The Open Secret of Ireland by T. M. Kettle

T >> T. M. Kettle >> The Open Secret of Ireland

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

THE OPEN SECRET OF IRELAND

By

T. M. KETTLE

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY J. E. REDMOND, M.P.

"Also it is a proverbe of olde date, 'The pride of Fraunce, the
treason of Inglande, and the warre of Irelande, shall never have
ende.' Which proverbe, touching the warre of Irelande, is like
alwaie to continue, without God sette in men's breasts to find some
new remedy that never was found before."

_State Papers_, Reign of Henry VIII.

LONDON

W. J. HAM-SMITH

1912

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION BY J. E. REDMOND, M.P. vii
PRELIMINARY. xi

CHAP.
I. AN EXERCISE IN HUMILITY. 1
II. HISTORY _(a) Coloured_. 17
III. HISTORY _(b) Plain_. 31
IV. THE OBVIOUSNESS OF HOME RULE. 47
V. THE RAVAGES OF UNIONISM (1). 65
VI. THE RAVAGES OF UNIONISM (2). 80
VII. THE HALLUCINATION OF "ULSTER". 98
VIII. THE MECHANICS OF HOME RULE. 120
IX. AFTER HOME RULE. 144
X. AN EPILOGUE ON "LOYALTY". 161

INTRODUCTION

The object of Mr Kettle, in writing this book, is, I take it, to reveal
to English readers what he not inaptly terms as "The Open Secret of
Ireland," in order to bring about a better understanding between the two
nations, and to smoothe the way to a just and final settlement of their
old-time differences. Any work undertaken on such lines commends itself
to a ready welcome and a careful study, and I feel sure that both await
Mr Kettle's latest contribution to the literature of the Irish question.
As the son of one of the founders of the Land League, and as, for some
years, one of the most brilliant members of the Irish Party, and, later,
Professor in the School of Economics in the new National University in
Dublin, he has won his way to recognition as an eloquent exponent of
Irish national ideas; whilst the novelty of his point of view, and the
freshness, vigour, and picturesque attractiveness of his style ensure
for his work a cordial reception on its literary merits, apart from its
political value.

Undoubtedly, one of the main sources of the Anglo-Irish difficulty has
been mutual misunderstanding, generating mutual mistrust and hatred. But
the root of the difficulty goes deeper. It is to be sought in the system
of misgovernment and oppression which successive generations of British
rulers have imposed upon what, with cruel irony, British historians and
statesmen have been wont to call "the sister country." This is the real
"open secret" of Ireland, a secret that all who run may read, and the
effective bearing of which is: that tyranny begets hatred, and that
freedom and justice are the only sure foundations of contentment and
goodwill between nations.

During the past thirty years, and especially since 1886, when Mr
Gladstone threw the weight of his unrivalled genius and influence into
the scale in favour of justice to Ireland, a great deal has been done to
erase the bitter memories of the past, and to enable the English and the
Irish peoples to regard each other in the light of truth, and with a
more just appreciation of what is essential to the establishment of
genuine and lasting friendly relations between them.

But it would be idle to ignore the fact that, to a considerable section
of the English people, Ireland is still a country of which they possess
less knowledge than they do of the most insignificant and remote of the
many islands over which the British flag floats. Mr Kettle's book ought
to be of service in dispelling this ignorance, and in enabling
Englishmen to view the Anglo-Irish question from the standpoint of an
educated and friendly Irish opinion.

The output of purely political literature on the Irish problem has been
increasing during the past few years, and there is room for a book which
aims at focussing attention upon some aspects of it which the mere
politician is apt to pass lightly over or to ignore altogether. Like
most of Mr Kettle's work, the book bears the impress of his
individuality, and, to many of his readers, this will constitute much of
its charm and merit. At the same time, in order to prevent
misunderstanding, it is necessary for me to state that I do not commit
myself to acceptance or endorsement of everything which the book
contains. I content myself with stating, from personal experience, that
nothing which Mr Kettle writes about Ireland can fail to be worthy of
notice by everyone interested in the Home Rule controversy, and that I
believe the circulation of this volume will serve to stimulate thought
about Ireland, and so to hasten the advent of that brighter day when the
grant of full self-government to Ireland will reveal to England the open
secret of making Ireland her friend and helpmate, the brightest jewel in
her crown of Empire.

J. E. REDMOND.

_12th December, 1911_.

PRELIMINARY

After an intermission of nearly twenty years Ireland once again blocks
the way. "Finally rejected" by the House of Commons and the English
electorate in 1886, "finally rejected" by the House of Lords in 1893,
the Home Rule idea has not only survived but waxed stronger in the
wilderness. Time and events have altered its shape only to clothe it
with a richer significance.

Will Great Britain decide wisely in the choice to which she is now put?
Naturally, I do not speak of the Parliamentary future of the Home Rule
Bill: 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

CHAPTER I

AN EXERCISE IN HUMILITY

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 analysis
upon which we are engaged the mental attitude of the jury is not merely
a fact in the case, it is the whole case. Let me reinforce my weaker
appeal by a passage from the wisest pen in contemporary English letters,
that of Mr Chesterton. There is in his mere sanity a touch of magic so
potent that, although incapable of dullness, he has achieved authority,
and although convinced that faith is more romantic than doubt, or even
sin, he has got himself published and read. Summarising the "drift" of
Matthew Arnold, Mr Chesterton observes:

"The chief of his services may perhaps be stated thus, that he
discovered (for the modern English) the purely intellectual
importance of humility. He had none of that hot humility which is
the fascination of saints and good men. But he had a cold humility
which he had discovered to be a mere essential of the
intelligence."

Such a humility, purely hygienic in character, is for Englishmen the
beginning of wisdom on the Irish Question. It is the needle's eye by
which alone they can enter a city otherwise forbidden to them. Let there
be no misunderstanding. The attitude of mind commended to them is not
without its agreeable features. Closely scrutinised, it is seen to be a
sort of inverted vanity. The student begins by studying himself, an
exercise in self-appraisal which need not by any means involve
self-depreciation. What sort of a mind, then, is the English mind?

If there is anything in regard to which the love of friends corroborates
the malice of enemies it is in ascribing to the English an
individualism, hard-shelled beyond all human parallel. The Englishman's
country is an impregnable island, his house is a castle, his temperament
is a suit of armour. The function common to all three is to keep things
out, and most admirably has he used them to that end. At first, indeed,
he let everybody in; he had a perfect passion for being conquered, and
Romans, Teutons, Danes, and Normans in succession plucked and ate the
apple of England. But with the coming of age of that national
consciousness, the bonds of which have never been snapped, the English
entered on their lucky and courageous career of keeping things out. They
possess in London the only European capital that has never in the modern
period been captured by an invader. They withstood the intellectual
grandeur of Roman Law, and developed their own medley of customs into
the most eccentric and most equitable system in the world. They kept out
the Council of Trent, and the Spanish Armada. They kept out the French
Revolution, and Napoleon. They kept out for a long time the Kantian
philosophy, Romanticism, Pessimism, Higher Criticism, German music,
French painting, and one knows not how many other of the intellectual
experiments that made life worth living, or not worth living, to
nineteenth-century Europe. Their insularity, spiritual as well as
geographical, has whetted the edge of a thousand flouts and gibes.
"Those stupid French!" exclaims the sailor, as reported by De Morgan:
"Why do they go on calling a cabbage a _shoe_ when they must know that
it is a _cabbage?_" This was in general the attitude of what Mr Newbolt
has styled the "Island Race" when on its travels. Everybody has laughed
at the comedy of it, but no one has sufficiently applauded its success.
The English tourist declined to be at the trouble of speaking any
foreign tongue whatsoever; instantly every hotel and restaurant on the
Continent was forced to learn English. He refused to read their books; a
Leipsic firm at once started to publish his own, and sold him his
six-shilling Clapham novels in Lucerne for two francs. He dismissed
with indignation the idea of breakfasting on a roll, and bacon and eggs
were added unto him. In short, by a straightforward policy of studying
nobody else, he compelled everybody else to study him.

Now it is idle to deny this performance the applause which it plainly
deserves. The self-evolution of England, as it may perhaps be called, in
its economic, political, and literary life, offers an admirable model of
concentration and energy. Even where it is a case of obtuseness to other
civilisations, at least as high but of a different type, the verdict
cannot be wholly unfavourable. The Kingdom of Earth is to the
thick-skinned, and bad manners have a distinct vital value. A man, too
sensitive to the rights and the charms of others, is in grave danger of
futility. Either he will become a dilettante, which is the French way,
or he will take to drink and mystical nihilism, a career very popular in
Russian fiction. Bad manners have indeed a distinct ethical value. We
all experience moods in which we politely assent to the thing that is
not, because of the fatigue of fighting for the thing that is. A
temperament such as has been delineated is therefore, as human types go,
an excellent type. But it has its peculiar perils. To ignore the point
of view of those in whose country you eat, drink, sleep, and sight-see
may breed only minor discords, and after all you will pay for your
manners in your bill. But to ignore the point of view of those whose
country you govern may let loose a red torrent of tragedy. Such a temper
of mind may, at the first touch of resistance, transform your stolid,
laudable, laughable Englishman into the beastliest of tyrants. It may
drive him into a delirium of cruelty and injustice. It may sweep away,
in one ruin of war, wealth, culture, and the whole fabric of
civilisation. It may darken counsel, and corrupt thought. In fact, it
may give you something very like the history of the English in Ireland.
Now it is not denied that most Englishmen believe the English mind to be
incapable of such excesses. This, they say, is the Russian in Warsaw,
the Austrian in Budapest, the Belgian in the Congo, the blind fool-fury
of the Seine. But it is not the English way. Nor is it suggested that
this illusion is sheer and mere hypocrisy. It is simply an hallucination
of jingoism. Take a trivial instance in point. We have all read in the
newspapers derisive accounts of disorderly scenes in the French Chamber
or the Austrian Reichstag; we all know the complacent sigh with which
England is wont on such occasions to thank God that she is not as one
of those. Does anybody think that this attitude will be at all modified
by recent occurrences at Westminster? By no means. Lord Hugh Cecil, his
gibbering and gesticulating quite forgotten, will be assuring the House
next year that the Irish are so deficient in self-restraint as to be
unfit for Home Rule. Mr Smith will be deploring that intolerant temper
which always impels a Nationalist to shout down, and not to argue down
an opponent. Mr Walter Long will be vindicating the cause of law and
order in one sentence, and inciting "Ulster" to bloodshed in the next.
This is not hypocrisy, it is genius. It is also, by the way, the genesis
of the Irish Question. If anyone is disposed to underrate the mad
passions of which race hatred can slip the leash, let him recall the
crucial examples which we have had in our own time. We have in our own
time seen Great Britain inflamed by two frenzies--against France, and
against the Boer Republics. In the history of public opinion there are
no two chapters more discreditable. In the days of Fashoda the Frenchman
was a degenerate _tigre-singe,_ the sworn enemy of religion and soap. He
had contributed nothing to civilisation except a loathsome science of
sensuality, and the taint of decay was in his bones. In the days of
Spion Kop the Boer was an unlaundered savage, fit only to be a target
for pig-stickers. His ignorance seemed the most appalling thing in the
world until one remembered his hypocrisy and his cowardice. The
newspaper which led the campaign of denigration against France has come
to another view. Its proprietor now divides his time between signing
L10,000 cheques for triumphant French aviators, and delivering speeches
in which their nation is hailed as the pioneer of all great ideas. As
regards the Boers, the same reversal of the verdict of ten years ago has
taken place. The crowd which in 1900 asked only for a sour appletree on
which to hang General Botha, adopts him in 1911 as the idol of the
Coronation. At this progress towards sanity we must all rejoice. But
most of all we have to ask that these two sinister pageants of race
hatred shall not be suffered to dissolve without leaving some wrack of
wisdom behind. Writers on psychology have made many studies of what they
call the collective illusion. This strange malady, which consists in all
the world seeing something which in fact does not exist, wrought more
potently on the mind of England than did reason and justice in the Home
Rule controversies of 1886 and 1893. What has occurred may recur. And
since we are to speak here with all the candour of private conversation
I confess that I cannot devise or imagine any specific against such a
recurrence except an exercise in humility of the kind suggested by Mr
Chesterton. My own argument in that direction is perhaps compromised by
the fact that I am an Irishman. Let us therefore fall back on other
testimony. Out of the cloud of witnesses let us choose two or three, and
in the first place M. Alfred Fouillee. M. Fouillee is a Platonist--the
last Platonist in Europe--and consequently an amiable man. He is
universally regarded as the leader of philosophy in France, a position
not in the least shaken by Bergson's brief authority. In a charming and
lucid study of the "Psychology of the Peoples of Europe" Fouillee has
many pages that might serve for an introduction to the Irish Question.
The point of interest in his analysis is this: he exhibits Irish history
as a tragedy of character, a tragedy which flows with sad, inevitable
logic from a certain weakness which he notes, not in the Irish, but in
the English character.

"'In the eyes of the English,' says Taine who had studied them so
minutely, 'there is but one reasonable civilisation, namely their
own. Every other way of living is that of inferior beings, every
other religion is extravagant.' So that, one might add, the
Englishman is doubly personal, first as an individual and again as
a member of the most highly individualised of nations. The moment
the national interest is involved all dissensions cease, there is
on the scene but one single man, one single Englishman, who shrinks
from no expedient that may advance his ends. Morality for him
reduces itself to one precept: Safeguard at any cost the interest
of England."

Like all foreigners he takes Ireland as the one conspicuous and flaming
failure of England. In that instance she has muddled, as usual, but she
has not muddled through.

"The Anglo-Saxons, those great colonisers of far-off lands, have in
their own United Kingdom succeeded only in inflicting a long
martyrdom on Ireland. The insular situation of England had for
pendant the insular situation of Ireland; the two islands lie there
face to face. The English and the Irish, although intellectually
very much alike, have preserved different characters. And this
difference cannot be due essentially to the racial element, for
nearly half Ireland is Germanic. It is due to traditions and
customs developed by English oppression."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9