One of the first queries put to a Briton by an American after the pair have achieved a certain degree of intimacy, is: "Why can't you people settle the Irish Question?"

The form of the query varies in intensity. Earnest well-wishers say: "I don't profess to understand the ins and outs of the matter, but wouldn't it save a deal of trouble all round if you were to give them Home Rule and have done with it?" Candid friends say, quite simply: "If you English can't run Ireland yourselves, why not let the Irish have a try?" (Here again we may note that England, not Great Britain, gets the blame.) Finally, a well-meaning but ferocious lady wrote to me the other day from the Middle West, to enquire: "How does England dare to pose as the champion of Belgium, when all the while she is grinding poor Ireland under her heel?"

All this is very illuminating, and at the same time distressing, to the stay-at-home Briton, who had always imagined that his domestic troubles were his own property, and were not causing concern to other people. But it is an undoubted fact, and cannot be too strongly impressed upon the English people, that the failure of Great Britain to settle the so-called Irish Question is a distinct bar to a complete entente cordiale with America, and, to a certain extent, with the British Dominions overseas.

But before plunging more deeply into the matter, let us make one thing clear. It is not from want of effort or from lack of good will on the part of the English people that the Irish problem still remains unsolved.

This is not, thank Heaven! a disquisition upon the pros and cons of the Home Rule Question. Home Rule is coming quite soon, anyway. But it is permissible to set down here, briefly, the reasons why the English people have so steadily declined to accede to Ireland's persistent demand for a separate Parliament for so many years.

The first rock upon which both sides split is the difficulty of determining what, exactly, is meant by "Home Rule."

When a responsible leader of the Irish Nationalist party states his case to an audience which is friendly without being bigoted—in Canada, say, or at a meeting of moderate English Liberals—he clothes his appeal in some such words as these:

"All we ask is the right, as a little nation, to conduct our affairs in our own way, without interference from the officials of another and more powerful nation. Ireland free, and Ireland a nation, can then take her proper place as a loyal daughter of the Empire, side by side with Canada and Australia."

Well, nothing could sound more reasonable or unexceptionable than that. But two comments present themselves. In the first place, you will note that the orator says "We." "We" means the Nationalist Party, representing about seventy per cent.—possibly more—of the Irish nation, and ignores the existence of the minority—a minority which, before the War, had deliberately and openly declared its intention, and was fully prepared, to fight and die rather than be forced out of the Union. Such a determination was doubtless very indefensible, but there it stands. It is recorded here as one of the trifling factors which prevent the Irish Question from being settled out of hand by the mere wave of some amateur magician's wand. Secondly, it implies that Ireland is not free. Now here is a statement that can be refuted at once. Ireland is just as free as England and Scotland and Wales. In one respect her freedom is very much greater, for she is heavily over-represented in the House of Commons. An Irish member, returned by a remote Galway fishing village of fifteen hundred voters, can balance the vote, say, of an English member representing a great working-class constituency of forty or fifty thousand. If a redistribution of seats, on a basis of proportional representation, were to be ordered in the House of Commons to-day, Ireland would automatically lose about thirty seats. The Irish members, then, wield a power in the councils of the United Kingdom to-day quite out of proportion to the population of the country which they represent.

In another respect Ireland enjoys a freedom not vouchsafed to the nations of the sister isle. In the dim and distant days before the War, Mr. Lloyd George was engaged in a campaign of what his friends called Social Reform, and his victims Rank Piracy. One of his most unpopular flights of legislation was the Land Valuation Act, and another was his National Insurance scheme. Neither of these acts has ever been visited upon Ireland, for the simple reason that the Irish people refused to entertain them at any price; so the oppressed English, as usual, gave way, and paid the piper alone. Again, last year, when the Military Service Act, imposing conscription upon every able-bodied man between nineteen and forty-one, became law, Ireland was once more exempted. To the black shame and grief of every true Irishman, Ireland to-day stands officially aloof and alone in the struggle for liberty and humanity. The thousands of her gallant sons who are fighting in the trenches alongside their English and Scottish and Ulster comrades find difficulty in filling up the gaps in their ranks, because certain of their brothers prefer to stay at home—to make political bargains, or to engage in the profitable task of supplying the demands of depleted Great Britain for ablebodied labour.

So much, then, for the little flaws underlying the responsible Nationalist's earnest appeal. But a greater shock to the sentimental supporter of Home Rule, as such, comes when he is confronted with this same modest proposal translated into the actual terms of an Act of Parliament. The Home Rule Act, the storm-centre of the summer of 1914—so severe was the storm that it quite dispelled the fears of Germany lest Great Britain should step in and interfere with the great coup planned for August—contained the following provisions; and these provisions were the irreducible minimum which the Nationalist Party (who held the balance of power in the House) were prepared to accept:

(1) A Parliament to be established in Dublin.

(2) Ireland to be exempt from Imperial taxation. Great Britain was to pay for the entire upkeep of the Army and Navy, but to continue to pay the Irish Old Age Pensions, together with an annual subsidy to Ireland. In other words, England and Scotland were to find the money, and The Irish Executive were to spend it. The sum involved, including both direct payments and remissions of taxation, amounted to an annual free gift of about thirty-five million dollars.

(3) About forty Irish members were to be retained in the House of Commons.

There were many other clauses, but these three will suffice to show the difference between a Home Ruler indulging in sentimental aspirations and the same gentleman engaged in the transaction of business. The second clause might have passed muster; for the Englishman, with all his faults, has never been niggardly. But Clause Three broke the camel's back.

To the average Englishman the one redeeming feature of Home Rule was the prospect it offered of getting rid, once and for all, of the Irish members from Westminster. The gentle intimation that forty of these would still remain, to assist in the counsels of England and Scotland, and incidentally to glean such further pickings for Ireland as could be secured by the help of forty skilfully manipulated votes, was too much even for the much-enduring Englishman. The worm turned, and the storm broke. It is difficult to understand why such an astute leader as Mr. Redmond should have insisted upon such a condition; for it automatically destroyed the claim upon which he based his plea for the sympathy of the United States and the Dominions—namely, the plea that Ireland should be permitted to govern herself after the fashion of Canada and Australia, neither interfering with or being interfered with by the Parliament at Westminster.

Further into the political merits of the case we need not go. As already stated, the purpose of this disquisition is not to prove a case for or against Home Rule, but to point out to friends whose knowledge of the subject has been derived almost entirely from the perfervid orations of imaginative gentlemen with Irish surnames and (too often) German salaries, who have abandoned their beloved land for the more sympathetic and lucrative atmosphere of New York—firstly, that England during the past fifty years has stopped at nothing, short of the disintegration of the United Kingdom, to remove and assuage the ancient grievance of Ireland; and secondly, that the chief bar to a complete and speedy settlement of the affair is, and always has been, the inability of a lovable but irresponsible people to agree amongst themselves as to what they really want.

The task of redressing wrongs has not been confined to one Party. Fifty years ago the Church of England was the Established Church of Ireland—an obvious injustice to a people of whom the great majority were Catholics. Therefore the Church of England in Ireland was disestablished, by a Liberal Government under Mr. Gladstone. Again, for generations the cry had gone up from Ireland that Irish land was owned by great landlords of English descent, who spent most of their time in London, and confined their energies as lords of the manor to evicting such of their tenants as could not or would not pay their rent. This was obviously a very wrong state of affairs, and fifteen years ago a Unionist Government set out to put it right. Parliament passed George Wyndham's Land Purchase Act, the object of which was to enable the tenant-farmers of Ireland to buy their farms from the landlords. The tenant was invited to state the sum which he could afford to pay for his farm, and the landlord was invited to state the sum which he was prepared to accept. This was indeed a gorgeous opportunity for both tenant and landlord. The two amounts, having been stated, were adjusted and confirmed by a Board, and the intervening gap—no small gap, as may be imagined—was bridged by the English taxpayer. This little experiment in philanthropy cost the tyrannical English considerably more than five hundred million dollars. Under its provisions every Irish peasant is now his own proprietor. Evictions are a thing of the past. Yet how often is this fact so much as admitted by soulful exploiters of Erin's wrongs in America or the Dominions?

Then, as regards Ireland's inability to express her desires with a single voice. Roughly, Irish political parties fall under the following heads:

(1) The official Nationalist Party, under Mr. John Redmond.

(2) The Protestants of the North.

(3) The Unionists of the South and West.

(4) The frankly revolutionary party (Sinn Feinn, Clan-na-Gael, etc.), whose "platform" is absolute separation from England and the British Empire.

The official Nationalist Party is divided into many groups, but at its best it represents the true soul of Ireland—the soul of a high-spirited, imaginative, and intensely quick-witted people—fiercely impatient of the stolid, matter-of-fact, self-complacent race across the Irish Sea. In this respect Ireland resembles a "temperamental" wife married to an intensely respectable but unexciting husband. She wants to "live her own life." The Irish character again, ever prone to dream and brood, prevents Ireland from forgetting her ancient wrongs. Heaven knows they were grievous enough; but they were probably no worse than those of Scotland; and if they had been regarded as hers were by Scotland, they need have left no permanent mark. Edward the First, "The Hammer of the Scots," wrought no less havoc in the days of Wallace than Essex and Sir John Perrot in the time of Elizabeth. Ireland has her Ormonde, and that grim forerunner of Democracy, Oliver Cromwell. Scotland can point, with an equal degree of unhappy satisfaction, to Claverhouse and the Butcher Cumberland. But the phlegmatic Scot has avenged these outrages in subtle fashion. He does not brood; he simply migrates to England in the capacity of a peaceful trader, and proceeds to spoil the Egyptians at his leisure. Ireland, differently constituted, refuses to forget. And it is those two overwhelming forces—undying resentment, and impatience of the control of an intellectually inferior though mentally more stable race—that lie at the root of the Irish Home Rule agitation of to-day. "Leave us to ourselves!" cry the Nationalists. "We don't want to be brought up-to-date! We don't want to be made business-like and efficient! We don't want scientific farming, or state-aided incubators, or sanitary milk cans. We are not interested in the glorious British Empire. We only ask to be left alone with our own beloved, witty, unmethodical country, to manage or mismanage as we please!" And it is that sentiment which has underlain the steady, consistent resistance of the official Nationalist Party to all attempts on the part of England—some of them very admirable attempts—to improve the condition of Ireland. Their attitude is perfectly logical. Such legislation, if successful, would prevent the coming of Home Rule. And most of the bitterness and sorrow of the last thirty years has arisen from the inability—perhaps natural—of the average matter-of-fact Englishman to appreciate that attitude of mind.

"We offer you," he says, "a fair and equal share—the same as our own—in the running of the greatest Empire that the world has ever seen. For goodness sake what more do you want?" And back, without fail, comes the unvarying cry—so heartfelt, so tragic, yet in many ways so unsubstantial:—

"Ireland a Nation! Ireland Free!"

And if only Ireland could have formulated her appeal in a spirit more in accordance with that genuine cri du coeur, and less in the spirit of the extremely materialistic Home Rule Bill of 1914, there is little doubt that she would have had her wish long ago.

Then Ulster. The men of Ulster differ entirely from the other elements of Irish political society in knowing exactly what they want.

"We belong," they announce, "to the Union; we are proud of the Union; and we shall resist, to the death if need be, any attempts to force us out of it."

That is all there is to be said about Ulster. But the brevity of Ulster's contribution to the controversy does not simplify the solution in any way.

Here is a curious footnote to the Ulster problem. Americans will remember that in the early summer of 1914 certain British Regiments (unconscious of the very different task which awaited them in August) were instructed to hold themselves in readiness to enforce the Home Rule Act on Ulster. A number of the officers of those regiments resigned their commissions rather than fight against their own kin. They were much criticised at the time. But in 1776, when the British Army was mobilized against the American Colonies, a number of British officers resigned their commissions, too (and incidentally sacrificed their careers), rather than fight against their own flesh and blood across the sea. Thus does History repeat herself.

Then the Unionists of the West and South. Their sentiments are the sentiments of Ulster, but their position is very different. Though numerically quite strong, they are scattered over a wide area. They cannot, like centralized Ulster, act on "interior lines"; and it is probable that when a definite form of Home Rule crystallizes out of the present turmoil, it will be found that their interests have been sacrificed by the mutual consent of the stronger factions.

Lastly, that curious medley of brooding visionaries—ever the prey of the agitator—political place-hunters, subsidised pro-Germans, and ordinary cut-throats, which calls itself Sinn Feinn. This interesting organization is actuated by a variety of sentiments, varying from a passionate remembrance of woes long past down to a sound business instinct for the loaves and fishes of salaried office. The tie which binds together all its incongruous elements is a fierce hatred of England, derived possibly from the remembrance that rather more than two centuries ago Oliver Cromwell sacked the fair city of Drogheda, or in certain individual cases from a lively personal recollection of having been committed to gaol for three months by a tyrannical magistrate for the trifling indiscretion of burglary or theft.

Whatever its motives or ideals, this party has only one panacea for all ills, and that is complete separation from "England." They aspire to none of the status of Canada or the other Dominions; they are out for secession, pure and simple—secession accompanied, if possible, by a mortal blow at the hated pride of England. In order to put their amiable intention into effect, the Sinn Feinners proceeded, on Easter Monday of 1916, to deal the British peoples, including some three hundred thousand of their own compatriots serving on the Western Front, a stab in the back in the shape of that grim medley of tragedy and farce, the Dublin "revolution." The farce was supplied by Germany, which deposited upon the western shores of Ireland, from a submarine, a degenerate criminal lunatic named Casement, who had already failed egregiously in a monstrous effort to seduce the Irish prisoners in the German prison camps from allegiance to their cause. Casement was promptly arrested by the local village policeman, and his share in the matter ended. But in Dublin there was no lack of tragedy. The forces of the "revolution" struck the first blow for Freedom by an indiscriminate massacre of such British soldiers as happened to be strolling about the streets, unarmed, in their "walking out" dress. The killing was then extended to a large number of innocent civilians, not all of the male sex; and the apostles of Freedom then settled down, with the able assistance of the slum population, to the unrestrained looting of the shops and houses of Dublin.

Naturally the whole of Ireland stood aghast at the crime. Denunciations of the murderers poured in from every side, irrespective of political creed. The leader of the Nationalist Party publicly repudiated and condemned the occurrence in the House of Commons. Never did England and Ireland stand so close together as on that day. But one thing was morally certain from the start, and that was that when the first flush of indignation had died down, the old pernicious sentimentality and political animus would raise their heads again. And it was so. The "revolution" was crushed. Some twelve or fifteen executions took place, either of men who had been directly convicted of deliberate murder, or of those who had set their names to the outrageous document which authorized the same. It is difficult, considering the circumstances, to see how a conscientious tribunal could have done less, for to have condoned such a blend of black treachery and plain murder would rightly have been construed as an act of weakness. But it is even more difficult—nay, impossible—to conceive any handling of the situation out of which persons interested would have refrained from making political capital. The Oppressed English were booked for trouble, both "going and coming."

Probably it would have been best to have held a series of drumhead courts-martial, followed by instantaneous executions, wherever necessary, while public opinion was not merely prepared but anxious for such. But that is not the English way. Each prisoner was accorded a full, conscientious, and lengthy trial. What was worse, the trials were held seriatim; with the result that by the time the last man had been condemned or acquitted, Irish public opinion, ever volatile, had veered round to an attitude of sympathy with the frustrated conspirators. The opportunity to denounce "English justice" was too strong. The fact that scores of innocent people had been foully murdered by the "revolutionists" was forgotten. As might have been anticipated from the start, the odium for the whole tragic occurrence, both the crime and the punishment, was laid by popular acclamation upon the shoulders of England. To-day, particularly in the United States, industrious propagandists are busily engaged in extolling the virtues of the departed criminals; and no tale seems too improbable, no accusation too fantastic, for those whose profession it is to disseminate them.

One case in particular has gained unnecessary notoriety in the United States. An unfortunate man named Skeffington, a harmless visionary, instead of following the counsels of common sense and staying at home, wandered forth into the streets of Dublin during the height of the rioting. Here he was arrested by an English officer who, with a party of troops, was engaged in clearing the streets. This officer had recently returned from the Western Front on sick leave. Utterly unstrung by the appalling sights which confronted him, he appears to have suddenly lost his mental balance. At the end of the day he visited the barracks where his prisoners were confined, selected Skeffington and two others, and ordered their execution. The sentence was carried out. In due course the matter was reported to the authorities; a searching inquiry was held; and the afflicted officer was confined in an insane asylum. Such are the facts of the wretched occurrence; the wonder is, not that it should have happened, but that, in all the turmoil and agony of that hellish night in Dublin, it should only have happened once. But it is easy to imagine the form in which the story is being presented in the United States. Poor Skeffington is now canonised as a man who died for freedom with his back against a wall; while his widow is, or was, touring the chief cities of America, where she is being exploited by astute politicians (with Teutonic axes to grind) as a victim of the tyrannical "English" Government.

CHAPTER FIVE