French, Viceroy.
Chief Secretary. On the 6th it was announced that the lord- lieutenancy, in succession to Lord Wimborne, had been accepted by Visct. French of Ypres; and on the nth the new Viceroy and Chief Secretary arrived in Dublin. Sir Brian Mahon Lord had resigned the Irish command two days earlier.
On June 5 Sir James Campbell succeeded the National- ist Sir Ignatius O'Brien created Lord Shandon as Lord Chancellor. The spirit of the new order was symbolized by the changes at the viceregal lodge, where Lord Wimborne had maintained traditions of splendour. For this was now sub- stituted the simple discipline of a military household.
The new administration was not slow in getting to work. On May 17 De Valera was arrested, a number of compromising documents being found on his person. 1 Next day, a proclama- tion announced the discovery of a dangerous German intrigue. 2 On the 2oth a large number of Sinn Fein leaders were arrested, including Arthur Griffith, Count Plunkett, Countess Markievicz, John Milroy and Herbert Mellowes. These were all deported to England, and further deportations followed on the 22nd and 24th. On the 2ist, at a meeting of the Anti-Conscription Committee at the Dublin Mansion House, Messrs. Dillon, Tim Healy, William O'Brien, Joseph Devlin and Tom Johnson com- bined in denouncing the deportations as " a wicked plot of English politicians," and on June 3 the Dublin Corporation followed their example. On May 25 the Council of the National University a government institution largely supported by the British taxpayer advertised its views by reappointing Mr. John MacNeill to the professorial chair which he had forfeited owing to his share in the rebellion. 3 Meanwhile the Military Service Act had not been put in force in Ireland, and on June 3 the Lord Lieutenant issued a proclamation calling for voluntary recruits, announcing that in the event of a satisfactory response the Act would not be applied, and promising grants of land to men who had served in the war. An active recruiting campaign was at once begun under the direction of a committee consisting largely of Nationalists who had served at the front, including Col. Lynch, who had been condemned to death for fighting with the Boers against the British in the Boer War. The re- sponse to this appeal, however, was slow. The meetings were exposed to an organized interruption by Sinn Feiners, and this sometimes developed into violence, necessitating the intervention of the police. 4 By Nov. 12, when recruiting was stopped after the Armistice, of some 150,000 men of military age only 11,301 had joined the colours. The only practical outcome of the cam- paign, conducted as it was by Nationalists with a loud appeal to President Wilson's programme, was to commit the Government irrevocably in the eyes of the Irish people to the principle of " self-determination."
Evidence of the revolutionary activities of Sinn Fein con- tinued to reach the Government, and 40,000 rounds of am- munition, concealed in corn sacks from the North, Proctama- were seized in Dublin on June 24. The arrest of a German agent named Dowling (alias O'Brien) in April, and his trial in London in July, pointed the moral of these military preparations; and on July 3 the Sinn Fein organiza- tion, Sinn Fein clubs, the Irish Volunteers, the Cumann na mBan (Women's Association) and the Gaelic League, were pro- claimed as dangerous associations under the Defence of the Realm Act. Next day the whole western sea-board of Ireland
1 They included an elaborate scheme for the military organization of Ireland, based on the principle of compulsory service, when the country should have secured its independence. See Documents (Cmd. 1108), cit. Appendix A (l), pp. 47 ff.
2 ib., pp. 41 ff.
8 It is of interest to note, as illustrating the attitude of the Government, that, in common with the other professors of this university who ranked as Government officials, Mr. MacNeill subsequently received a " war bonus " of 200 a year from the Government.
- The uncertainty of opinion at this time may be illustrated by
the fact that while on July 31 the Galway County Council refused to hear Col. Lynch and Capt. Stephen Gwynn on behalf of the recruiting council, on the next day the Galway Urban Council gave them a sympathetic hearing.
tlon of Sinn Fein.
was declared a military area under the same Act. From all parts of the south and west came reports of raids for arms by masked men on isolated country houses. In Wexford, in Wicklow, in Longford, in King's county, as well as in such perennially lawless counties as Clare and Tipperary, the charges of the judges to the grand juries, at the summer assizes, referred to a dangerous state of thjngs " which could not go on in any civilized country " outrages, intimidation, boycotting. The grand jury of county Clare handed in a resolution approving of the steps taken by the Government " to restore the rudimentary elements of law and order," and stating their opinion that " the retention of a competent military authority, together with sufficient forces, was absolutely necessary to the continued maintenance of the peace of the county." Such, however, was not the opinion of Mr. John Dillon and the Nationalist members, who after an absence of three months had returned to Parliament on July 23. On the 2oth Mr. Dillon moved that the Irish policy of the Government was inconsistent with the principles for which the Allies were fighting, and in the course of a violent speech spoke of Ireland as " under the unfettered tyranny of military government " and suggested that President Wilson should be called in to settle the question. In his reply Mr. Shortt, the Chief Secretary, threw the blame for the condition of Ireland on the Nationalists, who were trying to outbid the Sinn Feiners in violence instead of restraining them.
This was truer than his sanguine assertion that things in Ireland had improved. It had early become apparent that the union of all the Nationalist elements on the common ground of opposition to conscription had been more apparent than real, and that its most obvious outcome was a formidable accession of prestige and power to Sinn Fein. It had persuaded Mr. Dillon to accept, at least for the time, its policy of abstaining from attendance at Westminster; it had secured the control of the anti-conscription funds raised by the Mansion House committee for a Sinn Fein organization; and it had made not the slightest concession in return. The full import of this was revealed during the contest which preceded the election for East Cavan on June 21, and its result. Over the question of a candidate the Nationalist party and Sinn Fein were " at one another's throats." It was suggested that this seat, which had been held by a Nationalist, should be left to a Sinn Feiner, for the sake of preserving " national unity." But on May 3 Mr. Dillon had declared that " if the spirit exhibited by the leaders of Sinn Fein in making an attempt to capture the seat were to prevail, national unity would be obviously impossible." 6 The attempt did prevail, Mr. J. F. O'Hanlon, the candidate of the United Irish League and the Ancient Order of Hibernians, being soundly beaten by Mr. Arthur Griffith. 6
In the autumn, shortly before the Armistice and the dissolu- tion of Parliament which followed, Mr. Dillon made another effort to retrieve the falling fortunes of his party. On Nov. 4 Mr. T. P. O'Connor moved in the House of Commons that the Irish question should be taken up at the Peace Conference and settled in accordance with President Wilson's principle of " self-determination." This proposal, though it had the support of Mr. Asquith, was naturally rejected. In the course of his speech in opposition to the motion Mr. Shortt challenged the Nationalists to say what settlement they wanted, and drew from Mr. Dillon the admission that he contemplated the coercion of Ulster. The Chief Secretary also took occasion to draw attention to conditions in Ireland, which he painted in gloomy colours contrasting oddly with his opti- mistic picture of July. All the materials for an armed rising were prepared, he said, and only the week before the armed forces of the Crown had captured at the headquarters of the Irish Republican Brotherhood enough explosives to blow up all Dublin and Belfast. On Nov. 28, immediately after the disso- lution of Parliament, Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Bonar Law, on behalf of the Coalition Liberals, and the Coalition Unionists respectively, issued a joint manifesto on the Irish question:
6 At Bailieborough, E. Cavan. (Irish Times, May 3.)
The figures were: Griffith (S.F.) 3,785; O'Hanlon (Nat.) 2,581.
