the
purview of this volume, but it would have been
written in vain were the facts which it describes
not taken into account in the consideration of
them.

The precise relations between Sinn Fein and
Labour are not easy to calculate, but there are
certain phenomena which suggest that they are
intimate, more intimate perhaps than is sus-
pected by those who talk glibly of settling the
Irish question by constitutional concession.

Although Sinn Fein means self-reliance, it is
the settled policy of the Sinn Feiners to attain
their main object through foreign aid. Ger-
many has failed them; America is alternately
threatened and cajoled, but in their inmost
hearts the Irish Eepublicans are doubtful of
success in that direction. Failing America,
there remains not a single nation that can help;
but there does remain a revolutionary system,
an Ishmael of humanity, whose only hope of ex-
istence lies in the fomentation of revolt against
established order. The Eussian Soviet Eepub-
lic, seeking to break down surrounding capital-
istic institutions, and even Socialist institutions

SINN FEIN AND LABOUR 261

if they connote stability or conformity to estab-
lished doctrines of government, is itself seeking
for allies in every direction, and so to Moscow
Ireland turns her eyes and addresses her ap-
peals.

Naturally the Irish Labour Party is the chief
instrument of such negotiations. But Sinn Fein
itself, whatever be its secret views of Bolshe-
vik doctrine, has also yielded to the pressure of
necessity. The conversations and correspon-
dence of Dr. MacCartan and Mr. Liam Mel-
lowes with Mr. L. Martens * cannot be disre-
garded in this connection.

That there is an understanding between the
Irish Eepublioans and the Bolshevik revolu-
tionists is beyond question. We have seen how
their emissaries are always in close touch with
the British extremists.! And it has been shown
how periods of Labour unrest in Great Britain
have synchronised with outbursts of crime and
outrage in Ireland. The coincidences are too
marked to be accidental. Nor is it possible to
resist the conclusion that the Irish Republicans
are in receipt of monetary assistance from Rus-
sia. The operations of Sinn Fein are costly.
Seven years ago it was penniless ; to-day it
wields a huge organisation, runs newspapers,

* See Chap. XIII.
tSee Cihap. XIV.

262 CONCLUSIONS

purchases arms and muntions of war, keeps its
representatives abroad, and maintains an army
of officials at home. Even its hired assassins are
supplied with motor-cars. It gets money some-
where, and the Soviet Republic is known to be
spending large sums in foreign propaganda.
The fact is not concealed. Bela Kun is not the
only alien revolutionary who has received
grants from the Soviet Treasury. It is known
that money has reached this country, but Miss
Pankhurst only accounts for a small part of it.
And it is not to be overlooked that, in the revela-
tions lately made by the police authorities, the
name of Mr. L. Martens occurs as one of those
who are prominently concerned in this Bolshe-
vik propaganda — Mr. Martens, with whom Mac-
Cartan and Mellowes are in intimate relation.

The inference will, of course, be stoutly de-
nied. But so were the financial transactions be-
tween Sinn Fein and Bemstorff denied ia Dub-
lin — and admitted in Berlin.

It is possible, it is even probable, that among
the members of Sinn Fein there are many who
view these economic tendencies with aversion
and apprehension. But, much as they fear the
movement, they are powerless to stop it, as
throughout history the moderates have always
been captured by the extremists. Eevolutions,

MIRABEAU AND MAEAT 263

it has been said, devour their children; Mira-
beau always gives way to Marat.

It results from this that schemes of settle-
ment, designed to placate the moderates of Sinn
Fein, are foredoomed to failure for the reason
that the moderates no longer count. One may
go even further, and say that schemes of settle-
ment which might attract the more stalwart ad-
herents of Sinn Fein have very little chance of
success. There was, as we have seen, a time
when Mr. Griffith might have accepted the Con-
stitution of 1782 in satisfaction of his demands,*
though it might not have satisfied the majority
of his colleagues. That time, as Mr. 'Hegarty
says, has gone ; but even had it not gone,' such a
proposal would be rejected by the Labour wing
of the Eepublican Party, and by those — ^not a
few — of the Sinn Feiners who stand with them.

In formulating his economic policy and con-
structing his party of revolutionary Labour,
Connolly appealed to sentiment and self-inter-
est. In the former — the reference to the Old
Celtic communal system — ^he sought the inspira-
tion of his movement, in the latter its driving
force. That force lies in the belief, which he so
strenuously inculcated, that all the old Irish pa-
triotic movements had broken down because

•See Chap. III.

264 CONCLUSIONS

they took no account of the interests of the
workers. Especially had the constitutional pa-
triots betrayed the interests of the proletariat,
keeping afive and exploiting their wrongs for
their own selfish political purpose. While the
revolutionary movements had not been guilty
of such black treachery, and had even in some
cases caught glimpses of the truth, they too had
failed because their direction had fallen into the
hands of the capitalists and the bourgeoisie. If
Labour, then, is to' reap any reward for its Na-
tionalism and any security for itself, it must
look, in the words of Wolfe Tone, "to that re-
spectable class — ^the men of no property."

The proletarian wing of the Republican Move-
ment is, therefore, unalterably pledged to op-
pose any settlement on constitutional lines.
Even were it not so pledged, its adhesion to
Bolshevism would make the acceptance of con-
stitutional conditions impossible. Already there
are signs that Labour is somewhat distrustful
of the more moderate Republicans and is deter-
mined to impose its will upon the movement.

The growth and influence of Irish Bolshev-
ism must be taken into serious account in aiiy
review of the Irish problem and in any remedial
measures for its solution. A Bolshevist Ireland
would be a constant menace to the social and

THE EEAL ISSUE 265

industrial peace of Great Britain. For of all
modem creeds Bolshevism is necessarily the
most aggressive. There is no place in a com-
munity of States based on social order for a
State founded upon anarchy. Static conditions
are fatal to its existence ; it must proselytise or
perish.

Such is the position of Ireland to-day, and
all because five years ago, when the path of con-
stitutional self-government within the British
Empire lay broad and smooth before her, she
took the wrong turning. The road she then
chose has led her iuto wastes whereof no man
can see the end. To all who would help to guide
her back to the point from which she went
astray she turns blind eyes and deaf ears. To
all who approach her with offers of conciliation
she replies with Jehu, ""What hast thou to do
with peace? Turn thee behind me." On one
point only is there agreement between the war-
ring factions — that there can be no agreement.
"There is no half-way house between Union
and Separation," says Sir Edward Carson at
Belfast. And across the Atlantic, like an echo,
comes De Valera's response, "There is no half-
way house between Union and Separation."

INDEX

America, alliance with Ger-
many and Ireland, 145;
Casement and an Anglo-
Saxon alliance, 145

Armistice, The, Lahouf atti-
tude, 229

Aud, The, attempt to land
officers and arms in Ire-
land, 177

Berne Conference, Irish dele-
gates' claim at, 233

Bernhardi, General von, Irish
allies, 131

Bernstorff, Count, appoint-
ment of Bishop of Cork,
185; financial aid for Sinn
Fein, 162; German help for
rebellion, 176; German in-
trigue in America, 154, 171

Blacam, Aodh de, Bolshevism
in Ireland, 108; Labour,
power of, 221

Bolshevism, Blacam, Aodh de,
108 ; exceptional treatment
for Irish, 216; negotiations
between Dr. MacCartan and
Russian Soviet RepubUe,
213-215; Sinn Fein al-
liance, 208-228

British Army's cowardice,
Warburton, Lt.-Col. J. T.,
152

British Socialist party, Iiimer-
ick strike, 246

Buckingham Palace confer-
ence, failure ef, 1

Byrne, R. J., rescued from
hospital, 245

Casement, Sir Roger, 122;
accepts British knighthood,
124; alliance of Germany,
America and Ireland, 145;
Anglo-Saxon alliance, 126,
145; Belgium and England,
124; Germany and Ireland,
126, 128-130, 157-159; Ger-
man sabotage agents in
America, 154; German rela-
tions, 124; Great Britain
and subject nationalities,
143; freedom of the seas,
126, 128, 149, 155; Irish
Brigade, 123, 160; Irish-
men to arm, 147; lands in
Ireland and is arrested,
177; war anticipated, 141,
147

Catholic Emancipation Act
and agrarian troubles, 84;
ConnoUy, James, criticises,
85

Chatterton-Hill, Dr., Sinn
Fein movement, 205

Citizen army, 117; alliance
with Irish volunteers, 173

Clan-na-Gael, assists Gaelic
League, 19; GaeUe League
and politics, 16

Coalition Government, Labour
opposition to, 231

Cohalan, Dr. Daniel, appoint-
ed Bishop of Cork, German
influence, 185

Cohalan, Judge D. J., German
help for Irish rebellion, 176

Congo, Casement, Sir Roger,
124

267

268

INDEX

Connolly, James, 8, 43-54;
British admlnistTation dur-
ing famine of 1846, 90;
Catholic Emancipation Act,
85 ; GrattanJs Parliament,
62-68; Industrial Workers
of the World, 103, 104;
Irish Socialist Bepublican
Party, 45; Labour and Pol-
itics, 104, 116; Labour in.
Irish history, 44; Land
Purchase Act, 23; opposi-
tion to Eoyal celebrations,
102; penal laws, 56; Poy-
nings Law, 58, 59; Sars-
field and the siege of Lim-
erick, 53; seven years in
America, 103 ; Socialism,
104-108 ; strike campaign,
114, 115; United Irishmen,
69-71, 75; Young Ireland-
ers, 91, 92

Convention, The Irish, Sinn
Fein attitude, 201, 206

Croke, Archbishop, Gaelic
Athletic Association anti-
English movement, 17

Comann na nGraedheal, 20-
22

Cunard Steamship Company,
ceases to call at Queens-
town, 134

Datjghtees of Erin Societies,

20
Devoy, Cypher code, 171
Doyle, Bernard, release of

Sinn Fein prisoners, 244
Dublin strike of 1913, 117
Dublin Trades Council, 115
Dungannon Clubs, 20

Education, Griffith, Arthur,
criticised Irish system, 32;
teaching rebellion in schools;
32

Emmett conspiracy, 76, 77

Factokt laws, O 'Connell,
Daniel, opposition to, 81

Famine of 1846, 89, 90; Con-
nolly on British adminis-
tration, 90

Fellowship of Eeconciliation,
Sinn Fein alliance, 248

Fenian rising, 98

Figgis, Darrell, Soviet gov-
ernment, 223

Flood, Henry, 60

Free Trade, Griffith, Arthur,
31

Freedom of the seas. Case-
ment, Sir Roger, 126, 128,
149, 155

Friends of Irish Freedom, So-
ciety of, 196

Gaelic Athletic Association,
17-19 ; Croke, Archbishop,
17

Gaelic League, 11-17, 21; fi-
nancial aid from America,
19; Hyde, Dr. Douglas, 16;
poUtics and, 14-16

General election, 1910, Sinn
Fein set-back, 40

George, Et. Hon. D. Lloyd,
schemes for Irish settle-
ment, 180-184, 191

Germany, alliance with Amer-
ica, and Ireland, 145; at-
tempt to land arms in Ire-
land, 177, 205; Casement
on German friendship, 157-
159; Casement's Irish Bri-
gade, 123, 160; intrigue in
America, 171; invasion of
Ireland, Irishmen to assist
German troops, 170; Irish
negotiations resumed, 1918,
203 ; St. Patrick's Day ban-
quet, Berlin, 1918, 203;

INDEX

269

sabotage agents in Ameri-
ca, 154; world power, 151

German Irish Society in Ber-
lin, value of Iriali friend-
ship, 196-199

Ginnell, Laurence, M.P., criti-
cises United Irish lieague,
112

Grattan, Henry, 60

Grattan's Parliament, 62-68

Great Britain, Sinn Fein sev-
ers political relations, 236

Griffith, Arthur, 7; Austro-
Hungarian relations, 25;
British administration, Sinn
Fein opposition, 35; Cu-
mann na nGaedheal, 20;
editor United Irishman, 21;
education in ' Ireland, 32;
Free Trade, 81; Home Rule
BiU, 120; Ireland not at
war with Germany, 156

Hambueg-A m e b I c a Line,
Queenstown a port of call,
134

Hibernians, Ancient Order
(American), assists Gaelic
League, 19

Home Eule, Griffith, Arthur,
120; settlement by parti-
tion, 180, 181, 183, 191;
Sinn Fein attitude, 5

Horst, Baron Von, 132, 134;
arrest of, 170; Workers'
Socialist Federation, 250

Hungary, resurrection of,
Griffith, Arthur, 25

Hyde, Dr. Douglas, 7; Gaelic
League, 11, 14-16

Imperial Parliament, absence
of Irish members, 24, 199

Industrial Workers of the
World, 103, 104

Irish Brigade, Casement fails
to raise, 161

Ireland, strategic importance
of, 126, 128, 149, 150, 155

Irish Council Bill, 1907, Sinn
Fein's opportunity, 88

Irish Felon, 95

Irish Freedom, pro-German
articles in, 132; war antici-
pated, 141

Irish Labour Party, 116, 117,
218; constitution on Soviet
model, 288; Larkin's "Call
to Arms," 115; Sinn Fein
alliance, 174, 202; support
for Eussian Soviets, 226

Irish Beview, "Ireland, Ger-
many and the Next War,"
128

Irish Socialist Federation in
America, formation of, 108

Irish Socialist Republican
Party, 105; formation of,
44, 45

Irish Trade Union Congress
(see also Irish Labour Par-

ty), 45

Irish Transport and General
Workers' Union, formation
of, 111

Irish Volunteers, 135-140,
173, 189, 199; alliance with
Citizen Army, 173; person-
nel of Committee, 138;
Eedmond's nominees repu-
diated, 166

Irish Worker, 115

Irish Tear Book, Sinn Fein
publication, 27

Irishman, The, politics and
athletics, 18

Johnson, Thomas, Limerick

strike, 244, 247
Jones, Jack, strike leaders and

270

INDEX

organised political action,
233

Kbaling, John P., German
sabotage agent in America,
154

liABOTJB (see also Irish Labour
Party), Connolly hostile to,
79-81; power of, 221-225

Labour and the Union, 56-68

Labour organisations in Ire-
land, 44

Lacy, L. de, 169

Lalor, Pintan, no rent cam-
paign, 96; repeal and the
land question, 94-97

Land League, established
1879, 99

Land Purchase Act, 23

Land question, no rent cam-
paign, 96; repeal of the
Union, 94-97

Lansbury, George, Coalition
Government, 232 ■

Larkin, James, 8, 110; La-
bour "Gall to Arms," 115

Leslie, John, 48

Limerick, Bishop of, praisea
rebels, 179

Limerick strike, 245-247

List, Frederick, 31

Logue, Cardinal, condemns
revolutionary agitation, 201

London Workers' Committee,
Sinn Fein alliance, 249, 251

iMsitania atrocity, effect on
Irish-Americans, 172

McCaetan, Br. Patrick, ar-
rested at Halifax, 211;
Irish Ambassador in Amer-
ica, 194; Irish political re-
lations with Great Britain
severed, 236; negotiations

with Eussian Soviet Bepub-
lio, 213-215

McGarrity, Joseph, German
sabotage agent in America,
154

Maclean, John, 251; Bolshe-
vist Socialism triumphant,
228

MacHanus, Seamus, teaching
rebellion in schools, 32

MacNeill, Prof. John, 146;
appeals to Joseph McGar-
rity for arms, 156; cancels
marches and parades, 177

MarkieYies, Countess, Soviet
government, 223 ; treaty
with Germany, 225

Martens, L., Soviet govern-
ment ambassador, 214

Mellowes, Liam, arrested in
New York, 211; Bolshevik
sympathies, 213

Meyer, Prof. Edouard, Ireland
Germany's ally, 172

Meyer, Kuno, 142, 148

Mitchell, John, social revolu-
tion, 93

Moore, Col. Maurice, Irish
Volunteers, 138

Morel, E. D., 123, 127

Nationalist Party, Irish
Council Bill 1907, 38; Sinn
Fein hostile to, 3, 5, 37,
119, 164-167, 192

O'Brien, Smith, rebellion of,

1848, 92
O'Brien, William, M.P., Sinn

Fein scheme to capture his

party, 39
O 'Connell, Daniel, Emmett

conspiracy, 77; hostile to

Labour movement, 79-81 ;

opposed to Irish language,

12

INDEX

271

O'Connor, Teargus, disagrees
with O 'ConneU over Labour
question, 81

O'Hegarty, P. 8., Sinn Fein
policy, 30, 41, 120

O 'Leary, Jeremiah, German
sabotage agent in America,
154; indicted for treason,
154

O 'Shannon, Cathal, capitalist
opposition to self-determi-
nation, 233; grateful to
Soviet Eepublic, 216; Soviet
government, 246

Owen, Robert, establishes So-
cialist colony, 99

Pankhuest, Miss Sylvia,
Workers' Socialist Federa-
tion, 249, 250

Parnell, Charles Stewart,
"Last link" speech, 100

Peace Conference, Sinn Fein
and, 30, 234

Penal Laws, Connolly, James,
56; economic result, 74

Poynings' law, 58

QuEENSTOWN, Hamburg-
America Line and Cunard
Company, 134

Eebellion of 1848, 91-93

Eebellion of 1916, 178-180;
release of prisoners, 193

Eebellion of 1918, prepara-
tions for, 235-238

Eedmond, J., M.P., policy
wrecked by Sinn Fein, 6;
rejects Home Eule by par-
tition, 191; traitor to Ire-
land, 168; volunteer spUt,
166

Repeal of the Union, land
question and, 94-97

Eepublican movement {see al-
so Sinn Fein), 189
Eevolutionary movements, 3,

4, 5, 69-83

Eibbon Society, 85-88; oath

of membership, 87
Eooney, William, 21

Sakspield, Patrick, James,

Connolly, on, 53
Self-determination League, 248
Sinn Fein, 7, 27-42; alliance
with Labour, 174, 202, 218;
attitude towards Irish Con-
vention, 201, 206; Bolshe-
vik alliance, 208-228; Brit-
ish administration, 34; Brit-
ish labour trouble and suc-
cess of rebellion, 235; con-
stitution and aims, 27-29;
criminal outrages, 200; fi-
nanced by Germany, 158,
161-163; O'Hegarty, P. S.,
30 ; Home Eule Act, 5 ; hos-
tile to Nationalist party, 3,

5, 37, 164-167, 119, 192;
Irish Council Bill, 1907, 38;
Land Purchase Act and, 23 ;
London organisations, 248,
249; members refuse to at-
tend Westminster, 24, 199;
political relations with Great
Britain severed, 236; prep-
aration for second rebellion,
235, 238; proclamation
against British rule, 241;
revolutionary movement, 3,
5; Unionist attitude, 37

Skeffington, Mrs. Sheehy, 249,
250, 251

Smillie, Eobert, Coalition
Government, 231 ; bargain
with Sinn Fein, 224, 227

Socialism, Connolly's scheme,
105-108; Irish Socialist Ee-
publican party, 44, 45

272

INDEX

Soldiers', Sailors', and lAir-
men'a Union, 252

Steele, Thomas, denounces
Bibbonmen, 88

Sweetman, Boger, M.P., de-
nounces judges, policemen,
etc., 240

Thompson, William, distribu-
tion of wealth, 99

Tone, Wolfe, United Irish-
men, 72, 75

Trade Unions, alliance with
Bepeal of the Union move-
ment, 80; development of,
in 1824, 78; O'Connell's
hostility, 81; political ac-
tivity, 116; Eibbon Society
and, 86-88; in Ireland, 44

Troy, Miss Lillian, Queens-
town and Ireland's trade,
133

United Irish League, Ginnell,

Laurence, M.P., 112
United Irishman, The, 21
United Irishmen, 69-75; Con-
nolly, James, 69-71; demo-
cratic ideals, 73 ; revolu-
tionary movement, 72-73 ;
Wolfe Tone on aims of, 72

Valkea, E. de, 179
Volunteer movement, see Irish
Volunteers

Walsh, J. J., MJ*., anti-
British speech, 221

War, anticipated by Case-
ment, 141, 147; Ireland's
chance, 2; Ireland at the
outbreak, 1

Warburton, Lt.-CoL J. T.,
British Army's cowardice,
152

Welsh, Thomas, arrested car-
rying Sinn Fein despatch,
212

Westarp, Count, speech on St.
Patrick's Day, 1918, 204

Worker's BepuoUc, 102

Workers' Eepublican party,
109

Workers ' Socialist Federa-
tion, Sinn Fein and Bus-
siau Bolshevism, 249

Young Irelanders, objects of,
20; Connolly, James, 91,
92; reject Lalor's Counsels,
97

Ireland an Enemy
OF THE Allies?

iL'IRLANDE—ENNEMIE ?)

BY

R. C. ESCOUFLAIKE

An illuminating work on the meaning of Irish
propaganda and Sinn Fein agitation.

M. Escouflaire is a Frenchman who for years had
taken the Irish anti-British propaganda as genuine.
When in consequence of the war he became personally
acquainted with the British, he was unable to reconcile
their behavior and their ideals with what he had heard
about them through the Irish. He therefore made an
independent study of the Irish question, entering upon
it with a perfectly unprejudiced mind, and the result
of his discoveries is that he feels himself able to pro-
nounce the Irish question "an international imposture."
The reasons which led him to this verdict are to be
found in this book.

The Spectator says of it:

" M. Escouflaire is one of the few foreigners who
have taken the trouble to study the Irish question,
instead of accepting at their face-value the
theatrical assertions of Nationalists and Sinn
Feiners. . . . His well-informed little book de-
serves to be widely read."

E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY
68 1 Fifth Avenue New York

Elizabethan
Ulster

ERNEST HAMILTON

Avthor of "The First Seven Divisions" "The Sold
of Ulster," etc.

WITH MAP

A serious and well-considered historical study of one
of the most turbulent periods of all the turbulent history
of Ireland.

Beginning with the renunciation of royal pretensions
by Con Bacagh O'Neil at the time of his investiture
with the Earldom of Tyrone by King Henry VIII,
the author carries his narrative up to and just beyond
the crucial battle of Kinsale, in the year before Queen
Elizabeth's death.

It is a remarkable and extraordinarily interesting
story, the treachery and almost incredible savagery of
the Irish chieftains being fairly matched by the venality
and incompetence of Elizabeth's commanders.

At a time when the real history of Ireland is in
demand as distinguished from the fantastic legends
which are generally circulated as such, this study,
based exclusively on documents of the period, by a
scholar who has had the additional advantage of being
an Ulster M. P. for several years, is particularly val-
uable.

E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY
68 1 Fifth Avenxje New York

5.ft

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