The most spectacular demonstration of protest was made by the Irish Labour Party. A conference of fifteen hundred delegates convened in Dublin by the Irish Trades Union Congress, in adopting a resolution to resist Conscription “in every way that to us seems feasible,” asserting “our claims for independent status as a nation in the international movement and the right of self-determination as a nation as to what action or actions our people should take on questions of political or economic issues,” called upon Irish workers to abstain from all work on April 23rd as “a demonstration of fealty to the cause of Labour and Ireland.” This was the first occasion in Western Europe on which it had been decided to call a general national strike: and the strike in Ireland was general except in North-east Ulster. The Labour Party however had a point of view somewhat different from that of Sinn Fein. Labour was opposed to Conscription on principle, and would have, unlike Sinn Fein, opposed it even if agreed to by an Irish Parliament. Their view had been clearly expressed more than a year before when, after two years of silence, Irish Labour began again to publish a weekly paper. Irish Opinion in its first number, published on December 1st, 1917, had said, “We shall resolutely oppose the conscription of Irish people, whether for military or industrial purposes. The very idea of compulsory service is abhorrent to us and we shall assist in every way every effort of our people to resist the imposition of such an iniquitous system upon us.”
However neither minor differences on the subject of Conscription nor, indeed, major differences upon other points, prevented all sections of Nationalist opinion from assisting each other heartily in the crisis. A common statement of Ireland’s case against Conscription was drawn up for publication and the Lord Mayor of Dublin was deputed to proceed to America to lay the protest of Ireland before the President of the United States. The Government showed no signs of yielding to the opposition. The Lord Lieutenant known to be opposed to the policy of the Cabinet was recalled, and his place was taken by Field Marshal Lord French with whom Mr. Shortt was appointed Chief Secretary, one of a considerable number of “English Home Rulers” who have at various times been appointed to the post of Chief Secretary for Ireland by virtue of their profession of the belief that no such post should be permitted to exist, and whose conduct in it has been such as might be expected from such persons. It was announced with official emphasis that no opposition would deflect the Government from its purpose. The Lord Mayor of Dublin was refused permission to leave Ireland until he should first have submitted for the approval of Lord French the memorial which he was charged to convey to the President of the United States. But nothing altered the opposition to Conscription, and the Government had to be content with the suspension of the sword.
When the formidable nature of the task they had undertaken dawned upon the Lord Lieutenant and his Chief Secretary, it was decided by the Irish Government to cut the sinews of the opposition by the arrest of those who were chiefly responsible for fomenting it. But it was clearly impossible to clap the Catholic Bishops and the Mansion House Conference into gaol in a body. It was plain that Sinn Fein was the chief centre of the trouble, being the only political party whose principles furnished a logical ground for opposition to the conscription of Ireland by Act of Parliament. The two Sinn Fein members of the Mansion House Conference, Messrs. de Valera and Griffith, with a number of less prominent Sinn Feiners, were deported and imprisoned. But this was a course which required some explanation. They were not the only people prominent in the Anti-Conscription campaign; and in any case English public opinion while, on the whole, indignant with the attitude of Ireland towards compulsory service, was becoming somewhat uneasy as to happenings in Ireland and inclined to question the entire wisdom of the Irish Executive. Accordingly, it was asserted that the arrested Sinn Feiners had been guilty of complicity in a German plot. The ex-Lord Lieutenant, Lord Wimborne, during whose tenure of office the discovery of the plot (it was said) began to be made, publicly and flatly denied all knowledge of it, and expressed disbelief in its existence. The Premier announced that he had seen the evidence (which nothing, however, would induce him to divulge) and that it was even as the Irish Government had said. Public opinion however was still unsatisfied, and the Irish office issued a statement on the subject in which the Chief Secretary argued (“for even though vanquished he could argue still”) from the history of Sinn Fein for the previous three or four years, and from certain financial transactions between Count Bernstorff and some Irish-Americans before America entered the war, that some person or persons in Ireland had been in communication with Germany for a treasonable purpose. However that may have been, there was no direct evidence connecting any of the prisoners with any of these transactions, and in fact nearly all of them had been in gaol in England at the time when the transactions took place. The official statement was pitilessly analysed in a pamphlet published by New Ireland entitled “The Plot: German or English?” the only result of the whole affair being that official credit in Ireland received its last shock. No further attempts were made to provide non-political reasons for political arrests: it was judged better that the Executive should rely upon the extraordinary powers conferred upon it by the Defence of the Realm Act (though the machinery provided by what was known as “the ordinary law” in Ireland seemed sufficiently complete without it) to arrest, without the necessity of charge or trial, any persons who made themselves prominent for the advocacy of Sinn Fein or Republican politics. In July Sinn Fein, the Gaelic League, Cumann na mBan and the Irish Volunteers were declared to be “dangerous associations” to which Irish men and women would in future belong at their own risk. Concerts, hurling matches, literary competitions, were prohibited all over Ireland by military force when they were held under the auspices of persons politically obnoxious to the Government. Government became a matter of having enough troops in the country to ensure that the Executive was able to do precisely what it pleased. Ireland was treated frankly as hostile and occupied territory, and the last pretence of constitutional government was finally abandoned.
The reply of Sinn Fein to the arrest of Mr. Griffith for complicity in the “German Plot” had been his triumphant election for East Cavan. This was almost the last seat which the once powerful Parliamentary Party ventured to contest. Its co-operation with Sinn Fein in the question of Conscription had been, not an alliance but an operation conducted in common, and on other points each was at perfect liberty to pursue its own path. But the junction of forces had only succeeded in bringing into clear relief the essential incompatibility of the Sinn Fein and the Parliamentary policies, and it became evident that the Irish public would have to choose definitely which it should finally adopt. Sinn Fein, which refused to compromise on the essential principle of Ireland’s distinct and independent nationhood, could argue with considerable force that on this assumption alone could Ireland object to Conscription with confidence and moral justification—that if Ireland were not a nation, but a province or a dependency, then the resistance to Conscription was legally and morally without a sound basis. It was extremely difficult for the Parliamentary Party to counter this argument: and in point of fact some of them did not try to counter it but frankly dissociated themselves from the Anti-Conscription policy. It was perfectly clear that the Home Rule Act reserved such powers to Parliament as to make the conscription of Ireland, as part of a general measure of Conscription for the United Kingdom, a step which Parliament would legally be entitled to take and which, once the Home Rule Act was accepted by Ireland as satisfactory (and the Parliamentary Party had declared that it was) Ireland would have no moral right to resist. The Party began to shift its ground: it could no longer, in view of Irish feeling, remain advocates of a settlement which made Conscription possible: it would not go the whole way with Sinn Fein and declare that no settlement would be satisfactory which did not acknowledge the right of Ireland to independent nationhood, to self-determination and the right to choose its own form of government. The Party settled down unofficially to the advocacy of a form of Home Rule which should ensure to Ireland piecemeal and in detail, by enactment of Parliament, as large an independence as was possessed by the self-governing Dominions, without the formal and definite renunciation of the right of Parliament to decide the extent to which Ireland should be independent. This of course left the question of principle precisely where it was. But on the question of principle Sinn Fein was adamant, and Nationalist Ireland supported Sinn Fein by an overwhelming majority.
The relationship between Sinn Fein and the Hierarchy was more enigmatic and gave rise to much speculation. One view was that Sinn Fein had ‘captured’ the Hierarchy, another was that the Hierarchy had ‘captured’ Sinn Fein. Neither view was, of course, correct. Individual bishops may have sympathized (individual priests certainly sympathized in large numbers) with Sinn Fein: but it is certain that quite a large number of priests and bishops did not. While it is true that resistance to Conscription could not logically be justified except upon the principles of Sinn Fein, bishops had the same right to be illogical as members of the Parliamentary Party. Under the stress of the moment, in the desire to save their flocks from the danger that threatened them, they had joined forces with a party which before that they had not approved of and which they were not bound to approve of afterwards. Sinn Fein, at any rate, was under no illusion as to the feelings of some of the Bishops. The curate of Crossna, Father O’Flanagan, had taken a very active part on the side of Sinn Fein in the East Cavan election. Shortly afterwards he was deprived by his bishop, the Most Rev. Dr. Coyne, of all his faculties as a priest, including the right to say Mass. The technical offence for which he was punished in this way was that of having addressed meetings within the boundaries of three parishes in Cavan without first obtaining the permission of the local parish priests. Everybody knew that the real reason for his punishment was not the technical offence but the fact that his speeches had been strongly (and even violently) Sinn Fein. The people of Crossna retorted by shutting up the parish church and refusing to allow Mass to be said in it by anyone else. Nationality, in reporting the facts, said of Father O’Flanagan: “He has been condemned to the most harsh judgment that can be meted out to a priest by his bishop and until that wrong has been set right Sinn Fein will stand by Father O’Flanagan”; and practically every Sinn Feiner in Ireland agreed with these words. When bishops seemed (as many of them did) to go out of their way to criticise in pastorals and public letters the policy or the tactics of Sinn Fein, their action was resented and openly, even stringently, criticised in the Sinn Fein papers: but all this was done not only without any trace of anti-clericalism (in the proper sense of the word) but with what sometimes seemed an almost exaggerated deference to the office and sacred functions of the bishop as such. As a matter of fact the Catholic Church in Ireland during the nineteenth century has always been on the side of law and order. It has had a strong bias towards constituted authority, as was to be expected from a branch of the most conservative institution in the world. It excommunicated the Fenians, it opposed the Land League, it condemned the Rising. It is hardly too much to say that Ireland would have been ungovernable but for the influence of the Church. It raised its voice against outrage and murder in language beside which the denunciations of politicians sound tame and flaccid. If it has meddled in politics (as it has) it has done no more than the Protestant Churches in Ireland, every one of which is “in politics” up to the neck.
And the co-operation of Labour and Sinn Fein in the opposition to Conscription by no means meant either that Labour had become Sinn Fein or that Sinn Fein had adopted the Labour programme. In fact its relation to Labour is a problem which Sinn Fein has been very long in solving. The alliance between Republican Volunteers and the Citizen Army in the Rising effected no more than a temporary and partial union. The very first number of Irish Opinion had some very open criticism of the attitude of Sinn Fein to Irish Labour. The Sinn Fein Convention of November 1st, 1917, had passed two Labour resolutions, one of which affirmed the right of Labour to a “fair and reasonable” wage: the other was in favour of Irish Labour severing its connection with British Trades Unions. On the first of these Irish Opinion remarked: “The resolution of the Sinn Fein Convention conceding to Irish Labour the right to fair and reasonable wages was not by any means encouraging. It was a resolution to which the assent of even Mr. W. M. Murphy might have been secured. It did not go far enough, and it bore upon the face of it timidity and trepidation. The Labour demand to-day goes rather beyond fair and reasonable wages: the British Government is prepared to offer, in fact has actually offered, some share in direction to British Labour. This being so, there is not much to be gained from Mr. de Valera’s statement in his Mansion House speech ‘that in a free Ireland, with the social conditions that obtained in Ireland, Labour had a far better chance than it would have in capitalist England.’ ‘Our Labour policy,’ continued Mr. de Valera, ‘is a policy of a free country, and we ask Labour to join with us to free the country. We recognize that we can never free it without Labour. And we say, when Labour frees this country—helps to free it—Labour can look for its own share of its patrimony.’ We agree that ‘to free the country’ is an object worthy of all the devotion that men can give to it, but at the same time we would urge that, pending this devoutly-to-be-wished-for consummation, men and women must live and rear the families upon which the future Ireland depends. What Mr. de Valera asks in effect is that Labour should wait till freedom is achieved before it claims ‘its share of its patrimony.’ There are free countries, even Republics, where Labour claims ‘its share in its patrimony’ in vain. We can work for freedom, and we will, but at the same time we’ll claim our share of our patrimony when and where opportunity offers.” This is to put the issue squarely. Labour was not going to commit itself blindfold to any policy of “ignoring” indiscriminately all “English law,” when by recognizing it any practical advantage was to be gained. Labour had too keen an eye to the realities of life to refuse a gift from the left hand because the right hand had smitten it or picked its pocket. It was prepared to settle its account with the owner of both hands when opportunity offered, but, for the present, “a man must live.” “Fleshpots or Freedom” might form an attractive motto for the front page of New Ireland, but Labour saw no virtue (since Freedom’s back was turned anyhow) in leaving the pots untasted on a point of honour. The resolution calling upon Irish Labour to withdraw from association with English Labour was flatly ignored. Irish Labour was, and intended to remain, international: it was not going to refuse co-operation with Labour in France or Belgium—it appointed delegates to the Stockholm Conference—and it saw no reason to refuse co-operation with Labour in England. Besides, without the help of English Labour it felt unable to stand alone. And Labour, while it sympathized with the demand for Irish independence, did not wish to commit itself to any step which would make it more difficult than it need be to win the co-operation of the Unionist workingmen of Belfast and the North. Curiously enough, while Sinn Fein was calling upon Irish Labour to withdraw from membership of English Trades Unions, the Unionist leaders in Ulster were trying to induce Belfast Labour to do the same thing: but while Sinn Fein objected to the English Labour Party because it was English, the Ulster politicians objected to it because it was in favour of Home Rule. Among the Sinn Fein papers, New Ireland, while faithful to the resolution of the Convention, saw most clearly the reasons which explained the Labour attitude and, while expressing the hope that a severance from the English Unions would eventually occur, pleaded for toleration and for, in the meantime, a free hand for Labour.
But the Sinn Fein difficulty in regard to Labour lay deeper than any mere question of tactics. The leaders of Irish Labour might be Republicans, but they were also largely Socialists, and where Socialism is suspected the Church has to be reckoned with. James Connolly, the revered leader of Irish Labour, had been (though he died a sincere Catholic) supposed to have come into conflict with the Church for his opinions on social questions. His associate, James Larkin, had more than once furnished a text for some very plain speaking in pastorals and from the altar for the alleged subversive and immoral tendency of his teaching on Labour questions. During the General Election of 1918 a sentence from James Connolly’s writings, which had been quoted on a Sinn Fein election poster, was the subject of a bitter and prolonged controversy, during which Sinn Fein was challenged by a militant Churchman either to repudiate Connolly’s political philosophy or to declare itself opposed to the authoritative teaching of the Church. Sinn Fein, very wisely, did neither: but it was felt very generally that while this might be wisdom for the moment, it was not wisdom for all time: and Sinn Fein has still to formulate its social philosophy.
The conclusion of the war made no difference in the government of Ireland except that more troops might be expected to be available for the maintenance of law and order. Martial law was not relaxed or revoked: the Competent Military Authority retained unimpaired over large areas of Ireland the power to arrest and imprison (often for long periods) persons charged with every variety of offence which could be interpreted as dangerous to the prestige and efficiency of that form of government which is best administered under the sanction of a courtmartial. Men, women and children were arrested upon charges not specified and committed to prison for periods impossible to ascertain either from the authorities who sent them, or the authorities who kept them, there. It was under such circumstances that Ireland was asked to take part in the Victory Election of 1918. The electors of Great Britain were asked to give a “mandate” to the British representatives at the Peace Conference, and “to strengthen their hands” in exacting from the Central Empires and their Allies the full measure of punishment. Ireland decided to give a “mandate” which was neither asked for nor desired and to “strengthen the hands” of the Peace Plenipotentiaries in demanding that for which the war had ostensibly been fought—the freedom of small nations. It was known that the Parliamentary Party would retain only a fraction of the seats it once held and that Sinn Fein would be in a majority. For a time it seemed as if the verdict of the majority might be weakened by the intrusion of Labour candidates who, though most of them were Sinn Feiners in point of fact and all of them were bound by the Labour Party not to attend Parliament except when ordered by the Labour Congress, would give no pledge of absolute and rigid abstention from the English Parliament and were Labour candidates first and Sinn Feiners afterwards. At one time it seemed as if an acute conflict between Sinn Fein and Labour might occur. But the Labour Party, recognizing the extreme importance of Ireland having an opportunity of delivering an unequivocal verdict in the most important election that had been held for a generation, finally agreed to withdraw its candidates and to allow the electorate to decide on the political question only. The decision was conclusive on the question. Out of 106 members returned for Irish constituencies, 73 were Sinn Fein candidates, pledged to abstention from the English Parliament and to the claim of Irish independence.