"Awake, brothers, before your liberty is dead. Arm yourselves against your real enemies. Say to the tyrants and their agents, 'The first man who lays hands on me against my will dies.'"
All this, I say, jumps to the eyes of anyone perusing the literature that produced the rising.
It is beside the point whether such argumentation be true or false, patriotic or seditious. The only point, as far as we are concerned in this quasi-medical diagnosis of diseased mentality, is whether or not these thoughts were present in the psychology of the combatants, and I maintain that the evidence is undeniable.
The attitude of "conscientious objectors" to militarism in England is England's own affair. Yet I cannot, in my own mind, separate the personality of Sir John Simon from that of John Hampden. No doubt ship-money was necessary, and it was the patriotic thing to give it up, and no doubt the same applies to men for the Army: but when it came to the principle of the King taking money without the consent of Parliament, John Hampden thought it his duty to the traditions of his country to resist, just as Sir John Simon thought it his duty to the traditions of the British conscience to passively protest—but that again, I say, is a matter for Englishmen.
The attitude of the Irish conscientious objector, however, has always been of a more militant form, and this began to assert itself among the labour leaders in Ireland through the medium of the more outspoken of the English labour leaders. Whereas in England the masses of workers are naturally loyal, in Ireland loyalty is a sustained effort against the grain of tradition. Hence, while in England the right to rebel fell on unsympathetic soil, in Ireland it merely relit the smouldering embers of past grievances into flame.
For there had been a growing epidemic of the phrase "Shoot them," applied almost indiscriminately, like a quack panacea, by political orators to every opponent on every conceivable subject since the war, and this was producing the most evil results.
Two quotations may suffice from the work by J. Bruce Glasier on "Militarism," which was freely circulated in Dublin by means of Liberty Hall, to illustrate the strength of the feeling on this subject:—
"Although Great Britain is suffering neither from invasion from without nor insurrection from within, the military authorities are not only in command of the defences of our shores but of the civil authorities, and the whole population of the realm. The birthrights of British citizenship embodied in the Magna Charta, Habeas Corpus, and Bill of Rights are no longer inviolable. Martial Law—that is to say, military despotism—may be put in operation at will by the military commanders. Civilians may be seized and tried by Army officers, and even sentenced to any penalty short of death without appeal to trial by jury. Our War Lord is made virtual dictator. A military censorship has been established over the Press and public meetings. Military officers may enter our houses, quarter troops upon us, take possession of our horses, motor-cars, cows, pigs, and pigeons. They may commandeer schools, factories, warehouses, farms, or any other kinds of public or private property. Strikes may be declared acts of treason, Trade Union officials arrested and tried by courts martial, and soldiers used as blacklegs—and no knowledge whatever of these happenings, not even of the existence of strikes or trade disputes, may reach the general public at all if the authorities so determine...."
A phrase that seems to have done great harm, and was specially singled out by the men of Liberty Hall, was "Shoot him!"—as a form of argument employed by every Tom, Dick, and Harry orator, on every conceivable subject without the slightest constitutional authority; but it must be said it was one used by all parties.
During the Home Rule controversy, for example, the Nationalists were just as fond of employing the phrase towards Carson as during the Welsh coal strikes Conservatives were of using it towards the miners.