CHAPTER XVI
On the Wednesday before the day fixed for the Belfast demonstration, a meeting of the Ulster Unionist leaders was held in London. Moyne was at it. Lady Moyne, although the absurd conventions of our political life prevented her being present in person, was certainly an influence in the deliberations. She gave a dinner-party the night before in Moyne’s town house. Babberly, of course, was at the dinner, and with him most of the small group of Ulster Members of Parliament. Three or four leading members of the Opposition, Englishmen who had spoken on Ulster platforms and were in full sympathy with the Ulster dislike of Home Rule, were also present. Cahoon was not. He travelled from Belfast during the night of the dinner-party and only reached London in time for the meeting of the Party next day. I do not know whether Cahoon was invited to the dinner or not. Malcolmson was invited. He told me so himself, but he did not accept the invitation. He said he had business in Belfast and he went to London with Cahoon. The Dean was at the dinner-party. His name appeared in the newspaper lists of guests next morning. McNeice was not there. Lady Moyne did not like McNeice, and, although he was a member of the “Ulster Defence Committee,” he was never admitted to what might be called the social gatherings of the party.
The newspapers, in their columns of fashionable intelligence, printed a full list of the guests at this dinner, and even noted the dresses worn by some of the chief ladies. It was described as a brilliant function, and Lady Moyne figured as “one of the most successful of our political hostesses.” I have no doubt that she was successful in impressing her views on Babberly and the others. Whether she thought it worth while to spend time that night in talking to the Dean I do not know. Immediately under the account of the dinner-party there was a short paragraph which stated that Conroy, “the well-known millionaire yachtsman,” had returned from a cruise in the Baltic Sea, and that the Finola was lying off Bangor in Belfast Lough.
In quite a different part of the papers there were comments and articles on the meeting of the Ulster leaders to be held that afternoon. The articles in Liberal papers oscillated between entreaties and threats. One of them, in a paper supposed to be more or less inspired by the Government, pleased me greatly. It began with a warm tribute to the loyalty which had always characterized the men of Ulster. Then it said that troops were being moved to Belfast in order to overcome a turbulent populace. It went on from that to argue that troops were entirely unnecessary, because Ulstermen, though pig-headed almost beyond belief in their opposition to Home Rule, would not hesitate for a moment when the choice was given them of obeying or defying the law. They would, of course, obey the law. But, so the article concluded, if they did not obey the law the resources of civilization were by no means exhausted.
As no law had, up to that time, been made forbidding the holding of the Belfast demonstration, this article was perhaps premature in its attempt to impale Babberly and his friends on the horns of a dilemma.
The Conservative papers assumed an air of calm confidence. One of them, the editor of which was in close touch with Babberly, said plainly that dear as the right of free speech was to the Unionist leaders they would cheerfully postpone the Belfast demonstration rather than run the smallest risk of causing a riot in the streets. Political principles, it is said, were sacred things, but the life of the humblest citizen was far more sacred than any principle, and the world could confidently rely on Babberly’s being guided in his momentous decision by considerations of the loftiest patriotism.
I have no doubt that Babberly fully intended to do as that paper said he would do. I feel certain that the informal consultation of the politicians at Lady Moyne’s dinner-party had ended in a decision to postpone the demonstration. But things had passed beyond the control of Babberly and Lady Moyne. No newspaper was able to give any report of the proceedings of the meeting held that afternoon. But Malcolmson, Cahoon and McNeice were all present, and the Dean, having escaped the overpowering atmosphere of Moyne House, was able to express his opinions freely and forcibly. On the other hand Lady Moyne was not there, and Moyne, when it comes to persuading men, is a very poor substitute for her. The English Unionists could not be there, so the weight of their moderation was not felt. The meeting broke up without reaching any decision at all; and the Belfast demonstration remained on the list of fixtures for the next week.
Sir Samuel Clithering, originally a manufacturer of hosiery in the midlands, was at this time acting regularly as an official ambassador of the Cabinet. The fact that he was a leading Nonconformist was, I fancy, supposed to commend him in some obscure way to the Ulster party. He spent the evening after the meeting in flying about in his motor between the House of Commons where Babberly was proposing amendments to the Bill, Moyne House where Lady Moyne and her secretary sat over her typewriter, a military club in St. James’ Street where Malcolmson sat smoking cigars, and a small hotel in the Strand where McNeice and Cahoon were stopping. The Dean had left London for Belfast immediately after the meeting. I have no doubt that Sir Samuel Clithering did his best; but diplomacy applied to men like McNeice and Malcolmson is about as useful as children’s sand dykes are in checking the advance of flowing tides.
It is a source of regret to me that my account of what happened in London is meagre and disjointed. I was not there myself and events became so much more exciting afterwards that nobody has any very clear recollection of the course of these preliminary negotiations.
My own personal narrative begins again two days after the London meeting, that is to say on the Friday before the Belfast demonstration.
Godfrey came up to see me at eleven o’clock with his arm in a sling.
“Excellency,” he said, “the Dean has just hoisted a large flag on the tower of the church. I’m sure you don’t approve of that.”
It is, I hope, unnecessary to say that Godfrey is at feud with the Dean. The Dean is a straightforward and honourable man. He and Godfrey live in the same town. A quarrel between them was therefore inevitable.
As a matter of fact I do not approve of the hoisting of flags on the church tower. In Ireland we only hoist flags with a view to irritating our enemies, and—I am not an expert in Christian theology but it seems to me that church towers are not the most suitable places for flaunting defiances. The Dean and I argued the matter out years ago and arrived at a working compromise. I agreed to make no protest against flags on the 12th of July. The Dean promised not to hoist them on any other day. This is fairly satisfactory to the Dean because he can exult over his foes on the day of the year on which it is most of all desirable to do so. It is fairly satisfactory to me because on three hundred and sixty-four days out of every year the church remains, in outward appearance at least, a house of prayer, and I am not vexed by having to regard it as a den of politicians. That is as much as can be expected of any compromise, and I was always quite loyal to my share of the bargain. The Dean, it now appeared, was not; and Godfrey saw his chance of stirring up strife.
“I don’t think,” I said, “the Dean can have anything to do with the flag. He is in London.”
“He came back yesterday,” said Godfrey, “and the flag he has hoisted is a large Union Jack.”
Now the Union Jack is of all flags the most provocative. Any other flag under the sun, even the Royal Standard, might be hoisted without giving any very grave offence to any one. But the Union Jack arouses the worst feelings of everybody. Some little time ago a fool flew a Union Jack out of the window of a Dublin house underneath which the Irish leader happened at the moment to be proclaiming his loyalty to the Empire and his ungovernable love for the English people. The fool who hoisted the flag was afterwards very properly denounced for having gone about to insult the Irish nation. The Dean might, I think, have set floating a banner with three Orange lilies emblazoned upon it like the fleur-de-lys of ancient France. No one’s feelings would have been much hurt and no one’s enthusiasm unusually stirred. But it is characteristic of the Dean that when he does a thing at all he does it thoroughly.
“Just come and look at it,” said Godfrey. “It’s enormous.”
We went into the library, from the windows of which a clear view can be obtained of the town and the church which stands above it. There certainly was a flag flying from the church tower. I took a pair of field-glasses and satisfied myself that it was the Union Jack.
“Would you like me to speak to the Dean about it?” said Godfrey.
“Certainly not,” I said. “Any interference on your part would merely—and these are rather exciting times. The Dean is entitled, I think, to a little license. I don’t suppose he means to keep it there permanently.”
Then, borne to us by a gentle breeze across the bay, came the sound of the church bells. We have a fine peal of bells in our church, presented to the parish by my father. They are seldom properly rung, but when they are—on Christmas Day, at Easter and on the 12th of July—the effect is very good.
“Surely,” I said, “the Dean can’t be having a Harvest Thanksgiving Service yet? It’s not nearly time.”
Then I noticed that instead of one of the regular chimes the bells were playing a hymn tune. It was, as I might have guessed, the tune to which “O God, our help in ages past” is sung in Ireland. The hymn, since Babberly’s first demonstration in Belfast, had become a kind of battle song. It is, I think, characteristic of the Irish Protestants that they should have a tune of their own for this hymn. Elsewhere, in England, in Scotland, in the United States and the Colonies this metrical version of the 90th Psalm is sung to a fine simple tune called St. Ann. But we are not and never have been as other men are. Without a quiver of our nerves we run atilt at the most universally accepted traditions. The very fact that every one else who uses the hymn sings it to the tune called St. Ann would incline us to find some other tune if such a thing were obtainable. We found one which musicians, recognizing that we had some right to claim it as ours, called “Irish” or “Dublin.” This tune emerged suddenly from nowhere in response to no particular demand in the middle of the eighteenth century. It is anonymous, but it was at once wedded to the words of that particular hymn, and we have used it ever since. It is difficult to give an opinion on the comparative merits of two hymn tunes, and I hesitate to say that ours is a finer one than that used by the rest of the English-speaking world. I am, however, certain that there is in our tune an unmistakable suggestion of majestic confidence in an eternal righteousness, and that it very well expresses the feeling with which we sing the hymn at political demonstrations and elsewhere. It came to me that day across the waters of the bay, hammered slowly out by the swinging bells, with a tremendous sense of energy. The English St. Ann seemed lilty and almost flippant in comparison.
I raised my glasses again and took another look at the Union Jack, blown out from its flag-post and displaying plainly its tangled crosses. Then I noticed that men were entering the churchyard singly, in pairs and in little groups of three and four.
“The Dean,” I said, “must have some sort of service in church to-day. If it isn’t the Harvest Thanksgiving it must be an anniversary of something. What happened at this time of year, Godfrey? I can’t remember anything.”
I still stared through my glasses. I was struck by the unusual fact that only men were going into the church. Then, quite suddenly, I saw that every man was carrying a gun. I laid down my glasses and turned to Godfrey.
“I wish,” I said, “that you’d go down to the town—not to the church, mind, Godfrey, but into the town, and ask somebody—ask the police sergeant at the barrack what is going on in the church.”
Godfrey is always at his very best when he has to find out something. He would have made almost an ideal spy. If any one is ever wanted by the nation for the more disagreeable part of secret service work I can confidently recommend Godfrey.
Half an hour later he returned to me hot and breathless.
“The police sergeant told me, Excellency, that the Dean’s going to march all the Orangemen and a lot of other men along with them to Belfast for the Unionist demonstration. They are having service in the church first and they’ve all got rifles.”
I have all my life steadily objected to politics being mixed with religion. I hold most strongly that the Church ought not to be dominated by politicians. The Church is degraded and religion is brought into contempt when they are used by party leaders. But—the bells had ceased ringing. The hymn was now, no doubt, being sung by the men within. It occurred to me suddenly that on this occasion it was not the politicians who were taking possession of religion, but religion which was asserting its right to dominate politics. This is plainly quite a different matter. I can even imagine that politics might be improved if religion asserted itself a little more frequently than it does. I still maintain that it is only right and fair to keep politics out of the Church. I am not at all sure that it is right to keep the Church out of politics.
“I told the sergeant,” said Godfrey, “that he had better go and stop them at once.”
“Oh, did you?” I said. “Do you know, Godfrey, that’s just the kind of suggestion I’d expect you to make under the circumstances.”
“Thanks awfully, Excellency,” said Godfrey. “I’m awfully glad you’re pleased.”
There are besides the sergeant three constables in our police barrack. They are armed as a rule with short round sticks. On very important occasions they carry an inferior kind of firearm called a carbine. There were, I guessed about three hundred men in the church, and they were armed with modern rifles. Godfrey’s faith in the inherent majesty of the law was extremely touching.
“Did he go?” I asked.
“I don’t think he intends to,” said Godfrey, “but he did not give me a decided answer.”
Our police sergeant is a man of sense.
“Did you say,” I asked, “that they’re going to march to Belfast?”
“That’s what the sergeant told me,” said Godfrey.
“Actually walk the whole way?”
Belfast is a good many miles away from us. It would, I suppose, take a quick walker the better part of two days to accomplish the journey.
“He said ‘march,’” said Godfrey. “I suppose he meant to walk.”
This is, as we are constantly reminded, the twentieth century. I should have supposed that any one who wanted to get from this place to Belfast would have gone in a train. Our nearest railway station is some way off, but one might walk to it in an hour and a half. Once there, the journey to Belfast can be accomplished in another two hours. It seems rather absurd to spend two days over it, but then the whole thing is rather absurd. The rifles are absurd. The gathering of three hundred men into a church to indulge in a kind of grace before meat as preparation for a speech from Babberly is rather absurd. To set a peal of bells playing—but I am not quite sure about the hymn tune. It did not sound to me absurd as it came across the bay. I am, I trust, a reasonable man, not peculiarly liable to be swept off my feet by waves of emotion; but there was something in the sound of that hymn tune which prevented me from counting it, along with our other performances, as an absurdity.