The Open Secret of Ireland. Tom Kettle

that is safe. I have in mind rather that profound moral settlement, that generous reconciliation which we have seen in South Africa, and desire to see in Ireland. What of it? Did reason and the candid vision of things, as they are, control public affairs, there could be little doubt as to the issue in this choice between friendship and hatred, between the formula of freedom and that of domination. But, unhappily, we have no assurance that Philip sober rather than Philip drunk will sign the warrant. There exists in England, in respect of all things Irish, a monstrous residuum of prejudice. It lies ambushed in the blood even when it has been dismissed from the mind, and constitutes the real peril of the situation. No effort will be spared to reawaken it. The motto of militant Unionism has always been: When in doubt throw mud. Such a programme naturally begets a predilection for ditches, and when certain orators speak of the "last ditch" they must be taken to mean that which has most mud in it. The old methods are already once more in operation. The wicked lying of previous campaigns no doubt cannot be repeated: bigotry will make no further experiments in Pigottry. But a resolute attempt, lavishly financed and directed by masters of the art of defamation, will be made to blacken Ireland. Every newspaper in every remotest country-town in England will be deluged with syndicated venom. The shop-keeper will wrap up his parcels in Orange posters, and the working-man will, I hope, light his pipe for years to come with pamphlets of the same clamant colour. Irishmen, or at all events persons born in Ireland, will be found to testify that they belong to a barbarous people which has never ceased from barbarism, and that they are not fit to govern themselves. Politicians who were never known to risk a five-pound note in helping to develop Ireland will toss down their fifties to help to defame her. Such is the outlook. Against this campaign of malice, hatred, and all uncharitableness it is the duty of every good citizen to say his word, and in the following pages I say mine. This little book is not a compendium of facts, and so does not trench on the province of Mr. Stephen Gwynn M.P.'s admirable "Case for Home Rule." It does not discuss the details, financial or otherwise, of a statesmanlike settlement. Such suggestions as I had to make I have already made in "Home Rule Finance," and the reader will find much ampler treatment of the whole subject in "The Framework of Home Rule," by Mr. Erskine Childers, and "Home Rule Problems," edited by Mr. Basil Williams. In general, my aim has been to aid in humanising the Irish Question. The interpretation of various aspects of it, here offered, is intended to be not exhaustive but provocative, a mere set of shorthand rubrics any one of which might have been expanded into a chapter. Addressing the English reader with complete candour, I have attempted to recommend to him that method of approach, that mental attitude which alone can divest him of his preconceptions, and put him in rapport with the true spirit of the Ireland of actuality. To that end the various lines of discussion converge:—

      Chapter I is an outline of the pathology of the English mind in Ireland.

      Chapters II and III present the history of Ireland as the epic, not of a futile and defeated, but of an indomitable and victorious people.

      Chapter IV exhibits the Home Rule idea as a fundamental law of nature, human nature, and government.

      Chapters V and VI contain a very brief account of the more obvious economic crimes and blunders of Unionism.

      Chapter VII discusses the queer ideas of " Ulster," and the queer reasons for the survival of these ideas.

      Chapter VIII demonstrates that, as a mere matter of political technique, Home Rule must be conceded if any real government is ever to exist again, whether in Great Britain, in Ireland, or in the Empire.

      Chapter IX dips into the future, and indicates that a Home Rule Ireland will have so much interesting work to do as to have no time for civil war or religious oppression.

      Chapter X shows that everybody who values "loyalty" must of necessity be a Home Ruler.

      The only moral commended to the reader is that expressed by Browning in a firm and inevitable line, which has been disastrously forgotten in so many passages of English history:—

      "It's fitter being sane than mad."

      I have tried also to convey to him, with what success others must judge, something of the "pride and passion" of Irish nationality. That is, in truth, the dream that comes through the multitude of business. If you think that Home Rule is a little thing which must be done in a little way for little reasons, your feet are set on the path to failure. Home Rule is one of those fundamental reforms that are not achieved at all unless they are achieved greatly.

      T.M.K.

      December, 1911.

THE OPEN SECRET OF IRELAND

       Table of Contents

CHAPTER I

       Table of Contents

AN EXERCISE IN HUMILITY

       Table of Contents

      In order to understand Ireland we must begin by understanding England. On no other terms will that complex of facts, memories, and passions, which is called the Irish Question, yield up its secret. "You have always been," said a Lady Clanricarde to some English politician, "like a high wall standing between us and the sun." The phrase lives. It reveals in a flashlight of genius the historical relations of the two nations. It explains and justifies the principle adopted as the basis of this discussion, namely, that no examination of the Irish Problem is possible without a prior examination of the English mind. It used to be said that England dearly loved a Lord, a dictum which may have to be modified in the light of recent events. Far more than a Lord does the typical Englishman love a Judge, and the thought of acting as a Judge. Confronted with Ireland he says to himself: "Here are these Irish people; some maintain that they are nice, others that they are nasty, but everybody agrees that they are queer. Very good. I will study them in a judicial spirit; I will weigh the evidence dispassionately, and give my decision. When it comes to action, I will play the honest broker between their contending parties." Now this may be a very agreeable way of going about the business, but it is fatally unreal. Great Britain comes into court, she will be pained to hear, not as Judge but rather as defendant. She comes to answer the charge that, having seized Ireland as a "trustee of civilisation," she has, either through incompetence or through dishonesty, betrayed her trust. We have a habit, in everyday life, of excusing the eccentricities of a friend or an enemy by the reflection that he is, after all, as God made him. Ireland is politically as Great Britain made her. Since the twelfth century, that is to say for a great part of the Middle Ages and for the whole of the modern period, the mind of England and not that of Ireland has been the dominant fact in Irish history.

      This state of things—a paradox in action—carries with it certain metaphysical implications. The philosophers tell us that all morality centres in the maxim that others are to be treated as ends in themselves, and not as instruments to our ends. If they are right, then we must picture Ireland as the victim of a radical immoralism. We must think of her as a personality violated in its ideals, and arrested in its development. And, indeed, that is no bad way of thinking: it is the one formula which summarises the whole of her experience. But the phrasing is perhaps too high and absolute; and the decline and fall of Mr. Balfour are a terrible example to those of us who, being young, might otherwise take metaphysics too solemnly. It will, therefore, at this stage be enough to repeat that, in contemplating the discontent and unrest which constitute the Irish difficulty, Great Britain is contemplating the work of her own hands, the creation of her own mind. For that reason we can make no progress until we ascertain what sort of mind we have to deal with.

      I do not disguise from myself the extremely unpleasant nature of this inquiry. It is as if a counsel were to open his address by saying: "Gentlemen of the Jury, before discussing the facts of the case I will examine briefly the mental flaws, gaps, kinks, and distortions of you twelve gentlemen." There is, however, this difference. In the