Books: Imaginations and Reveries
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(A.E.) George William Russell >> Imaginations and Reveries
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8. I desire first to argue with Irish Unionists whether it is accurate
to say of them, as it would appear to be from their spokesmen, that
the principle of nationality cannot be recognized by them or allowed
to take root in the commonwealth of dominions which form the Empire.
Must one culture only exist? Must all citizens have their minds
poured into the same mould, and varieties of gifts and cultural
traditions be extinguished? What would India with its myriad races
say to that theory? What would Canada enclosing in its dominion
and cherishing a French Canadian nation say? Unionists have by
every means in their power discouraged the study of the national
literature of Ireland though it is one of the most ancient in Europe,
though the scholars of France and Germany have founded journals for
its study, and its beauty is being recognized by all who have read it.
It contains the race memory of Ireland, its imaginations and thoughts
for two thousand years. Must that be obliterated? Must national
character be sterilized of all taint of its peculiar beauty? Must
Ireland have no character of its own but be servilely imitative of
its neighbor in all things and be nothing of itself? It is objected
that the study of Irish history, Irish literature and the national
culture generates hostility to the Empire. Is that a true
psychological analysis? Is it not true in all human happenings
that if people are denied what is right and natural they will
instantly assume an attitude of hostility to the power which denies?
The hostility is not inherent in the subject but is evoked by the
denial. I put it to my Unionist compatriots that the ideal is to
aim at a diversity of culture, and the greatest freedom, richness
and variety of thought. The more this richness and variety prevail
in a nation the less likelihood is there of the tyranny of one
culture over the rest. We should aim in Ireland at that freedom
of the ancient Athenians, who, as Pericles said, listened gladly
to the opinions of others and did not turn sour faces on those who
disagreed with them. A culture which is allowed essential freedom
to develop will soon perish if it does not in itself contain the
elements of human worth which make for immortality. The world has
to its sorrow many instances of freak religions which were persecuted
and by natural opposition were perpetuated and hardened in belief. We
should allow the greatest freedom in respect of cultural developments
in Ireland so that the best may triumph by reason of superior beauty
and not because the police are relied upon to maintain one culture
in a dominant position.
9. I have also an argument to address to the extremists whose claim,
uttered lately with more openness and vehemence, is for the complete
independence of the whole of Ireland, who cry out against partition,
who will not have a square mile of Irish soil subject to foreign
rule. That implies they desire the inclusion of Ulster and the
inhabitants of Ulster in their Irish State. I tell them frankly
that if they expect Ulster to throw its lot in with a self-governing
Ireland they must remain within the commonwealth of dominions which
constitute the Empire, be prepared loyally, once Ireland has
complete control over its internal affairs, to accept the status
of a dominion and the responsibilities of that wider union. If
they will not accept that status as the Boers did, they will never
draw that important and powerful Irish party into an Irish State
except by force, and do they think there is any possibility of that?
It is extremely doubtful whether if the world stood aloof, and
allowed Irishmen to fight out their own quarrels among themselves,
that the fighters for complete independence could conquer a community
so numerous, so determined, so wealthy, so much more capable of
providing for themselves the plentiful munitions by which alone one
army can hope to conquer another. In South Africa men who had
fiercer traditional hostilities than Irishmen of different parties
here have had, who belonged to different races, who had a few years
before been engaged in a racial war, were great enough to rise above
these past antagonisms, to make an agreement and abide faithfully
by it. Is the same magnanimity not possible in Ireland? I say to
my countrymen who cry out for the complete separation of Ireland
from the Empire, that they will not in this generation bring with
them the most powerful and wealthy, if not the most numerous, party
in their country. Complete control of Irish affairs is a possibility,
and I suggest to the extremists that the status of a self-governing
dominion inside a federation of dominions is a proposal which, if
other safeguards for minority interests are incorporated, would
attract Unionist attention. But if these men who depend so much
in their economic enterprises upon a friendly relation with their
largest customers are to be allured into self-governing Ireland
there must be acceptance of the Empire as an essential condition.
The Boers found it not impossible to accept this status for the
sake of a United South Africa. Are our Irish Boers not prepared
to make a compromise and abide by it loyally for the sake of a
United Ireland?
10. A remonstrance must also be addressed to the middle party in
that it has made no real effort to understand and conciliate the
feelings of Irish Unionists. They have indeed made promises, no
doubt sincerely, but they have undone the effect of all they said
by encouraging of recent years the growth of sectarian organizations
with political aims and have relied on these as on a party machine.
It may be said that in Ulster a similar organization, sectarian
with political objects, has long existed, and that this justified
a counter organization. Both in my opinion are unjustifiable and
evil, but the backing of such an organization was specially foolish
in the case of the majority, whose main object ought to be to allure
the minority into the same political fold. The baser elements in
society, the intriguers, the job seekers, and all who would acquire
by influence what they cannot attain by merit, flock into such
bodies, and create a sinister impression as to their objects and
deliberations. If we are to have national concord among Irishmen
religion must be left to the Churches whose duty it is to promote
it, and be dissevered from party politics, and it should be regarded
as contrary to national idealism to organize men of one religion
into secret societies with political or economic aims. So shall
be left to Caesar the realm which is Caesar's, and it shall not
appear part of the politics of eternity that Michael's sister's
son obtains a particular post beginning at thirty shillings a week.
I am not certain that it should not be an essential condition of
any Irish settlement that all such sectarian organizations should
be disbanded in so far as their objects are political, and remain
solely as friendly societies. It is useless assuring a minority
already suspicious, of the tolerance it may expect from the majority,
if the party machine of the majority is sectarian and semi-secret,
if no one of the religion of the minority can join it. I believe
in spite of the recent growth of sectarian societies that it has
affected but little the general tolerant spirit in Ireland, and
where the evils have appeared they have speedily resulted in the
break up of the organization in the locality. Irishmen individually
as a rule are much nobler in spirit than the political organizations
they belong to.
11. It is necessary to speak with the utmost frankness and not to
slur over any real difficulty in the way of a settlement. Irish
parties must rise above themselves if they are to bring about an
Irish unity. They appear on the surface irreconcilable, but that,
in my opinion, is because the spokesmen of parties are under the
illusion that they should never indicate in public that they might
possibly abate one jot of the claims of their party. A crowd or
organization is often more extreme than its individual members. I
have spoken to Unionists and Sinn Feiners and find them as reasonable
in private as they are unreasonable in public. I am convinced that
an immense relief would be felt by all Irishmen if a real settlement
of the Irish question could be arrived at, a compromise which would
reconcile them to living under one government, and would at the
same time enable us to live at peace with our neighbors. The
suggestions which follow were the result of discussions between a
group of Unionists, Nationalists and Sinn Feiners, and as they
found it possible to agree upon a compromise it is hoped that the
policy which harmonized their diversities may help to bring about
a similar result in Ireland.
12. I may now turn to consider the Anglo-Irish problem and to make
specific suggestions for its solution and the character of the
government to be established in Ireland. The factors are triple.
There is first the desire many centuries old of Irish nationalists
for self-government and the political unity of the people: secondly,
there is the problem of the Unionists who require that the self-
governing Ireland they enter shall be friendly to the imperial
connection, and that their religious and economic interests shall
be safeguarded by real and not merely by verbal guarantees; and,
thirdly, there is the position of Great Britain which requires,
reasonably enough, that any self-governing dominion set up alongside
it shall be friendly to the Empire. In this matter Great Britain
has priority of claim to consideration, for it has first proposed
a solution, the Home Rule Act which is on the Statute Book, though
later variants of that have been outlined because of the attitude
of Unionists in North-East Ulster, variants which suggest the
partition of Ireland, the elimination of six counties from the
area controlled by the Irish government. This Act, or the variants
of it offered to Ireland, is the British contribution to the
settlement of the Anglo-Irish problem.
13. If it is believed that this scheme, or any diminutive of it,
will settle the Anglo-Irish problem, British statesmen and people who
trust them are only preparing for themselves bitter disappointment.
I believe that nothing less than complete self-government has ever
been the object of Irish Nationalism. However ready certain sections
have been to accept installments, no Irish political leader had
authority to pledge his countrymen to ever accept a half measure
as a final settlement of the Irish claim. The Home Rule Act, if
put into operation tomorrow, even if Ulster were cajoled or coerced
into accepting it, would not be regarded by Irish Nationalists as
a final settlement, no matter what may be said at Westminster.
Nowhere in Ireland has it been accepted as final. Received without
enthusiasm at first, every year which has passed since the Bill
was introduced has seen the system of self-government formulated
there subjected to more acute and hostile criticism: and I believe
it would be perfectly accurate to say that its passing tomorrow
would only be the preliminary for another agitation, made fiercer
by the unrest of the world, where revolutions and the upsetting of
dynasties are in the air, and where the claims of nationalities no
more ancient than the Irish, like the Poles, the Finns, and the Arabs,
to political freedom are admitted by the spokesmen of the great
powers, Great Britain included, or are already conceded. If any
partition of Ireland is contemplated this will intensify the
bitterness now existing. I believe it is to the interest of Great
Britain to settle the Anglo-Irish dispute. It has been countered
in many of its policies in America and the Colonies by the vengeful
feelings of Irish exiles. There may yet come a time when the refusal
of the Irish mouse to gnaw at a net spread about the lion may bring
about the downfall of the Empire. It cannot be to the interest of
Great Britain to have on its flank some millions of people who,
whenever Great Britain is engaged in a war which threatens its
existence, feel a thrill running through them, as prisoners do
hearing the guns sounding closer of an army which comes, as they
think, to liberate them. Nations denied essential freedom ever
feel like that when the power which dominates them is itself in peril.
Who can doubt but for the creation of Dominion Government in South
Africa that the present war would have found the Boers thirsty for
revenge, and the Home Government incapable of dealing with a distant
people who taxed its resources but a few years previously. I have
no doubt that if Ireland was granted the essential freedom and
wholeness in its political life it desires, its mood also would be
turned. I have no feelings of race hatred, no exultation in thought
of the downfall of any race; but as a close observer of the mood
of millions in Ireland, I feel certain that if their claim is not
met they will brood and scheme and Wait to strike a blow, though
the dream may be handed on from them to their children and their
children's children, yet they will hope, sometime, to give the
last vengeful thrust of enmity at the stricken heart of the Empire.
14. Any measure which is not a settlement which leaves Ireland
still actively discontented is a waste of effort, and the sooner
English statesmen realize the futility of half measures the better.
A man who claims a debt he believes is due to him, who is offered
half of it in payment, is not going to be conciliated or to be one
iota more friendly, if he knows that the other is able to pay the
full amount and it could be yielded without detriment to the donor.
Ireland will never be content with a system of self-government
which lessens its representation in the Imperial Parliament, and
still retains for that Parliament control over all-important matters
like taxation and trade policy. Whoever controls these controls
the character of an Irish civilization, and the demand of Ireland
is not merely for administrative powers, but the power to fashion
its own national policy, and to build up a civilization of its own
with an economic character in keeping by self-devised and self-
checked efforts. To misunderstand this is to suppose there is no
such thing as national idealism, and that a people will accept
substitutes for the principle of nationality, whereas the past
history of the world and present circumstance in Europe are evidence
that nothing is more unconquerable and immortal than national feeling,
and that it emerges from centuries of alien government, and is ready
at any time to flare out in insurrection. At no period in Irish
history was that sentiment more self-conscious than it is today.
15. Nationalist Ireland requires that the Home Rule Act should be
radically changed to give Ireland unfettered control over taxation,
customs, excise and trade policy. These powers are at present denied,
and if the Act were in operation, Irish people instead of trying to
make the best of it, would begin at once to use whatever powers
they had as a lever to gain the desired control, and this would
lead to fresh antagonism and a prolonged struggle between the two
countries, and in this last effort Irish Nationalists would have
the support of that wealthy class now Unionist in the three southern
provinces, and also in Ulster if it were included, for they would
then desire as much as Nationalists that, while they live in a self-
governing Ireland, the powers of the Irish government should be
such as would enable it to build up Irish industries by an Irish
trade policy, and to impose taxation in a way to suit Irish conditions.
As the object of British consent to Irish self-government is to
dispose of Irish antagonism nothing is to be gained by passing
measures which will not dispose of it. The practically unanimous
claim of Nationalists as exhibited in the press in Ireland is for
the status and power of economic control possessed by the self-
governing dominions. By this alone will the causes of friction
between the two nations be removed, and a real solidarity of
interest based on a federal union for joint defense of the freedom
and well-being of the federated communities be possible and I have
no doubt it would take place. I do not believe that hatreds remain
for long among people when the causes which created them are removed.
We have seen in Europe and in the dominions the continual reversals
of feeling which have taken place when a sore has been removed.
Antagonisms are replaced by alliances. It is mercifully true of
human nature that it prefers to exercise goodwill to hatred when
it can, and the common sense of the best in Ireland would operate
once there was no longer interference in our internal affairs, to
allay and keep in order these turbulent elements which exist in
every country, but which only become a danger to society when real
grievances based on the violation of true principles of government
are present.
16. The Union has failed absolutely to conciliate Ireland. Every
generation there have been rebellions and shootings and agitations
of a vehement and exhausting character carried continually to the
point of lawlessness before Irish grievances could be redressed.
A form of government which requires a succession of rebellions to
secure reforms afterwards admitted to be reasonable cannot be a
good form of government. These agitations have inflicted grave
material and moral injury on Ireland. The instability of the
political system has prejudiced natural economic development.
Capital will not be invested in industries where no one is certain
about the future. And because the will of the people was so
passionately set on political freedom an atmosphere of suspicion
gathered around public movements which in other countries would
have been allowed to carry on their beneficent work unhindered by
any party. Here they were continually being forced to declare
themselves either for or against self-government. The long attack
on the movement for the organization of Irish agriculture was an
instance. Men are elected on public bodies not because they are
efficient administrators, but because they can be trusted to pass
resolutions favoring one party or another. This has led to
corruption. Every conceivable rascality in Ireland has hid itself
behind the great names of nation or empire. The least and the most
harmless actions of men engaged in philanthropic or educational
work or social reform are scrutinized and criticized so as to
obstruct good work. If a phrase even suggests the possibility of
a political partiality, or a tendency to anything which might be
construed by the most suspicious scrutineer to indicate a remote
desire to use the work done as an argument either for or against
self-government the man or movement is never allowed to forget it.
Public service becomes intolerable and often impossible under such
conditions, and while the struggle continues this also will continue
to the moral detriment of the people. There are only two forms of
government possible. A people may either be governed by force or
may govern themselves. The dual government of Ireland by two
Parliaments, one sitting in Dublin and one in London, contemplated
in the Home Rule Act, would be impossible and irritating. Whatever
may be said for two bodies each with their spheres of influence
clearly defined, there is nothing to be said for two legislatures
with concurrent powers of legislation and taxation, and with members
from Ireland retained at Westminster to provide some kind of
democratic excuse for the exercise of powers of Irish legislation
and taxation by the Parliament at Westminster. The Irish demand
is that Great Britain shall throw upon our shoulders the full
weight of responsibility for the management of our own affairs, so
that we can only blame ourselves and our political guides and not
Great Britain if we err in our policies.
17. I have stated what I believe to be sound reasons for the
recognition of the justice of the Irish demand by Great Britain
and I now turn to Ulster, and ask it whether the unstable condition
of things in Ireland does not affect it even more than Great Britain.
If it persists in its present attitude, if it remains out of a self-
governing Ireland, it will not thereby exempt itself from political,
social and economic trouble. Ireland will regard the six Ulster
counties as the French have regarded Alsace-Lorraine, whose hopes
of reconquest turned Europe into an armed camp, with the endless
suspicions, secret treaties, military and naval developments, the
expense of maintaining huge armies, and finally the inevitable war.
So sure as Ulster remains out, so surely will it become a focus
for nationalist designs. I say nothing of the injury to the great
wholesale business carried on from its capital city throughout the
rest of Ireland where the inevitable and logical answer of merchants
in the rest of Ireland to requests for orders will be: "You would
die rather than live in the same political house with us. We will
die rather than trade with you." There will be lamentably and
inevitably a fiercer tone between North and South. Everything
that happens in one quarter will be distorted in the other. Each
will lie about the other. The materials will exist more than before
for civil commotion, and this will be aided by the powerful minority
of Nationalists in the excluded counties working in conjunction
with their allies across the border. Nothing was ever gained in
life by hatred; nothing good ever came of it or could come of it;
and the first and most important of all the commandments of the
spirit that there should be brotherhood between men will be
deliberately broken to the ruin of the spiritual life of Ireland.
18. So far from Irish Nationalists wishing to oppress Ulster, I
believe that there is hardly any demand which could be made, even
involving democratic injustice to themselves, which would not
willingly be granted if their Ulster compatriots would fling their
lot in with the rest of Ireland and heal the eternal sore. I ask
Ulster what is there that they could not do as efficiently in an
Ireland with the status and economic power of a self-governing
dominion as they do at present. Could they not build their ships
and sell them, manufacture and export their linens? What do they
mean when they say Ulster industries would be taxed? I cannot
imagine any Irish taxation which their wildest dreams imagined so
heavy as the taxation which they will endure as part of the United
Kingdom in future. They will be implicated in all the revolutionary
legislation made inevitable in Great Britain by the recoil on
society of the munition workers and disbanded conscripts. Ireland,
which luckily for itself, has the majority of its population
economically independent as workers on the land, and which, in the
development of agriculture now made necessary as a result of changes
in naval warfare, will be able to absorb without much trouble its
returning workers. Ireland will be much quieter, less revolutionary
and less expensive to govern. I ask what reason is there to suppose
that taxation in a self-governing Ireland would be greater than in
Great Britain after the war, or in what way Ulster industries could
be singled out, or for what evil purpose by an Irish Parliament? It
would be only too anxious rather to develop still further the one
great industrial centre in Ireland; and would, it is my firm
conviction, allow the representatives of Ulster practically to
dictate the industrial policy of Ireland. Has there ever at any
time been the slightest opposition by any Irish Nationalist to
proposals made by Ulster industrialists which would lend color to
such a suspicion? Personally, I think that Ulster without safeguards
of any kind might trust its fellow-countrymen; the weight, the
intelligence, the vigor of character of Ulster people in any case
would enable them to dominate Ireland economically. But I do not
for a moment say that Ulster is not justified in demanding safeguards.
Its leader, speaking at Westminster during one of the debates on the
Home Rule Bill, said scornfully, "We do not fear oppressive
legislation. We know in fact there would be none. What we do fear
is oppressive administration." That I translate to mean that Ulster
feels that the policy of the spoils to the victors would be adopted,
and that jobbery in Nationalist and Catholic interests would be rampant.
There are as many honest Nationalists and Catholics who would object
to this as there are Protestant Unionists, and they would readily
accept as part of any settlement the proposal that all posts which
can rightly be filled by competitive examination shall only be
filled after examination by Irish Civil Service Commissioners, and
that this should include all posts paid for out of public funds
whether directly under the Irish Government or under County Councils,
Urban Councils, Corporations, or Boards of Guardians. Further,
they would allow the Ulster Counties through their members a veto
on any important administrative position where the area of the
official's operation was largely confined to North-East Ulster, if
such posts were of a character which could not rightly be filled
after examination and-must needs be a government appointment. I
have heard the suspicion expressed that Gaelic might be made a
subject compulsory on all candidates, and that this would prejudice
the chances of Ulster candidates desirous of entering the Civil
Service. Nationalist opinion would readily agree that, if marks
were given for Gaelic, an alternative language, such as French or
German, should be allowed the candidate as a matter of choice and
the marks given be of equal value. By such concession jobbery
would be made impossible. The corruption and bribery now prevalent
in local government would be a thing of the past. Nationalists
and Unionists alike would be assured of honest administration and
that merit and efficiency, not membership of some sectarian or
political association, would lead to public service.
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