The League’s first Convention had been termed by Redmond ‘the Parliament of the people of Ireland’. Its developing agitation in late 1901 took on the character of what Bull has called an ‘alternative or de facto government’. League branches enforced its will at local level, using ‘League courts’ to give a semblance of legality to the intimidation of grazier farmers and land-grabbers.102 There had been calls from unionists throughout the year for the League to be proscribed, but the Chief Secretary had stalled.103 Only in January 1902, when four MPs were sentenced to prison terms under the Crimes Act on charges of incitement arising from their speeches, did Wyndham seem serious about trying to suppress the agitation. This occasioned protests by the party in Parliament, and on 28 February Dillon arraigned Wyndham and the Government in the House on its revival of coercion.104 April saw an escalation, with the proclamation by the Lord Lieutenant of nine counties and two cities as being in ‘a state of disturbance’, the abrogation of trial by jury in those counties and the revival of the ‘removable magistrates’ system, in abeyance since Plan of Campaign days.105
George Wyndham was thirty-eight in early 1902, a man of forceful personality and imagination possessed by a romantic sympathy for Ireland, partly derived from family connections with the 1798 rebel Lord Edward Fitzgerald, as well as confidence in his ambition to bring about what Andrew Gailey terms ‘the constructive rejuvenation of Irish society, and not simply the alleviation of certain social problems’.106 Though pressed by the Cabinet, his reluctance to take the coercion path stemmed from his conviction that it would threaten his plan to bring in a successful land bill, for which he would need Irish Party support.107 Redmond had told an Arklow meeting in May 1901 that he had given the Chief Secretary ‘tender treatment’ on his appointment, but that it was now ‘time to take off the gloves and fight him’. At a Limerick public meeting in July 1902, he called him, implausibly:
… one of the worst representatives of English rule who has come to Ireland within the last half-century… pretentious, incapable, supercilious… He is trying Coercion with us – let us try a little Coercion with him (cheers).108
Wyndham’s cousin Blunt was aware of the element of charade in Redmond’s rhetoric, and of what the two really thought of each other. In conversation with Blunt ‘about George’, Redmond confided in March 1902: ‘I am obliged to be fierce with him in public, but I know he is with us in his heart, and we all know it.’109 A month earlier, Blunt recorded:
Called on G. Wyndham and had a long talk with him about Ireland, which wholly occupies him. He is far more in sympathy with the Nationalists than with the Castle party… His own people, however, are constantly [urging] him to coerce, and he has been obliged to make a show of doing something in that way though most unwillingly… He was delighted when I repeated what Redmond said about him and that the Irish members still regarded him with a friendly eye….110
Wyndham, having fought for months against powerful opposition and severe financial constraints imposed by the Treasury, barely got a land bill through the Cabinet, and introduced it on 25 March 1902.111 It was soon evident that it was too limited in scope and offered too little inducement to the tenants to purchase. On 4 April in Cork, Redmond called it ‘a halting and insincere measure, which, if passed tomorrow, could not by any possibility go even an appreciable length in settling the Irish land question’; however, the Government had been ‘forced from their position of doing nothing’. Given the context of the heated atmosphere created by UIL agitation, a rent strike on the Roscommon de Freyne estate that left the League open to prosecution and monetary loss, Irish Party obstruction and pro-Boer utterances in the House and mounting unionist calls for full-blooded coercion, the bill stood little chance of a hearing in any case. Despite a feeble defence, Wyndham announced its effective withdrawal on 9 June.112
Coercion intensified in the early summer of 1902, with further arrests and sentencing of League workers and MPs, banning of meetings and reports of police brutality. By the end of the year, ten MPs, including Willie Redmond, had been imprisoned.113 The confrontational atmosphere spared any dilemmas regarding the party’s participation in the Coronation ceremonies for Edward VII. Its absence, Redmond said on 31 May, would ‘reveal to the world the canker which is eating at the very vitals of the Empire’.114 His announcement came just before the publication of the peace terms ending the South African War, which included the granting of Home Rule to the two Boer republics. Redmond rejoiced at the advent of peace, but remarked that only Ireland among pro-Boer nations had, by alienating British opinion, sacrificed her own interests to support them. In stating that her attitude had been motivated, not by race hatred against England, but by ‘high and noble motives’, he gave voice again to his long-held beliefs about the future of the Empire as a confederation of self-governing nations, into which Ireland, he hoped, would shortly follow the South African republics.115
The Government’s actions exposed confusion among senior party men regarding the limits to which League tactics could go while remaining within the law. With O’Brien back in action since April, the UIL National Directory on 27 June met and issued a ‘fighting policy’ manifesto that urged a strengthening of boycotting.116 The following weekend, Redmond accompanied O’Brien to Limerick to explain its meaning to the local League executive. His speech was long on militant rhetoric but short on instructions on how to proceed. It was left to O’Brien to spell out the details.117 However, apprehension soon grew among their colleagues, who since the spring had feared the suppression of the League. Dillon had already indicated to Redmond his disapproval of the issuing of documents giving detailed instructions, which he felt were ‘always of more value to the Government than to the movement’.118
In August, O’Connor wrote O’Brien from London: ‘You think Ireland is too quiet; we here have the impression that Ireland is utterly disturbed.’119 O’Brien sent the letter to Redmond, asking him whether he agreed that he had ‘gone too far’.120 Redmond replied from Aughavanagh that he quite agreed that the country ‘wanted rousing up’, but ‘where I differ from you is as to the means’. If the Limerick speech were repeated all over the country, and wholesale boycotting propounded as League policy, the consequence would be suppression and the imprisonment of the leaders, to be followed by ‘confusion, chaos and renewed apathy’.121 O’Brien protested at the contradiction between the expressed support of Redmond and Dillon for the manifesto and their objection to the only means of giving it genuine effect. Convinced that Redmond shared the views of Dillon, O’Connor and Blake, he declared himself willing to ‘keep in the background’ and leave the others free to develop the agitation as they saw fit.