National Self-Determination

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 26, 5 July 1923, Page 21

National Self-Determination

A Natural and National Right A Lecture delivered at Wellington before the Cumann na n-Gaedhal by P. J. O’Regan.) Of late years a great deal has been heard of the (principle of national self-determination, and the fact that the term was exploited for propagandist purposes during the late war, and that too by men of the most reactionary principles, serves to show conclusively that there is deeply \ embedded in the public mind a conviction that the right Jk of nations to govern themselves is one of those inherent and primary principles of which the existence is beyond dispute. The methods of the war propagandist odious as they are in many respects at least assure us that he knows only too well of those abiding principles to which the human mind readily gives assent. During the South African war of 1899-1903, the popular dislike to slavery was exploited by the Northcliffes, the Chamberlains, and the Milners, in precisely the same manner. The Dutch farmers were accused of enslaving the native population, and so the public mind, through its hatred of slavery, was induced to give its approbation to a cruel, unnecessary, and humiliating Avar. Thus we may deduce from the methods of the Avar propagandist— denunciation of slavery and his affected zeal for national self-de-termination — evidence that he knows only too well how to pervert to his own ends principles sacred in themselves which arc deeply embedded in the hearts of men. The Case of Ireland. In submitting that Ireland has the right to govern herself untrammeled by external control, I am not contending that she possesses any right which does not belong equally to other peoples, and the purpose of this paper is • to show that the case of Ireland merely illustrates the universal rule that the people of every country have Iby decree of Providence the right to be a nation, and manifestly one of the marks of nationhood is the right of a people to govern themselves. No doubt when we come to details we are confronted with practical difficulties. It is not always easy nowadays to define what is a nation, and societies described by the term sometimes comprise contending political and racial elements. To concede so much, however, is in no way to invalidate the, proposition that government to be effective, wise, and popular must be local. Absentee government means autocratic, and therefore incompetent government, and such a government will always provoke disaffection. Imperfections are inseparable from all human institutions, and government of course is not exempt, but a Government that is effectively controlled by the people will always be the least liable to abuse, indeed it is a truism that really democratic government is impossible unless under the effective control of the people from whom it derives its power. The cardinal defect in all systems of federation consists in the fact that every one of them implies more or less of absentee government. We hear much nowadays of projects of federation, and there are people who advocate what is called Imperial Federation with its inevitable concomitant, colonial representation in the Imperial Parliament. Do the advocates of such an unhistoric,' and I will add unhuman, proposal ever ask themselves what measure of control the colonial constituencies would have over the “representatives” it would send to a Parliament 12,000 miles away? Obviously the constituencies would have no control over their so-called representatives. Lack of control would inevitably breed disaffection, and we may therefore rest assured that should such a crazy scheme ever be realised, it must soon fall to pieces. This reminds me that New Zealand sent two delegates to the Federal Conference which assembled at Melbourne in 1890. Both of our representatives, Captain (afterwards Sir William) Russell and Sir John Hall, expressed strong opposition to the proposal that New Zealand should be included in the Commonwealth of Australia. Incidentally Sir John said: V “Nature has made 1200 impediments to the inclusion i in any such Federation in the 1200 miles of stormy ocean f which lie between us and our brethren in Australia. That Y does not prevent the existence of a community of interests * between us. There is a community of interests and if circumstances allow us at a future date to join in the

Federation we shall be only too glad to do so. But what is the meaning of having 1200 miles of ocean between us? Democratic government must be a government not only lox the people and by the people, but if it is to be efficient and give content, it must be in sight and within hearing of the people.” Sir John Hall belonged to the school of politics generally designated Conservative, but here he expressed an immutable truth, a principle which must never be lost sight of in considering the age-long conflict between the opposing principles of Imperialism and Nationality. Appeal to History. History is to the race what memory is to the individual, and I subscribe unreservedly to the argument so admirably formulated by Edmund Burke that in all things we should act as if standing in the presence of canonised forefathers. In other words, I believe that if the principle for which I am contending is a true one, it must be capable of verification by an appeal to history. Said that distinguished and scholarly Englishman, the late Dr. Goldwin Smith* : “There are two grand facts with which the philosophy of history deals—the division of nations and the succession of ages. Are these without a meaning? If so the two gieatest facts in the world are alone meaningless. It is clear that the division of nations has entered deeply into the counsels of creation. It is secured not only by barriers of sea, mountains, rivers, intervening deserts—barriers which conquest, the steam-vessel, and the rail-road might surmount but also by race, by language, by climate, and other physical influences, so potent that each in its turn has been magnified into the key of all history. The division is perhaps as great and as deeply-rooted’ as it could be without destroying the unity of mankind. Nor is it hard to see a reason for it. If all mankind were one state, with one set of customs, one literature, one code of laws, and this state became corrupted, what remedy what redemption would there be? None, but a convulsion which would rend the frame of society to pieces and deeply injure the moral life which society is designed to guaid. Not only so, but the very idea of political improvement might be lost, and all the world might become more dead than China. Nations redeem each other. They preserve for each other principles, truths, hopes, aspirations, which, committed to the keeping of one nation only, might as frailty and error are conditions of man’s being, become extinct forever. They not only raise each other again when fallen, they save each other from falling. They support each other’s steps by sympathy and example, they moderate each other’s excesses and extravagances, and keep them short of the fatal point by the mutual action of opinion, when the action of opinion is not shut out by despotic folly. They do for each other nationally very much AA-hat men of different characters do for each other morally in the intercourse of life; and that they might do this it was necessary that they should be as they are, and as the arrangements of the world secure their being at once like and unlike, like enough for sympathy, unlike enough for mutual correction, conquest, therefore, may learn that it has in the long run to contend not only against morality but against nature. . , Nationality is not a virtue, but it is an ordinance of nature and a natural bond, it does much good; in itself it prevents none, and the experience of history condemns every attempt to crush it when it has once been really formed.” Such is the case for Nationality as presented by Dr. Goldwin Smith when he was Professor of History .at the great University of Oxford more than sixty years ago. It Avould bo difficult to find a more scholarly and eloquent justification for the aspiration of Ireland, and it explains to us Dr. Goldwin Smith’s lifelong antagonism to Imperialism, an antagonism which towards the end of his long life found eloquent expression in his opposition to the war against the Dutch Republics in South Africa. It were idle for me to digress in order to illustrate at length from history the principle of Nationality,. Suffice it to say that the first illustration of the exercise of the right of self-determination is afforded by no less an auth*On the Study of History , being lectures delivered in Oxford, 1859-61.

ority than the Sacred Scriptures. We read in the Third Book of Kings that during the reign of lloboam the son of Solomon, ten of the tribes of Israel separated from the Twelve and declared their allegiance to Jeroboam, who previously had been a fugitive in Egypt, and thus - the son of Solomon was left to rule only over the two tribes of Juda and Benjamin. Then we arc told that lloboam came to Jerusalem and gathered together all the house of Juda and the tribe of Benjamin—“a hundred and four score thousand chosen men for war- — light against the house of Israel, and to bring the kingdom again under lloboam, the son of Solomon.” The sacred narrative proceeds : ‘‘But the Word of the Lord came to Semeias the man of God, saying; Speak to lloboam, the son of Solomon, the King of Juda, and to all the house of Juda and Benjamin, .and the rest of the people, saying; Thus saith the Lord; You shall not go up nor light against your brethern the children of Israel. -Let every man return to his house, for this thing is from me. They hearkened to the Word of the Lord, and returned from their journey -as the Lord . had,, commanded them.” Then we are told that thereafter Jeroboam ruled over the Ten Tribes, but that, fearing that common worship in the Temple would weaken their allegiance to him, ho set up two golden calves and ordained for his subjects the practice of idolatry. We may conclude that Semeias, the Man of God, knew well when he forbade the son of Solomon to preserve the integrity of his Kingdom by resorting to civil war, that the Ten Tribes would turn to idolatry, and assuredly it is strong evidence in favor of the principle for which I am contending that the Almighty Himself, rather than deny a people their right to choose their own government, preferred to allow them to sink into idolatry. Adam Smith's View. In the light of the ancient precedent I have quoted from the Third Book of Kings, we may judge two of the bloodiest and most calamitous Avars of modern times. Probably no Avar caused more profound feeling on both sides of the Atlantic than that which culminated in the independence of America and the birth of the United States. The illustrious Adam Smith, after ten years of retirement, had just completed his monumental Avork, usually entitled The Wealth of Nations, Avhen the struggle Avas exercising men’s minds. Adam Smith taught the interdependence of nations, but he insisted that, Avhile economically and socially interdependent, it Avere better that each nation should govern itself. He pointed out' that historically colonies were not necessarily dependencies, and that the first colonies Ave knoAv of in history—those founded by the —Avere, without exception, completely independent from the outset. He argued further that the greatest service Britain and her overseas colonies could do for each other Avas to trade Avith each other, but that trade did not depend upon the political connection. Accordingly he counseled the Mother Country to enter into a treaty of peace and friendship Avith the American colonies and to “part good friends” before it Avas too late. Thus Adam Smith' Avould have brought the United States of America into existence without the shedding of a drop of blood. The Imperialists of his day turned a deaf ear to his counsels, but with dire results, for although the United States Avon their independence, the Mother Country Avas left Avith a legacy of debt and taxation, and, more disastrous still, there continued a more odious legacy of hatred Avhich later gave rise to the Avar of 1812, and which has not completely died out oven at the present day. To give one other'illustration ; Fcav events have produced unore disastrous consequences or aroused more anti-social {tendencies than the American Civil War. I shall be told, of course, that as the result of that Avar the slaves Avere emancipated. My reply, however, is that had the Southern States been alloAved to separate peaceably from the North, , had North and . South, to quote Adam Smith, agreed “to part good fnends,” had they agreed while separating as political communities, to preserve complete freedom of i trade, a far greater service had been rendered to mankind than could possibly have resulted from the Avar. True, the emancipation of the slaves might have been postponed, but it was none the less inevitable, v and Avhen it came as the result of powerful but peaceful social forces,

it Avere far more beneficent. Slave labor, as compared Avith free labor, is notoriously inefficient, and had there been no Avar, slavery as an institution in the Southern States must ultimately have Avithered aAvay. Thus Ave may certainly conclude that the American Civil War — its predecessor, the War of Independence —was a national blunder, if not a crime. The American Avho Avould insist upon preserving the Union, even at the price of blood, makes a fetish of the Union, even as our own Imperialists make a fetish of Empire. Neither Union nor Empire are part of the Sermon on the Mount. Both at best are mere human institutions, and it Avere folly of the rankest kind to place either before the convenience and happiness of mankind. After reading Lord Bryce’s admirable Avork, The American Commonwealth, I am convinced that to-day the United States comprises too great a political entity to be efficiently governed. Over so vast an area, comprising such an immense number of people, government is necessarily autocratic and therefore inefficient and corrupt. Make a mental experiment, and imagine the disappearance of the American Union, but imagine further its fortyeight component States continuing to govern themselves under their respective State constitutions, but preserving inter se that complete freedom of trade which is the great characteristic of the present political union, and I take leave to say that you will have a set of circumstances under which such a calamity as the Civil War Avould be impossible. Such a consummation must come to pass if men are to be Avell and Avisely governed, if political corruption is to pass aAvay, and if international peace is to be secured. Example Good and Bad. Dr. GoldAvin Smith has rightly said that nations influence each other by their example, but it has to be admitted that their example is not always helpful. For instance, Avhen addressing a meeting of his constituents during the reign of terror inaugurated by the Coalition Government in Ireland, Mr. Lloyd George quoted the precedent of the American Civil War as shoAving that England had the right to compel the allegiance of Ireland. Ho invoked the great name of Lincoln in support of his argument, and it must be confessed not Avithout effect, particularly if you concede that Lincoln’s position is unassailable. The principles of morality and justice, hoAV ever, do not change through the ages. They, cannot be impressed to accommodate the passions and vanity of men. Down through the ages comes a greater voice than that of Lincoln to ans Aver the sophistries of Mr. Lloyd George, , and still Ave may hear the prophet, Semeias, the Man of God, proclaiming in trumpet tones: “Thus saith the Lord; You shall not go up nor fight against your brethern. . . Let every man return to his house, for this thing is from me.” /. Thus avo may conclude Avith absolute certainty that the universal opinion of mankind is in favor of the right of Ireland to govern herself freely, fully, and without' external interference. Only by recognising and giving full effect to the principle of nationality can the world be assured of international peace. Imagine the world bereft of Empires and divided into independent nations, and you will have no difficulty in concluding that in such a Avorld Avar Avould be unknoAvn, and that only in such a Avorld is real civilisation possible. We never associate the idea j of Avar with Holland, Avith SAvitzerland, with Denmark, with Sweden or Norway. The existence of Empires —those mischievous and abnormal excrescenes — make us think of Avar. Empire is a military term. To find precedent for modern schemes of Imperialism AA : e go back not to the free republics of Greece, but to Imperial Rome, and indeed, bearing in mind the flagrant disregard of human rights which characterises Imperialism in practice, we may conclude Avith certainty that it is essentially a pagan prim* ciple. The author of The Great Illusion has most appositely pointed out that there is a higher standard -of comfort, a more equitable distribution of Avealth, and less burdensome taxation in small nations than in great Empires, and assuredly Ave could scarcely have a better test as to which system is the more consistent Avith 1 human happiness. • ' ' Independent and Interdependent. - To say that nations should be politically independent, is not to argue that they are to disregard each other’s

existence. The interdependence of nations is a moral truth ,-p as old as the existence of mankind. The two great functions of nations are to trade with each other and to influence each other by their example. By trade the scarcity , of one nation is redressed from the abundance of the other, and thus the civilised world becomes, in the words of \ Adam Smith", a “great mercantile republic.” The different V political expedients by which each nation illustrates its >own peculiar genius for government, while not inconsistent with the unity of mankind for the purposes of commerce, serve as examples as the result of which one nation learns from its neighbors. ) ■ V. I have written thus at length in order to show that Ireland s aspiration for national freedom is not only con- . sistent with the real greatness and prosperity of England, but is supported by the verdict of history, the dictates of expediency, and the great moral law of justice itself. Thus we may dispel the counsels of the timid, and, claiming for Ireland nothing more than we are prepared to concede to every other nation, we may go forward boldly and pi ess her claim to complete national independence. Not that I subscribe to,,,the odious doctrine that it is necessary, in order to achieve that end, to resort to methods of violence and bloodshed. I believe that Ireland’s aspirations can be realised and will be fulfilled by the peaceful i Progress of opinion, that the people of England will realise that their own best interests require a free and contented island neighbor, and that the welfare of neither country is to be found by pursuing the phantasy of Imperialism. The world has moved forward since England ttimed a deaf ear to the advice of Adam Smith when he dared to say that she should part freely with her American colonies. As recently as 1903 we have seen Norway and Sweden setting an example to the world by parting company in peace, and withal remaining friendly neighbors. Accordingly we may look forward with confidence to the time when England and Ireland will have learned that lasting peace is to be found only by the realisation in practice of the eternal law of justice, and when that glorious era will have come to pass the so-called predominant partner will concede that she has achieved peace by reason of the insistence of Ireland upon her right to be free.