Elections
for the
Irish Par-
liaments,
1921.
against secessionist Ulster; the campaign of outrage had been extended to the North ; and in the South a boycott of goods coming from Belfast was said to be spreading consternation in Northern trading circles. It was suggested that De Valera had merely invited Sir James Craig in order to impress upon him the ulti- mate consequences of this policy to Ulster, and to invite him to come to terms with the " Republic." The general opinion, however, was that the meeting was a genuine sign of a desire to find a modus vivendi, and this impression was deepened by the manifesto issued by the Ulster leader next day. Sir Edward Carson, in resigning the leadership, had said that the supreme object of the new Government of the six counties ought to be peace. " Rather than fight these people," he said, " try to win them over to us." Similarly Sir James Craig now put in the forefront the " earnest desire for the peace of Ireland."
There was little enough evidence of the growth of a spirit of compromise. Sinn Fein had decided to take part in the elec- tions for the new Parliament, but without thereby receding an inch from its intransigeant position. In the actual conditions of the country it was clear that no one would dare to stand in opposition to a Sinn Fein candidate, and the unopposed return of a Republican member for every constituency in the South and West of Ireland, combined with the solid refusal of those returned to attend the new Parliament or to take the oath of allegiance, would be the best possible advertisement to the world of the deliberate verdict of the Irish people on the policy of " partition." In effect, when on May 13 the nomina- tions were made, it was found that in no single constituency was there to be a contested election. Of the 128 constituencies of the South and West 124 returned Sinn Feiners unopposed. The four members for Dublin University, also returned unop- posed, were not Sinn Feiners; but they were nominees of no party and were bound by no pledges save to study the interest of the university and to work for a settlement which should bring peace and unity to Ireland. The elections for the Northern Parliament, which took place on the 23rd, produced results scarcely less unequivocal as an expression of the temper of the Protestant North. The Unionists had only counted on winning 32 of the 52 seats; they actually won 40. Six National- ists, including Mr. Joseph Devlin, were returned, and six Sinn Feiners, including De Valera, Arthur Griffith, and Michael Collins, all in the preponderantly Roman Catholic constituencies. Both Nationalists and Sinn Feiners announced their intention of not taking their seats.
The triumph of Sinn Fein at the elections was followed by an intensification of the " war," which was now carried into " the enemy's country." During the week-end May 14-6 large numbers of armed and masked men engaged in shooting and burnings in London, St. Albans and Liverpool, the objects of these attentions being the relatives of members of the R.I.C. In Ireland itself the same week-end witnessed two horrible crimes the murder of District-Inspector Maj. Biggs and of Miss Barrington, daughter of Sir Charles Barrington, between Glenstal and Newport, and the murder of District-Inspector Blake and his heroic young wife, together with two young army officers, as they were returning from a tennis party at Ballyturin House in Gal way. On the 22nd, the day before the Ulster ^lections, there was read in all the Roman Catholic churches a letter of Pope Benedict XV. to Cardinal Logue, in which His Holiness, while urging peace, gave discreet encouragement to the Sinn Fein cause by suggesting that the Treaty of Versailles had not given " sufficient consideration to the desires of the nations." Three days later the Customs House, a lovely example of late 1 8th century classical architecture and the most beautiful building in Dublin, was entered by a large band of armed men and set on fire; it burned for three days, till only the shell re- mained. This act was ordered by Dail Eireann, which justified its action in the Irish Bulletin by saying that the destruction of this noble monument was necessary in order " to save the lives of four million people." Of the attackers more than 100
" War" la Ireland and England.
were arrested, while 30 or 40 are said to have been trapped in the building and burned to death. Some inconvenience was caused to the Government, owing to the destruction of the rec- ords of the Local Government Board and the Board of Inland Revenue, but far more to private individuals, since an immense number of deeds and other documents were lost. Claims for damages amounting to several millions of pounds sterling were immediately lodged against the Dublin Corporation.
On the day following this outrage (May 26) Mr. Lloyd George declared in Parliament that it would be necessary to send more troops to Ireland, and two days later a considerable number were accordingly dispatched. Meanwhile Sir James Craig had gone to London, and on the 3ist it was announced that further efforts were to be made to secure peace. The omens were not auspicious. In Sinn Fein Ireland the more turbulent elements were entirely out of hand, and the utter insecurity of life and property, together in many cases with the complete interruption of ordinary communications, were quickly strangling the economic life of the country. The organization of the I.R.A. in the county districts had been largely broken up, and many once disturbed areas were now peaceful; but " flying columns," which owed their mobility to " commandeered " motor-cars and bicycles, scoured the country, ambushing small parties of constabulary as in Kerry on June 2 levying " taxes," burning country houses and kidnapping gentlemen, and some- times ladies, of unpopular views. The cutting of telegraph and telephone poles, and the digging of trenches across roads, were organized on a large scale, men of all classes and opinions being forced at the revolver's point to take part in this work. On June 2 telephone posts were cut down at Liverpool, and on the night of June 7-8 hundreds of wires were cut in places so far apart as Cardiff, Hatfield and Bexley; the outrages in England culminated on the night of June 16 in a series of attacks on signal boxes and signalmen in the suburbs of London with the object of wrecking trains, attacks which were renewed at Manchester on the i8th. On June 9 the Government published as a " white paper " (Cmd. 1326), under the title of " Inter- course between Bolshevism and Sinn Fein," the text of a pro- posed treaty between the Russian Soviet Government and the Irish Republic which Dr. McCartan, M.P. for King's county, had gene to Moscow to negotiate.
Meanwhile, on the yth, the Northern Parliament had been opened at Belfast, and the Government constituted. Sir James Craig became Prime Minister; Mr. H. McD. Pollock, chairman of the Belfast Chamber of Commerce, Min- ister of Finance; Sir R. Dawson Bates, Minister for Home Affairs ; Mr. J. M. Andrews, Minister of Labour; the Marquess of Londonderry, Minister of Education, and Mr. E. M. Archdale, Minister of Agriculture and Commerce. The Hon. Hugh O'Neill, son of Lord O'Neill, was elected Speaker. The Parliament was opened by Visct. Fitzalan, the Lord Lieutenant, whose speech excited particular attention because of its reference to the Government of Ireland Act. " The Act," he said, " is not perfect. It needs amending, and I should not be surprised if it were amended in the near future."
The significance of this statement was taken to lie in the fact that in parliamentary circles in London the opinion was gain- ing ground that, before applying " crown colony " Government to the refractory South of Ireland as provided for in the Act, an attempt should be made to win it over by further concessions. On June 21 the Earl of Donoughmore, a large landowner in county Tipperary, moved in the House of Lords that " the situation in Ireland urgently requires that His Majesty's Government should be prepared to propose and authorize negotiations to be opened on such terms as they think calculated to terminate the present deadlock." In opposing the motion the Lord Chancellor, speaking presumably on behalf of the Government, denied that anything in Lord Fitzalan's speech implied any intention of the Government to bring in an amending bill, and said that the amendments referred to were only concerned with minor matters. He admitted the gloom of the situation;
The
Northern Parlia- ment,
The Gov- ernment and Sinn Fein.
