The Annual Register 1914 / A Review of Public Events at Home and Abroad for the Year 1914

by Anonymous

Mr. Bonar Law protested that the second reading of the Home Rule Bill must be postponed, and the Prime Minister intimated that he had vacated his seat by the advice of the Law Officers, in spite of the adverse precedent set by Mr. Gladstone in 1873. He then left the House amid a great display of Liberal and Nationalist enthusiasm.

The motion for the third reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill, which at once followed, provided another opportunity for reviewing the crisis. Mr. F. E. Smith (U.) endeavoured to establish the existence of the alleged plot, and asked how Lord Morley could remain in the Government if Colonel Seely had left it. The First Lord of the Admiralty, in a long speech defending the Government, said that the letter from the Army Council did not arrive in time to be read to the Cabinet, but that the Prime Minister, who knew the mind of the Cabinet, cut it down to the first three paragraphs. Lord Morley copied the two appended paragraphs merely for his coming statement in the House of Lords. Reviewing the controversy, Mr. Churchill argued that after the Prime Minister's offer of March 9 the question was not of the coercion of Ulster, but of Ulster's barring the way to the rest of Ireland. In January the War Secretary had asked for naval protection for Carrickfergus Castle, but he refused it till after the offer of March 9 had been made. The military advisers of the Government had counselled withdrawing the stores and troops to Dublin; the Cabinet decided to reinforce the depots so that they could only be captured by a serious military attack. Sir A. Paget thought that the movement would be provocative, the Chief Secretary that it would not, though interference with the drill of the Volunteers or arrest of their leaders might be so. Sir A. Paget received no orders for any movement of troops beyond these precautionary movements, but he had full discretionary power in case of resistance. The Secretary of War gave him oral instructions, but he was not asked to put, nor did he put, a hypothetical question, and he was determined to take every conceivable precaution to prevent a collision. A deliberate and unprovoked attack by the Ulster forces on British troops would have made all the contingent measures absolutely necessary, but he and the Government had not expected it, and were right. Suppose a Nationalist Army taking the same course as the Ulster Volunteers, would not the Government be compelled to take similar steps? As to the political issues, he withdrew the word that he spoke at Bradford. What of the provocation from the other side? He charged the Opposition leaders in both Houses with attempting to seduce the Army, quoting a number of speeches, a letter from Earl Roberts, and a circular sent out on House of Commons notepaper by Mr. Hunt (U., Shropshire, Ludlow). They had been trying to force an election by creating a rebellion and paralysing the use of the Army to deal with it, and their followers were boasting that the Army had killed the Home Rule Bill.

Among subsequent speakers, Mr. Brace (Lab., Glamorgan, S.) said that if the King had interfered the Labour party must have made his action an issue at the next elections. If the two paragraphs had been maintained, that party would have overthrown the Government. Mr. Bonar Law contested the charge made against the Opposition leaders by the First Lord of the Admiralty, and, reading out Lord Morley's explanation, declared that every member of the Cabinet was in the same position as the War Minister. Eventually the third reading was carried by 329 to 251.

In the House of Lords, also, the resignations and Lord Morley's position were discussed, but without much fresh enlightenment. Lord Morley stated that when the War Minister showed him the two paragraphs, he did not perceive, nor did he yet perceive, that they differed in spirit or substance from the preceding paragraphs. Further explanations were promised for next day, and, incidentally, Earl Roberts appealed to Peers and people to end the mischievous and dangerous assertions that the Army was being made the tool of a party. No man alive, he said, could seduce the Army in that way. Next day, in reply to a vehement attack on the Government by Earl Curzon of Kedleston, Lord Morley explained that Colonel Seely had resigned the second time in order that it might not appear that any Minister had made a bargain, and he himself had had no share in sending the letter as a reply to General Gough's request, of which he was unaware. Sir Edward Grey and the Prime Minister had taken the same view of the paragraphs, when taken with the rest of the letter, as himself. Notable speeches were made by Lord Methuen—to the effect that the Army would do its duty in any case—and by Earl Loreburn, who appealed to all parties to facilitate a settlement. The Marquess of Lansdowne thought the new Army order would not make matters clearer, and the Marquess of Crewe mentioned that the Royal Irish Constabulary, and Afridis in Indian frontier wars, were never asked to serve against men of their own country or race respectively.

Amid all these shocks it was a comparatively trifling matter that the Arms proclamation was invalidated for a time by the result of Hunter v. Coleman, an action brought by a firm of Belfast gunsmiths at the Belfast Assizes against the Collector of Customs of the port for detaining arms consigned to the plaintiffs at Hamburg on December 18, 1913. The sympathies of the jury were obviously with the plaintiffs, and the Attorney-General described the trial as a "political farce."

The crisis cut short the Royal visit to Lancashire and Cheshire, which had been arranged for March 24-28. Their Majesties, who were the guests of the Earl of Derby at Knowsley, decided to give up the Aintree race meeting and return to London on March 26; but on March 26 they opened a new infirmary at Chester, visited Messrs. Lever's famous model town of Port Sunlight, and Messrs. Cammell, Laird and Co.'s great engineering works at Birkenhead, opened—by pressing a button—a new park in that town, and subsequently, by similar means, laid the foundation stone of Wallasey Town Hall. Everywhere they were received with the utmost enthusiasm.

The Ulster crisis, which had abridged this visit, took much of the interest out of the resumed debate on the Home Rule Bill (March 31, April 1, 2, 6). Many people continued to believe that the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the First Lord of the Admiralty had tried to provoke Ulster into a rising in order to crush her, with Colonel Seely as their tool. But the debate, nevertheless, showed signs of conciliation. Mr. Long (U.) said that the Opposition would consider an offer of an appeal to the people conditional on such an amendment of the Parliament Act as would not sacrifice its advantages to the Government. The Foreign Secretary, who spoke second, was most conciliatory. Various suggestions, he said, had been made and had found no success; but on none of them was the door absolutely shut by the Government. They were not prepared to go beyond the six years' exclusion, but unless a federal solution were reached Parliament and the country would go under through the failure of Parliament to conduct its business, and it might be the subject within the six years of private conversations between the leaders. The Government could not accept a referendum or agree to any settlement that did not mean passing the Home Rule Bill. An election without the plural vote before the Bill came into operation might be considered. Force must be used if there were outbreaks in Ulster, or if the Provisional Government defied the Imperial Government. But it could not be used to coerce Ulster to accept Home Rule till after an election. The new Army order might be taken as giving a fair start after the misunderstanding, but otherwise the next election must be on issues so grave as to change the Constitution.

It was thought that this speech had opened a fresh prospect of settlement, and this was confirmed by the opening of next day's debate. Mr. Dillon (N.) welcomed the tendency to conciliation, but declared that for the Unionists exclusion was simply a political weapon, while the Nationalist acceptance of the Government's proposal was inspired solely by a desire for peace. A referendum would not produce a poll of 50 per cent. in Great Britain. Federalism he disliked as implying a written constitution, but it was not barred by the Bill. If there was an agreement, the Bill might be amended either by the Lords inserting the agreed amendments, or by the Home Rule Bill. The Nationalists would do all they could to secure peace, but must not be asked to do what they could not do and what their people would not permit. Sir R. Finlay (U.), however, pressed for a general election; the Solicitor-General effectively put the Liberal and Nationalist case, and Mr. O'Brien (N.) strongly deprecated exclusion and urged a Conference. The debate was cut short by the Labour motion on the rights of British citizens within the Empire (p. [73]), and was resumed on April 2 by Mr. Balfour, who said that the discussion had shifted from the Home Rule Bill to the avoidance of civil war. The conciliatory tone of the debate meant that the House was frightened. Under a voluntary system they could not prevent the Army having its own views; it had to obey orders, but questions arose beyond the day-to-day code, and the Army ought not to have them put to it. After again demanding a referendum or a general election, he said that, though he had never been a believer in Federalism, if some moderate form of devolution met with general acceptance, and would avert civil war, he would not oppose it, but Ulster must be treated separately meanwhile. The President of the Local Government Board declared that Mr. Balfour's doctrine would make the mess-room a debating society. He had rather the Liberal party was beaten on other issues than that it won on this. He said most emphatically that there was no secret obligation of any sort between the Government and the Nationalists; that an election was not wanted, and would settle nothing, and that the election held after the passing of the Bill, and adverse to the Liberals, would mean that they would consent not to the repeal of the whole Bill, but to the exclusion of Ulster. It was only after the Bill passed that Federalism could be discussed. Later Mr. Agar-Robartes (L., Cornwall, St. Austell) attacked the Ministry and advocated giving Ulster a second option at the end of six years; and Mr. Cave (U.) inclined to devolution.

Before the debate was resumed two events affecting it took place outside (April 4)—the Prime Minister's speech to his constituents at Ladybank, and a great Hyde Park demonstration to protest against the coercion of Ulster. At the latter there were fourteen platforms, and the demonstrators reached the Park in twenty-two different processions; there was a large Stock Exchange and middle class contingent, and the speakers included Mr. Balfour (his first appearance at a Hyde Park demonstration), Sir E. Carson, Viscount Milner, Mr. Austen Chamberlain, and other Unionist leaders. The militant suffragists attempted a counter-demonstration, but the police prevented it and arrested Mrs. Drummond; and a Labour demonstration was meanwhile held in Trafalgar Square to protest against the different treatment by the Government of politicians and officers on the one hand and of anti-militarist strike-leaders and militant suffragettes on the other. The resolution carried here approved the conduct of the officers, and urged the rank and file to refuse to take up arms against their own class in industrial disputes.