IRELAND has played such an important part in my life that it must have a section to itself. If any work that I have been able to do towards the promotion of unity among nations has been of value I owe it to my Irish upbringing. It taught me lessons about sectional antipathy that I have never forgotten. I made two separate attempts to help towards an Irish settlement in March, 1917, and in August, 1919! Neither attempt met with success but they gave me added knowledge of the difficulties and failed to shake my belief that the problem is soluble.

I do not know how much pure Irish blood runs in my veins, but it cannot be very much. In our family we have always thought there must be some foreign strain. Several of my mother's relatives had Spanish features. My cousin, Arthur Maddison, for a quarter of a century Canon of Lincoln Cathedral, an authority on genealogy, failed to find any foreign ancestors. My father was English but had some Scottish forbears. No one could have mistaken him for anything but a Sassenach. My mother was not more than a quarter Irish by descent, although she was born and brought up in County Louth. Her father, Sir Alan Bellingham,(1) had an English mother. My maternal grandmother was a Mrs. Clark, the wife of a banker at Boston in Lincolnshire. At most then I can claim to be one-eighth Irish and yet I frequently feel more Irish than English. Mother Ireland exercises a spell over her children that can never be shaken off. There is something in the atmosphere of Erin that makes Anglo-Saxons love her. Although I have lived in England for thirty-five years Ireland is my first love and I am still under her spell. I wish I could think that some day I might be called in to help in settling the age-long Anglo-Irish misunderstanding. In Ulster and in Southern Ireland I feel equally at home. When in the North I find myself trying to champion Southern Irishmen and in the South explaining my fellow Ulstermen. I admire and respect many of the Ulster leaders, and Southern Irishmen like E. de Valera, the late Arthur Griffith and W. T. Cosgrave. Perhaps my upbringing in Fermanagh has enabled me to see "the other fellow's standpoint" so wholeheartedly that sometimes I find that I am almost taking sides against myself. It is an uncomfortable state of affairs!

In the early war years I was perplexed by Ireland's indifference to the allied cause, and in one of my non-Irish phases I wrote on Christmas Day, 1915:---

Killacoona, Ballybrack,       
Co. Dublin.

Arrived at Kingstown at 5.30 where father met us. I felt so numb and out of sympathy with the country, they don't in the least realise about the war and here at Killacoona there are four men---in stables and garden---who ought to be making munitions, and it is the same everywhere else. Ireland's war effort is not to be compared with that of other countries and the contrast with what I saw in France last month is amazing, but then, of course, the French are on their own territory which makes all the difference.

From the date of his arrival in Ireland at the age of twenty-one, when he became a land-agent, my father identified himself with the landlord point of view. My parents represented the old landlord class. They loved Ireland, they were "loyal" to Ireland as they conceived it ought to be---a feudal state in which the Protestant and property-owning class ran the country. Inter-marriage between Catholic and Protestant was frowned upon. The bitter feeling in my mother's family towards the Catholic Church(2) was increased by the conversion from Protestantism of my uncle, Henry Bellingham, my grandfather's heir, while at Oxford. Only those familiar with the outlook of the landlord class in Ireland in the nineteenth century can appreciate the consternation which this conversion caused in the family. My grandfather never got over the blow. When Miss Slade became a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi she can have caused no greater consternation.

Up to her eighty-sixth birthday my mother had still got a very clear picture of her early Irish and Lincolnshire background and I have spent many happy hours listening to her recollections. Alan Bellingham and his children led a peaceful patriarchal existence at beautiful Castle Bellingham, and in the summer months at Dunany House on the sea, facing the Mourne Mountains. The day started with family prayers at which my grandfather presided. The domestic staff was seated on two long benches, the men on one side and the women on the other. Breakfast was at 9.0, lunch at 1.0 and dinner at 5.0, and a "dish of tea" and cakes were served at 9.30 p.m. Although a disbeliever in a meat diet I have to record that till his death at the age of eighty-nine my grandfather ate a small chop for breakfast every morning of his life. It was like the laws of the Medes and Persians to him.

I well remember my grandfather :(3) a little old man with a white stubbly beard, rather awe-inspiring, with large sunken eyes and a big nose. He wore a little black skull cap indoors. When he went out he put on a top hat and a black cape that came down nearly to his knees. With his pockets filled with crusts from the breakfast table, for the farm horses, he set off on his daily rounds on his pony. He had some odd fads. He did not like the cool feel of the knife handles so he asked my grandmother to crochet little covers for them---these he always used. He was conservative in his ways, and extremely generous. His left hand never knew what his right hand did. According to his lights he more than fulfilled the duties of landlord and head of a large household in that state of life into which it had pleased God to call him.

In the middle of the nineteenth century the fetish of the daily bath was unknown. Great excitement was caused in the neighbourhood when Lady Eliza McClintock brought over a tin "saucer" bath to Ireland. There was no bathroom in my grandfather's house when my mother was a child. Saturday night was bath night---in a hip bath. In her youth my grandmother put on a calico nightdress when she had her bath---doubtless her own naked form was no sight for a well-brought-up maiden. But even in my mother's childhood a seemly modesty was the order of the day. On one occasion in getting over a fence my mother unwittingly got her skirt entangled and displayed a comely limb below the knee. The family governess, Miss Grit, was greatly shocked and said, "Come now, come now, Charlotte, ladies should never show anything above the ankle."

Model parents though they were, my grandfather and grandmother were strict disciplinarians. On one occasion my Aunt Hester(4) walked across the passage in her petticoat bodice and the governess made her hold out her hand and chastised her with a ruler, which was called by the children being "pandied ". One of my mother's earliest recollections, at the age of five, is of my grandmother asking the governess:

"Has Charlotte shown any signs of repentance?" My mother could not remember what was the nature of her youthful iniquity, but on the governess replying in the negative my grandmother took her upstairs and beat her with a whip. She was once put into Coventry by parental decree for three days because she had said "What?" in reply to some remark of her elders. On another occasion, my Uncle Claypon(5) then aged six, was nicking some rough skin off his chapped lips. "Stop picking your lips, Claypon," said my grandfather sternly. Poor struggling Claypon was led off by his papa into the library. With doors purposely left open, so that the other children should see what happened to wicked boys, he was laid on the table and given a sound whipping---presumably with the same whip with which my mother was acquainted!

Castle Bellingham, County Louth, where the author's Grandfather lived and his Mother was born.

The author's Grandfather.

Frederick and Charlotte Wrench after their marriage.

The ordered existence of the week changed on Sundays. All weekday books, and needlework, were put away and works on religion and Holy Writ were studied. My mother picked up a book on the schoolroom table on a Sunday and finding the word "God" in it knew it was suitable for Sunday reading! The long service in the little church in the garden was the chief event of the day. My mother and her sisters(6) used to be escorted to church by a page-boy in buttons. He carried the books of worship for the family in a square basket. On arrival at the church he walked ahead and carefully laid the prayerbooks and hymn-books in the family pew. When my mother talked of her childhood I was back again in the pages of a Jane Austen novel.

In his early youth my grandfather, who was born in 1800, kept a horse at Holyhead. When he went to visit relations in London or Lincolnshire he rode there. When his uncle, Sir William Bellingham,(7) died, my grandfather was in London and he rode the whole way to Holyhead with the funeral cortège---a journey lasting a week, as the procession went at a walking pace through the villages and towns.

In her early childhood my mother remembered a certain blue carriage---a kind of barouche---used for important calls on neighbours. It only held two passengers, and a footman in breeches and white stockings stood on the board behind. Perhaps my mother's most interesting link with the past was the fact that she remembered a certain Miss Patty Gee of Boston in Lincolnshire who used---in 1853 or 1854---to go out to dinner by sedan chair. As children the Bellingham family went frequently to Boston to stay with their maternal grandparents. Mrs. Clark was held in great reverence by my mother and her sisters. When annoyed with a grandchild she would exclaim, "You nasty detestable little thing," and simultaneously would thump their heads with her heavily ringed hands. My mother recollected being taken as a child of three and a half to the Chapel-of-ease at Boston for a memorial service to the Duke of Wellington. On getting back to West Skirbeck Hall she had dinner with the housekeeper, who said, "Even little Charlotte was impressed by the sermon."

In Ireland the children led a quiet life: their nearest neighbours were five miles away. Hunting with the local foxhounds or an occasional day's expedition to lunch with friends eleven miles away were red-letter occasions. The family never associated with Roman Catholics, except of course with the tenantry or farm hands on the estate. In the summer my grandfather was enlightened enough to encourage sea-bathing at Dunany, and the five girls used to don "thick navy-blue flannel garments like nightgowns," in which there can have been little freedom for their limbs. Till the age of eighteen the children were not allowed to read newspapers. The nearest they got to examining the contents of The Times was in a highly unorthodox manner. In place of toilet-paper in the school-room lavatory their nurse used to cut up discarded copies of The Times into squares for the use of the children! It must have been tantalising to start reading of some current event only to find the story torn through at the interesting point.

The Pilgrim's Progress, The Swiss Family Robinson, The Fairchild Family and, of course, Dickens, were the staple diet. My grandmother used to read out Walter Scott's novels to her family, "skipping all the nice bits including the love scenes."

Stories of love at first sight with a happy ending are good to come across in an age that regards the possibilities of happy marriage with scepticism. My father, the only son of a Kentish parson,(8) after leaving Haileybury went to Exeter College, Oxford. His greatest friend was Henry Bellingham,(9) who invited him to dinner to meet his sister Charlotte. My father must tell the story in his own words:

On the last evening of the summer term in 1869 I was dining with an Irish friend whose father owned one of the prettiest places in Ireland or anywhere else, Castle Bellingham, Co. Louth, with a neat village at its gates and a picturesque salmon river running past the house. When I walked into the room Bellingham introduced me to his sister, who was going over to Ireland with him the next day, and by whose sweet face my fate was sealed. I spent a delightful evening hearing about the endless attractions of Ireland, and from that moment I determined to look for some profession in that country.

The young couple fell head-over-heels in love. They were nineteen and twenty. My grandfather naturally refused to hear of immediate marriage. The penniless young Englishman with no prospects must first of all get a job before obtaining his daughter's hand. For two years, considering themselves hardly used, the young couple were made to wait! They were married in February, 1872. Their happy married life lasted fifty-four years till 1926, when my father died at Hythe, Kent, within seven miles of the village of Stowting, where he was born and where he and my mother are now laid to rest. For over fifty years he lived in Ireland and no one could have worked more devotedly for its economic well-being. He had little sympathy with the growing nationalism. If Scotsmen and Welshmen were willing to be British subjects and sing "God save the Queen" with fervent loyalty, why not Irishmen? The heresy of Irish Republicanism, financed by Fenian malcontents in America, was beyond the understanding of his generation.

My Great-grandmother. She rapped the bare head of her small grand-daughter, my mother, with her ringed hand saying "Charlotte, you nasty, detestable little thing."

Was it surprising that Charlotte Bellingham's heart went pit-a-pat when Frederick Wrench came down to family prayers during that first visit ? Tall, with curly black hair, a fresh complexion and blue eyes, my father was one of the best-looking men I have ever seen. They made a very good-looking couple. My father had all the enthusiasm of youth and took readily to Irish life. He wrote:

A friend recommended me Realities of Irish Life by W. Stewart Trench, a noted land agent whom I visited afterwards at Lord Digby's residence Geashill in King's County. There I had to show the stuff I was made of in a famous ride with Trench and two of his pupils straight across country, and I well remember that a broken iron gate was one of the obstacles we had to encounter. Trench was riding a raw-boned chestnut, over 17 hands high, that simply sailed over all the fences. Ever after that first ride Trench was friendly to me.

My father was proficient at almost every form of sport; he was devoted to horses and cattle and was never so happy as when he was assisting, either as judge or exhibitor, at some local show. In my early youth I attended so many horse and cattle shows that I must have got a complex about them---my tastes lie in other directions. From the moment he arrived in Ireland my father, as a land agent at Clones, where he was agent to Sir Thomas Lennard, had unequalled chances for indulging in sport. There was excellent snipe shooting over the low-lying flooded marshes of County Monaghan.

The following account is taken from my father's diary:

Before I got into the knack of snipe shooting I blazed away a good many cartridges, but soon I became an expert and rarely came home until I had accounted for 10 couple. My best performance was 274 couple one day before 2 o'clock, when I had exhausted all my cartridges. My snipe-shooting attendant, to carry my cartridges and the birds when they were shot, was selected on account of his marvellous powers of jumping big drains, of which there were many, and his knowledge of boggy country!

He was the huntsman of the local hounds, a well-bred lot, they all lived singly in the peasants' houses. On a hunting morning my friend went to the top of a hill, just behind his house, and blew a horn, and you could see the hounds streaming from every house near by, keen on a day's sport.

Few Irishmen knew West and Southern Ireland as well as my father. When he was appointed an Irish Land Commissioner in 1887 his work took him to all parts of the country. Mr. Arthur Balfour was then Chief Secretary and a warm friendship started that lasted all his life. When Mr. Balfour founded the Congested Districts Board in 1891 he drew much on my father's intimate knowledge of the West and on several occasions my father and Mr. Balfour made tours of the Congested Districts by jaunting car.

As a boy I was taken on some of my father's tours of inspection. I have vivid recollections of thirty or forty mile drives in outlying parts of Connemara, away from railways, seated sideways on an Irish car in drenching rain, wrapped up in a tarpaulin; and at the journey's end, with a rick in the neck and a numbed body, being helped off the exposed seat to a house with a hospitable turf fire and the eagerly-awaited meal of the inevitable chop, Worcester sauce and potatoes.

For thirteen years my father was the official representative of agriculture on the Congested Districts Board.

He thus described the programme of the C.D.B.:

To improve and consolidate the holdings and, where necessary, to build new houses trying that to arrange the pigs and poultry should not in future share the living room with the human inhabitants. To improve the cattle, pigs, ponies and poultry and all the live stock, and introduce a better system of packing and marketing eggs.

It was in search of new and up-to-date methods of agriculture and of suitable strains of livestock to improve the local Irish breeds that my father travelled through much of Europe. On these journeys he took his family and to these tours of investigation I owe my acquaintance with many out of the way parts of the Continent.

No boy interested in life could have had a more stimulating childhood---a splendid training in tasks of administration and problems of government. I obtained my first realization that life on the land was not the pleasant existence it is often pictured by town-dwellers. The peasants had a grim struggle with nature in the wilds of the West. A peep into that life has been given to the outside world in Robert Flaherty's great film "Man of Aran." I have previously described the joyful days I spent as a boy home from school on the C.D.B.'s comfortable steamer The Granuaile.(10) In her my father visited the ultima thule of Western Ireland "so that we thoroughly knew our territories, which consisted in many cases of wild, rarely visited, islands in the rough Atlantic."

Even Mr. de Valera, who loves the land of his adoption so passionately, could not have worked more consistently for Ireland's welfare. My father took sorrowing to the grave the thought that the Ireland to which he had given fifty years' service could prove so ungrateful and turn upon men like Horace Plunkett. Whatever England's handling of Ireland from the days of Elizabeth onwards may have been---and my father, like many of the Irish Unionists, minimised some of the dark pages of English misrule---the predominant partner was sincerely seeking to make amends since the eighties and help Ireland to a new era of prosperity. The factor he failed to realize was that good government was no substitute for self-government and that control from the Irish Office in Old Queen Street, London, was unsatisfactory. If he had studied the history of the evolution of self-government in the British Dominions, as I sought to persuade him to do, he would have recognised that some form of home rule was inevitable. But his whole life was devoted to practical tasks both at the Irish Land Commission and at the Congested Districts Board.(11) At the former he and his colleagues(12) were engaged upon the great work of enabling the poor Irish peasant to become his own landlord on favourable terms.

At the Congested Districts Board he was engaged on the fascinating task of dealing with the submerged sections of the population, living on the borderline of starvation. While he was seeking out new breeds of horses in the government stud-farms of France, Germany or Russia, larger donkeys in Spain, better pigs in Hungary, or attempting to develop new industries,(13) or studying improved methods of curing fish, packing eggs, distributing produce, or encouraging village industries, such as lace making and weaving cloth, other Irishmen were devoting their lives to the task of breaking away from "England---their oppressor."

On many occasions I went with my father into the hovels of the poorest peasants. I once saw a child lying asleep in a cottage with its head on the body of a fat somnolent pig. My father thus records a visit to a typical peasant's house in the congested districts:

On this occasion Mr. Burdett-Coutts(14) accompanied me. Baroness Burdett-Coutts had been a generous patroness of the Kinsale fishermen and was well known in Ireland for her charitable interest in the fishing industry, and he was keen to see something of the Congested Districts and of the Connemara ponies in particular. We had a most interesting trip among the people in the districts where the best ponies were bred, and on all sides were told of a wonderful pony stallion that we ought on no account to miss, as he was the "rale Irish sort" and a great sire.

We had some difficulty in ascertaining where he was, but at last were pointed out a long low house on a hill top. On reaching our destination we knocked at the door, and walked in. The house was so full of peat smoke that at first we could see nothing. Three old ladies were crooning over the fire, apparently they could talk nothing but Irish. Fortunately a neighbour, who had seen us approach, came in and asked us who we were and what we wanted; when I explained, he was greatly amused and talked to the old women.

They owed some money to a gombeen man and thought that we were the bailiffs come to seize their belongings, and when they found out that no seizure was in our thought they greeted us warmly and talked their indifferent English quite volubly. Then I asked them where the pony was and if I could open the two doors, opposite to each other, to let out the smoke.

After nearly tumbling in the gloom over the manure heap, inside the house, on my way to the door, I bumped into the pony almost at my side. He was tied to the foot of the family bed, with a most ingenious crib for his food; just behind the head of the bed the fowls roosted close to the fire, the pigs wandered about where they liked, and at the foot of the room there was a regular rough cow byre. The house consisted of just this one long room of a good size and was capable of containing all the livestock on the farm as well as the family. This one long room was divided into two halves by a diagonal path in the centre connecting the two doors, back and front. This was typical of very many houses at that time, where the only possible means of ventilation were a good big chimney and the two doors, the windows, which were small, not being made to open.

I have studied conditions of land tenure in most parts of the world and I am convinced drastic legislation is required in Great Britain to resuscitate our derelict countryside. I have witnessed the miracle which Land Purchase has achieved in Ireland.

The last chapter in my father's half-century of service to Ireland was as Food Controller during the war. He was appointed by Mr. H. E. Duke, the Chief Secretary, and he regarded his year as Food Controller as "perhaps the most strenuous and happiest year of my life." On his appointment he stipulated that he should have an entirely free hand and that he alone should have the selection of the staff.

And there I must leave the account of my father's work for Ireland, which I think was never properly recognised. I regret that he identified himself so completely with the Unionist Party. I wish politically he could have been more detached. But no Englishman ever loved Ireland more than he did. In his fifty years of Irish life he never had any difficulty in getting on with any Irishman. His friends were to be found in all walks of life---landlords, tenants, civil servants, horse copers, farmers, policemen, old furniture dealers, jockeys, gamekeepers and cowherds.

I hope the day will come in Ireland when just tribute will be paid to all who have devoted their lives to her service. His record refutes the too prevalent belief that it is only by the gun that Ireland can be served.

PERHAPS one day when Mr. H. G. Wells has some spare time he will write an Outline of Racial Prejudice as a companion volume to his Outline of History, and explain in his lucid manner how our various racial and religious antipathies and complexes arose. Why should the accident of birth decide the whole mental outlook of a human being? Unfortunately, there are no Norman Angells standing at each cross road to point out where the unseen assassins are lying in ambush. From our earliest life we are nurtured on prejudice. Unless endowed by Providence with exceptionally clear mental powers we unwittingly accept as part of the established order and inevitable, circumstances in our environment which could be changed had we but the wit to try. Great illusions assail us from the cradle to the grave.

I was born into the "Orange" world at Brookeboro', Co. Fermanagh. King Billy of sacred memory was our deity, and the Roman Saints, Martyrs and Hierarchy were anathema to us. I first discovered St. Francis of Assisi for myself at the age of twenty-seven, and in giving my allegiance to him I felt as if I were eating forbidden fruit, for was not Il Poverello a Roman? In the Ireland in which I was brought up, Dublin Castle and the Kildare Street Club stood on one side and the majority of the Irish people on the other. No doubt the Irish landlords had the welfare of their tenants sincerely at heart. On one side of the scale was the landlord on his great estate, with a subservient and dependent tenantry, and leisure to indulge in hunting, shooting and fishing, and with money to send his son to be educated in England. On the other the poor tiller of the soil, who all his life was carrying on a bitter struggle to earn enough money to pay the rent. Alexander II emancipated the serfs in Russia in 1864: the charter of Irish agricultural freedom was the passing of the Irish Land Act. The Irish tenant lived a hard existence, not perhaps as hard as the Russian mujik, thanks to the milder climate of Ireland, but his lot was far from enviable. His diet consisted of porridge, buttermilk, potatoes and butterless home-made bread. A baker's loaf or bacon were regarded as luxuries. May and November, when the rent became due, were anxious months. Protestant and Roman Catholic farmers were friendly neighbours but once the field of politics was approached they were at daggers drawn.

When I look back on my childhood in the eighties it seems as if I lived on another planet. That Ireland is no more. It belongs as much to another age as the stagecoach. Ireland was certainly a happy country for the gentry and professional classes. The first Roman Catholic priest that I ever remember meeting was the famous wit, Father Healey, who was asked to our home by my father. He made himself popular with us children by giving us silver fourpenny-bits, then becoming a rarity. Other "Papist" friends were Max Green, John Redmond's son-in-law, and my father's colleague at the Irish Land Commission, Gerald Fitzgerald, who for a time was one of the few Roman Catholic members of the Kildare Street Club.

The two great events in the year were the Cattle Show in the spring and the Horse Show in August at the Royal Dublin Society's grounds at Ballsbridge. Sport was the one bond that enabled Irishmen to forget their religious and political differences. "Everybody" of importance in Ireland came to Dublin for the Horse Show. The landlords and farmers of Kerry and Cork mingled there once a year with their fellows from Mayo or Meath. For the lover of horse-flesh these shows were great occasions, and I have never seen finer jumping than over the high stone wall at Ballsbridge. As a boy I enjoyed the privilege of wandering about within the sacred confines of the jumping enclosure. Disregarding all regulations, I am sure, kindly Mr. Robert Bruce, the agricultural superintendent, used to provide me with a steward's badge, and with an air of rightful ownership---I was twelve or thirteen---I would go up to the gate-keeper and pointing to my badge enjoy the subservient manner with which he threw open the gate, and I sailed past the barrier followed by the envious glances of the crowd. Youth is not assailed by qualms of conscience as to the fairness of hereditary privilege!

A red-letter occasion was when the present King, then Duke of York, came over to Ireland and was present in the jumping ring, surrounded by top-hatted members of the Royal Dublin Society. I was introduced to the Duke and disregarding etiquette plunged into a conversation about my stamp collection. The Duke was evidently interested and for over ten minutes we discussed some of the problems of the philatelist. But the frowns of Lord Rathdonnell and other officials clearly showed me more important matters were in the offing and I withdrew with a grateful memory of the Duke's kindness to a small boy.

I made my bow to Viceregal circles, in the year 1891 when I was appointed Page to Lady Zetland, wife of the Lord Lieutenant. The life of social Ireland centred round Dublin Castle and the Viceregal Lodge in Phoenix Park. When my mother told me that I was to be page to Lady Zetland---I was then eight---I was agitatedly happy. I did not know why I was chosen but it seemed a great honour and the grown-ups were pleased. Besides, very exciting events lay ahead. I was to have my hair curled by the Viceregal hairdresser, Worn, in Stephens Green; I was to have a wonderful St. Patrick's-blue and white silk suit, with hanging cape and tassels and a gilt sword and a hat trimmed with ostrich feathers ; and I was to be in attendance at the Drawing Rooms and at St. Patrick's Ball---though what St. Patrick would have said to all this finery I did not enquire. The knights of St. Patrick wore beautiful pale-blue cloaks on ceremonial occasions. I thought how lovely to be a knight of St. Patrick. I wondered how you became one---I supposed only by being one who did knightly deeds like King Arthur's followers. St. Patrick was a reality to me because I had been to Iona, off the coast of Scotland, on a very rough day with my mother; and I had not been sea-sick when the others lay on deck chairs looking green and every now and then uttering groans.

When I was on duty with Lady Zetland my parents came to Dublin for the night and took rooms at the Shelbourne Hotel close to my hairdressers---and much too excited to enjoy my supper I was escorted to the Castle with rather a thumping heart. In Ireland the "Drawing-Rooms" used to take place in the evenings. I was then handed over to an alarming man with a long moustache wearing an evening suit with pale-blue silk facings and brass buttons. He instructed my fellow page and myself in our duties. I had never seen such a blaze of light nor so many fine ladies, all dressed-up in ostrich feathers and long trains---though how they could like going about with nothing on their bosoms I did not understand. Lady Zetland was very kind to me and told someone to take me to have nice pink strawberry ices in a neighbouring room. I liked Lady Zetland---not only on account of the ices but also because she was so kind and grand and was the mother of Lady Maud Dundas,(1) whom I admired very much, even if she did seem to like my elder brother more than me.

All the men wore wonderful uniforms and cocked hats and knee breeches. I thought how marvellous it would be to wear an eye-glass like Lord Zetland and a coat with gold braid on it and white breeches and silk stockings and dance quadrilles with lovely ladies like the Duchess of Leinster,(2) whose jewels bobbed about her soft white neck. When I got tired of watching the dancing, which I did pretty soon, Lady Zetland said I might sit on her gilt ceremonial chair. I sat there swinging my legs till the alarming man in the blue-faced coat came and told me to keep quiet. There was a lot of standing about in between times and no one was paying attention to me, so I sought distraction. Lady Zetland was standing talking to Mr. Balfour; I knew his face quite well because we had his photograph at home and he had been to see us. Mr. Balfour was a big tall man, much taller than Lord Zetland and he went in at the front---I wondered if he ate enough. He had a very fine uniform, with those white breeches that the extra grand people wore. I wondered if I would one day have a uniform like that, although it was not as pretty as my pale-blue jacket with lace ruffles, but I did not like those lace ruffles : they got in the way when I was eating ices. Perhaps some day I would have a suit like father's, but he only had dark-blue trousers. What long legs Mr. Balfour had---they looked much nicer in their white silk stockings than father's! I pinched my legs to feel how hard they were. I wondered if Mr. Balfour's legs were as hard as mine-harder, I expected, because he was older. Why should I not feel them? Then I would know for certain, it would be such fun. So I crept round unnoticed to the back of the raised dais where he and Lady Zetland were standing and gave his leg, just below where his white knee-breeches ended, a quick pinch!

Consternation---Mr. Balfour looked taken aback and Lady Zetland surprised. The man with the long moustache and the blue facings came up to me. I was very frightened.. I hadn't meant to hurt him. Perhaps it was not very wicked after all because Lady Zetland was laughing now and so was Mr. Balfour. They said they were sure I wanted to be a good little boy but I must never do anything like that again. My mother and father came up and there was more talking and laughing and soon after that I had another ice and was taken home and they told me I must promise never again to pinch legs even if they were in silk stockings, because if I did I should not be able to wear my lovely suit and sword any more.

That is as far as I can recollect my pageship and the end of my days as a courtier, though Lady Zetland remained a friend all her life. In 1918 I came in contact with Mr. Balfour again when he became president of the English-Speaking Union, and I reminded him then, much to his amusement, of my youthful delinquency.

On looking back at my early youth I think that this experience of being page was bad for me. Small boys of eight are impressionable. I suddenly found myself in an artificial world, in which the wrong values were accentuated, and in which I strutted about in finery like the grown-ups. Till I received the hard knocks of my postcard failure after leaving Eton a dozen years later, I remained a snob at heart. I liked consorting with people with handles to their names. The Duchess of Leinster in her tiara and blue dress and wonderful colouring appeared like a fairy princess to my youthful eyes. I talked to real Dukes and Earls. My childish imagination was stirred. I knew I could never be a Duke myself but I might with luck become a Lord some day!

After returning from a meal with the Dundas family at the Viceregal Lodge in Phoenix Park, I wished we had a footman at home to wait at table and not merely a butler. Coming back from school on one occasion an Eton friend was met at Kingstown Pier by a carriage and pair with coachman and footman on the box. I was mortified because on the box of my mother's victoria Sam(3) sat in solitary state, though I had to admit that he could hold his own in the smartness of his glistening top boots and spotless white breeches and in the shining harness of our well-groomed horses. I wanted my father to let our stable boy don livery and sit beside Sam!

The immaculately dressed people who circulated under the massive candelabra and thronged the gilded corridors and rooms of Dublin Castle were very sure of themselves. Theirs was the world that counted. In day clothes at Punchestown or at the Horse Show they were equally certain that they were Ireland. It was impossible to imagine that in thirty years all this grandeur would be no more. If anyone had said that thirty years later Donald Buckley, a general storekeeper, would be taking the place of Lord Zetland, and that there would be no more "Drawing-Rooms," no more knights of St. Patrick at the Castle, he would have been regarded as a lunatic.

When the Anglo-Irish treaty was signed the metamorphosis was as great as that achieved by the French Revolution. The rule of the gentry had passed. The people were masters now. Obscure grocers and printers, schoolmasters and post-office officials were in control. They might not reach Kildare Street Club standards but they were ready to die for their beloved Ireland.

Before most revolutions the aristocrats and nobility seem to have been so sure of the established order that the coming storm took them unawares. In the case of Ireland the war had already divided the lives of our generation into two.(4) Whatever else it did August 1914 gave us a new standard of values. Our whole existence was rocking, we were living in a world in which the unexpected was always happening. Hence when the Sinn Fein Rebellion broke out on Easter Monday, 1916, it was only a seven days' wonder. Within the next six weeks Kut had fallen, the British Conscription Bill had been passed, the Battle of Jutland had been fought, General Brusiloff's offensive had been launched and Lord Kitchener had been lost at sea The British public gave but fleeting attention to Ireland.

The change in my views on Ireland dates from my first visit to Canada and the United States in 1906. As I travelled increasingly far afield I learnt that my views of the Empire had been very limited and that in reality the British Commonwealth was a much more wonderful political institution than I had thought, and that a free Ireland should be able to find full scope for independent nationhood within its structure, as had Canada and South Africa---great and freedom-loving nations. An interview with Sir Wilfred Laurier at the Château Frontenac, Quebec, during my first days on the American Continent taught me two vital lessons. Firstly, that the British Empire was no longer a British-run Empire, and secondly, that a close understanding must exist between the peoples of the Empire and of the United States.

Laurier was an orator---I had enjoyed listening to him at Empire gatherings in London---but he was also a farseeing man. During subsequent visits to Canada and the United States and in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, I continued to follow the train of thought that Laurier had started in my mind. Whenever occasion occurred I discussed the Irish question with the leaders of the English-speaking world. With Canadians such as MacKenzie King and Bourassa, with South Africans such as Botha and Hertzog; and in the United States with men of Irish descent as different in their outlook as Cardinal Gibbons, Burke Cochran the spell-binder, and W. Jennings Bryan. I compared my conclusions with those of an Irishman at home for whom I had a great respect---Horace Plunkett. His intimate acquaintance with the United States was a special bond. In him my enthusiasm for "English-speaking" understanding found a warm supporter. I regarded Ireland as an essential link in Anglo-American friendship.

Another factor in my evolution as a Home Ruler was my admiration for Cecil Rhodes, my boyhood's hero. Had not Rhodes, the prophet of British Imperialism and Anglo-Saxondom, given £10,000 to the Irish Home Rule Fund in the eighties ? Rhodes, with his first-hand experience of South Africa, knew that Dublin Castle (or Downing Street) government could not endure. Ireland must one day enter into a scheme of Imperial federation.

On my tours of discovery on the North American continent I made a special effort to extend my acquaintanceship beyond the usual Anglophil circles with which the travelling Englishman(5) comes into contact. Talks with Irish traffic "cops, "Tammany" bosses," police captains, railroad conductors, foremen in the Chicago packing yards, cowboys out West, bell-boys and journalists, taught me what an important rôle my fellow Irishmen play in the political life of the United States. But my wayside discussions also taught me that the Irish in the United States, almost without exception, had a bitter grievance against the Ireland in which I had been born and brought up. That is, against the world of Dublin Castle, the Kildare Street Club and landlordism. I had heated arguments with extreme Republicans. I was shocked to find how violent was their hate of everything British---much more bitter than anything I had found among even the backveldt Dutch in South Africa, who had been fighting against us a dozen years before. There was an unreasoning element in the hate of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and Fenian circles in America. They regarded Britain as wholly black. Hundred-per-cent. right was on the Irish side, there was nothing to be said on the British side. On one occasion in the streets of Chicago I got into an argument with two Irish policemen. We became so heated that for a moment I wondered if perhaps I was wise to have attempted to persuade them that---apart from Ireland---the British Commonwealth stood "for freedom, order and good government!"

On another occasion, just after the war, I got into a controversy with an Irish journalist on the staff of an anti-British paper. Doubtless he had learnt some of his loathing for things British from that apostle of Anglophobia in America, John Devoy, the Fenian. At one time during the war I kept specimens of Irish vituperation against the British Empire. This sample will serve. It was taken from a speech by an Irish patriot printed in the Chicago Herald Examiner:

England sent Gurkha soldiers to Irish soil, and our women were ravished and then put to death, our children shot in the streets, our men imprisoned. The treatment of Belgium might almost be called angelic when compared to what Ireland has undergone.

It was all very tragic. It was salutary thus early in life to learn how different the other fellow's point of view can be.

Ireland had a grievance. During the next years I sought to learn what that grievance was, even if I still considered that many of the Irish patriots were hypnotised by a word. They were obsessed by the word "Republic." Once give Ireland a Republic and the millennium would descend upon the Emerald Isle. Patriots in all countries are too often carried away by a slogan. I am not entering upon a comparison between the republican and the constitutional monarchical form of government. There is much to be said for both systems. But Nationalist leaders are too apt to think that national greatness and well-being can be achieved by changing a label---by introducing some new political system. The task of ordered government is more complex than that. Integrity in public life, the speedy administration of justice, a planned education, good roads, efficient health and sanitary laws, respect for the opinion of others can only be obtained if there are enlightened citizens. There are still I fear some Irishmen in North and South who have not yet grasped that fundamental fact.

My travels taught me two other facts essential to a correct understanding of the Irish problem. Green Ireland yearned for Home Rule while the majority in Ulster would have none of it. My Ulster relatives and friends held views typical of the Ulster majority in their determination to remain linked with Great Britain and the British Empire. I also tried to ascertain why it was that Roman Catholic Irishmen---especially in Ireland---so rarely responded to the vision of the British Commonwealth.(6) It could not be anything inherent in the Roman Catholic religion, because in England, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Newfoundland I had known many leading imperialists who belonged to the Roman Church. Was the indifference to or even dislike of the British Commonwealth felt by stay-at-home Irishmen due to the fact that their allegiance had been given to another Empire exclusively---the Empire of Rome? They had no room for two allegiances. In the Empire overseas, on the other hand, the vision of Roman Catholic Irishmen had expanded: they had responded to a "loyal" environment. They learnt that there was nothing incompatible between the two loyalties ---to the British Commonwealth as a whole and to Mother Church.

As honorary secretary of the Patriotic League of Britons Overseas, established under the ægis of the British Foreign Office, I had a demonstration of the hostility of a section of the Irish priesthood to the British connection, when a branch of our society was established in Rome. The heads of the English, Scottish and Canadian Colleges enthusiastically supported the movement : the heads of the Irish College alone refused. "We are not British subjects, but only Irish subjects of King George," was their reply. The fount of Irish clerical disaffection was for many years seated in the Irish college in Rome. A Roman Catholic correspondent wrote to the Spectator in 1916, "An Irish student for Orders, if he be not a rebel when he enters the college, is sure to be one at heart when he comes out of it and returns to his native land to fill some mission and take charge of a parish."(7)

Early in the war, as I have recorded, it appeared for a moment, when John Redmond in the first flush of enthusiasm pledged Ireland's support to the allied cause, that we were heading for a permanent settlement of Anglo-Irish difficulties. Imaginative statesmanship, despite the underground workings of the Republican Brotherhood, might have worked wonders. When the women of Northern Ireland presented a flag with the Red Hand of Ulster embroidered on it Lord Kitchener permitted it to be taken overseas by the Ulster Division. When the Nationalist women of Southern Ireland embroidered a silken flag with the Irish Harp upon it Lord Kitchener ordered that it should not be taken overseas.(8) Nationalist Ireland, quick to take umbrage, never got over the slight. Everything ought to have been done to back up John Redmond and his brother William. Green flags and special uniforms that would have appealed to national Irish sentiment should have been permitted. A great opportunity was lost. How different might Ireland's response to the Empire's call in 1915 have been if the same enlightened sympathy had been displayed by the British War Office as was shown by a young Canadian of Ulster descent.

Early in the war Campbell Stuart(9) recruited a regiment in Canada for active service. The battalion with which he was associated was Irish Canadian, partly Protestant and partly Roman Catholic. The Duchess of Connaught was its honorary colonel. Stuart conceived the idea of taking the regiment through Ireland on the way to the war area. Armed with an introduction to John Redmond, on reaching London he went straight to the House of Commons. There he heard an impassioned speech from the Irish leader. The War Office had refused to permit an Irish Lancashire regiment to march through Ireland. Campbell Stuart sought an interview with Redmond, who warmly endorsed his mission, but pointed out its hopelessness as evidenced by his own failure. After two months' activity Campbell Stuart secured the necessary permission. He then spent two months in Ireland preparing the way for a visit which proved historic. People of all religions united to welcome the Canadians in January, 1917. Political differences were temporarily forgotten. This experience convinced Campbell Stuart that the Irish problem is soluble provided it is approached in the right spirit---a view which coincides with my own.

IN political matters my greatest disappointment during the war was Ireland's repudiation of John Redmond. In those dramatic August days of 1914 the speeches of the Irish leader sent a thrill through the hearts of all Irishmen who hoped to live to see Ireland a free Dominion within the British Commonwealth. When the Irish Home Rule Bill passed its third reading in the House of Commons a new era in the relationship of the two countries seemed to be opening, although reports from Ulster relatives and friends announced Northern Ireland's determination to have nothing to say to the measure. I was convinced, however, that fighting side by side in France Ulstermen and Southern Irishmen would learn to appreciate each other's aims.

When Redmond told the British people that the concession of liberty to his countrymen would have the same effect in Ireland as in South Africa, I was certain that he was right. Dissatisfaction would assuredly give way to goodwill and Ireland would become a source of strength instead of weakness to the Commonwealth. In October, 1914, I was dismayed to read a speech by John Dillon in which he referred to the activities of Sinn Feiners and pro-Germans, supplied apparently with unlimited funds, who were stirring up the people and spreading lies about the Empire. It was satisfactory to read the protest of Dillon, a nationalist, against the doctrine that "a soldier in the British Army could not be a good Irishman." During brief visits to Ireland in 1914 and 1915 I heard rumours that Sinn Fein was being financed from America. As Sinn Fein represented only a small minority of the people I never for a moment supposed it would come into the open during the war

While in Devonshire for the Easter holidays I received the first confused accounts of the Dublin Rebellion. There had been fighting at Ballsbridge, Stephen's Green and Westland Row Railway Station---places familiar to me since my childhood. I could hardly believe my eyes. A letter from London written on Easter Monday contained this sentence:

F. who is just back from his club tells me there are persistent rumours of the Germans having landed in Ireland and of a revolution there. What a world we live in! He also said there were rumours of the Germans having landed in England and all the women and children in the towns on the East Coast have been ordered inland.

The papers reported the capture of Sir Roger Casement, who had landed off the coast of Kerry with an Irish companion in a small boat put ashore by a German submarine. What was the virus that had turned a man once high up in the British Consular Service, who had accepted a title and a pension from the British government, into a rebel? The Irish patriots had their eyes on America, and when I read the manifesto of "The Provisional Government of the Irish Republic", in which the story was told how Ireland, "supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe", had struck "in the full confidence of victory", I was bewildered. Apparently the sceptics were right. The underground machinations of the Irish Republican Brotherhood had been more widespread than I supposed. The Irish extremists, whom I had met in America, were apparently the real leaders of "progressive" Ireland, and not John Redmond and his following.

This account of the Rebellion was written by my father at the time:

On Easter Monday the 24th April, 1916, I went into Dublin as usual by the 9 o'clock train from Ballybrack(1) and called at the Kildare Street Club on my way up to the R.D.S. show grounds at Ballsbridge,(2) where I had promised to meet Mr. Robert Bruce, our agricultural superintendent, to see that everything was ready for the opening of our Spring Show the next day.

Most of the cattle and other exhibits had fortunately arrived at the show grounds the previous Saturday. At the Club I met a friend who had just come up from Cork. He told me that his district was very unsettled and that they had been expecting some sort of outbreak for the last few days. However I didn't see how that could affect our show, especially as I knew the southern cattle would be in, and I proceeded to Ballsbridge promising to come back and lunch with some friends at a o'clock.

Bruce and I did our business and agreed that the Show was a very promising one. I was leaving about 12.30 and was standing at the Show Entrance when two little telegraph boys dashed up on their bicycles shouting "they're out" and that they had seen a man shot in Stephen's Green. Shortly afterwards we had telephone messages from the Dublin Society's offices in Kildare Street giving us all the information to be had. There was no use in trying to go back to Dublin as the streets were said to be full of armed rebels and spasmodic shooting was going on.

The first thing we did was to get a big hose, that was supplied with a powerful force of water, into position in case we were attacked. We then decided that there was no use in funking and that the Show should be held unless we were actually stopped. We soon heard that we need not expect any of our friends from the South, that troops were coming rapidly from the Curragh and that English regiments had also been telegraphed for. Fortunately our President, Lord Rathdonnell, was staying at Kingstown and we expected our judges and many friends from England to arrive by the boat that afternoon, and I undertook, if it was possible, to meet them on my way home to Ballybrack and to tell them what had happened in case they liked to go back by the next boat.

This brought us up to about 4 o'clock when I left the Show to try and accomplish my mission. I had just secured an outside car when some poor people I knew in Wicklow came up to me, saying that they had come up to Dublin for the holiday and didn't know how to get back. So I said I would take them in my car to Kingstown whence they would be able to get a train to Wicklow. The husband, wife and a baby got up on one side of the car and a little girl got up with me on the other side, and I always thought it was a fortunate arrangement from my point of view. If I had been alone and not one of a holiday party, I might have been stopped, as about a mile from the Show we actually had to drive through a force of ice armed Sinn Feiners. On getting to Kingstown I found that my English friends had no ambition to witness an Irish rebellion, and most of them went straight back by the next boat.

Next day, Tuesday, 25th April, I was in Kingstown before 8 o'clock when a most unwonted sight met my eyes. Cavalry soldiers were bivouacking outside the St. George's Yacht Club and inside every available inch was occupied by officers, many of whom had slept there, only too thankful to have a roof over their heads. I found out who were the Commanding Officers and told them that we were going to hold the Show but as there would be few visitors we could put up a considerable number of the military at Ballsbridge and could hand over to them the provisions that we had laid in for our expected guests. I then drove on into the Show with a carman I knew well and found that Lord Rathdonnell, our President, and Mr. Doyne were the only other officials who were able to reach the Show-.

When we had everything settled as to the arrangements for the Show, emergency judges, and the accommodation for the soldiers, the day looked as if it was going to be a day of fighting. I went back to Killiney for luncheon to see that my family was all right. After luncheon I walked up Killiney Hill with my glasses and watched Dublin and notably the Post Office in Sackville Street, which was occupied by the Rebels, being shelled with wonderful accuracy by the gun boats in Kingstown.

Then I went into the Show again and brought Matthews our Shorthorn Auctioneer, head of Messrs. Thornton & Co. back with me to stay the night and discuss the extraordinary situation.

It was a very hot day and the English troops marched up from Kingstown and generally made a halt when they reached Ballsbridge before they got into the line of fire. One British regiment consisted of young recruits, such a nice lot of boys. We brought them lemonade, for which they were most grateful. Only six or eight hundred yards on they had to pass houses that were occupied by rebel snipers, and nearly two hundred of them were killed and many wounded. It always seemed to me such a wanton waste of life, though we tried to explain to them as well as we could the geography of the streets in that part of Dublin and what they might expect.

The next three days there was so much to do that I went into the Show and remained there all day. The military were getting the situation well in hand though there were spasmodic outbursts and we still had to have soldiers guarding our house. Wonderfully little damage was done at the Dublin Society's premises. We could see the bullet marks through some of the high iron roofs.

There was a very brisk sale of the prize-winning animals and I got 900 guineas for the Champion yearling Shorthorn Bull which was the highest price I had realised up to that time.

English newspapers and letters, of which we had been deprived for the first 4 or 5 days, began to circulate again, and by the end of the week things were becoming normal. On the 1st of May I was once more able to go as usual to the Land Commission Office in Dublin and learn the news, and on Tuesday for the first time I lunched at the Kildare Street Club. Dublin was a ruined city for the time being and Sackville Street a scene of desolation.

With considerable rejoicing we heard of Birrell's resignation on the 4th of May, his feeble efforts as a ruler had brought about much of the Irish trouble. A new spirit of distrust of the people seemed to permeate every branch of the civil service. Mr. Asquith paid a visit to Ireland which did far more harm than good, and all the old spirit of friendship and goodwill, which was one of the great charms of Irish life, vanished overnight.

Several Roman Catholic farmers and dealers, good friends of mine, came to see me and talk things over. They complained bitterly of this changed feeling, and more than one went down to his grave saddened by the changed aspect of Ireland.

There were just two occasions when conscription could have been introduced with very little difficulty and when the people were more or less expecting it, the first was in the Spring of 1915 when I wrote to six prominent members of the Cabinet and to Lord Kitchener. All the Cabinet ministers sent me replies and most of them appeared to approve of my suggestion. Lord Kitchener alone gave me only an acknowledgment and I heard afterwards privately that he disapproved of trying to conscript the Irish. The other occasion was shortly after the rebellion when the people were thoroughly cowed.

F.W.

I bind unto myself to-day,
The pow'r of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need,
The wisdom of my God to teach
His hand to guide, His shield to ward;
The Word of God to give me speech,
His Heavenly Host to be my guard.
                                      (St. Patrick's Breastplate.)

In March, 1917, while I was awaiting instructions from the Royal Flying Corps as to where I was to report for training, after my application for a commission had been granted, I had two weeks to spare. I was anxious to see my family before joining up and wanted to study the latest phase of Irish disaffection. In the previous summer Mr. Duke(3) had been appointed Chief Secretary with a seat in the Cabinet. He was considered by Mr. Asquith to have the requisite qualities for the difficult position: "abroad and judicial mind, a firm hand, administrative capacity, sympathy with the Irish people, and a strong desire to promote an Irish settlement." Early in 1917 my father had discussed the Irish situation with Mr. Duke and had laid before him certain suggestions, based on my Dominion experience, which I wished to make to him. Mr. Duke asked my father if I would be ready to study conditions in Dublin and Belfast in a purely unofficial capacity. Under no circumstances was I to give out that I was his emissary---I was merely an Irishman, with special affiliations with the Empire overseas, who might bring a fresh point of view to bear on the situation. I had several interviews with Mr. Duke, and before setting off on my mission he warned me with a friendly twinkle in his eye that there must be no newspaper publicity and if any rumours were circulated that I was his representative I should be repudiated! The Royal Flying Corps gave me a written authority in response to Mr. Duke's application for the loan of my services.

On the morning of St. Patrick's Day, just as the dawn was breaking, I looked out of the port-hole of my cabin and saw the lights of Kingstown. In my pocket-book I carried the words of St. Patrick's Breastplate and I read them finally before going ashore. I hoped that St. Patrick would bless my efforts. I wondered if my Protestant relatives, my Presbyterian friends in Ulster, would approve of my putting myself under the wing of St. Patrick!

My scheme was to establish a society, very similar in its methods to the Overseas Club. The proposed organisation was to be called "The Irish Unity League" and its slogan was to be "United Ireland within a United Empire." I set forth its aims on mimeographed sheets, which I distributed to those I interviewed.(4)

My intention had been to entrust the scheme to carefully selected committees in Dublin and Belfast, who would undertake the task of forming branches, distributing literature, arranging public meetings and organising. A special feature of the society's work was to consist of inviting parties from Ulster to visit Southern Ireland and vice versa. My father was much interested in the idea and promised to hold a watching brief for me after I had joined up, and to further the cause in the background. In a mood of depression after the first day, I wrote:

Killacoona, Killiney,                
Co. Dublin.                   
18 March, 1917.

As regards political prospects in Ireland, the problem is very difficult, just as we imagined. If I had unlimited time and a free mind it would be possible to put a scheme through, on the lines of the Irish Unity League, but it is quite hopeless to do anything in a couple of weeks.

As I arrived in Ireland on a Bank Holiday there was no Bray train so I had to take an outside car---it had a grey horse. During breakfast F. told me what he has done so far. He has seen six or seven people and they had been very sympathetic and have promised help. Unquestionably an atmosphere of settlement is in the air.

F. and I went up to Dublin yesterday and spent all day going round to see people. He had not been able to arrange a meeting as it was St. Patrick's Day, a Bank Holiday. First we went to see Lord Decies, the Press Censor and a moderate Unionist. He promised us that he would attend the Round Table Conference we are trying to arrange.

Then I went to see my old friend Sir Edward O'Farrell, who is Duke's right hand man in Ireland, then to see Dr. Bernard, Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, a fine type of man but an extreme Unionist. We lunched at the Kildare Street Club and there was more talking, and learning about the Irish situation generally. Then to see Max Green, Redmond's son-in-law, whom I used to know well as a boy. He was very friendly and promised help, but said the difficulties were very great. Then to the house of "A.E." (Russell), the poet, painter and writer. Met two advanced Nationalists there who understand the Sinn Fein standpoint and had a great talk.

To sum up, I believe that a settlement would be perfectly possible. But I would have to absorb Irish atmosphere and remain here for some months and throw myself into the cause and do nothing else, which is, of course, out of the question. (Letter.)

My first few days of personal contacts and "soundings" convinced me that if there had been no war on and I could have opened an office in Ireland the time was ripe for settlement as far as Southern Ireland was concerned, but I was not so sure about Ulster. The Northern Province had naturally been gravely disturbed by Easter Week and by the rising Sinn Fein tide and was determined not to loosen its bonds with Great Britain. I had to go back to London for a couple of days to see about my uniform. On 25 March I returned to Ireland.

This letter described my return journey to Ireland for my final week:

Killacoona, Killiney,                  
Co. Dublin,                        
Sunday, 25 March, 1917.

I had a bad night. At 2 o'clock a steward called me and told me there were submarines in the Channel.(5) I did not take off my clothes as immediately after leaving Holyhead all the lights were suddenly switched out, so I had to arrange myself in my bunk in the dark as best I could. It is rather a jumpy sensation.

The head steward, an old friend, was on the sister-ship just outside Havre two months ago, when she was torpedoed. They had been taking troops across and were on the return journey.

He told me that two steamers were sunk by a submarine just outside Holyhead last night, hence all these precautions.

The daffodils are just coming out and lots of primroses, all the buds in the hedges are waiting to burst. (Letter.)

My scheme was a twofold one. To try to form committees in North and South to act together and to carry on propaganda for conciliation and co-operation as relentlessly as the irreconcilables were preaching war. Secondly to lay before both sections of Ireland my concrete scheme for the future government of the country, which in some respects resembled the proposals put forward by The Times in 1919.(6) I suggested that two Provincial Parliaments should be set up, one in Dublin for Leinster, Munster and Connaught, and the other in Belfast for Ulster, and that these parliaments should deal with all internal matters. I proposed that an all-Ireland Council of twenty-four, consisting of twelve representatives from Southern Ireland and twelve from Ulster, should deal with matters of common concern, such as customs (and Ireland was to have fiscal autonomy), railways, postal services and fisheries, and that the sessions of this Council should be held alternately in Dublin and Belfast. I purposely left my Council rather vague. I hoped with the passing of time it would become a real all-Ireland Parliament. In Ulster's present mood I knew she would refuse to enter a Dublin parliament. Self-governing Provinces like Ontario and Quebec, of different racial and religious origins, had been able to coalesce into a united Canada why should not North and South Ireland do the same, granted sympathy and understanding on the part of the British Government---and time?

I am still of the opinion that as the atmosphere was so favourable a settlement could have been achieved in 1917. I also advocated that the first Imperial Conference after the war should meet in Dublin. My trump card was increasing contact between the Dominions and Ireland. I wanted Ireland to have far horizons, to forget past wrongs and to look to a better future. On the familiar journey from Dublin to Belfast, and as I passed through Dunleer and Castle Bellingham Stations, I thought of my childhood and the different Ireland I had lived in then. Rather apprehensively I wondered what success I would have with my peacemaking in Ulster. I began to ruminate on my life and the unexpected way it was developing. When I was at Eton I thought I was destined for diplomacy, or sometimes I toyed with the idea of going into parliament. After the postcard failure had followed rapid success in Fleet Street. Then I had become involved in causes. With the passing of each year I knew that I was no longer a free agent, that I should be working for causes for the rest of my life. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread! Was I not rather ill-advised to enter upon the stormy seas raging between North and South. Perhaps, but the present attempt was only a preliminary effort. Besides, even the atheist cannot deny that there is a destiny that shapes one's ends. In my life there has always been an "urge" which 1 could not resist.

My father accompanied me in my two Ulster journeys, and with his great knowledge of Ireland and of the leading personalities he gave me invaluable help. He arranged the desired interviews for me but owing to his official position he frequently did not take part in the discussions. Having made the introduction he left me alone to tell my story.

In my first letter from Belfast I wrote:

Belfast,                            
Tuesday, 27 March, 1917.

I am afraid I have not made much headway, there is tremendous prejudice here against Southern Ireland after the past year. We drove straight off in a taxi to see one of the most important men in Belfast, the head of the great shipbuilding firm of Workman & Clark, Mr. George Clark.(7) We had over an hour with him and must have kept him from his lunch as we did not leave him till after 2 o'clock. Although he entirely disagreed with my outlook I much enjoyed the talk and I liked him greatly.

Mr. Clark asked me to come back to-day (Tuesday) to have an informal discussion with six or seven of his foremen; he said by doing so I could get a better insight into Ulster's opinion than in any other way, so I am going back to-day, 10.30. He said it would be better if I came alone as the men would talk more freely.

At 3 o'clock yesterday Father and I started forth again and went to see two leading bankers. We had a very hot half-hour with them, they were friendly but terrifically "extremist" and used all the arguments of 25 years ago, and I came out feeling hopeless. Then we met three leading shipping and grain men. Their argument is that they want to be left alone, and don't want to have anything to say to the rest of Ireland or the Roman Catholics, although 40 per cent. of the population of Belfast is Roman Catholic!

One requires a great deal of patience. After tea we went to the Ulster Club. The head waiter there used to be our butler twenty-eight years ago and was very pleased to see me and called me "Master Eby," and said I used to come and clean the silver with him in the pantry!

One thing is certain, the rest of Ireland is much more reasonable and ready for a settlement, but at the same time the people here are splendidly self-reliant, and I have great admiration for their sterling qualities. I really don't know whether we shall make any headway. (Letter.)

I returned to our hotel that first evening very depressed:

Belfast,                                    
Wednesday, 28 March, 1917.

After breakfast Lord Decies rang up from Dublin and we talked things over. He was nice and encouraging and had been in London and had just got back after seeing Duke. We went first to see a man called Davies, the head of a large works here. We had an argument for an hour-and-a-half; we patted great friends, he said he would gladly help. He had been overseas a good deal. I do find it easier talking to the men who have been to the States and the Dominions.

Then to see the ex-Lord Mayor ; he was quite reasonable. Lunched at club with Mr. George Clark, the shipbuilder. I sat between two irreconcilable Ulstermen. Their one idea was to cut off from the rest of Ireland ; I had to do all the defending of our position. I never had such a tough discussion

Then Mr. Clark took me to his shipbuilding works and I sat for an hour in a room closeted with seven of his workmen. I got on very well with them and liked them so much. They are fine Imperialists but don't want to have anything to say to the rest of Ireland. Then Mr. Clark for an hour and a half took me over his shipbuilding yard which was very interesting. I saw hospital ships for Mesopotamia.

The upshot of our day is that we don't think the League is possible until after the new Government.

---r

Belfast, ,                         
30 March, 1917.

After running back to Dublin for twenty-four hours I am here again. The position really is that the government are anyhow going to bring in a Bill and till they do I don't think there is any reason for me to remain here. I still think there is room for my Unity League but we would have to wait to establish it till after the government attempts a settlement.

I have done my best but I fear there is nothing more to be done at present . . . . I don't think there will be another rebellion at Easter this year. (Letters.)

When I talked things over with my Dublin friends I wished that they had a greater appreciation of the Ulster point of view. They were so accustomed to talking about Home Rule and majority rule, that frequently they forgot that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, that Northeast Ulster has its Protestant majority and that any attempt to coerce Ulster is destined to fail. I wished they could have talked to my friends the foremen in Workman & Clark's shipbuilding yards. If they had they would have recognised that the rights of the two Irelands must be acknowledged and a bridge between the two must be constructed.

I had to agree with Mr. Lloyd George, who said in March, 1917, "It is no use mincing words, let us have a clear understanding. To place them (the people of North-Eastern Ireland) under national rule against their will would be as glaring an outrage on the principles of liberty and self-government as the demand of self-government would be for the rest of Ireland."(8) The problem was certainly very difficult. Neither side could visualise the situation from its opponent's standpoint. If Ulster made slighting references to the Roman Church and Nationalist Ireland's cherished ideals, the South talked of Ulstermen as interlopers and pseudo-Irishmen. When Southern Irishmen told me that they were ready to make almost any sacrifice to bring Ulster in, but that under no circumstances would they consent to leave her out, I was apprehensive. The wise policy would have been conciliation and not threats to have established an Irish Free State, within the British Commonwealth, and to have given Ulster the right to vote herself into the Irish state should she desire to do so. But there must be no compulsion.(9) My proposed Council of twenty-four would have to serve as a stop-gap and maintain contact between the two Irelands for the time being. It was my conviction that Ulster had a vital contribution to make to Ireland which she alone could supply.

87, Victoria Street, SW.,          
Sunday, 1 April, 1917.

I met Duke on the steps of the Irish Office on Friday on getting back and walked as far as the House of Commons with him.

Something will have to be done though I don't believe the government knows its own mind yet. I am perfectly certain the Unity League will be wanted before long. (Letter.)

My next attempt at Irish peacemaking was in the summer of 1919, when I arranged a meeting in Dublin between Arthur Griffith, the founder of the Sinn Fein movement, and one of his leading supporters and representatives of the Southern Unionists. The account of the failure of this attempt will be given in its proper sequence later on.

I APPLIED for a commission in the Royal Flying Corps and was duly gazetted second lieutenant on 23 March, 1917. As I was considered too old for ordinary flying I was instructed to report at the School of Military Aeronautics at Reading on the conclusion of my Irish investigations. Accordingly on 5 April I reported for duty at Reading, only to be told that I must be inoculated and return three days later on 8 April.

For the first two weeks it seemed strange to be in uniform---breeches and long boots, a "maternity" jacket that fastened at the side, no tie, a forage cap worn at an angle, and a Sam Browne belt. I was saluted for the first time by a broad-shouldered Australian soldier as I emerged from Howick Place Post Office. I returned the salute as correctly as I could and tried to look as if I had long been accustomed to a military career. I have always thought that men occupying safe jobs should not have the same outward trappings as those destined for the front line. My only previous experience of uniform had been in the Eton volunteers eighteen years before. Within a month, such is human adaptability, uniform seemed quite natural, and office-work in heavy boots was no longer irksome. Before very long I had discarded my "maternity" jacket for an ordinary tunic with comfortable khaki collar and black silk knitted tie.

After nearly twenty years of being my own master it was extraordinary suddenly to find myself a cog in a machine, my destiny depending on an impersonal department at the Hotel Cecil. Before I was eighteen I had run a business and soon after joining Northcliffe I had been put into a position of responsibility. So long as the heads of departments could show results there was a minimum of interference with personal liberty at Carmelite House. If I did not turn up at the office on Saturdays no one objected, in fact long week-ends and good holidays for brainworkers were encouraged. In my new life I might at any moment receive a telegram instructing me to proceed to an unexpected destination. I felt like the centurion's servant---"To one man he sayeth go and he goeth"---except that my master was a mysterious elusive department not a fellow mortal. When I had originally applied for a commission I had asked to be drafted to the Kite Balloon Section in France but I had been told that I would probably be wanted for organising work. Once caught up in this vast machine my identity would be submerged, the G.S.O.s would naturally forget about me. In my own experience of the war I had often come across square pegs in round holes. It was not reasonable to expect an overworked and rapidly expanding Air Board to trouble about individuals. As a subaltern in the R.F.C. I was a pawn in the game, to be moved about at will. During my first five days there were three changes in my destination and twice I returned to my flat at 87, Victoria Street, after thinking that I had said goodbye to it "for the duration"!

I shall always remember Good Friday, 1917---one of the great dates in history. On it the United States of America threw in its lot with the Allies and thereby practically made certain their ultimate victory. From my standpoint the extreme significance of President Wilson's declaration lay in the fact that the United States and ourselves would henceforth be side by side "defending the high cause of freedom and the rights of humanity."(1) I had plenty of time for thinking while getting over my inoculation. For the moment my immediate problems were swallowed up in the great events that were happening around me. A tremendous weight had been lifted from my heart. I loved America. I had a great admiration for American idealism, drive, receptivity of new ideas and warmheartedness. I had never ceased sorrowing over the misunderstandings and misrepresentations caused by the American Revolution and the consequent sundering of the English-speaking world. Together the American and British peoples could save mankind. Peace would have been preserved had Great Britain and the United States informed Germany in 1914 that if the neutrality of Belgium were violated they would declare war against her.

Although I understood President Wilson's difficulties much of his policy since the sinking of the Lusitania had puzzled me---as it had puzzled others. Now the horizon of Anglo-Saxon relations was clear. The Anglo-American understanding which Rhodes, Carnegie and W. T. Stead dreamed of, that Page worked for, would come. Common action for civilisation would obliterate many of the painful memories of one hundred and forty years.

The Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack were soon fluttering in the breeze from the tower of the Houses of Parliament. Lord Grey of Fallodon wrote on 8 April to Walter Hines Page what many of us were thinking. "I can't express adequately all that I feel. Great gratitude and great hope are in my heart. I hope now that some great and abiding good to the world will yet be wrought out of all this welter of evil . . . . I glow with admiration."(2)

In those early weeks after the American declaration of war I longed to throw myself into the task of consolidating the new relationship between our two Peoples, instead of doing a subaltern's job in the R.F.C. No doubt it was excellent character-training to do what you were told and not what you thought you were fitted for. Besides, millions of my fellows were facing death and those who found themselves in organizing jobs had much to be thankful for. But originators of schemes are not reasonable, perhaps if they were they would never bring their ideas to fruition. They kick against the pricks. I knew I had a special job of work to do in bringing the British and American peoples together, and I counted the days till I could tackle it in earnest.

President Wilson's speech to Congress evoked enthusiasm throughout the allied countries. He said:---

Civilisation seems to be in the balance, but right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts---for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for the universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as will bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free. . . To such a task we can dedicate our lives, our fortunes, everything we are, everything we have, with the pride of those who know the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and might for the principles that gave her birth and the happiness and peace which she has treasured. God helping her she can do no other.

When the papers reported that some of the German High Command had sneered at American capacity to play an important part on the battlefields of Europe because America had no militarismus I knew Germany was destined to disillusionment. My friend F. A. MacKenzie, acting as editor of Overseas during my absence, wrote:---

I recently asked a very high British authority what was the most hopeful prospect in the war during the months ahead. "America," came the reply without a moment's hesitation. "What you want to do is to preach America all you can. People here have still no idea what her coming means. The people of Germany naturally shrink from contemplating the fact that a nation of a hundred million is voluntarily submitting to conscription, voluntarily placing huge loans at the service of the Allies and voluntarily mobilising the whole of its manufactures for one object only---to destroy Prussianism."

British and American Recruiting Posters.
Two of James Montgomery Flagg war-time posters, used by the United States Government.

On Easter Sunday, armed with railway voucher, I proceeded to Reading.

Reading, Easter Sunday, 1917.

Here I am attached to the Military School of Aeronautics, where I expect to be for the next two months. I put on my uniform for the first time on Thursday, the day on which I first came down here. I went first to the Headquarters, where I was seen by the Commanding Officer, and had to fill in various forms, then we were told where we are all billeted. I am in this little semi-detached house with two others, kept by a landlady of about 55 who is most anxious to make one comfortable.

I have got quite accustomed to being saluted! As this place is some way from the Parade Ground it means getting up at 5.30 every morning. (Letter to parents.)

Easter Sunday, 1917. Reading.

I am trying to write this while the landlady talks to me. She is a very nice little body. The house belongs to her and has been left to her by her brother who was an inspector on the Great Western Railway. She is a great talker. Lunch quite good. . . . two cutlets, rice pudding, pineapple, and cider to drink. From two till a quarter to three the landlady chattered, telling me all sorts of things I did not want to hear and I began to despair of ever getting rid of her.

My room looks out into a little back garden of gooseberry bushes and fruit trees bursting into bud. In the centre of the sitting-room is a dinner table, round the walls are eight horsehair chairs, a sofa, of course, and a horsehair armchair. The lavatory is out in the garden, it is next door to the scullery and has to be approached through the kitchen! (Letter.)

I had just unpacked and was going for a stroll when an orderly knocked at the door of my lodgings and I was told to report to the adjutant. I was instructed to "report at the Air Board in London with my kit the following morning." So far I had made two needless journeys to Reading at the taxpayer's expense. No wonder the war was costing six million pounds a day!

On Easter Monday I returned to the Air Board, for the second time since I joined up, to receive fresh instructions. Apparently three departments were competing for my services. It was gratifying to a newly-joined subaltern to know that he was not forgotten. I was to proceed to Glasgow to report to Major Lord Howick in charge of R.F.C. Recruiting in Scotland the following morning. How long would I be there? Presumably "for the duration." My job was to tour through Scotland seeking out young men of eighteen or nineteen to serve as pilots in the R.F.C. There was an urgent need of more candidates as the wastage in France was very heavy. At first when I learnt my destination I was disappointed. I would have preferred to do my two months' training at Reading with the class that was starting on its course that day. But selecting flying officers was important work and my experience of human nature would come in handy. I should be able in the evenings and on Sundays to do my Overseas work and keep in touch with my organisation. Practically right through the war two large leather attaché cases filled with the more important Overseas Club correspondence and the details of its War Funds were sent to me every week. During the week-end I studied the contents, added pencilled instructions and returned the documents to the office every Monday.

After the semi-detached villa at Reading, staying at the Central Hotel, Glasgow, seemed luxurious. The following extracts from letters describe my work :---

April, 1917. Glasgow. Had breakfast at the Central Hotel, then went round to 46, Bath Street, where I found Howick, who was very nice to me. It is just like an ordinary recruiting office except that we only deal with officers, and of course for the R.F.C. only. During the day we pass some twenty or thirty youths all about 19 in age as pilots or observers. One has to question them and generally make up one's mind about them, There are many forms to fill in!

Howick says that the idea of getting me up was that he wanted someone to travel round to these various places, Dundee, Perth, Aberdeen, Montrose, etc., to see the authorities and introduce suitable candidates. After a bit he is going back to France, where he is on the Staff, and he wants to hand the job over to me and the authorities want me to be able to keep in touch with my Overseas work.

 

11 April, 1917. Glasgow. Round to breakfast 8.15 with Howick. He was very nice and said, "Not so much of this ‘Sir' business, please."

 

15 April, 1917. Glasgow. Sunday. Spent all the morning doing my Overseas Magazine. This is the first day of food restrictions. In the afternoon I went for a walk by the docks past squalid dwellings and many public houses.

About the war, I don't see how it can go on after the end of the year, I really don't. On the other hand there is always the possibility of Germany giving a knock-out blow to Italy or Russia, and prolonging things into next year. Got back at six and came into my room to change my clothes and polished the brass on my straps.

 

18 April. Glasgow. I arrived at Aberdeen on Thursday afternoon and went round to see the local Military and Recruiting people and then went out to tea with Sir George Adam Smith, the Principal of Aberdeen University. Found him such a charming man.

 

April. Dundee. It is snowing outside. There is a wonderful old four-poster bed with green brocade trimmings. I was busy interviewing recruits all day. I picked out fifty and selected twenty-five. I only arrived at Dundee after ten at night, it was raining and there was sleet and I was the only first-class passenger. I got two porters to carry my two big bags and we had to walk half-a-mile along unlighted streets.

 

25 April. Aberdeen. I interviewed thirty-five candidates at the recruiting office to-day and selected nineteen. The steamer has lust got in from Bergen with a number of Russian refugees(3) on board and they looked rather bewildered as they stood in the front hall of the hotel. I was able to interpret for them, which pleased them, poor things they looked very forlorn. I wonder when they will be able to return to Russia?

 

25 April. Inverness. I opened my paper and saw that the Germans had sunk fifty-five of our ships last week. This is much the worst week we have had.

At the railway station here I had to report myself as this is a special military area and I had to get a permit.

 

27 April. Inverness. I drove round to the recruiting office at the Barracks of the Camerons, and was there all the morning. I interviewed nineteen recruits and selected thirteen. The Camerons have a very nice lot of officers and I lunched in Mess. They were very friendly. We had excellent Scotch broth, various meats, sweets and masses of scones and cakes. No food shortage here

They nearly always assume that I am a pilot when talking to me, and as I hate sailing under false pretences I always straight away say that I am on the administrative side as it is much easier to say the unpleasant thing at the beginning.

One of the would-be recruits that I interviewed came from the island of Barra in the Outer Hebrides, which you will see on your map. He was only just able to speak English I

 

Back in Glasgow. Howick asked me if there was anything special I would like to do as it was Saturday afternoon. I suggested trying to see some town-planning. We went round to consult the Town Clerk, then to see a kind of home for fathers with children, whose wives are dead. The men go to work and are able to leave their children during the day-time to be looked after. There was rather a feeling of it being an institution and I was very sorry for the children.

All this poverty and squalor is terribly depressing and people seem so indifferent about it. If only the nation would give the same enthusiasm to fighting the slums as it does to fighting the enemy! Spent all the evening doing my Overseas work.

 

Monday, 1 May. Very busy day at the office, there was a lot of filling up of records to do in connection with my trip up north last week. I always find this class of office work so trying, anything without initiative always gives me that caged-in feeling which Ï had at Lloyds years ago.

 

3 May. Edinburgh. Howick and I walked out to interview people at two of the largest schools in Edinburgh, each over a thousand strong. It is getting more difficult to get recruits for the R.F.C. now.

 

Sunday, 6 May. Glasgow. Last night at 9 o'clock I went out for half-an-hour as I wanted to see what Glasgow looked like on a Saturday night. I walked along Argyle Street for about a mile. It was one mass of people and reminded me of the Whitechapel Road. I counted thirty-five men drunk, but on the whole that was not as bad as I had expected. Still it made me very unhappy.

Up on your hill-top must be lovely now, with the blue irises, the cedars, and the distant mountains, especially at evening time.

 

7 May. Dundee. Ï went for a stroll and found such a fascinating old graveyard with fifteenth and sixteenth century tombs. I walked about among the old graves and tried to imagine the kind of problems those people had to face, very different from ours to-day!

I then came back to the hotel, a very second-rate place, and am writing this in the Commercial room with the commercial travellers busy writing out their day's orders---it reminded me of my postcard days.

 

7 May. Dundee. It is bitterly cold and there are no fires. I sat reading downstairs after dinner in my overcoat. The discomfort of some of these provincial hotels in Great Britain is beyond belief. I wonder what my American friends would say.

Wednesday, 9 May. Dundee. Staying in this hotel is just like being in one of those places overseas in the back-blocks. I read The Student in Arms after dinner.

 

9 May. Glasgow. While I was waiting for the recruits to come back from the Medical Board I got into conversation with one of the women social workers here, a very capable person who does a lot of police visiting. She gave me an awful account of the women drinking and the way they go out with other men when their husbands are away. She also told me about a woman who was arrested yesterday because one of her children was missing. The police subsequently found the bones in a coal cellar! (Letters.)

Three days later I was wired for by the Air Board, and on reporting at the Hotel Cecil was instructed to complete my course of training at Reading so that I could join the staff of Colonel Jenkins at the Air Ministry in six weeks' time. I was sorry to say goodbye to Howick, one of the nicest chiefs a man could work under. But the Air Ministry seemed to think that my new job would give me greater scope.