IRELAND TODAY: I. DE VALERA'S STRENGTH
By MARTIN MACI.AUGHLIN
[This is the first of a series of four articles by Mr. MacLaughlin, who has just completed a tour of investigation in Ireland on behalf of THE SPECTATOR.] THIS is a good time to survey the Irish situation. Mr. de Valera is more firmly established than ever despite the rigours of the economie war, the threat of the Blueshirts, and a bold industrial policy. There is indeed a Communist cloud in the sky, but it is as yet small if interesting. No astute observer in Ireland can doubt that the Government will win handsomely the pending by-election in Galway, or would fail to increase their majority if a General Election could be held tomorrow. All the same, there is a universal hope of settlement with Great Britain ; one cannot fail to hope, too, that Whitehall and Westminster will be able to enhance the Jubilee year with the realization of a just and lasting peace with the Free State.
'The secret of Mr. de Valera's ascendancy lies partly in the fact that he possesses the same magic power of fascination as Mr. Lloyd , George or Herr Hitler, a quality which acts as a charm on simple folk, if not altogether so attractive to aristocracies and aliens. Also he is immensely sincere and quite incorruptible. It is true that some of his political meanderings have seemed tortuous and tainted with casuistry, but he has never swerved for personal gain from what he has felt to be the cause of the Irish people. They and not the big farmers or squireens elected him ; in England there has been sometimes too ready a desire to confuse the latter with Ireland, which is predominantly a land of landless cottars and tenants of holdings so small and poor that they would scarcely merit the title of farm in England. It is the Men of the West and the tenement-dwellers of the City of Dublin who are the backbone of Mr. de Valera's party. The economic war and the ruin of the big farmers have meant little to them ; indeed, they have enjoyed a kind of Schadenfreude " from the distress of their more pro- sperous countrymen, just as the poor peasants have at that of the kulaks- in Soviet Russia. Of course, the increase in unemployment, the high cost of British imports and the closing of many a big house have been disadvantageous ; but better pensions, free milk and free meat have gone a long way to correct the balance so far as the poor are concerned. There has too been the feeling that in refusing to hand over the Annuities Mr. de Valera is standing up for little Ireland against the old enemy ; and there is great faith in his ability to bring Ireland eventuallyto the Land Of Promise. "Wait now—he'll bring us something some- day," is an irrefutable argument when spoken by Biddy Mulligan.
There is plenty of talk of a Republic. Both of the big parties make much of the evils of partition ; the weekly organ of Fine Gael, the renamed Cosgrave party, bears the name " United Ireland." But one cannot help feeling. that this same partition has helped politicians of all parties mit of a quandary. For by proclaiming the fact that an Irish Republic without the North is inconceivable they have saved themselves from the consequences of proclaiming a Republic, since everyone realizes that the coercion of Ulster is impracticable.
In view of this, it is perhaps regrettable that the abolition of the Oath in the Dail has been taken so seriously in England. The Oath had little worth so long as the majority of those who took it did not mean what they said. From an objective point of view, the recon- ciling of rebel hearts would appear to be much more important. Undoubtedly, the present Irish leaders have read strangely the meaning of the Treaty, but it must be remembered first that centuries of underdoggery have brought similar characteristics to the sin-face all over post-War Europe, and secondly, that Mr. de Valera was always hostile to the Treaty which he and his friends fought in the Dail, and on the battlefields of a civil war.
Perhaps there has never been such a hopeful time for settlement as the present. Extreme nationalism has learnt the responsibilities of government, has had some success with its extraordinarily ambitious schemes for self-sufficiency, and is aware of the justice and unreason- ableness of the British cause. Of course, there is a band of irreconcilables and there is the growing party of , Communist republicans who are equally hostile to Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Great Britain. But few sensible men, doubt that Mr. de Valera speaks for the mass of the Irish people and will continue to speak for it after he has made. economic peace with England. It is :inevitable that, the Dublin Press will not altogether desist, from an occasional. twist at the tail of the British lion any more than will. that of New York ; but. it is evident that the same growth, of understanding for the British standpoint is becoming evi-, dent on the western as on the eastern shores of the Atlantic. Amour propre has always meant more to the Irish than, has material well-being. Quite naturally, they have preferred self-government to good government, though they hope eventually to combine both. So the issue of the Oath is much more important than that of the land- annuities, especially, since the Irish farmer has dis- covered that he Made a mistake when he imagined that he was about to escape from the burden of these ; now, he pays, or refuses to pay, them to his own Government instead of to Great Britain. Probably some reassessment is just. and would be acceptable. Ireland is unlikely ta haggle on this point, so soon as her people are convinced that the British public look in no unfriendly way on her new economic policy and national status. In a later article I hope to deal with the astonishing progress made during the past year towards the industrialization of Ireland, which is mercifully being achieved not so much in the cities as in rural centres hitherto -entirely dependent on agriculture. The intense national feeling of "the other island" needs no introduction ;. :nor, surely, does its great strategical importance in time of war. Sub- marines can find innumerable lairs in the creeks and harbours of the West Irish coast ; these can only be sealed against England's enemy by a people who are England's friends.
Speaking generally, I have found a widespread desire for peace and better times ; the bulk of the nation is un- touched by Communism, and the Churches are united in a determinatiim to crush it as soon as possible. The surest means of arriving at such an end is by putting an end to the economic war, and Mr. de Valera is probably encouraged in his increased will for peace by his desire to avoid an open breach with the Communist Republicans. In Ireland, most people pray that England will find a negotiator. who understands and likes the idealist even in wolf's clothing : he is likely to be more successful than many more practical men, especially if he has learnt the lesson of the reconciliation of eighteenth-century Scot- land and something of the wisdom of patient, unpretending Robert Walpole,
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