by Leon Uris
CHAPTER SEVEN
A decade of relative political tranquillity came abruptly to a halt when a constitutional crisis brought on two elections in the year 1910.
Herbert Asquith had taken over leadership of the ruling Liberal Party and attempted to pass a "people's budget" which called for heavy taxation on the gentry and their holdings. It was smashingly rejected by the House of Lords. The Liberals had long realized that legislation for ordinary people could be accomplished only if the House of Lords had its powers curtailed. The Parliament Act was finally introduced for this purpose containing a provision enabling Commons to override a Lords veto if a bill was passed during three successive sessions.
To win the act, the Liberals threatened to create five hundred new peerages into Lords from their own ranks. Specter of this number of men ennobled from common sources was too much for England's aristocracy to stomach and to avoid it the Parliament Act was accepted.
Although the Liberals still ruled, their majority had severely shrunk and history repeated. Asquith required John Redmond's Irish Party to form a coalition government and once again the price for such cooperation was a Home Rule Bill. Redmond held a strong trump card but as the battle lines shaped up he vacillated and showed willingness to accept watered-down legislation calling for continued allegiance to the British Crown, a repugnant dose to almost all Irishmen.
If John Redmond had a single glaring flaw it was that he had dwelt in the House of Commons too long and knew the Irish people too little. He selected his arena of combat foolishly by pitting a hundred Irish members against five hundred and fifty of the "foe." Even though Redmond was allied with the Liberals, the Liberals were apathetically lukewarm to Irish aspirations. Yet John Redmond was the best the Irish people had to follow, for the voices of Sinn Fern and the Brotherhood were still too small and distant to hear.
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Not so naive were the Ulster Unionists, who were strong, rich, united, knew what they wanted and counted on fanatical support from their own people. The Unionists had depended for decades upon a House of Lords veto as their principal bulwark against Home Rule. With this gone, their reaction was instant and traumatic.
Great leaders are always created by their times. Few men illustrated this point more succinctly than Sir Edward Carson. A brilliant barrister who fought some of the great court cases of the times, his cross-examination of Oscar Wilde was a landmark of courtroom devastation. As a member of Parliament, he rose to high government office. Although Dublin-born and Trinity-trained, Carson was the complete Ulsterman, the epitome of imperial man, the total servant of his own aristocratic class. A grim, hatchet faced hypochondriac, his ruthless tactics demonstrated the qualities needed of a leader in such a fight. Like most great men, he was obsessed with a single idea. His was to keep the union with Britain.
When the dust and consequence of the 1910 elections settled, a third Home Rule Bill loomed with no veto of Lords to prevent it. Roger Hubble, who operated best behind the scenes, fell in naturally at Carson's side as the Unionists closed ranks like a fist. Lord Roger was delegated to stay in quiet contact with the Whip of the Liberal Party, Alan Birmingham, a relationship he had kept up off and on for years. The maneuver was designed to have inner access to the Liberals and at the same time free Edward Carson to lead the public and parliamentary fight against Home Rule.
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Time had eroded much of Alan Birmingham's naivete about the intent, arrogance and ruthlessness. of the Ulster men. It was Roger Hubble who had formed and run the Unionist Information Bureau after the 1906 election to "educate" middle class England. He unleashed a flood of rotating preachers and Irish baiters at schools, county fairs, churches and town halls. Sermons, slide lantern shows and an inundation of books and leaflets poured out of Ulster with a repetitive message until it saturated the English mind. The old fiddle played the old tune so often that most Englishmen came to regard it as gospel. THE ULSTER PROTESTANT FIGHTS FOR THE BRITISH IMPERIAL CAUSE AND THEREFORE MUST BE SUPPORTED. THE IRISH CATHOLIC IS DISLOYAL AND HOME RULE WOULD LEAD TO THE DESTRUCTION OF THE EMPIRE.
Herein lay Alan Birmingham's sticky wicket. His party was in a forced marriage to the Irish Party and pledged to Home Rule. Nevertheless, most individual members of the Liberals and most of the English people supported Ulster.
The Conservative Party used this division to their own ends. Committed to continuation of the Empire, they argued that any measure of freedom granted the Irish would be apt to have a chain reaction throughout the colonies. They kept the Irish pot fomenting because they were on the popular side of the issue and hoped the Liberal Party would destroy itself over it. At the bottom of the Conservative alliance with the Ulster Unionists was a plot to regain power, reverse all that liberalism and return England to the old imperial-oriented order that was fading from the scene.
When Alan Birmingham received Lord Roger into his study he realized there was far more at stake than Irish Home Rule. The very existence of his party hung in the balance and the man opposite him was one of those bent on its destruction.
Alan Birmingham was a product of the merchant class, a relatively new sort of figure in British politics who had been replacing the monopoly of aristocrats. Birmingham had come into the national limelight when he led a near rising in Commons against the imperial policy during the Boer War. He was known as a decent man, moderate and skilled to push through the social reform which the Conservatives despised.
Noticeable coolness prevailed in the disheveled, booky den on Cadogan Square as the two men fenced with small talk. Birmingham had aged portly. His hair was flecked with gray as was a trim mustache and his face was rather good-natured and devoid of suspicion. Roger had enjoyed dealing with him, for he was a good adversary with whom one could fight and then enjoy the theater with afterward.
"I rather think we will be in close quarters for some time over Home Rule," Roger said. "My door is open to you, Alan, and I trust it's the same for me."
"Yes," Birmingham replied, "good idea to know what the other chap has on his mind." He fished chubbily into his humidor, peeled and lit a cigar.
"Carson's public posture is necessarily going to appear inflexible so our liaison can keep things from getting too muddy, the sort of thing that can happen if we both depend on secondhand reports and the press," Roger said. "We realize that Redmond has a noose about your neck and introduction of a Home Rule Bill is inevitable. You can likewise assume that the House of Lord will reject it on each occasion and force three passages, so nothing will be ready for royal assent for some two to three years.
It will be a long haul. We should remain friends."
"What are you chaps after?" Birmingham said directly.
"Well, the end result of any Home Rule Bill must exclude Ulster," Roger said.
"All of Ulster? Even those counties with a Catholic majority?"
"Well, let's say we haven't gotten around to drawing a map but certainly all of Ulster for the moment."
"Obviously none of this comes as a great surprise, Lord Roger."
"Yes, Alan, right. But what we want to know is whether or not you agree to the principle of a separate Ulster."
Birmingham grunted, working his cigar in a slow circle of digestive contemplation. "Winston Churchill certainly doesn't agree to dividing up Ireland and I dare say the party is split down the middle on the issue. In any event, John Redmond is a member of our team and I'm not willing to divulge anything that would jeopardize his bargaining position."
"Oh, come now, we know you chaps haven't got your heart in this," Roger answered. "Isn't it better if we understand each other's intentions?"
Fox played with fox. Indeed, Birmingham did want to know how far Roger Hubble and Sir Edward Carson were willing to go to get their demands. "At the moment," he said, "I am prepared to introduce and fight for a Home Rule Bin. I am ready to go through three sessions and this would be a bill including all of Ireland. That is our position. It might ease in a month or a year or it might harden.
I'm not clairvoyant."
"And I can say in all candor that if Ulster isn't excluded Carson is going to pull out all stops," Roger answered.
"Just what do you mean by that, old chap?" Birmingham asked.
Roger leaned over the desk, trying to show neither too much menace nor too little. "All stops, Alan. Eighteen eighty-five all over again, only this time we won't be using wooden rifles."
"Civil war?"
"I didn't say that."
"But you are ready to tear the country apart." Birmingham stood, slipped his hands in his jacket and mulled heavy-footed about the room. "There is a small church in my constituency up north which I attend regularly when I'm there. During the last campaign there was a guest preacher, a chap from Belfast who had come over through sponsorship of the Unionist Information Bureau, which, I believe, is headed by yourself, Lord Roger. This vile little creature stood on God's pulpit and denounced me as a traitor. Me, Alan Birmingham, seventeen years in the Royal Navy, ten years in the Colonial Office and twenty years in the House of Commons, suddenly a traitor."
Roger threw up his hands in mock horror. "I know how zealous they can be at times. Try as we may, there are bound to be a few unfortunate isolated incidents."
"Really? Well now, these horror stories abound against members of the Liberal Party. Oh, don't act so shocked. Read some of your own literature, my dear fellow. I say, what in the name of God is happening when the ruling party of Great Britain is characterized as a gang of godless, mindless turncoats? Political character assassination in a democracy? Now you have the utter cheek to sit in my study and out of the other side of your mouth tell me, "See here, Birmingham, either you traitors give us what we want or we'll rebel against the King because we'll only agree to obey laws we like."
Roger reddened. "My dear chap, you are taking this too seriously. . ."
"Oh, I know you, Lord Roger, and I know Edward Carson. I've regretted it from the moment you bullied me into that dreadful Detention and Emergency Powers Act. You chaps are table thumpers in the name of some warped ideas about loyalty. You know, when all this Home Rule business started I didn't give much of a damn but now I'm rather looking forward to ramming this bill, down your throats because, old boy, I've my own notion of who the traitors are in this game."
He returned to his chair, plopped into it and fought to contain his trembling, for he was not given to these sorts of outbursts.
Roger had gotten control of himself and actually nodded that he understood. "Trouble is, Alan, this issue never fails to inflame men who usually have a grip on their common sense. I suggest that we cannot lose ours. What you must realize is the fanatic determination of our people to remain in the Union."
"See here, Lord Roger," Birmingham said, shuffling through the papers on his desk. "Here is the fiendish Home Rule Bill in all its infamy. Why, the Irish aren't even allowed to have their own armed forces much less collect their own taxes. Treaties, trade, navigation, foreign relations, patents, legal tender all remain under British control. Not only is there an oath to the King, but Westminster retains the right to cancel legislation enacted by the Dublin Parliament." He flung it over the desk. "Is this what is driving you people so wild?"
"At the risk of suggesting you are naive," Roger hissed, "this merely constitutes their first step. The Irish will use it as a springboard to continue their pressure."
"Then I say it is you who are naive Birmingham retorted. "Any simple-minded parliamentary tactician can use this to tie up the Irish for a hundred years. They'll never get out of the terms of this act. Why do you people fail to see that if we deny the Irish this crumb we will really induce them into a rising? The Home Rule Bill we have fashioned here is the most positive instrument imaginable to pacify them." He smacked his fist on the desk for emphasis, then laughed a bit sadly. "Truth be known, this act doesn't even start to cancel our debt of oppression to the Irish."
"That kind of statement only proves that you have no sympathy for our determination to stay out of a Dublin Parliament," Roger said testily.
"I've had enough of that, Lord Roger!" Birmingham snapped abruptly and angrily. "Before you make me swoon with your lofty ideals, let me tell you that Ulster Unionism is nothing more than Protestant materialism. Your epoch of greed has gone on for three hundred and ten infamous years of classic misrule and classic injustice. You have bled and raped Ireland. You have imposed abnormal taxation. You have manipulated to keep the Irish farmer the most impoverished in the Western world and the Irish laborer the most underpaid in Europe. You have destroyed the vitality of the land so as to expose it to cancerous famine. Why, you've driven more Irishmen out of their own country than populate it today. You and your entire parasitic band are in it for the pound sterling. I suggest you have been milking a big fat tit, sir. All of this has been done while nobly wrapping yourself in a Union Jack. Love of England, indeed. Love of English law, indeed. Reformation, indeed. Poppycock. I say good day to you, sir, good day."
CHAPTER EIGHT
CRAIGAVON RALLY DRAWS 100,000. SIR EDWARD CARSON OFFICIALLY NAMED LEADER OF UNIONIST PARTY. TERMS PENDING HOME RULE BILL "NEFARIOUS CONSPIRACY."
by Seamus O'Neill
September 23, 1911, Belfast (Irish Overseas Press Service)
Upward of 100,000 Orangemen and Unionists gathered today at Craigavon, the estate of Captain James Craig on the south shore of Lough Belfast. Units representing all Belfast and County Antrim Orange Lodges, Unionist Clubs and Women's Associations marched to Craigavon from downtown Belfast in a wet morning. The throng assembled on the vast lawn of the estate, which formed a natural amphitheater. The meeting was presided over by the Earl of Erne with the speakers' platform holding a who's who of Ulster ascendancy.
Thomas Andrews, a well-known Orange figure, introduced the crowd to their new leader, Edward Carson, with the words, "We will never bow the knee to the disloyal factions led by Mr. John Redmond. We will never submit to be governed by rebels who acknowledge no law but the laws of the Land League and illegal societies."
Sir Edward Carson, 57, appearing bulldog grim, accepted the resolution proclaiming him as their leader, with fighting words.
"I now enter into a compact with you, and every one of you, and with the help of God . . . we will yet defeat the most nefarious conspiracy that has ever been hatched against a free people.
"We must be prepared . . . the morning Home Rule passes, ourselves, to become responsible for the government of the Protestant Province of Ulster . . . we ask your leave for a meeting of the Ulster Unionist Executive Committee to be held on Monday . . . so that at no time and at no intervening space shall we lack a government in Ulster, which shall be a government either by the imperial Parliament or by ourselves."
Carson's proclamation was greeted with delirious cheering and was taken by most political observers present to be a declaration of independence should the Province not get what it wanted. Others, however, felt Carson was setting the tone for a monumental bluff. A third opinion among observers was that Carson's words constituted a treasonous statement.
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ULSTER UNIONISTS COMMISSION A CONSTITUTION IN BELFAST MEETING
by Seamus O'Neill
September 25, 1911 (Irish Overseas Press Service)
On the heels of their massive rally at Craigavon, some four hundred and fifty delegates representing the Unionist Party's Executive assembled in Belfast's Rosemary Hall. The meeting was chaired by Lord Londonderry and unanimously voted to establish machinery for a Provisional Government in the event of Home Rule passage.
A second resolution was adopted to establish a Commission to "take immediate steps to frame and submit a constitution for an independent Ulster." This body will be headed by the Earl of Foyle, Roger Hubble.
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SIR EDWARD CARSON THREATENS ARMED RESISTANCE IN SWING AROUND ULSTER
by Seamus O'Neill
September 30, 1911, Portrush, Co. Antrim (IOPS)
Touring the province in his new role as Unionist leader,
Sir Edward Carson repeated the anti-Home Rule message he had been delivering at loyalist meetings for the past several days.
"We are not going to fight the Army and Navy, but if the Army and the Navy under a British government come up to displace us, they will displace us at their peril. It is not that we mean to fight them. God forbid that any loyal Ulsterman should ever shoot or think of shooting the British soldier or sailor. But, believe you me, any government will ponder long before it dares shoot a loyal Ulster Protestant, devoted to his country and loyal to his King."
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ANDREW BONAR LAW SUCCEEDS BALFOUR AS LEADER OF CONSERVATIVE PARTY----ALLIES WITH CARSON AGAINST HOME RULE
by Seamus O'Neill
November 12, 1911, London (IOPS)
Canadian-born Andrew Bonar Law assumed leadership today of England's Conservative Party, and the Unionists picked up a powerful ally, long dedicated to the Ulster cause.
Law, who has Ulster-born parents, can be expected to join actively against Home Rule. In the event of a future Conservative victory Law stands the chance of becoming Britain's first foreign-born Prime Minister.
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MILITARY DRILLING "LEGALIZED" FOR UNIONIST CLUBS
EXCLUSIVE by Seamus O’Neill
January 25, 1912, Belfast (Irish Overseas Press Service)
Ulster Unionist Clubs quietly reactivated under "crisis" conditions by Lord Templeton last year have received licenses "legalizing" their activities. In a decision handed down by two Belfast magistrates, leave was given to "drill and practice military exercises, movements and evolutions."
This bizarre and quasi-legal granting of licenses was based on an obscure section of a century-and-a-half-old statute which had primarily been used to allow the formation of community defenses and militias during the peasant land wars in the late 1700s.
