§ VISCOUNT MIDLETON had the following Notice on the Paper
§ To call attention to the recent tour of Irish-American delegates to Ireland and the necessity of an early statement by His Majesty's Government in reference to their Irish policy.
§ The noble Viscount said: My Lords, the subject-matter of the Notice which I have placed on the Paper is so recently in the recollection of most members of this House that I need hardly trouble your Lordships at any length with regard to the circumstances with which the Question deals. But I think the explanations which have been given up to this moment have been neither adequate nor satisfying. A time when activities in the matter of speaking in Ireland have to be restricted, when very serious disturbances have either occurred or been prevented with some difficulty, and when very serious crime (as the Chief Secretary pointed out the other day) has been continually occurring despite all the vigilance of the authorities, is not a time, I think we must all admit, which any of us 796 would have chosen, or the Government would have chosen, for launching a very dangerous expedition in Ireland to preach doctrines which are repulsive to all those who are loyal to the Constitution of these Realms.
§ We should all, I think, wish to accept the explanation given on behalf of the Prime Minister—namely, that these delegates went there with his permission and good will; but they went there with the Government under an entirely false apprehension of their intentions. In other words, they were permitted to go there, or were given passports, as the Prime Minister felt, merely to inform themselves of the condition of Ireland by a personal visit, and not in any sense as men who were to conduct a political agitation. I quite accept that statement, but I am afraid I must suggest that the permission was very unwisely given without further knowledge of the intentions of the delegates, and that the passports, if passports had to be issued for so special an occasion, were issued without sufficient knowledge and without sufficient investigation of the antecedents of those on whose behalf they were given.
§ What I really want to ask the Government to explain to-day is this. Either these men went there as private individuals or they went there under some special dispensation of the Government. If they went there as private individuals, we have a right to know why facilities were extended to them and permission was given to them while they were in Ireland to do things which would not be allowed in the case of any other private individuals. If, on the other hand, they went to Ireland under some special dispensation of the Government, I want to know whether they went there with the consent of the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary. I apprehend this, that when Lord French undertook the position of Lord Lieutenant he was invested with powers which have never before been invested in any one unless he was a member of the Cabinet, and a member of the Cabinet has a right to be consulted on the business of his own Department before any action is taken by any one.
§
I do not wish to attach undue importance to what took place, but I should like to investigate how far the action of the delegates can be considered in any way consistent with their position as private individuals. If they went as private individuals, let me ask why were they
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accorded privileges—going into districts where meetings would not have been permitted—which were not accorded to other individuals. When they arrived at Westport, a very disturbed district in which a large military force has had to be used, they were denied the right of going within the district by the military authority—I think quite rightly. But why were they allowed to go to Limerick, which had been the scene of great disturbances only a few days before? If they went as private individuals, why were they allowed to go to Mountjoy prison? I do not think any of the London papers have published the fact that they were allowed to make an inspection of the Mountjoy prison, but I take it from one of the Irish papers that on May 11, I believe, the members of the Irish-American Mission visited Mountjoy prison and were received by Sir John Irwin and other members of the Visiting Committee. On what grounds were these three gentlemen allowed to visit Mountjoy prison? If any three members of your Lordships' House, however distinguished, were to go to Mountjoy prison and insist on being shown over the prison they would not be permitted to do so by the members of the Visiting Committee. Unless some special arrangements had been made that they were to be treated as delegates, on what grounds were they admitted to so very special a privilege as that of making an official inspection of the leading prison in Dublin? Needless to say, a boast was made of it by Mr. Ryan the next day. He said—
The delegates visited Mountjoy prison, the Sinn Fein prisoners circling around them in a ring and crying out 'Long live the Republic.'
That is a point on which I really must ask for guidance from the Government.
§
Then there is a second point. The Prime Minister made a statement as to his intention in allowing these men to go to Dublin. When it was made clear their intentions were quite different from those which he conceived them to be, no correction was made in the Press of the statement they made with regard to the Prime Minister. On May 4 Mr. Walsh, in a statement made in Ireland, said—
Their mandate was to ask President Wilson to see that Messrs. de Valera, Plunkett, and Griffith, were allowed to attend the Peace Conference; and, failing this, the American delegates should be permitted. When this request was made Mr. Lloyd George expressed a desire to meet them—the delegates.
That is a distinct statement of fact—that
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Mr. Lloyd George, on hearing that these American delegates came with a mandate to ask President Wilson to see that Messrs. de Valera, Plunkett, and Griffiths should attend the Peace Conference, expressed a wish to meet them.
§ We now know that Mr. Lloyd George's intentions were wholly different. But surely I am entitled to ask, Was it wise to allow ten or fourteen days of this misconception to continue without any correction from Paris of facts which were so obviously open to contradiction? I do not suggest for a moment that any one of the British Ministers now in Paris could be expected to give his time to reading the papers for anything that was going on in Ireland. That is too much to ask. But no one has ever had such a large band of private secretaries as the present Prime Minister. The whole of the gardens at the back of No. 10, Downing-street have been roofed in for their accommodation. In that respect the Prime Minister, as compared with any previous Prime Minister, is almost on a par with the expenditure of this Ministry as compared with the expenditure of any previous Ministry. What were all these men doing that they did not think it sufficiently important to correct an impression which in Ireland has undoubtedly done grievous and abiding harm?
§ I say this because I wish the Government well in every respect in dealing with Ireland, believing it is of national importance that no further mistakes should be made. There is no man in this house, sitting on this side or on that, who is not aware that misfortune has dogged the footsteps of the Government every time they have interfered from London with the conduct of affairs in Ireland. Now that that interference is carried on from Paris over the telephone, and often without advising their colleagues, I think the time has come when we should protest and ask for a pledge that the policy should be abandoned.
§ Let me, in a few sentences, ask you to remember how this interference has been going on since the Rebellion in 1916. In May, 1916, you had the visit of the late Prime Minister to Ireland, and his, I think, extremely unwise attitude to the Sinn Fein prisoners. The deduction drawn from it was that their action had not been to the British Government what it had been supposed to be up to the moment of his I visit. Six months later from London, not 799 by any wish expressed in Ireland, came the removal of General Maxwell in circumstances which created the belief in the minds of all Irishmen that the Government had determined to reverse the policy by which they had suppressed the Rebellion. In the following June, against everybody's protests, they released the Sinn Fein prisoners in order to secure for the Convention what they believed would be an atmosphere of success, but which proved to be the absolute and certain forerunner of failure. In the winter of 1917 the Sinn Fein prisoners were allowed without interference to create anarchy in Clare and the West of Ireland, and to the number of 200 were released as hunger-strikers, at a time when the least firmness would have shown that no hunger-striker meant to go to the extreme limit. As soon as the Government put their foot down this travesty of justice was at once brought to an end.
§ Four months later the Government again changed their mind, and proposed to carry out Conscription (to which three Provinces of Ireland were unalterably opposed) simultaneously with Home Rule, which was objected to by the remaining Province, on which they could have depended for assistance in their first policy of Conscription. That policy, which they were warned by every man they consulted in Ireland must be a failure, is to-day a dead letter—neither one nor the other is carried out. There followed the arrest of all those persons who were implicated in a German plot, but as they were never brought to trial the effect upon Ireland, which would have been great, of their being exposed and all these machinations being summarily brought to an end was unfortunately lost. And now we have this last escapade on the part of these delegates.
§ My Lords, I think that living over here as we do, with far more important questions affecting the whole future of this country, of Europe, and of the world before us, we do not realise what I am sure every member of this House connected with Ireland could tell your Lordships—what an immense effect these successive marches and counter-marches and changes have had upon the people of Ireland. I see Lord Decies, who has acted as Press Censor in Ireland during the whole of this period, in his place. I do not know whether he intends to address the House to-night; but without any consultation with him I will go bail that he will tell your Lordships, as I do, that every 800 change and every one of the episodes to which I have alluded has meant a step forward for Sinn Fein. That which was regarded as a dream a few months ago has almost become to a number of people there practical polities. While it has meant to those who are disaffected a great advance, it has meant grave discouragement to all the officials, and it has raised doubts in the minds of the officials and of the police as to whether the Government are really serious in the action which they call upon the officials and police to take.
§ That is a grave statement, but I make it not without authority; and before I sit down I would like to say one word with regard to the effect of this matter from the point of view of the American Government. Nobody has yet challenged, but I am quite sure that any responsible American Minister who had to deal with the matter would challenge, the constant and repeated claim of these delegates that they had the American nation, or, as they occasionally express it, twenty millions of people—meaning, I suppose, all those of Irish birth or parentage in America—at their back. It would be quite inconceivable that a nation like the American nation, which has fought the greatest civil war known in all time in order to secure its own country against disruption, would at this moment be advocating a policy in Ireland which, whether you call it self-determination or by any other name, means civil war and separation. And these delegates particularly emphasised it by driving throughout the country with the Sinn Fein flag and the Stars and Stripes intertwined on their motor car—separation not in the relation which each American State is in towards Washington, but separation such as the Southern States undertook to take up, and the Northern States by coercion undertook to prevent. I do not believe these professions have any foundation in fact, but I think we ought to be in a position to explain to the American Government that whatever laws are laid down for British subjects or foreigners in Ireland will have to be observed by American subjects as much as by anybody else. I cannot doubt that these particular episodes cause just as much pain to the American authorities as to His Majesty's Government.
§ What I ask of the Government relates to two points. I do not know whether any Minister is ready to reply to these questions. I ask, in the first place, that 801 the interference from Paris or from London with the responsibility of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and the Chief Secretary shall cease. So long as there is a Cabinet, and members of the Cabinet can be heard there, the decision of the Government has to be observed by every member of the Cabinet, whether in his own Department or not, and I protest that in One case after another orders have been sent from London or Paris without consultation with the Cabinet. My point is that the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary have a responsibility, especially in these days, which must be observed, and I ask that the Government will not take further action in regard to Ireland without proper Cabinet consultation.
§ Secondly—and I beg the attention of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack to this—we hope that within a few weeks ratifications of peace may be exchanged. Lawyers inform us that the Act of 1914 will actually come into effect on the ratification of peace. I do not believe that there are half a dozen men in Ireland who desire to see that Act put in force in its present form. Successive Governments have pledged themselves to alter that Act. I do not ask for anything so unreasonable as a statement of policy from the noble and learned Lord at this moment, but I do ask that as soon as Ministers are released from Paris they will put down first on their agenda for Cabinet discussion the question of what they propose to do with regard to Ireland and with regard to the Act of 1914, and that they will make to Parliament as early as they can—without asking them to press forward with undue haste but at all events without putting the question aside—a statement as to the considered judgment of the Cabinet on this subject.
§ I do not know whether it is worth asking, because I know how difficult Parliamentary circumstances are, but I would urge the Government, if they desire to restore the confidence of any party in Ireland, to adhere to their decision when the time comes. For the last two years more than at any time in the chequered history of Ireland that country has suffered because many decisions have been taken but nothing has been adhered to, and no settlement is possible on the vexed question. Under these conditions I hope, my Lords, that I have not unduly trespassed, and I ask 802 that we should have an assurance these two points.
LORD ASHBOURNEMy Lords, before the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack answers the questions, I should like to say one or two things which I think will throw a certain amount of light on this matter. I have been in Ireland in close touch with the popular movement since before the birth of Sinn Fein. I remember the time when it was born, and what curious oddities we looked on the Sinn Feiners as being. I have seen them gradually working their way up until, through circumstances, they have come to the position they hold to-day,
It seems to me, my Lords; that in trying to answer this kind of question we are liable to mistake the surface appearance for the substantial movement which is going on in the Irish nation. The average observer—and by the average observer I here mean chiefly the Parliamentary politician—sees in the whole Irish situation just a few elements. He sees the Home Rule agitation. He sees that agitation come to success. He sees the opposition of North-east Ulster, and the statement that "We won't have it." He sees the various forces that we read about in the newspapers. He sees land movements; he sees crimes; he sees all kinds of things; but he does not see what is going on underneath. It seems to me that there is a certain danger that we may be led here to suppose that the Irish question can be treated simply in the way that you treat the ordinary political question. For instance, there are many who will hold that because the Constitutional Parliamentary Party has apparently been smashed there is an end of that, and those who come to that conclusion will see in the Ireland of the present day simply a whole country looking upon itself as having established a Republic. If you go to Ireland new you will be told by nine Sinn Feiners out of ten that. Ireland is living under a Republic, but that it is unfortunately occupied by a foreign Army. But those things are only on the surface.
I can imagine the embarrassment of the Government when asked suddenly. "What are you going to do?" The answer to that question, admit, is not so easy, and I will listen with great interest to the statement of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, and he will have all my sympathy while I listen to him. But, my 803 Lords, getting nearer to the essentials of things, what has happened is this. The Sinn Feiners have never been a large body of men. The Sinn Fein theory is a very subtle and complicated one. The words "Sinn Fein" mean simply "Ourselves," and practically the Sinn Fein movement has always meant the self-reliance movement. It means that "we have to rely upon ourselves." In its original form it means this, "We have to abstain from using things which put money into the Treasury; for instance, we have to abstain from drink and from smoking, and so on." There was a whole policy of that kind, and if the Irish people had been able to follow it they would have been the most admirable people and capable of conquering the world.
But Your Lordships will readily understand that such a movement was never popular. What has happened is this. Through exterior circumstances the Irish people in general—not the Sinn Feiners, but the Irish people who were following the Parliamentary Party—have been filled with a deep-rooted suspicion of England. They have come to the conclusion that when England seems to agree to something she will always end by cheating them out of it. I think that noble Lords from Ireland will agree with me that this is the general Irish view at the present moment. The result is that people who were shouting for John Redmond and the Party, who were waving flags for John Redmond and the Party, not much more than a year ago, are now shouting and waving flags for the Republic, instead of waving the green flag as the tricolour flag. That means that we have arrived at a stage where it will be very difficult for any Government to proceed by negotiation with Irish leaders. In the old times we could meet the members of the Parliamentary Party, and anything that you agreed to they could take to a Convention in Dublin and get it ratified. That cannot be done now, and it is one of the difficulties of the situation.
The official position in Ireland is this, that a Republic has been founded, and a Parliament has sat in Dublin, and the claim is that that Parliament and that Republican Government is only checked by the presence of a foreign Army. That is a theory, and it is a theory which so far as the population is concerned has not much behind it, but it goes far enough to make negotiations difficult. Now it seems to me 804 that if by any chance there exists in the British Islands at the present moment a statesman as opposed to a politician, he ought to put the matter in this way—"I am going to settle this question. I am going to take the responsibility of introducing a measure, and I am going to carry it through, and then I am going to see whether the Irish people will be willing to work it." There is no other way of doing it. You cannot go before the Irish people now. I could not stand here in this House and say, "If you do so and so, the Irish people will accept it." I have no bright to say anything of tine kind. They would say that I was not speaking the truth. But my impression is—and it is the impression of a good many people who know Ireland—that if there was in this country any one capable of inventing a measure for the government of Ireland, that such a measure should be passed through and would ultimately be accepted.
What I want your Lordships to understand is that it is quite useless to say, "We are not going to face the Irish question." You have got to face the Irish question. If you do not, you will be up against something which will create a difficulty that will become greater and greater as time goes on. I have seen this Sinn Fein movement growing. I was in the movement that was in existence before it, and from which it sprang. I am sorry that it did spring out of it. It was a sort of side issue. The original movement was for the revival of the Irish nation through the Irish language. Whatever is done by Parliament, that movement will go on. Whatever solution is decided upon by British statesmen, or whatever attitude, even if it be a negative one, they decide to take up, that movement will go on. The Irish nation and the spirit of the Irish nation will go on growing, and become stronger every day, and, like the famous books of the Sibylline, the problem to be faced by British statesmen wil become more and more difficult; therefore the sooner it is faced the better.
I simply throw out this hint, because I do not know what line may be taken in these discussions. I throw it out because I think it is my duty, sitting in this House, to say what I know of the movement in Ireland, and to express my belief that, whatever is clone to solve the question, the one thing that cannot be crushed out and that no sane man, if he knows the question at the bottom, will dream can be crushed 805 out, is the movement for the revival and growth and strengthening of the Irish nation. Therefore I appeal to you to do what you can to facilitate this. The nation has to go on growing, and it is in the interest of Great Britain and of the Empire that that movement, in growing, should not become hardened in an attitude of hostility, but that a chance should be given, a chance which many of us have been looking for for a long time, of growing up in a friendly attitude and of co-operating in the advancement of the great cause that we all have at heart.
§ The LORD CHANCELLORMy Lords, I had been hoping that I should have had the advantage, before I attempted to address the House, of hearing some further observations from those of your Lordships who have a very special knowledge of this difficult and perplexed question. The noble Viscount who introduced this subject, in a speech of which I make not the slightest complaint, put forward none the less a very considerable indictment against the Government. It was not only, I think, if one analyses it, an indictment against the present Government (and when I point this circumstance out I do it not in the spirit of the man who thinks it is any advantage to this Government that it should be pointed out that there were others, its predecessors, who were equally weak, as the noble Viscount seems to consider, or equally culpable as others have pronounced us to be)—I do it not in the least in that spirit; I do it in the hope that those of your Lordships who are inclined to take a moderate view in this matter may at least draw this inference, that where three (or technically four) successive Governments realise the difficulties and have failed to surmount them as obviously as the Government which was in power in 1914, its successor, the first Coalition Government, the last Government and now the present Government have done, those difficulties are of a formidable nature. We may well say, throwing our eyes back over those four and a-half—nearly five—years, that they have been five years of tragic disaster for the Union between Ireland and Great Britain, and of discouragement to those who have worked for the establishment of better relations between the two Islands.
I do not attempt to distribute blame for error, where error must be admitted, and I am not sure that those who know most 806 of what has been done in the last five years and of the crises which in bewildering succession have required decisions from the Government will be the most inclined to state their criticism in language of excessive severity. The noble Viscount has produced many illustrations of that which he complains of, but the complaint which played the most conspicouus part in his speech was concerned with that most unfortunate incident to which he drew your Lordships attention in language of which I make no complaint. You have been told, or rather another place has been told, of the circumstances under which a permission so unfortunate in its results was given to these Irish-Americans to visit Ireland. I was invited by the noble Viscount to deal with a statement which he attributed to a gentleman, whose name I confess was not known to me, to the effect that the Prime Minister invited, these gentlemen to go to Ireland for themselves, after having been informed that they were an American deputation, the object of whose visit to this country was to induce President Wilson to allow de Valera and his companions to attend the Peace Conference. I had not—I could not have—direct information on this point. The noble Viscount, quite naturally, gave me no notice that he was about to make the suggestion. It rested, as far as I understand, upon a speech by an individual who was named by the noble Viscount—
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORAnd I say quite plainly that, so far as I am concerned, I utterly disbelieve that the safe conducts were furnished under any such circumstances. I shall disbelieve it until. I am forced to believe the contrary. To any one who is not trying to take a severe view but is trying to enter into the difficulties it is easy, however great the mistake may have been, to see the kind of reasoning which led to the decision that was adopted. No one here, certainly not the noble Viscount who introduced this subject tonight, is indifferent to the view which is taken of Great Britain in the United States of America.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORI suppose there is nobody here who does not hope that, as some precious salvage from this war, a 807 greater degree of mutual understanding and of mutual liking may permanently exist between Great Britain and the United States of America. And, of course, everybody knows the immense number of Irish-Americans who have left Ireland under circumstances of bitter and unforgettable disaffection. The activities of those people in the United States of America constitute one of the greatest obstacles and difficulties to the improvement of those relations.
I am not, of course, suggesting that in deference to feelings of that kind we are to adopt policies which we, with our intimate knowledge of our own situation, know to contain within themselves the seeds of our own dissolution. I do not, of course, make any such suggestion. But I say this, in order I hope to carry your Lordships with me so far, that it is the duty of any statesman to take any opportunity that offers itself of clearing up what are the patent misunderstandings in the United States of America—and misunderstandings, be it noted, among those people in the United States whose real desire it is to understand us and to make allowance for our difficulties. I say it is very easy to understand the attitude of a Minister whose mind was possessed of that view, and who had many serious preoccupations and anxieties of other kinds at the same moment, on being told that three Irish-American citizens then in Paris wished to visit Ireland and see the situation for themselves, being unable to proceed there because they could not obtain passports.
Looking at it, not with our present knowledge of what took place, but trying to put ourselves, as fair-minded critics ought to put themselves, in the position of the Minister at the time he took the decision, it is, I think, not difficult to understand how he may have come to the conclusion that, if these men went to Ireland and saw the situation for themselves, adhering—as, of course, he must have imagined they would adhere, if only in gratitude for the facilities that were afforded to them—to the roleof private citizens going, as it was expressly stipulated they should go, in order that they might learn the peculiar situation which existed there, fortunate results might follow. It is, I say, not difficult to understand how that decision was adopted by one who never conceived and who never could conceive that men who had been treated so indulgently would allow themselves to make speech after speech in 808 Ireland every one of which indicated and recommended courses which they must have known, if in the mouth of a British subject, would have constituted treasonable language against this country.
I do not believe that any responsible American citizen will have read what has been said by these men in Ireland—by a gross abuse of the permission which was given to them—or will have observed that which was done, without pain and without the deepest regret. I have spoken of it to some American friends, and others have spoken of it to me, and all their language has been of one tenor. They have said. "We know very well what would have happened to Englishmen who had come to the North in the days of the Civil War and addressed meetings about the policy which it was proper for us to adopt in relation to the Southern States."
I have told your Lordships what the view of the Prime Minister was. He knew that these men were strongly in favour of Home Rule; he knew that they had strongly advocated it in the United States of America. He was of opinion that they would have gone to Ireland, behaving themselves with decency and with a reasonable degree of privacy; that in the course of their travels they would have visited Belfast and made themselves acquainted with the situation there; and on their return to Paris he had arranged that they should come in a deputation to him, with the whole of the representative Press of the United States of America in Pa is present, and that he should listen to their impressions and, in a considered and elaborate speech, state to them—and, as he hoped, through them to the whole of that great American public to which access is otherwise impossible—the immense, the formidable, it may be the insuperable difficulties which at the present moment lie in front of our path in dealing with Ireland.
I am not saying whether or not the view that was taken was too sanguine. I am not saying whether or not it would under normal conditions have been wiser to have made fuller inquiry as to the antecendents of these so-called delegates, and, perhaps, to have obtained assurances from them of a very definite character as to what their conduct would be in Ireland. I say plainly now that it would have been wiser. But it is very easy to be wise after the event; and I am sure your 809 Lordships will not forget that the government is being conducted at the present time in circumstances of extraordinary difficulty. It is true that representations come from sources which it is inconvenient and difficult at the moment to disregard—sometimes addressed to that part of the Government which is in Paris and at other times to the other part of the Government here. But this circumstance at least is fortunately of a transitory character, and one may hope that it will soon come to an end. Of this, however, I am certain—that, while your Lordships may think that a mistake has been made, this House would be the last Assembly in the world to judge with undue harshness the men or the man who at the very moment when this decision was taken was, I suppose, grappling with some of the gravest and most perplexing problems which have been before those in Paris who are responsible for restoring the peace of the world.
The noble Viscount asked one or two specific questions. He did not—and here, again, not the slighest complaint is made, because he obviously could not do so—indicate to me that it was his purpose to ask these questions, and that must be my excuse for not being able to answer them all. He asked me, for instance, in what circumstances these men were allowed to visit Mountjoy prison. I find myself in some difficulty when dealing with this question, for two reasons. First of all, until the noble Viscount mentioned the circumstance—for which I think he was indebted to an Irish newspaper—I was unaware that they had so visited. In the second place, I was unaware of the fact that there were restrictions which would make it impossible for persons of respectability and position (the noble Viscount took the instance of members of your Lordships' House) to visit the prison. But I can easily understand the objection felt by the noble Viscount, and I confess that it is an objection strongly shared by me, against the slightest preferential treatment being given to those men the moment they had used language of the kind referred to—the moment, in other words, when they disclosed themselves in their true colours.
It flashed across my mind, but only as a suggestion, that it might be that, having regard to the prevalence of mendacious statements to the effect that Sinn Feiners had been vilely treated in the gaols—your Lordships are aware that those statements 810 have been amongst the widest circulated of all the lies and libels in the United States—it crossed my mind as a possibility that before they left Paris such arrangements might have been made in order that they themselves might be able to contradict (on the assumption that they were fair-minded men) statements which they found to be untrue. However, I will make it my business to cause inquiry to be made on this point, and if the noble Viscount attaches sufficient importance to it perhaps he will put down a Question, or I will make a private communication to him as to the circumstances when I have ascertained them.
The noble Viscount then complained of the repeated acts of interference on the part of England with Ireland in the course of the last four years. He went back somewhat far into history when he spoke of the visit of Mr. Asquith to Dublin immediately after the Rebellion. I confess that at that time I was not concerned with the subject of Ireland. The noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, will be far better aware than I am of the circumstances in which that visit took place and what in fact did take place. I have certainly heard some statements made as to what took place when Mr. Asquith visited Ireland which I have never heard founded upon first-hand authority, and which I do not believe; but not having been present myself I cannot give a clear or confident opinion on that point. Nor am I better informed—indeed, I think it was before the present Prime Minister became Prime Minister—of the circumstances in which General Maxwell left Ireland.
But I can say to the noble Viscount that, although I had an extremely busy Department under my care at that time, I take full responsibility for the release of the Sinn Fein prisoners on the eve of the Convention. I confess that although the results of that experiment seem to have been as disappointing as they could be, although the experiment seems to have exicted no degree of gratitude, no spark of appreciation, but, rather added to the insolence and audacity of these lawless men, in the circumstances of that day I cannot say that the decision was not a wise one; and of all others I should have hoped the noble Viscount would have conceived that this was a point of view which was at least fairly debatable. It will not be forgotten that the Convention was about to meet immediately, and I say without hesitation that whatever 811 mistakes we may have made—whatever mistakes we have made—in the last five years in relation to Ireland, the calling together of that Convention was not a mistake. I think the noble Viscount, who played a very considerable part there, will not dissent from that view. While I make that statement I add this qualification. I was never one of those who were very sanguine that the Convention would produce a real result. I had hardly any hope the moment it appeared that Sinn Fein had definitely reached the decision not to be represented there, because it seemed to me, when we cast about to see what results were likely to follow, that it was inconceivable that a satisfactory result should follow. If, apart from Ulster, which knew its own mind, and apart from the Unionists of the South of Ireland, whose position is notoriously and extraordinarily difficult, and who (if the noble Viscount will allow me to say so) sometimes knew their own mind better perhaps than they did at others—if, apart from these two sections, nobody else was represented in Ireland who had any support or who represented any opinion, it seemed unlikely in these circumstances that any valuable conclusion would be reached.
It was nevertheless not only right, but in my view it was indispensable, that the Convention should be held then, and I will tell your Lordships why. It was my fortune, while the Convention was sitting, to go to the United States of America, and, as your Lordships may recollect, in a very rapid visit I addressed, I suppose, some 130,000 or 140.000 American citizens. It was at a time when, of all others, it was not only desirable but vital that the enlightenment, cordiality and admiration of the United States in regard to the exertions which we had made in this war should be untinged by even the slightest feeling of bitterness in relation to any avoidable or subordinate issue. During the whole of that time I addressed meetings in many towns in which there were numbers of Irish, and I made the acquaintance in private life of many distinguished Irishmen who had risen to positions of mark in the United States, but I do not recall one single Irishman who did not think that, by the calling together of that Convention, by making it plain to the whole world that the difficulty was real and fundamentally an Irish one, and by offering to place on the Statute Book any result in relation to which a unanimous conclusion proved possible, Great Britain 812 at that moment had placed herself completely in the right; and, certainly, we exhibited what must always be our object in this matter, the extraordinary and fundamental difficulty of all—that of dealing with Ulster. It was exhibited by the very course of those discussions. There was not the slightest hope that the Sinn Feiners would have attended while large numbers were in gaol. We may condemn the Government for having been bad prophets. I think they were. But I know enough of Ireland to be sure that it is an extremely difficult country in relation to which to make any prophecies at all. Such were the circumstances in which the Convention was held.
The noble Viscount, very reasonably and moderately, said that he could not expect that a considered statement of policy could be made to-night; but the noble Viscount indicated that he hoped very much that, if and when Peace was signed, one of the first activities of the reconstituted Cabinet would be to reach and announce a clear statement of policy on the subject of Ireland. I think that is a very reasonable expectation, and, indeed, the noble Viscount is entitled to go further than that. It is a necessary step on behalf of any Government, because, as the noble Lord indicated, the Statute Book at the present moment contains such legislation in regard to Ireland that the matter has to be dealt with one way or the other.
For any further statement of policy and for such indications as the noble Lord (who made so interesting a speech a moment ago) asked me, I can only reply in a very guarded manner. What is the true situation to-day? There is no use closing our eyes to the fact that a great majority of Irishmen to-day are in open rebellion against the people of this country. Murder is not only common, bet it is commonly approved. It excites no reprobation among an overwhelming number of the supporters of the Sinn Feiners. I introduced a Bill not very long ago which had for its object the affording of greater protection to the Police and Constabulary, and making more generous provision for their widows and children in case they were murdered while doing their duty; and the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, who added a few observations in the course of the debate, said he thought that on the whole I had exaggerated the mischiefs which exist in the present day in Ireland. I think he used the phrase that there had been some 813 what of a tendency to the extreme left. I do not recall his exact words, and I have not refreshed my memory. The interval which has elapsed—
THE MARQUESS OF CREWEMay I correct the noble and learned Lord? I do not think I said that the noble and learned Lord exaggerated the magnitude of the evil. What I said was that he exaggerated it as a new thing. I pointed out that the existence of a party of the same character as the extreme Sinn. Feiners was no novelty.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORI am obliged to the noble Marquess. There is no difference between us on this point, because I understand that he did not take the view that I exaggerated the dimensions of the mischief. How great they are can only be realised when we notice what the official bodies boldly say. This is the definition of membership of Sinn Fein—
Membership shall be open to adults of Irish birth or parentage, irrespective of sex, class, or creed, who accept the constitution of Sinn Fein, save that no member of the British Armed Forces nor pensioner thereof, nor any person who has taken the oath of allegiance to the British Government, shall be eligible.Nobody who has served in the British Armed Forces or who has taken the oath of allegiance is eligible for membership. Under this fostering guidance, let us make no mistake, innocent and brave men, the solitary custodians of the cause of law and order in Ireland, have been done to death by murderers and cowards. When the noble Lord says he wonders if any statesman will arise to come to Parliament, including your Lordships' House, with a scheme and say, "I am going to recommend and press this scheme on the people of Ireland "—when he says that, I try to understand a little and. I try to anticipate what the fortunes of that statesman will be. When he has produced a Bill and gone to the Irish people, I think his fortune must adapt itself somewhat to the following position. First of all, the Sinn Feiners, all of them, will say with one accord, "We want nothing but an Irish Republic; we will accept nothing but an Irish Republic. Your Bill gives us nothing that we care for, and you may take it away." I think, in the second place, when he comes to the Ulster men, who are secure in repeated pledges which can never be broken and which will never be broken, Ulstermen will 814 say, "We have received from two successive Prime Ministers "—I think I might say from three successive Prime Ministers—"clear and definite assurance that under no circumstances, in order to impose Home Rule upon us, shall we be coerced." What is left? If the Sinn Feiners will accept nothing but an Irish Republic—and the Ulstermen will never go into an Irish Republic; if neither party wants partition, and the Sinn Feiners will not accept partition, as most assuredly they will not, then however great may have been the reputation which plays so rosy a part in the noble Lord's dreams when his statesman began drafting Home Rule, his reputation will suffer a considerable eclipse by the time he comes to this country. As far as I am concerned, and I believe it represents the views of the Government, I am persuaded that at this moment the only policy which it is proper to announce, until a reconstituted Cabinet has given a collective decision, is that we will, by the assertion of any degree of force that may be necessary, protect life in Ireland and maintain order. If errors have been made—if this was an error, as I think it was, to which so much attention has been given to-night, yet we have derived both instruction and experience from it. It is all error little likely in a conspicuous or an inconspicuous form to be repeated.I do not take quite the same despairing view as some speakers have taken in this and recent debates. I am the last person on this question to attempt to recur even remotely to any of the animosities and bitterness of the past, but I think I should be allowed without criticism to remind your Lordships that when Mr. Bissell first went to Dublin as Chief Secretary he informed the House of Commons that for sixteen years Ireland had been almost completely peaceful, and that it never was more peaceful than at that moment. Let no one think I am criticising any one. I am only attempting to establish this conclusion, that while it is true, as the noble Marquess pointed out, that this movement in its fundamental features is a recrudescence of an older movement—the mind of England was inflexible, when confronted by that older movement, that wrong doing and crime should be put down with an iron hand. I believe that is the policy which needs to be pursued. There are alternatives which no reasonable person will dismiss, but which no one at this moment will propose.
§ VISCOUNT SANDHURSTMy Lords, I move that the House do now adjourn.
§ LORD SHANDONMy Lords, I had intended to make a few observations in connection with the Question which was put to the Government by the noble Viscount, but if I am out of order in doing so I must, of course, refrain from making them. What I would say would be confined to a very small compass.
§ VISCOUNT SANDHURSTI do not wish to interrupt the noble Lord, but I moved the adjournment of the House and understood the Motion to be agreed to.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORThe Motion, unfortunately, was put by me from the Chair, assented to by your. Lordships, and so announced by me. I greatly regret that we have not had the pleasure of hearing the noble Lord.