Ulster's Stand For Union

by Ronald McNeill

But Mr. Bonar Law had his own information, which was much fuller than the Government imagined. A long and heated debate followed Colonel Seely's statement, and was continued on the two following days, gradually dragging to light the facts with a much greater profusion of detail than is necessary for this narrative. On the 24th Mr. L.S. Amery made a speech which infuriated the Radicals and Labour members, but the speaker, as was his intention, made them quite as angry with the Government as with himself. The cause of offence was that the Government was thought to have allowed itself to be coerced by the soldiers, while the latter had been allowed to make their obedience to orders contingent on a bargain struck with the Government. This aspect of the case was forcibly argued by Mr. J. Ward, the Labour member for Stoke, in a speech greatly admired by enthusiasts for "democratic" principles. Although Mr. Ward's invective was mainly directed against the Unionist Opposition, the latter listened to it with secret pleasure, perceiving that it was in reality more damaging to the Government than to themselves, since Ministers were forced into an attitude of defence against their own usually docile supporters. It may here be mentioned that at a much later date, when Mr. John Ward, in the light of experience gained by his own distinguished service as an officer in the Great War, had come to the conviction that "the possibility of forcing Ulster within the ambit of a Dublin Parliament has now become unthinkable," he acknowledged that in 1914 the only way by which Mr. Asquith's Home Rule Act could have been enforced was through and by the power of the Army.[^[77]]

So much shaken were the Government by these attacks that on the next day, the 25th of March, Colonel Seely, at the end of a long narrative of the transaction, announced his resignation from the Government. He had, he said, unintentionally misled his colleagues by adding without their knowledge to the paper given to General Gough; the Cabinet as a whole was quite innocent of the great offence given to democratic sentiment. This announcement having had the desired effect of relieving the Ministry as a whole from responsibility for the "peccant paragraphs," and averting Radical wrath from their heads, the Prime Minister later in the debate said he was not going to accept Seely's resignation. Yet Mr. Churchill exhibited a fine frenzy of indignation against Mr. Austen Chamberlain for describing it as a "put-up job."

Only a fairly fertile imagination could suggest a transaction to which the phrase would be more justly applicable. The idea that Seely, in adding the paragraphs, was tampering in any way with the considered policy of the Cabinet was absurd, although it served the purpose of averting a crisis in the House of Commons. He had been in constant and close communication with Churchill, who had himself been present at the War Office Conference with Gough, and who had seen the Prime Minister earlier in company with Sir John French. The whole business had been discussed at the Cabinet Meeting, and when Seely returned from his audience of the King he found the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, and Lord Morley still in the Cabinet room. Mr. Asquith said on the 25th in the House of Commons that no Minister except Seely had seen the added paragraphs, and almost at the same moment in the House of Lords Lord Morley was saying that he had helped Seely to draft them. Moreover, Lord Morley actually took a copy of them, which he read in the House of Lords, and he included the substance of them in his exposition of the Government policy in the Upper House.

Furthermore, General Gough was on his way to Ireland that night, and if it had been true that the Prime Minister, or any other Minister, disapproved of what Seely had done, there was no reason why Gough should not have found a telegram waiting for him at the Curragh in the morning cancelling Seely's paragraphs and withdrawing the assurance they contained. No step of that kind was taken, and the Government, while repudiating in the House of Commons the action for which Seely was allowed to take the sole responsibility, permitted Gough to retain in his despatch-box the document signed by the Army Council.

For it was not only the Secretary of State for War who was involved. The memorandum had been written by the Adjutant-General, and it bore the initials of Sir John French and Sir Spencer Ewart as well as Colonel Seely's. These members of the Army Council knew that the verbal assurance given by the Secretary of State to Gough had not been completely embodied in the written memorandum without the paragraph which had been repudiated after the debate in the Commons on the 24th, and they were not prepared to go back on their written word, or to be satisfied by the "put-up job" resignation of their civilian Chief. They both sent in their resignations; and, as they refused even under pressure to withdraw them, the Secretary of State had no choice but to do the same on the 30th of March, this time beyond recall. Mr. Asquith announced on the same day that he had himself become Secretary of State for War, and would have to go to Scotland for re-election.

The facts as here related were only extracted by the most persistent and laborious cross-examination of the Government, who employed all the familiar arts of official evasion in order to conceal the truth from the country. Day after day Ministers were bombarded by batteries of questions in the House of Commons, in addition to the lengthy debates that occupied the House for several consecutive days. This pressure compelled the Prime Minister to produce a White Paper, entitled "Correspondence relating to Recent Events in the Irish Command."[^[78]] It was published on the 25th of March, the third day of the continuous debates, and, although Mr. Asquith said it contained "all the material documents," it was immediately apparent to members who had closely studied the admissions that had been dragged from the Ministers chiefly concerned, that it was very far from doing so. Much the most important documents had, in fact, been withheld. Suspicion as to the good faith of the Government was increased when it was found that the Lord Chancellor, Lord Haldane, had interpolated into the official Report of his speech in the House of Lords a significant word which transformed his definite pledge that Ulster would not be coerced, into a mere statement that no "immediate" coercion was contemplated.

In the face of such evasion and prevarication it was out of the question to let the matter drop. On the 22nd of April the Government was forced to publish a second White Paper,[^[79]] which contained a large number of highly important documents omitted from the first. But it was evident that much was still being kept back, and, in particular, that what had passed between Sir Arthur Paget and his officers at a conference mentioned in the published correspondence was being carefully concealed. Mr. Bonar Law demanded a judicial inquiry, where evidence could be taken on oath. Mr. Asquith refused, saying that an insinuation against the honour of Ministers could only be properly investigated by the House of Commons itself, and that a day would be given for a vote of censure if the leader of the Opposition meant that he could not trust the word of Ministers of the Crown. Mr. Bonar Law sharply retorted that he "had already accused the Prime Minister of making a statement which was false."[^[80]] But even this did not suffice to drive the Government to face the ordeal of having their own account of the affair at the Curragh sifted by the sworn evidence of others who knew the facts. They preferred to take cover under the dutiful cheers of their parliamentary majority when they repeated their explanations, which had already been proved to be untrue.

But the Ulster Unionist Council had, meantime, been making inquiries on their own account. There was nothing in the least improper, although the supporters of the Government tried to make out that there was, in the officers at the Curragh revealing what the Commander-in-Chief had said to them, so long as they did not communicate anything to the Press. They were not, and could not be, pledged to secrecy. It thus happened that it was possible for the Old Town Hall in Belfast to put together a more complete account of the whole affair than it suited the Government to reveal to Parliament. On the 17th of April the Standing Committee issued to the Press a statement giving the main additional facts which a sworn inquiry would have elicited. It bore the signatures of Lord Londonderry and Sir Edward Carson, and there can have been few foolhardy enough to suggest that these were men who would be likely to take such a step without first satisfying themselves as to the trustworthiness of the evidence, a point on which the judgment of one of them at all events was admittedly unrivalled.

From this statement it appeared that Sir Arthur Paget, so far from indicating that mere "precautionary measures" for the protection of Government stores were in contemplation, told his generals that preparations had been made for the employment of some 25,000 troops in Ulster, in conjunction with naval operations. The gravity of the plan was revealed by the General's use of the words "battles" and "the enemy," and his statement that he would himself be "in the firing line" at the first "battle." He said that, when some casualties had been suffered by the troops, he intended to approach "the enemy" with a flag of truce and demand their surrender, and if this should be refused he would order an assault on their position. The cavalry, whose pro-Ulster sentiments must have been well known to the Commander-in-Chief, were told that they would only be required to prevent the infantry "bumping into the enemy," or in other words to act as a cavalry screen; that they would not be called upon to fire on "the enemy"; and that as soon as the infantry became engaged, they would be withdrawn and sent to Cork, where "a disturbance would be arranged" to provide a pretext for the movement. A Military Governor of Belfast was to be appointed, and the general purpose of the operations was to blockade Ulster by land and sea, and to provoke the Ulster men to shed the first blood.

The publication of this statement with the authority of the two Ulster leaders created a tremendous sensation. But it probably strengthened the resolution of the Government to refuse at all costs a judicial inquiry, which they knew would only supply sworn corroboration of the Ulster Unionist Council's story. In this they were assisted in an unexpected way. Just when the pressure was at its highest, relief came by the diversion of attention and interest caused by another startling event in Ulster, which will be described in the following chapters.