Conclusion
Only the future now remains to be spoken of. About that there can never be anything certain in human affairs except those results which depend on human character. These must of necessity be more negative than positive, for accident may prevent success, but accident cannot make it. We know, for instance, that the character of Irishmen is at present incompatible with any great change for the better in Ireland, since it is one that would prevent them turning any opportunity to account, however good it might be, for changing the position of Ireland. I say ‘Irishmen’, because, whatever the relative values of men and women may be, it is certain that the former cannot be done without, when it is a question of altering the status of a country. If the men of that country have made up their minds it shall not be done, the women cannot bring it about.
Only small things can now be attempted with a hope of success, because small things can be done by small knots of people, working together, whereas large enterprises require the co-operation of large numbers of people. Any undertaking on a national scale now would necessitate the introduction of a prevailing element in the national character, insincerity, in such a proportion as to ensure failure. However, a small thing done is better than a large thing played at. All policies, such as dynamite, etc. are swept out of the field en masse by this state of affairs, because such policies, even if they obtained the greatest success their most ardent admirers could expect, would do no more than make an opportunity; by themselves they would be impotent to effect more. When opportunities are certain not to be used, there is no use in making them.
But the people of a country, though metaphorically the same, are not literally the same at all times. Therefore the evil done by one generation is not irremediable by their successors. Some resemblances there must be between them, owing to more than one cause, but there is no reason why there should never be great and vital differences. Curiously enough, a greater power of changing their character must rest with the unhappy peoples than with the prosperous ones. For a people cannot put down its vices, so long as those vices appear to bring it success. It is otherwise with a people that has no success. The great weight of selfishness — national selfishness, I mean — is not then thrown into the scale of wrong-doing. It is impossible for the English to drop their hypocrisy until after their fall, because they will not be able to realise that this quality, which they believe, and believe with truth, to have brought them so much of what they consider to be greatness and well-being, in the past, can ever work against them.
Not till the wharves of the Thames are thronged with fugitives offering their all to the captain of every leaky tub within call, to take them out of England, and the men are throwing the women and children into the water to make room for themselves, will they begin to understand the writing on the wall. The Irish, on the other hand, have no reason to think that their insincerity in the management of their political affairs has brought them any good, notwithstanding that the men who have been foremost in promoting that insincerity are so loud in the praise of their achievements. So the reign of the principle they have established, need not last longer than the generation that established it. I suppose a generation may be estimated as anything between fifteen and 25 years.
After fifteen years, a whole generation has reached the most effective decade of human life, who cannot have any responsibility for anything done before that period, and after 25 years too few are left, who could be so responsible, who are not either dead, or obsolete, from one cause or another, to be worth reckoning with. A small disaster, presumably due to faults in character, might be expected to compromise the chances of other undertakings by the same people for the shorter term. Such a large step astray as that taken in 1893, could have no chance of exhausting its most evil consequences until every minute of the longest term had passed away. Then a change of character will be possible, though not likely. There is no reason to suppose the men in possession of the stage in 1917, will be any better than those who possessed it in 1893. Here we strike the bedrock of the difficulty in the whole question of pulling a conquered country out of the pit it has fallen into.
The weakness of character which the loss of independence breeds in its people is the main obstacle to their regaining it — that is to say, it is a permanent obstacle of the most formidable kind, that would still be there if no other existed. It would seem insuperable, if we did not know that it has been surmounted by other countries, and that after thousands of years of servitude. There was once some ground for hoping that the peculiar position of Ireland in the nineteenth century, in having as many of her own people outside of her as she had inside, to help those inside, might have neutralised this element of weakness. It is no longer possible to hope anything of this sort. And it is not likely that the help given by the Irish outside Ireland to those inside will be as great in the present century as it was in the last, for several reasons.
The numbers of the Irish outside must diminish as the population from which they are drawn has grown so small and is still diminishing, though there is some set-off against this in the fact that Irish emigrants are now drawn from a stronger class than formerly, and so are more likely to live themselves and to leave children, some of whom will count themselves Irish also. The way in which the Irish inside have wasted the help given them in the past, is another reason. There is a third which is the gravest of all; it is the course the United States took after the Spanish war, in joining the evil company of the states that prey on weaker countries or weaker races, and without even the excuse that a small country like England might make for itself: ‘We must either eat or be eaten.’ People cannot help being influenced by the mental and moral tone of those they live amongst, and so, unless the United States retraces her steps, which is still possible, a certain falling off in the desire for Irish independence may be expected amongst the Irish in America where the largest number of Irish outside Ireland are to be found.
And the falling off in that desire will mean a falling off in sympathy with Ireland all round. Preparations for the future, in the meantime, may, and ought to be made. What that future will be like has a good deal, naturally, to do with the question of the kind of preparations advisable. This we cannot know, but we can guess. The questions of the early twentieth century promise, for Ireland, to be very different from those of the nineteenth. The real opportunity for accomplishing the freedom of Ireland seems to be close at hand, just when her people seem to have put it beyond their power to take advantage of it. What form is resistance to English power likely to take in the future, whether it be a real resistance or otherwise? Once people used habitually to talk, in Ireland, as if there was one form of resistance which must be real, namely, appeal to arms.
This kind of talk has now entirely disappeared, and given place to doctrines of the most opposite nature, the popular press seeming nervously anxious to keep the faintest hint that fighting ever had anything to do with a country obtaining independence from creeping into its columns. This change, if not a good sign, is at any rate not a bad one. Though it does not indicate any probability that the Irish will fight for their country when the chance comes, it does show a possibility of their doing so. For they have never, in my recollection, ever done anything when they talked about doing it. Whatever they have done they have always done without talk beforehand. But as nothing on a large scale can be accomplished without some talk, it follows that they have only done small things. The overthrow of Captain Boycott in the autumn of 1880, was one of the strongest illustrations of this.
The histories of the Land League generally claim the credit of this victory for that institution, but I believe, not with justice. I had no personal knowledge of the affair, but the newspaper accounts of it at the time did not sustain the Land League's claim; for according to them, the revolt against Boycott had nothing to do with rent. This, I think is the true history of this remarkable battle. Boycott was agent to Lord Erne, a Mayo landlord, and practised an intolerable and degrading personal tyranny over all Lord Erne’s tenants. This was often done in Ireland then, especially in the west. The people appeared to be quite powerless to prevent it, as no magistrates would permit the law to be enforced against these small Cromwells. In the part of Ireland I knew, the east, something of the same sort went on, and the things done were bad enough there, but the oppressors could not go to the lengths they did in some other parts, where there seemed absolutely no limit to their power.
In the autumn of 1880, Lord Erne’s tenants refused to pay their rents to Boycott. They had no objection to the rents, but only to the agent. And the whole district refused to supply the Boycott family with anything, or to do any work for them, while Boycott himself could only go about with an armed escort. Mrs Boycott and he had to herd their own sheep, always a sad job for amateurs to attempt. I remember seeing a picture in a French paper of the pair engaged in this task, in which the French artist had fondly imagined he was supplying the proper local colour by depicting Mrs Boycott without shoes or stockings. The government sent a military force to assist Boycott in getting his crops harvested, perhaps the silliest thing of all the silly things it was always doing during the Land League. Boycott, all the while, was declaring that he would not desert Lord Erne. It ended, however, in Lord Erne’s deserting him, and a great lesson was administered to all of his kind.
Other people of the same sort were served the same way in many other places and I believe the victory always rested with the people, and the enemy was always driven away, so that in this respect probably there is an improvement now. But the boycotting of Boycott was the spontaneous act of the people themselves, and they did not talk about it beforehand; they did it instead. The parliamentary reformers, likewise, acted instead of talking, though the action itself happened mainly to take the shape of talking. In the same way the Land League did not talk about providing for the famine, but set about doing it. Here, unfortunately, ends the tale of what was done. The absence of talk about fighting, however, is but a sign of feeble promise in the light of recent evidence furnished by the action of the Irish during the Boer War, when there were more than six times as many thousands of them fighting for England than there were hundreds fighting against her.
Major McBride has stated that the Transvaal government refused to arm Irishmen who might come over to fight for it. This would account for there not being a large Irish force, but does not explain the extreme smallness of the one that did put in an appearance. So if we want to believe Irishmen willing to fight for Ireland or against England, we must believe it without evidence. In fact, there is only one country whose state is more hopeless than that of Ireland, and this is England. If Ireland moves at all, she can only move upwards, since she cannot sink any lower. England, on the other hand, can only move downwards, until her debacle is over, a process that must take generations, and may take hundreds or even thousands of years. All the qualities necessary to the support of a nation she has got rid of, and can only grow them again slowly and painfully in the soil of misery, disgrace and ruin. The prospect of armed rebellion being seriously considered by the Irish party, as a whole, is very remote,
Yet in spite of its poor prospects, armed rebellion seems likely to be the next thing either tried, or played at, here. The ridicule thrown on rebellion by the Fenian example was enough to put the subject out of court for a long time; but now both parliamentary proceedings and such intermediate forms of resistance as the Land League proposed, have been made equally ridiculous by the way they have been managed, and the Fenian example is furthest away in point of time. To those who cannot remember it, it must seem something very shadowy. There is another cause which is likely to operate in the same direction. It is the nearness of England's fall. When I say near, I mean that the majority of those now living will see it. Without counting prophecy, there is so much evidence pointing to the probability of this event happening within the time specified, that no one now contemplating any action where England would be concerned could be excused for leaving it out of calculation.
It is only possible to make small preparations at present for anything, because preparations, like everything else from which good can be expected, must be confined to small congregations. The very first that strikes me as necessary, is to abandon the ‘demand’ for Home Rule. Without any other reason, it seems to be necessitated by the fact that continuing to offer a compromise for England's acceptance, after it has been refused for 34 years by her, is highly undignified on our part. The next offer of compromise ought to come from England. To inform her that her government is intolerable and that Ireland is a separate country by the act of nature, and therefore cannot be well-governed, except by herself, ought to be quite enough.
Anything any of us say now, can make no difference in practice, as we can no more get Home Rule in any shape that would be of any use, than we can get a total separation. The change is wanted for its possible effect on the future. This long continuance of Home Rule speeches and Home Rule literature is producing its natural effect of obscuring the fact that the demand for Home Rule more than a generation ago was an offer of compromise. Mr Butt’s federal arrangement is too often spoken of now as if it embodied all we have a right to, even amongst the Irish. In England, if! was ever understood, its real nature has long been lost sight of.
Such arguments as that ‘Ulster’, or the ‘North’ of Ireland, has as good right to the government it wants as the other parts of the country, are solemnly produced as irrefutable. Such arguments would be sound if Home Rule were not a compromise. But when the greater part of Ireland offered to accept a compromise, it was reasonable to expect the smaller part to compromise on its side.
If the question happened to be whether Ireland should be an independent country or not, then that particular corner might safely be left to choose whether it would still continue part of England's possessions. I don’t think it would so choose. If it did, it would soon change its mind. Other sayings, such as the Irish Home Rule scheme being a proof that the Irish feel they cannot do without England, are also commonly heard, and all illustrate that the phrase Home Rule has only served to mislead minds which do not need misleading. They are already too apt to go astray without any help. Once, when I heard English people talking about Ireland, I used to wonder whether the stupidity they displayed was real or only assumed. The months which preceded the Boer War furnished me with the answer. Whatever else may be false about them, their brainlessness is perfectly genuine.
Beside, the very desirability of Home Rule has been changed by the changed position of Ireland in the last thirteen years. Supposing that England should bestow Home Rule in Ireland just before war bursts about her ears; her doing so would be just possible under those circumstances, the better to secure Irish help. But for Ireland to help England, then, to keep up its connection with her in any shape, would destroy any chance of her saving herself during the wreck of England. She would remain ruined. Yet a great many Irish people would be certain to think they were bound to help England after having entered into a voluntary pact with her so recently, and these might determine the policy of the country.' Thus it seems that the mere acceptance of Home Rule as a satisfaction and means of establishing friendship between England and Ireland, which would have been quite safe in Mr Butt’s time, would be a positive danger now. For we cannot tell what moment England may buckle up. It might not happen for many years yet; on the other hand it might begin in a few weeks.
All discussions of this kind are, of course, of a very academic sort, since what is most likely to happen, with or without Home Rule, is that England’s difficulty will be, in the future as it has been in the past, Ireland's opportunity to assist her. But then her help will be of no avail. Ireland herself will probably fall under some other country. There would be only one difference to by expected from that change. A country possessed by another must be robbed and exploited for the benefit of that other, and oppressed and injured for its pleasure. Human nature make these results certain. But the distinctive feature of English rule, its government by starvation, need not be present. For England it has been rendered necessary by her small size. The physical destruction of the peoples she had once conquered became an indispensable condition to her maintaining her power.
The method of raising Ireland by increasing her wealth, through Irish manufactures, etc. often spoken of, cannot be counted on, unless someone can discover a way of preventing England from taking the profits. All such schemes could only produce results slowly. A sudden rise in the wealth, such as the success of the Land League could have brought about, would be the only kind that might enable the people to keep, and add to the profit they had gained. There is no harm in encouraging Irish manufactures, or other industries, but they are not worth the expenditure of great efforts, since the benefits are more likely to be realised by England than Ireland. We know how Irish whiskey is being taxed out of existence, England the while taking the lion's share of the profits; we know how business houses are constantly bought up by English people in the same line, and either closed or ruined by the staff put in; we know that perhaps the most important business in Ireland, Harland and Wolf's, was sold a few years ago to an American company. We don’t know why it was sold, but we can guess.
To cultivate food seems to me more important than anything else for the Irish to do, since they are so likely to find themselves with two armies on their soil to feed at a not very distant date. But even this precaution, should they adopt it, is more likely than not to prove useless. There being no food to speak of in England, the price of everything edible would rush up tremendously there at a prospect of war at home, and then, if they could do it, the Irish would probably send their food to England, and find, too late, that money cannot be eaten. Thus, the entire extinction of the existing population of Ireland, with the exception of a small remnant who would escape somehow, is amongst the events the early part of this century may witness. And in this way too, Ireland may perhaps be a free country again in a short time, in the hands of a new people from somewhere else, who would have the qualities its present inhabitants lack — all those indispensable for getting or keeping freedom.