Third Home Rule Bill (1912-13)

Chapter XXXVIII

Third Home Rule Bill (1912-13)

I took a motor trip to France with Lord Devonport in 1912, and wrote Maurice:

Grenoble,

24th April, 1912.

“I saw in a French paper a sketch of the Home Rule Bill, taken from an Ulster sheet, which looks official. The scheme, as well as I could understand its French dressing, is not bad.

I have read the House of Lords’ printed judgments in the Lough Neagh case. Lord Macnaghten is feeble, and Halsbury contemptible.”

After I returned to the House of Commons, the Nation (London), 20th April, 1912, when the Home Rule Bill was brought in, wrote:

“Much the most brilliant episode of the debates was Mr. Healy’s speech, which should be read as a masterpiece of argument, satire, and ironic polemics, almost wholly favourable to the Bill.”

Some weeks later I wrote my brother:

Mail Steamer to Kingstown, 3 a.m.,

May, 1912.

“We had a good debate last night and I dug my spurs into Lloyd George as to procedure, which is audacious as to the Uganda loan.

A fresh volume of State Papers 1600-5 was issued yesterday, and young Mahaffy, who edits it, puffs Bagenal’s book, and shows ignorance of Gaelic words and place-names.

He doesn’t even understand the Scotch word “pok,” for a pocket or bag. His preface in depreciation of Hugh O’Neill - although Hugh was not much of a hero - shows that a more learned man should be entrusted with these papers.

That period should not be dealt with by a modern Tory single-handed. Giants like Sir John Gilbert are no more.”

Cattle plague in England in 1912 excited the public. I wrote Maurice:

House of Commons,

8th July, 1912.

“There was a sensation in the House to-day over the story of a Waterford diseased “head” of a cow with the tongue cut out. I wrote to the secretary of the Cork Cattle Trade Association (who sent me a message of thanks) recommending him to make inquiries. It is a cock-and-bull business.

To-night I heard from T. W. Russell that Redmond was going to question him on the adjournment at 11 p.m. I could not see Redmond present, so I rose and in his absence tried to vindicate the Port of Waterford. Russell admitted that, except for the “Swords” case, Ireland is free from disease. Yet Irish ports are kept shut.”

The loss caused to Irish farmers by the exclusion of their cattle from Britain under orders from the Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Runciman, ran into a million.

I wrote my brother:

London,

19th July, 1912.

“Birrell and the Irish Executive are the merest tools of the Party. It was even arranged that no invitation should reach the Nationalists from the King for the Garden Party yesterday. They were therefore spared refusing. Sam Young told me he would go, and he did.

Irish Estimates are fixed for Wednesday, and we could then draw Lloyd George on his Land policy, which is a serious matter. I have cornered him as to the Uganda Loan.

My speech on Monday struck the Tories, and Worthington Evans turned round and congratulated me on it. So did others. My point is that his statement through McKenna, that he will legalize the loan by an Appropriation Bill, is unconstitutional.

Last year he did this on the Finance Bill, which I thought wrong, because a taxing measure should not be made one of “Appropriation.” I argued that it was wrong to use the Appropriation Bill as an enacting measure to define the terms of a loan. Rufus Isaacs and Simon listened carefully, as did Lloyd George and McKenna, but none of them made answer. I suspect, though I refrained from saying so, that it is a fear lest Mr. Speaker should again refuse his certificate to me Budget, as a purely “money” Bill. This is at the back of their minds in omitting the Uganda Loan from the Finance Bill. Yet it was stated that the reason the Speaker refused his certificate last year was the Licensing clauses.

Anyhow, we have them in a fix, and we can raise the question of Irish taxation if they attempt to legislate via the Appropriation Bill, and assail the procedure.”

London,

23rd July, 1912.

“I dined with Charles Russell [solicitor] to meet the Canadian Bar, with Chief Baron Palles and the Lord Chancellor. The Chief Baron was in great fettle.

I was offered a hundred guineas to defend the Suffragettes in Dublin about 2nd August. Their solicitor tells me the women don’t care what sentence they get, or what becomes of them! A fine spirit!

It was pitiful to-day to see 60 Irishmen troop in to vote on some Scotch estimate that had no earthly concern for us, except to keep the Government in office. This is everything now!

Lord Shaw said to me to-night that he felt he was rather bold in treating “May’s Lease” from a forgery point of view in the Lough Neagh appeal, and was reassured when I told him I was tackling the question in a resumé of the case in the Lords.”

While cattle plague prevailed in England, Irish ports were closed and Irish fairs ruined.

It took British experts 14 years to discover that the in fection came from the Continent.

House of Commons,

24th July, 1912.

“The cattle restrictions are awful, and the Party by their attitude on Friday gave Runciman a free hand. T. W. Russell has just passed by and told me he inserted your amendment.

I should like you to consider what is best to be done about the financial side of the Home Rule Bill, and to be here a few days before it comes on, as O’Brien thinks we should deliver ourselves on the Committee resolution, instead of on the amendments.

I had Lloyd George to meet the Devonports and John Barry at the Ritz Hotel last night. He was genial and friendly. He says the Government will hold on for two years certain.”

Amidst the larger questions of the time smaller ones arose as to appointments. The control of St. Martin’s-le-Grand on Irish postal affairs was never relaxed, and often became a bone of contention. I wrote Maurice:

Chapelizod,

16th August, 1912.

There is great searching of hearts because of the threatened appointment of a Mr. Norway, from London, to succeed Egerton, a Catholic, as secretary to the Post Office. All the bishops, including Dr. O’Donnell, wrote in vain to Redmond and Dillon. Herbert Samuel saw Redmond several times. The action of the Government shows that they have no belief that Home Rule will become law.

The line taken by Churchill, and by young Shaw in his Midlothian campaign, is that there must be a General Election before the Home Rule Bill can come into operation, and that the Tories can repeal it

Under these prospects, with the Foot-and-Mouth disease, the Insurance Act and the bad weather, our farmers cannot be very comfortable.”

Mr. Norway was appointed, and behaved in Dublin most impartially.

On 18th October, 1912, 1 protested once more against the unjust restrictions placed on the export of Irish cattle. The parliamentary watchman of the Daily Mail observed:

“With mordant irony Mr. Healy threw out the suggestion this afternoon that the dapper-looking Mr. Runciman, President of the Board of Agriculture, should visit an Irish fair ” disguised as an agriculturist.” No more delicious verbal caricature has been presented to the House since the immaculately-attired Earl Spencer (then the Honble. Robert Spencer) remarked, “I am not an agricultural labourer.” Mr. Healy’s winged shaft of wit sped round the House, leaving a trail of mirth among the members… . ”

A review of “Letters and Character Sketches from the House of Commons,” by the late Sir Richard Temple, Bart., M.P., appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette on 12th November, 1912. It quoted:

“Healy continues to be the most potent and impressive speaker on the Nationalist side, and in his own way a match for almost any man, and more than a match for most of those in the House.”

Temple was an ugly man, while his wife was handsome. Indian papers styled them “Beauty and the Beast,” so someone invented the jest that her husband indignantly asked, “Why should anyone call my wife a beast?

On the Home Rule Bill a crisis arose on the 11th November, 1912, when Sir Frederick Banbury, in a “snap” division, defeated the Government on a financial resolution.

They then cobbled up an amended resolution to deal with the case. The Speaker did not approve of it, and his firmness prevailed.

I wrote my brother:

London,

16th November, 1912.

“The Government have been forced by the Speaker into a compromise, which the Tories have accepted, and there will be no row on Monday.

The Government will announce the abandonment of their resolution, and that they will proceed to adopt the course which I argued for all along, namely, to negative the resolution as amended. The Tories will offer no opposition to the withdrawal of the resolution. Afterwards, the Government will have a fresh resolution on Report, which will occupy next week, so they will have lost a fortnight by Asquith’s lack of perception.

I was right as to my conjecture about the Speaker. On Thursday he came in, prepared to announce his resignation, as Asquith refused to alter his course, until five minutes before the Speaker rose at four o’clock. Mrs. Lowther was in the Gallery crying, believing her husband was going to resign.

At the last moment Asquith yielded, and the Speaker changed his announcement into one of suggested adjournment which the Government were forced to adopt.

If the Speaker had resigned the Government were dished, but I suppose Asquith thought it bluff, or could not restrain his pride until there was no alternative except surrender.”

Birrell, in reply to a question on the 19th November, 1912, dealing with the Ulster problem, said, “No Boundary Commission is necessary.”

The Liverpool Post (26th November, 1912) described an incident when Mr. McLean, Chairman of Committees, asked me to occupy the Chair during the Home Rule debates.

“A stranger coming into the Gallery might have thought the Home Rule Bill had been already passed, and that the Irish Parliament had decided to meet at Westminster, for there was Mr. Healy sitting in the Chairman’s seat and presiding over the proceedings. Mr. Healy discharged his new duties with success; but few who witnessed the stormy scenes in the ‘eighties would have imagined that one day Mr. Healy would have been in the Chair while a Home Rule Bill was being peacefully discussed.”

As the Bill proceeded the Yorkshire Observer (5th December, 1912) commented:

“True to their policy of restraint, the Nationalists sat on patiently and silently under the imputations of the Opposition, though they must have been keenly sensible of the injustice of them. So also sat Mr. Healy - immobile under his hat until the Leader of the Opposition had made an end. It had all passed as quietly and indifferently as though no serious attack had been made upon a party and upon a Nation, and as though it had been - what no doubt in large part it was - a mere matter of party rhetoric and dialectic. But Mr. Healy’s first words, with their ring of indignation, startled the House to the full sense of the meaning of words and the meanness of the attack.

Here was the real note of passionate sincerity, and the words lit up the debate like a sudden flame. What were these charges and who was it made them against the Irish representatives and the Irish people - a people who had been decimated by misrule, who had lived under the tyranny of landlordism abhorrent to the whole world, a system finally condemned and abolished by the Unionists themselves? “Forgetting your own past, you imagine in our nature all these horrible things which, if you turn up the pages of history, we can prove to be your own crimes.”

He referred to his own personal liking for Sir Edward Carson, but when he found him talking of the need of a right of appeal from the Government of Ireland he could only recall to him his own past. “What right of appeal did we get under the Crimes Act? “he cried, “and who deprived us of the right of appeal?” Mr. Balfour had promised it, and backed out of his promise because somebody or other - a German Jew - had written to The Times. “You say now you are afraid of us, and your own consciences tell you that you have reason to be so.”

“Forgiveness to the injured doth belong,

But they ne’er pardon who have done the wrong.’

As for the protection they invoked, they could have it if it would ease their minds. “Exchequer judges? ” queried Mr. Healy. “Very well, in the name of God take your Exchequer judges!” It was the last word of a dramatic interposition which no one on the Opposition benches was prepared to answer.”

In a few days the Welsh Disestablishment Bill came on. I wrote my brother:

London,

15th December, 1912.

“We voted with the Government on Friday in the two Welsh divisions on Disestablishment, one of which was tight enough. Lloyd George thanked me in the lobby for our support.”

Lloyd George was always genial towards opponents, especially to his former Irish allies. Although I attacked him, and he attacked me, his Welsh smile mantled when we met as if to pronounce a “general absolution.” In handling adversaries I thought him a first-class commercial traveller. His Chancellor’s robes were loosely worn, and had never been starched.

The Sunday Times, 12th January, 1913, said:

“Matthew Arnold likened Heine to the sardonic smile which for one short moment wandered o’er the lips of the Spirit of the World “beholding the absurdities of men.” In what category. one wonders, would he have placed that brilliant, wayward, unaccountable Irishman, Mr. Timothy Healy? He is a perpetual puzzle to the House. A Nationalist who is at daggers drawn with Mr. Redmond and Mr. Dillon; a lover of literature to whom Mr. T. P. O’Connor, the “popular Educator” of our times, is anathema; a Home Ruler who has described the finance of the Government Bill as “putrid.” he lives in an uncomfortable, odd-cornered, cantankerous world of his own, and seems well content with his surroundings. What could have been more surprising or disconcerting than his wild-cat spring at Mr. Herbert Samuel the other evening?

Possibly his very band-box perfection got on the nerves of Mr. Healy, who is not over-particular whether he wears his hat with the front to the fore or not. At any rate, his incursion seemed to be devoid of any other motive. The Postmaster-General had patiently and politely explained that the word “Province” as applied in the Home Rule Bill to Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connaught has statutory precedent, which Mr. Healy had declared not to be the case. He listened dourly to the assurance and then sped his bolt.

The words of the right hon. gentleman indicate to me that he has no expectation whatever of his proposal ever passing into law, and certainly no expectation that it will ever work.” Now, what had Mr. Samuel said or done to deserve that?”

Sir Herbert Samuel became the first Governor of Palestine, and wrote a remarkable report on the economic conditions of the Holy Land. It is due to him to say that I have examined Hansard and find nothing there to justify the charge of “a wild cat spring.”

I wrote Maurice:

House of Commons,

13th January, 1913.

“The Lord Chancellor admitted on Tuesday that the Home Rule Bill reserves the power to keep the Imperial Executive in Ireland. I had not supposed that, beyond the Lord-Lieutenant, they reserved such power.”

Redmond occupied the year 1910 at two General Elections in expelling from the Party the members for South Mayo, South Monaghan, South Westmeath, the Cork members, and defeating myself and O’Donnell.

The Government then produced this Bill, which should have been made the subject of National consideration. Jousting against individuals was thought more interesting.

Justin McCarthy used to say of Redmond that he never remembered him to have been consulted of old in any moment of anxiety.

House of Commons,

28th January, 1913.

“I am writing over my name a paper on the Home Rule Bill for the Cork Free Press, which O’Brien urged me to do. Get a “proof” and correct or soften anything you consider overstated, or wrongly phrased, but the more I examine the Bill, the more shrivelled it seems to me.

Last night I had to attend a Charity Dinner to aid “rescue” for Catholic girls, and half the swells of England seemed to be there. Women in low necks wore diamonds, and Cardinal Bourne was present in his purple. I was “struck all of a heap” having to talk before such a galaxy.”

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