statute book, should be put into effect, as "proof of Britain's sincerity in championship of small nations and democracy." But Unionist-Ulsterite opposition was sufficient to prevent this from being done. Various other proposals having failed, an Irish convention was assembled at Dublin, July 25, 1917, on suggestion of the Government, to work out a plan. The intention was that the gathering should be representative of all parties; but the Sinn Feiners refused to participate, preferring to hold a convention of their own at which they adopted a resolution asserting that "any and every means" should be employed to expel the British from Ireland and drew up a constitution for an independent Irish republic. The report of the loyalist convention given out on April 12, 1918, tried to reconcile conflicting interests by a scheme for immediate Home Rule with special privileges of representation for Ulster. But both the extreme Unionists and the extreme Nationalists presented minority reports which showed that no real settlement had been reached.' At this juncture the controversy was raised to a new pitch by the premier's proposal to introduce Home Rule and conscription simultaneously. A conscription bill was passed by the House of Commons; but the opposition, not only of Irishmen of all groups, but of large numbers of Englishmen, was so bitter that, great as was the need of increased man-power on the western front, the plan had to be given up.2

Throughout the remainder of 1918 the tension continued unrelieved, and the closing months of the year brought fresh opportunity for demonstration of Sinn Fein strength and purpose. The first opportunity of the kind came with the parliamentary election of December. In this contest the Irish question loomed large. In their election manifesto the leaders of the Coalition Government, Lloyd George and Law, urged that there could

1 The reports showed that the members of the convention fell into three main groups: (1) a moderate, central group, which advocated a solution on federal lines, Ireland becoming substantially a state in a United Kingdom federation; (2) an Ulster group, which urged the maintenance of the existing union, or, if that was impossible, the exclusion of six counties of Ulster from any Home Rule act; and (3) an extreme Nationalist group, which demanded that Ireland should be given the status of a self-governing dominion, as Canada. Sinn Fein sentiment was, of course, not represented. On the convention see, in addition to contemporary periodical literature, J. Quinn and G. W. Russell, The Irish Home Rule Convention (New York, 1918), and W. B. Wells and N. Marlowe, The Irish Convention and Sinn Fein (New York, 1919). The official report of the convention is to be found in a Blue-book (Cd. 9019), and there is an authoritative popular account in London Times (Weekly ed.), Oct. 31, 1919, and succeeding issues. The interval between the Easter rebellion and the convention is reviewed in Round Table, Dec., 1916, and Mar., 1917.

2 Turner, Ireland and England, 418-437.

be no political peace for the realm until the Irish question was settled, and that it should be settled on the basis of self-government, but added that there must be no separation from Great Britain and that Ulster must not be placed under forcible subjection. Ex-Premier Asquith, speaking for the non-coalition Liberals, demanded that Irish self-government be forthwith put into operation on the basis of the act of 1914, and the Labor party laid stress on Ireland's right to "freedom." In the island itself, the contest lay mainly between the Nationalists and Sinn Fein. The new party put up candidates for all but five of the 105 seats to which the country was entitled, and the contest developed such bitterness as not even Ireland had known. People who knew the situation expected substantial Sinn Fein successes. But not even the Sinn Fein leaders themselves looked for the landslide that resulted. The Unionists secured a total of 25 seats, thus practically holding their own. The Nationalists obtained 7, as compared with 84 in 1910; Sinn Fein captured the remaining 73. The Nationalist party-the party of Butt and Parnell, of Redmond and Dillon - was not only defeated and repudiated; it was practically annihilated. Among the Sinn Fein victors was the cultured Countess de Markievicz, English by birth and Polish by marriage, whose Dublin home had long been a center of Sinn Fein influence, and who thus became the first woman to be elected to Parliament.1

The Sein Fein candidates announced during the campaign that, if elected, they would keep up protest against the British connection by refusing to take their seats, and this pledge was scrupulously observed. In point of fact, thirty-seven of the successful ones were at the time in jail, and four were under indictment in the United States. In January, 1919, such of the newly elected members as were free to do so assembled in the Mansion House at Dublin and organized themselves into a constituent assembly with a view to giving Ireland an independent republican government. There was to be a parliament (Dail Eirann), consisting of deputies chosen in the existing constituencies, and executive authority was to be lodged in a president and a group of ministers. The principle of self-determination was declared no less applicable to Ireland than to Poland or Czechoslovakia, and fervid, although futile, appeals were repeatedly addressed to President Wilson, to French and Italian statesmen, and finally to the Peace Conference itself, asking that Ireland should be 1 P. Colum, "The Sinn Fein Victory in the Irish Elections," in N. Y. Nation, Jan. 11, 1919.

admitted to representation in the Conference on the same basis as Great Britain, or at all events that the country's independence should be promptly and unconditionally recognized. In February, 1919, De Valera, who had defeated the Nationalist leader, Dillon, in a former Nationalist stronghold, and who had been elected president of the Irish republic while he was confined in an English prison, escaped from confinement; and shortly afterwards, having appeared among his followers and encouraged them to keep up the fight, he made his way to the United States, where he obtained some assistance for his cause, both financial and moral.1

Home Rule Bill of 1919. Meanwhile, the Lloyd George Government turned attention afresh to a settlement of the problem. Four fifths of Ireland was in covert rebellion; an insurrectionary government steadily defied the British authorities, even though it was itself unable to function; a semblance of order was maintained only by armed repression; one unfortunate event after another showed how bitter was the Irish feeling and how difficult it would be to find a basis of agreement. Official conferences and informal discussions went on intermittently for months, and only at the close of 1919 was the Government ready to lay its proposals before Parliament. On December 22 three days after an unsuccessful attempt in Dublin to assassinate General French, the Lord Lieutenant-Lloyd George outlined the forthcoming bill in a masterful speech.2 The measure, officially known as the Government of Ireland Bill, passed its first reading on February 27, 1920, and its full contents were then for the first time made public.

The plan embodied in the bill the fourth historic measure of the kind was prepared by a cabinet committee whose chairman was Walter Long, First Lord of the Admiralty. As explained by the premier, it rested on three basic considerations: first, that three fourths of the Irish people, being rebels at heart, would be bitterly hostile to any scheme that the Government might propose; second, that Ulster must not be subjected to the rule of a Catholic majority; and third, that the severance of Ireland from the United Kingdom would be fatal to the interests of the United Kingdom and Ireland alike, and that any attempt at secession must be resisted by force. The measure was drawn

1 De Valera, "Ireland's Right to Independence," in N. Y. Nation, June 7, 1919. A useful résumé of the Home Rule question during the war is Turner, Ireland and England, 396-417.

2 Reprinted in N. Y. Times Curr. Hist., Feb., 1920, pp. 205-214.

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on lines wholly different from its predecessors. Its salient features were: (1) two unicameral Irish parliaments, one at Belfast representing the six counties of Antrim, Down, Armagh, Londonderry, Fermanagh, and Tyrone, and the boroughs of Belfast and Londonderry, and the other at Dublin, representing the remainder of the country; (2) the members of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland (52 in number) and of the House of Commons of Southern Ireland (128 in number) were to be chosen by the same electorate that returns members to the Imperial Parliament, on the principle of proportional representation; (3) a Federal Council of forty members (twenty elected by each legislature), with a president appointed by the crown; (4) in addition to full powers of private bill legislation and regulation of railways, this Federal Council might consider any matters touching the welfare of either part of the country and make recommendations concerning them, and it should have such additional powers within the range of the authority of the new parliaments as they should bestow on it; (5) the two parliaments were to have full legislative powers over all subjects not expressly reserved to the Imperial (or, as the premier significantly called it, the Federal) Parliament at Westminster, such reserved subjects being, chiefly, war and peace, the army and navy, treason, aliens and naturalization, foreign trade, coinage, customs and excises, and excess profits and income taxes; (6) there should be no attempt by the government of the United Kingdom to bring about a union of the two legislatures, but these bodies were themselves empowered to establish such a union, and the hope, as well as belief, was expressed that this would soon come to pass; (7) executive power should remain in the king and should be exercised through à Lord Lieutenant, appointed for six years, and through two sets of ministers, one in the north and the other in the south; (8) there should be a separate judiciary for each of the two areas, with a High Court of Appeal for the entire country; (9) as provided by the Home Rule Bill of 1912, Ireland should retain forty-two representatives in the House of Commons at Westminster; (10) the supreme authority of the Imperial Parliament should remain unimpaired over all " persons, matters, and things" in Ireland. The closing clause of the measure repealed the Home Rule Act passed in 1914.1

As was expected, the bill was coldly received in Ireland; Sinn Fein demanded complete independence, the Ulster Unionists urged the maintenance of the status quo, and there was no one to

1 For a fuller summary see N. Y. Times Curr. Hist., May, 1920, pp. 201-203.

defend the federal plan. The island became more and more turbulent, and military rule was tightened, until the country became practically an armed camp. Sinn Fein won fresh triumphs in the municipal elections of January 15, and became more than ever dominant and defiant. In England the bill was strongly opposed by the Labor party and by the Independent, or noncoalition, Liberals. The former demanded that the principle of self-determination be applied to Ireland, although a commission sent to study the subject on the spot said in its report that the lesser island must be kept under the control of the Imperial Parliament in all that pertained to foreign relations and defense. The Independent Liberals held to the principles of the act of 1914, arguing that the new scheme neither met the demands nor had the approval of any element in the island, that (contrary to the professed belief of the Government) the division of the country for which it provided would tend to become permanent, and that no geographical lines could be drawn which would satisfy all elements. On the other hand, the adherents of the Coalition Government, whether of Unionist or Liberal proclivities, supported the bill with such enthusiasm as they could command, arguing chiefly that it could be passed safely in justice to the remainder of the United Kingdom, that it conferred on Ireland as much self-government as the security of all interests would permit, that it gave the Irish people a chance to settle their own quarrels, and that the scheme was so constructed that it could easily be made to fit into a general federal system such as, according to certain Government leaders, would eventually have to be adopted.3

On March 29 the bill passed its second reading by a majority of 254 votes, which was unexpectedly large; and at the date of writing (June, 1920) the measure was reasonably certain to become law, although numerous amendments were pending including one supported by the Independent Liberals and by Labor providing that there should be but a single parliament, and another backed by the Independent Liberals proposing county option for Ulster. It was by no means certain that some changes, although hardly any so far-reaching as those named, would be made. Ulster was, on the whole, prepared to accept

1 Approximately eighty-five per cent of the Sinn Fein candidates were successful. Even in Londonderry the Unionists were defeated, and in the province of Ulster as a whole the Sinn Fein vote was 238,374, as compared with a Unionist vote of 238,318. 2 The report of this commission is reprinted in N. Y. Nation, Apr. 10, 1920. It will be recalled that a Speaker's Conference on Devolution was now studying this problem. See p. 204.