Ulster's Stand For Union

by Ronald McNeill

Dissatisfaction with the financial clauses of the Bill was expressed at once by the General Council of County Councils in Ireland, a purely Nationalist body; but on the 23rd of April a Nationalist Convention in Dublin, under the influence of Mr. Redmond's oratory, accepted the whole of the Government's proposals with enthusiasm. The first and second readings of the Bill were duly carried by the normal Government majority of about a hundred Liberal, Labour, and Irish Nationalist votes, and the committee stage opened on the 11th of June. On that day an amendment was down for debate which required the most careful consideration by the representatives of Ulster, since their attitude now might have an important bearing on their future policy, and a false step at this stage might easily prove embarrassing later on. The author of this amendment was Mr. Agar-Robartes, a Cornish Liberal Member, whose proposal was to exclude the four counties of Antrim, Derry, Down, and Armagh from the jurisdiction of the proposed Irish Parliament, a gratifying proof that Craigavon and Balmoral were bearing fruit.

A conference of Ulster Members and Peers, and some English Members closely identified with Irish affairs, of whom Mr. Walter Long was one, met at Londonderry House before the sitting of the House on the 11th of June to decide what course to take on this proposal.

It was not surprising to find that there were sharp differences of opinion among those present, for there were obvious objections to supporting the amendment and equally obvious objections to voting against it. The opposition of Ulster for more than a quarter of a century had been directed against Home Rule for any part of Ireland and in any shape or form. No suggestion had ever been made by any of her spokesmen that the Protestant North, or any part of it, should be dealt with separately from the rest of the island, although Carson and others had pointed out that all the arguments in support of Home Rule were equally valid for treating Ulster as a unit. There were both economic and administrative difficulties in such a scheme which were sufficiently obvious, though by no means insuperable; but what weighed far more heavily in the minds of the Ulster members was the anticipation that their acceptance of the proposal would probably be represented by enemies as a desertion of all the Irish Loyalists outside the four counties named in the amendment, with whom there was in every part of Ulster the most powerful sentiment of solidarity. The idea of taking any action apart from these friends and associates, and of adopting a policy that might seem to imply the abandonment of their opposition to the main principle of the Bill, was one that could not be entertained except under the most compelling necessity.

But, had not that necessity now arisen? The Ulster members had to keep in view the ultimate policy to which they were already committed. That policy, as laid down at Craigavon, was to take over, in the event of the Home Rule Bill being carried, the government "of those districts which they could control" in trust for the Imperial Parliament, and to resist by force if necessary the establishment of the Dublin jurisdiction over those districts. The policy of resistance was always recognised as being strictly limited in area; no one ever supposed that Ulster could forcibly resist Home Rule being set up in the south and west. The likelihood of failure to bring about a dissolution before the Bill became law had to be faced, and if no General Election took place there would be no alternative to resistance. If, then, it were decided to vote against an amendment offering salvation to the four most loyalist counties, what would be their position if ultimately driven to take up arms? Except as to a matter of detail concerning the precise area proposed to be excluded from the Bill, would they not be told that they were fighting for what they might have had by legislation, and what they had deliberately refused to accept? And if they so acted, could they expect not to forfeit the support of the great and growing volume of public opinion which now sympathised with Ulster? They could not, of course, secure themselves against malicious misrepresentation of their motives, but the Ulster members sincerely believed, and many in the South shared the opinion, that if it came to the worst they could be of more use to the Southern Unionists outside a Dublin Parliament than as members of it, where they would be an impotent minority. Moreover, it was perfectly understood that Ulster was resolved in any case not to enter a legislature in College Green, and there would, therefore, be no more "desertion" of Unionists outside the excluded area if the exclusion were effected by an amendment to the Bill, than if it were the result of what Mr. Bonar Law had called "trusting to themselves."

The considerations thus briefly summarised were thoroughly discussed in all their bearings at the conference at Londonderry House. It was one of many occasions when Sir Edward Carson's colleagues had an opportunity of perceiving how his penetrating intellect explored the intricate windings of a complicated political problem, weighing all the alternatives of procedure with a clear insight into the appearance that any line of conduct would present to other and perhaps hostile minds, calculating like a chess-master move and counter-move far ahead of the present, and, while adhering undeviatingly to principle, using the judgment of a consummate strategist to decide upon the action to be taken at any given moment. He had an astonishing faculty of discarding everything that was unessential and fastening on the thing that really mattered in any situation. His strength in counsel lay in the rare combination of these qualities of the trained lawyer with the gift of intuition, which women claim as their distinguishing characteristic; and it often extorted from Nationalists the melancholy admission that if Carson had been on their side their cause would have triumphed long ago.

His advice now was that the Agar-Robartes amendment should be supported; and, although some of those present required a good deal of persuasion, it was ultimately decided unanimously that this course should be followed. The wisdom of the decision was never afterwards questioned, and, indeed, was abundantly confirmed by subsequent events.

Mr. Agar-Robartes moved his amendment the same afternoon, summarising his argument in the dictum, denied by Mr. William Redmond, that "Orange bitters will not mix with Irish whisky." The debate, which lasted three days, was the most important that took place in committee on the Bill, for in the course of it the whole Ulster question was exhaustively discussed. Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Churchill had thrown out hints in the second reading debate that the Government might do something to meet the Ulster case. The Prime Minister was now pressed to say what these hints meant. Had the Government any policy in regard to Ulster? Had they considered how they could deal with the threatened resistance? Mr. Bonar Law told the Government that they must know that, if they employed troops to coerce the Ulster Loyalists, Ministers who gave the order "would run a greater risk of being lynched in London than the Loyalists of Ulster would run of being shot in Belfast." Every argument in favour of Home Rule was, he said, equally cogent against subjecting Ulster to Home Rule contrary to her own desire. If the South of Ireland objected to being governed from Westminster, the North of Ireland quite as strongly objected to being ruled from Dublin. If England, as was alleged, was incapable of governing Ireland according to Irish ideas, the Nationalists were fully as incapable of governing the northern counties according to Ulster ideas. If Ireland, with only one-fifteenth of the population of the United Kingdom, had a right to choose its own form of government, by what equity could the same right be denied to Ulster, with one-fourth of the population of Ireland?

As had been anticipated at Londonderry House, Mr. Asquith and some of his followers did their best to drive a wedge between the Ulstermen and the Southern Unionists, by contending that the former, in supporting the amendment, were deserting their friends. Mr. Balfour declared in answer to this that "nothing could relieve Unionists in the rest of Ireland except the defeat of the measure as a whole"; and a crushing reply was given by Mr. J.H. Campbell and Mr. Walter Guinness, both of whom were Unionists from the South of Ireland. Mr. Guinness frankly acknowledged that "it was the duty of Ulster members to take this opportunity of trying to secure for their constituents freedom from this iniquitous measure. It would be merely a dog-in-the-manger policy for those who lived outside Ulster to grudge relief to their co-religionists merely because they could not share it. Such self-denial on Ulster's part would in no way help them (the Southerners) and it would only injure their compatriots in the North."

Sir Edward Carson, in supporting the amendment, insisted that "Ulster was not asking for anything" except to be left within the Imperial Constitution; she "had not demanded any separate Parliament." He accepted the "basic principle" of the amendment, but would not be content with the four counties which alone it proposed to exclude from the Bill. He only accepted it, however, on two assumptions—first, that the Bill was to become law; and, second, that it was to be, as Mr. Asquith had assured them, part of a federal system for the United Kingdom. If the first steps were being taken to construct a federal system, there was no precedent for coercing Ulster to form part of a federal unit which she refused to join. He had been Solicitor-General when the Act establishing the Commonwealth of Australia was being discussed, and it never would have passed, he declared, "if every single clause had not been agreed to by every single one of the communities concerned." Ministers were always basing their Irish policy on Dominion analogies, but could anyone, Carson asked, imagine the Imperial Government sending troops to compel the Transvaal or New South Wales to come into a federal system against their will?

The arguments in favour of the amendment were also stated with uncompromising force by Mr. William Moore, Mr. Charles Craig, and his brother Captain James Craig, the last-mentioned taking up a challenge thrown down by Mr. Birrell in a maladroit speech which had expressed doubt as to the reality of the danger to be apprehended in Ulster. Captain Craig said they would immediately take steps in Ulster to convince the Chief Secretary of their sincerity. Lord Hugh Cecil, in an outspoken speech, greatly to the taste of English Unionists, "had no hesitation in saying that Ulster would be perfectly right in resisting, and he hoped she would be successful."