1 0627/429
Copy 17th June, 1916. My dear Stewart, If you think it would be better for me, having been
a party to the decision of the Ulster Unionist Council last
Monday, not to attend the meeting of the Executive Committee
of the I.U.A. please tell me so. It will be time enough if
you do so at the landowners' meeting at noon on Wednesday;
otherwise I propose to attend, as I think it very important
that Northern & Southern Unionists should keep in touch,
in spite of having to take somewhat divergent lines in the
present crisis. I cannot, or course, take up the time of the meeting
on Wednesday, if I attend, by explaining my position at length;
but I should like you to be acquainted with it. I cannot describe the frame of mind in which I approached
the crisis better than by enclosing a letter which I wrote
last month when the rot in the English papers began. Before
sending it for publication, however, I consulted a well-informed
permanent official in London of strong Unionist views. I
send you his answers in accordance therewith. I sent copies
of the letter to Carson, Craig, Sclater, Stronge and Walter Long. When I went to Belfast on Monday night the 5th inst.
Craig asked me and two others into a private room at the
club to explain his and Carson's position. I cannot put all
he told me, or all Carson told the standing Committee and the 2 0627/429
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Council at private meetings subsequently into a letter. The
upshot of it was, that they were at the end of their tether,
as the Cabinet had really unanimously decided, that under the
pressure of difficulties with America, the Colonies aand in
Parliament, but chiefly with America, they must offer Redmond
Home Rule at once; but that they did not wish to coerce Ulster,
& had authorised Lloyd George to arrange a settlement. Carson
had agreed to submit to his followers the exclusion of six
counties as a basis of negotiation. Till they had agreed to
this basis he refused to go any further or to meet any Nationalists.
They Carson and Craig found all the ground they had gained in their anti Home Rule
Campaign before the war had slipped away under the influence of
the war, and that the majority of the Unionist Members and
voters took the same views as the majority of the Unionist
papers as to the necessity of a settlement. If Ulster Unionists refused to consider such a settlement
they could not hope for any sympathy or support in Great Britain
now or hereafter. The Home Rule Act was on the Statute Book
and now that the Unionists Leaders in the Coalition Government
were parties to a proposal to bring it into immediate operation
there was no hope of removing it from the Statute Book. If we
did not agree to a settlement we should have the Home Rule Act
coming into operation without the exclusion of any part, of
Ulster. * We should either have to submit to this, or to fight.
To begin fighting here at the end of the Great War would be
*or subject only to some worthless amending act which Asquith
might bring in in fulfilment of his worthless pledge. 3 D627/429
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hopeless, & we could not hope for any support. If in spite
of these drawbacks, our fighting succeeded, we could not hope to
get more than we are now offered,ize. the exclusion of six
counties. We should be in a better position to hold our own and
help our friends with six counties returning 16 Unionists &
9 Nationalist Members than we should be with nine counties
excluded returning 17 Nationalist and 16 Unionist Members. We should be in a better position to help Unionists in any part
of Ireland if we were excluded than if we formed portion of a
permanent minority in a Dublin Parliament. This is, I think, the pith of the more important part
of what Carson & Craig told us; but it is only a part. After considering the matter & hearing what you had to
say in Dublin on 7th, I wrote to Carson (enclosure three. 3 The Cavan, Donegal & Monaghan protest & the solutions
submitted to the Council by Casron appeared to me to fulfil
my conditions, & I therefore very reluctantly became a party to the decision. The position is humiliating, but the humiliation is brought
on us by His Majesty's Ministers. I can only suppose that the
reasons for such a extraordinary & humiliating policy must
have been very strong in order to overcome the objections of
Walter Long, Bonar Law, etc. Had our ruler been a man and
not an Asquith some other way would have been found; but our
Government & Parliament has, as the Morning post calls it,
been Asquixiated. As regards the question between definitive 4 D627/429
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and provisional. I have no doubt that what Carson put before the
Unionist Council was what Lloyd George had put before him. Redmond
finding he had to deal with such determined opposition to the
partition of Ireland has tried to smooth it down by making it appear
that the Amending Bill is to be a Provisional Emergency Measure.
Whether Lloyd George has given any countenance to this version
we, of course, do not know. I think Asquith's statement, which
is in some quarters being represented as a confirmation of the
truth of Redmond's version is ambiguous. Carson in addressing the Unionist Council made mention
of the proposed Imperial Conference; but in view of possible
changes of the Constitution consequent on that Conference Asquith
might call the proposed Irish settlement provisional without
being supposed to contradict Carson's view that the exclusion
of the six counties should be embodied in a definitive Government
of Ireland Amendment Act & not in a mere Emergency Provisional
Measure. Carson Laid stress on the importance of the Imperial
Conference finding an excluded Ulster and not an unamended or inadequately amended Home
Rule Act on the Statute Book. To sum up: - As there seems no alternative between this
miserable Asquith Coalition Government and chaos, we must
submit to a decision positively come to by the Ministry & put
the whole responsibility upon them. Under these circumstances I agreed to the Belfast Resolutions
with great disgust (1) because I believed that if we did not, neither
Ulster n or any other Irish Unionists would be able to get any effective 5 D627/429
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sympathy in Great Britain. (2) that if we refused the settlement
now offered we should either find ourselves under Home Rule
without any counties excluded, or possibly with only four or
two counties excluded. There would be a risk of Belfast
agreeing to some such arrangement & leaving the rest of us
out in the cold; lastly because I believe that we could help
Southern Unionists better if we were, so to speak, on dry
land than if we agreed all to drown together in a Home Rule
flood. I am sorry to inflict such a long letter on so busy a
man; but I wanted you to understand my position more clearly
then I shall probably have any opportunity of making it when
we meet in Dublin next week. Yours very truly, P.S. All the Ulster Unionist Council decided was, to approve
of Carson entering into negotiations on the six county basis.
He can still break off negotiations on any other point. We
have so far merelybeing been manoeuvring for position. There is
a good deal of breathing time (1) before the basis of negotiations
is accepted by both sides. (2) before the negotiations come to
anything; (3) if they do come to anything, before John Redmond
gets his Parliament into motion: meantime I suppose Sir John
Maxwell sits tight in spite of County Council Resolutions, etc..