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CHINA’S MARKET COMMUNISM

China’s Market Communism guides readers step by step up the ladder of China’s
reforms and transformational possibilities to a full understanding of Beijing’s com-
munist and post-communist options by investigating the lessons that Xi can learn
from Mao, Adam Smith and inclusive economic theory. The book sharply distin-
guishes what can be immediately accomplished from the road that must be tra-
versed to better futures.

Steven Rosefielde is Professor of Economics at the University of North Carolina,

Chapel Hill and a member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. One of the
world's leading experts in Soviet/Russian Studies, Comparative Economic Systems
and International Security, he is the author of numerous books including Asian
Economic Systems (2013).

Jonathan Leightner teaches at Augusta University in the United States and

Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. Johns Hopkins University hired him to
teach at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center in China for 2008–2010. His publications
include articles on China’s trade, exchange rates, foreign reserves, fiscal policy and
land rights.
CHINA’S MARKET
COMMUNISM
Challenges, Dilemmas, Solutions

Steven Rosefielde and Jonathan Leightner

First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Steven Rosefielde and Jonathan Leightner
The right of Steven Rosefielde and Jonathan Leightner to be identified as
authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN: 978-1-138-12519-3 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-12523-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-73278-6 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo
by diacriTech, Chennai
In memory of my beloved son, David Rosefielde
CONTENTS

List of figures ix
List of tables x
Prefacexi
Acknowledgementsxiii

Introduction 1

PART I
Red Communism 3

1 Politics in command 5

2 Mao Zedong 9

PART II
White Communism 17

3 Deng Xiaoping 19

4 Xi Jinping 28
viii Contents

PART III
The great debate 33

5 Red versus White 35

6 Liberal versus Illiberal 37

PART IV
Beyond Communism 51

7 Liberal Democracy 53

8 Globalism 56

9 Confucius 58

10 Choosing sides 66

Prospects 68
Notes 69
Bibliography  109
Index115
FIGURES

2.1 Command economy: industrial control mechanism 10

6.1 Factor allocation 38
6.2 Production 40
6.3 Retail 41
6.4 Utility 43
6.5 Well-being 44
6.6 Price adjustment 46
6.7 Quantity adjustment 47
6.8 Profit maximizing 48
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TABLES

2.1  Communist superindustrialization surges (Maddison’s GDP

series, thousand 1990 international Geary-Khamis dollars) 15
9.1 Graying of Taiwan’s population (percent of
population over 65) 63
9.2 Fertility rate in Taiwan, 1960–2003 (percent) 63
9.3 Taiwanese family structure (percent) 64
9.4 Divorce rates in Taiwan (percent) 64
9.5 Female labor market participation rates (percent) 64
PREFACE

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, the pivotal
event that paved the way for the establishment of communism in China. It provides
a fitting occasion for assessing an aspect of the Soviet communist legacy: China’s
communist experience and prospects. This volume probes China’s communist
dream, chronicles its evolution, investigates the properties of Xi Jinping’s contempo-
rary market communism, and evaluates future possibilities from a rigorous inclusive
economic perspective.The Chinese communist experience has been largely a story
of two rival visions of the true path to Golden Communism – Mao Zedong’s rev-
olutionary Red Communist (Command Communism) approach and Xi Jinping’s
technocratic White Communist (Market Communism) option. This dichotomy is
the heart of our investigation, but it is incomplete because it conceals the larger
perspective. China’s market communist leaders do not have to choose between Red
and White. There is a wide variety of Pink Communist and Liberal Democratic
alternatives. The most attractive are surveyed to gauge China’s best path forward.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This volume extends Abram Bergson’s pioneering contributions to ­neoclassical

welfare and socialist economic theory to the analysis of Chinese communism.
Bergson was Professor Rosefielde’s thesis advisor and mentor. Alex Nove, Sir Lionel
Robins and Leonard Shapiro also were seminal influences. Quinn Mills, Chenyi
Yu, Wenting Ma, Yiyi Liu, Zhikai Wang, Christine Tsai, Ehtisham Ahmad, Hasanat
Syed, Yue Lai, Yuhan Wang, Diana Song and Siyu Zhao provided useful insights.
Yunjuan Liu compiled the bibliography. Edwin Song prepared the graphs of
Chapter 6. Susan Rosefielde, Yong Ling Lam and Samantha Phua gave essential
encouragement. Professor Leightner acknowledges the help of Rebecca Smith and
Sandra Leightner in finding news articles on China and the assistance of Xi Jin in
finding information written in Chinese on Chinese laws. We express our sincere
­appreciation to all for their generous assistance.
INTRODUCTION

Xi Jinping (General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, the President

of the People’s Republic of China, and the Chairman of the Central Military
Commission) faces a complex dilemma. He can try to improve China’s techno-
cratic market communism (“White Communism”),1 or push forward (backward)
to something better. He has chosen to advance by shifting the focus of China’s
development strategy from export- to import-substitution-led economic growth.
He may succeed in achieving this limited objective, but the approach is too narrow.
China’s well-being does not depend on material progress alone. The right path
ahead should enhance inclusive life quality (well-being).
Followers of Mao Zedong grasp this and urge a return to revolutionary “Red
Communism.” They consider the issue of export- versus import-substitution-led
development extraneous. Mao’s disciples want a more radical solution: a return to a
pro-egalitarian command economy.
Xi and Mao both assume that communist ideals are internally consistent (univer-
sal harmonious actualization of every individual’s full human potential in a ­freehold
property-less world with non-coercive government), and are “scientifically” achiev-
able. They both reject democracy and place their trust in the Communist Party
of China (CPC), which claims to represent the people’s will, but may not do so.
China’s revolutionary Red Communism in Mao’s eyes and technocratic White
Communism in Xi’s view are not utopian, and pose no dystopian risk. This is why
the CPC clings to the Communist Dream, steadfastly refusing to share political
power or contemplate non-communist alternatives.
The internal debate which takes the CPC’s and communism’s superiority on
faith revolves around a long-standing dispute over the comparative merit of polit-
ical and economic regimes ruled by CPC “experts” (Deng Xiaoping school) or
“reds” (Mao Zedong school). It avoids discussing blended options and excludes
2 Introduction

the possibility of democratic free enterprise or a host of other non-communist

alternatives including Europe’s social democracy, Confucian market systems, Japan’s
communalism, Piketty-type social justice regimes,2 Trump’s populism,3 or even Tao
Yuanming’s utopian Peach Blossom Spring.
This treatise probes China’s communist possibilities from the perspective of the
“Great Debate” over ideal social systems,4 with special attention paid to microeco-
nomic production, distribution and transfer efficiency. Details about Mao’s and Xi’s
policies are provided in endnotes.
Our investigation of China’s communist possibilities begins with a complete
description and analysis of China’s contested communist systemic options, and
then considers the merits of three non-communist alternatives: Liberal Democracy,
globalism, and Asia’s Confucian ideal. This is a “rational choice” approach.5 The
exercise suggests that even though the Chinese people may fare well enough under
Red and White Communism, wise rulers in Beijing should not dismiss other can-
didates. Prudence demands an open-minded assessment of how mainlanders should
lay their bets. This judgment holds regardless of the merit of specific policies and
development strategies like Xi Jinping’s “One Belt, One Road” scheme.
Although we believe that compassionate Liberal Democracy is China’s best
option, we refrain from advocating a best solution or prophesizing, leaving it to
readers themselves to judge the Middle Kingdom’s best path forward. As is widely
understood, leaders do not always choose wisely.6 It is unlikely that the Communist
Party of China will carefully weigh all its systems options in deciding China’s best
rational choice.7 Outcomes may well be path-dependent.8 The virtue of the ratio-
nal choice approach is that it clarifies possibilities, but this does not assure that
reason will prevail.
PART I

Red Communism
1
POLITICS IN COMMAND

The Communist Party of China (CPC), founded July 1, 1921 by Chen Duxiu
and Li Dazhao, seized control over the Middle Kingdom under the leadership of
Chairman Mao Zedong on October 1, 1949.9 Chen, Li and Mao were Marxists
of diverse persuasions. Their notions of communist utopia and tactics differed,
but all agreed on fundamentals. The task of the Chinese Communist Party was
to eradicate capitalist political and economic rule, install a worker-peasant state,
criminalize ­private property, the market and entrepreneurship, and establish an
exploitation-free, harmonious, egalitarian order. The dictatorship of the proletariat
(and peasants) was seen as a sine qua non to thwart counter-revolution and foster
rapid industrialization during a “socialist” transition period, but all agreed that in
the fullness of time the Communist Party would turn over the reins of government
to self-regulating co-operators.
Chen’s, Li’s and Mao’s notions of communism’s future were visionary. They
­neither understood nor concerned themselves about technical economic feasibility.
However, this was of little moment. All believed that communist rule meant revo-
lutionary “politics in command” during the transition period.10 The CPC’s task was
and is to fortify communist power and advance the communist cause as its leaders
perceive it and necessity dictates without fretting about economic efficiency.11
Chinese leaders have interpreted this mandate in two broad ways.They embraced
the Stalinist notion of command economy under Mao Zedong from 1950–1976
(with an anarcho-communist interlude during the Cultural Revolution),12 and
managed markets thereafter. Today both schools assume that the Communist Party
will someday fully realize Karl Marx’s communist vision elaborated in his Economic
and Philosophical manuscripts of 1844 and The Communist Manifesto,13 and should this
prove impossible, they intend to satisfice by striking the right balance.
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6 Red Communism

The difference between the Maoist “red” and Xi Jinping’s authoritarian

“expert” model is simple. Mao’s Red Communism proscribes private property,
business and entrepreneurship, supplying society instead through requisitioning
and rationing (under the Party’s guidance or direct worker/peasant action), and
enlists revolutionary spirit to combat bureaucratic abuses and promote commu-
nist egalitarianism.
Xi Jinping’s technocratic regulated White Communist market system retains
aspects of the command principle including state freehold ownership and planning,
but supplements it with leasehold property and regulated private enterprise. Xi’s
market communism puts “experts” in charge and rejects “red” anarcho-communist
zealotry. The dichotomy, in a nutshell, is “revolutionary” planning versus regulated
market communism.
In Mao’s world managers, workers and peasants are assigned tasks by the
Communist Party or by the communist invisible hand in anarcho-communist
moments. Comrades work for state fixed wages, or spontaneously cooperate. The
Party commandeers, rations, distributes and sells goods to the people at state set
prices. Anyone who does not work is a parasite, an offense punishable by forced
labor in laogai (concentration camp).14 Profits and rents belong to the state (people)
and together with taxes fund public programs. The people are supplied with basic
housing, transportation, energy, medical and educational services. The distribution
of income is egalitarian because there are no private asset holders and managers
receive neither profits nor rents. Mutual support further enhances social justice.
Money and credit are not available for speculative purposes, eliminating financial
crises. Resources are mobilized to spur technological progress and rapid economic
development. Mao’s command economy operated at full throttle, oscillating only
with the winds of enthusiasm and labor effort. State wage and price-fixing kept
inflation in check.15
Mao’s command model was a macroeconomic dream come true. It provided
overfull employment, price stability, business cycle-free production and rapid eco-
nomic growth. Its primary drawbacks were labor coercion, consumer goods short-
ages (rationing) and shoddy merchandise. Workers and peasants were compelled
to obey the Party and accept their lot. They could not acquire the goods they
desired because it was illegal for consumers to negotiate with state suppliers. The
system was a Spartan economy of shortage where everyone only received the basics
because the lion’s share of public expenditures was devoted to investment, defense
and public goods.The supply of consumer goods gradually increased over time, but
this meant little to people compelled to make do with things they did not want.
Citizens had limited opportunity to save and accumulate. They did not have to
insure their property because they had none.They did not have to fret about foreign
travel, transferring assets abroad, democratic action, civil rights or religion because
everything not explicitly authorized by the Communist Party was forbidden.
This was a devil’s bargain. Mao’s communism provided macroeconomic
robustness in exchange for compulsory labor, forced substitution and civil disem-
powerment. It gratified those who preferred a bare-boned egalitarian existence
 Politics in command 7

(pauper communism), and was an anathema to hedonists.The system was ­predicable

because it could not be reformed from below. The Party repressed private initiative
and civic action. If the Communist Party leaders were content with their devil’s
bargain, the people had to grin and bear it, barring a counter-revolution.
The counter-revolution happened. It came from within the Communist Party,
gathering momentum after Mao Zedong died September 9, 1976. It was organized
to overthrow aspects of the command paradigm and anarcho-communist zealotry
in favor of economic power sharing between the Party and a new breed of leasehold
entrepreneurs. Deng Xiaoping led the charge. He permitted Party and ­non-Party
members to lease state assets and produce for domestic and foreign markets on a
for-profit basis. International investors were encouraged to establish production
facilities in special economic zones on the mainland. Deng allowed ­private, jointly
owned and state companies to issue bonds and equity shares (for leasehold busi-
nesses) on domestic and foreign stock exchanges. The Renminbi (RMB) gradually
became convertible. The Party provided financial support for speculative activities,
and allowed prices and wages to be competitively negotiated.
This devolution of economic authority from the Communist Party to f­or-profit
producers eliminated Mao’s economy of shortage. Deng’s new deal sacrificed mac-
roeconomic robustness to preserve the Party’s political monopoly, and achieve
higher consumer satisfaction, substantial economic freedom, some civic liberal-
ization and inequality. Xi Jinping’s market communism today no longer sneers at
economic efficiency and has zero tolerance for Red Guard militancy. It permits
economic rewards to reflect marginal value added and has curbed forced substi-
tution. The cost of this liberalization has been involuntary unemployment, inegal-
itarianism, social injustice, inflation, financial speculation, excessive debt and the
increasing danger of financial crises.16
The leadership seems broadly satisfied with the new arrangements. This has led
many to infer that China has abandoned communism for capitalism, but the judg-
ment is superficial. The Communist Party remains at the helm. It directly controls
the economy’s commanding heights (the largest companies, including the ­military–
industrial complex) and the supply of public goods. It is the freehold owner of
the nation’s land and entire productive capital stock, including property nominally
classified as private. It has immense powers of taxation. It issues executive orders,
mandates, rules and regulations at will, and rejects laissez-faire. The Communist
Party acts as the economy’s master puppeteer using all the instruments at its d­ isposal
including internal Party command to compel the economy to do its bidding, and
can legally rescind leases and re-appropriate the nation’s assets at its discretion.
Consumers are only partially sovereign at the Party’s sufferance, and the leadership
appears to have no intention of sharing political power with rivals or building a
democratic regime with full civil liberties under the rule of law.
Market communism despite these reservations is better for citizens who
abhorred the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, but is a dubious bargain for
egalitarians, Red Guardians and those who prize social solidarity. Xi Jinping
and the Communist Party majority are under pressure to strike a better balance.
8 Red Communism

GDP growth has been decelerating and the threat of a major financial crisis is
mounting. Mao’s supporters are calling for accommodation, while others are press-
ing the case for democracy.17
What should be done? Should the Chinese Communist Party change course by
paring or further empowering the market? Should it enhance anarcho-communism?
Should it abandon or strengthen its dictatorship of the workers and peasants? People
hold strong and opposing opinions on these matters based on their ­ethical, ideo-
logical, political, social, cultural and religious attitudes that allow them to disregard
fundamentals.This puts the cart before the horse, caricaturing the Red Communist–
White Communist split as a struggle between have nots and haves. The deeper issue
is whether Marx’s communism is attainable either as an ideal or acceptable approx-
imation, and if so, whether communism is positively, normatively and ethically best.
Nobel Prizes have been awarded for mathematically proving the “existence” of
a competitive market general equilibrium (Pareto optimality) covering production,
distribution and transfers.18 The proof shows how suppliers can optimally satisfy
consumer’s demands. A similar proof has been devised for the perfectly planned
analogue of perfect competition given planners’ preferences.19 The correspondence
is called the duality theorem, and provides substance to Chinese claims that plan-
ning theoretically is as good as competition. Moreover, mixed models combining
markets and plans are easily constructed. This provides comfort for supporters of
both Mao’s command planning and Xi’s market communism, but only suppos-
ing that planners know exactly what each and every individual wants (including
transfers). This is the rub. Advocates of command planning, Cultural Revolution
and market communism cannot construct a complete existence theorem that
shows how the Communist Party and Red Guards know what individuals want
(including transfers).20 No Marxist has done so, and until such existence proofs are
devised any debate between Maoists and Xi’s supporters is shadow boxing. Neither
approach can provide fully efficient production, distribution and transfers or fulfill
arcane promises about full abundance (all goods are free), the abolition of exploita-
tion of man by man, harmony and the full actualization of each individual’s human
potential. These goals are social romanticism.21 There is no path to the promised
land, even if Communist Party members were competent, well-intended and wise.
Marx’s and Stalin’s meta-historical materialist dialectics don’t save the day.22
This means that the comparative merit of Maoism and Xi-ism depends on
the performance characteristics (positive economics) of Red Communism and
White Communism in a bounded rational universe,23 social justice and other nor-
mative considerations (ethics). Communist ideals, except insofar as they bear on
social justice and ethics, are irrelevant and should not cloud normative judgments.
What counts are the comparative levels of well-being that Mao’s and Xi’s systems
provide, judged by wise and compassionate observers.
2
MAO ZEDONG

Mao Zedong’s Red Army defeated the Kuomintang, conquered the mainland and
established a one-party regime. Mao, the “Great Helmsman,” was a military vet-
eran and hardened partisan.24 He became Chairman of the Communist Party in
1935, and was conversant with communist ideological politics. Stalin was his polit-
ical mentor.25 This background shaped Mao’s perception of the main direction for
­constructing communist power in China. It impelled him to ruthlessly suppress the
forces of counter-revolution26 and follow the path pioneered by Stalin for building
command communism, with some accommodation for local circumstances and
many casualties.27 Despite successes,28 Mao understood that full Marxist utopian
communism could not be gestated overnight. Tactical concessions were essential,
but he believed that if the Party stayed the course, China would eventually reach
the promised land.
The Great Helmsman’s preference for Stalin’s command model also was the
path of least resistance. Soviet and Chinese communists shared the same ideo-
logical goals. The USSR despite great adversities rapidly industrialized after 1928,
decisively defeated Hitler’s armies and developed atomic and thermonuclear weap-
ons. Perhaps other communist models including anarcho-communism (Cultural
Revolutionary “redness”) might have been better,29 but there was little reason in
1950 to resist Stalin’s bandwagon.30

Command economy
Mao from the outset chose to adopt Stalin’s command economic framework with its
complex “top-down” planning and “bottom-up” self-regulating mechanisms. The
framework rested on three principles: the criminalization of private property (state
freehold ownership of the means of production), the criminalization of markets
10 Red Communism

(state requisitioning and rationing), and the criminalization of ­entrepreneurship

(strict subordination of enterprise managers to Communist Party control).
Karl Marx contended that private ownership of productive assets allowed cap-
italists to misappropriate worker “surplus value,” a problem that Stalin and Mao
believed could be eradicated by nationalizing the means of production. Similarly,
Marx recognized that market power (oligopoly and monopoly) enabled ruthless
individuals to exploit the masses. The antidote here was to substitute state actors
for private businesspersons. State-owned enterprises and distributive organizations
(wholesale and retail) would be ordered to adhere strictly to government plans
(requisitioning and rationing). Production would reflect social need, and distribu-
tion would be guided by the principles of communist justice.
Stalin and Mao also understood that state-appointed factory directors might
violate communist duty by disregarding commands and acting entrepreneurially
on their own behalf. China’s Communist Party precluded the danger by requiring
appointees to obey, imposing severe penalties for disobedience.
The criminalization of private property, markets and entrepreneurship stewarded
by a wise Communist Party from Mao’s perspective on the morrow of the revo-
lution appeared to require a top-down system of state economic control. A self-­
regulating anarcho-communist system as Marx original envisioned was still thought
to be best in the long run, after the state withered away, but was considered imprac-
tical in the first phase of socialist construction. The watchwords for top-down state
economic control were plan and compliance. The Communist Party planned and
supervised. Subordinates obeyed. Figure 2.1 illustrates the Soviet command con-
cept for industrial production.

NKVD State Economic Directorate

Supra-Ministerial organizations
Council of Economic Minister
Tax and Budget Authorities

State Bank Regulation

GOSPLAN
Ministry A Ministry B
State Price Regulation

State Incentives
State Inspectorate Dept 1 Dept 2 Design Bureau Dept 3 Dept 4 State Statistical Agency

State Self-Misregulating
Standards Khozraschyot
Firm 1 Firm 2
State Firm 3 Firm 4
Investment
Bank Contract

State Labor Variable Capital Academy of Sciences

Technology Institute
Wholesale

GULAG Retail

FIGURE 2.1 Command economy: industrial control mechanism.

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Pasha, even whilst they were conspiring to perpetrate the Treaty of
Sevres. Greece likewise was adopting the insolent attitude of the
conqueror, more galling to the Turks than the domination of any
other foe. Upon the Commission instituted to govern the affairs of
Turkey in general and Constantinople in particular, England glanced
with wary eye at the deeds of her colleagues, France, Italy, and
Greece. It might be urged that England has quite enough to do with
her own vast territories and enormous responsibilities without adding
to the burden by taking more than a nominal interest in the
development of Turkey. Against such a view the men on the spot
protest with indignation. There is a land of inestimable fruitfulness. It
lies on the route of valuable British possessions. It is possessed by a
race holding high repute amongst the peoples of that part of the
world which is not averse to England. Widely advertised Armenian
massacres ought not to be permitted to blind the untravelled to the
fact that the Turk is regarded very highly by most people who know
him well. His faults of cruelty and corruption he shares with all
Eastern peoples. His virtues of cleanliness, sobriety, and (in the
country) honesty and industry mark him out for peculiar admiration. I
have to confess that I met nobody who expressed dislike of the Turk.
I met everywhere people who spoke with contempt of the Greek and
the Armenian.
“Tell me,” I said to a British officer in Constantinople, “why does
everybody hate the Armenians? I do not myself know any of these
people; but I can find nobody with a good word to say for them. I
have just heard one educated man declare that the only thing to do
with the Armenians is to massacre them.”
“It is certainly true,” he replied. “There is a saying in this part of the
world that it takes two Jews to make a Greek, two Greeks to make a
Levantine, and two Levantines to make an Armenian. Perhaps that
explains it.”
“You mean that they are notorious beyond all words for
commercial dishonesty and extortionate dealing? But is that all? That
is very bad, of course; but does it explain all the bitter hate?”
 “I don’t know; but I don’t believe for a moment that it is purely a
hatred of Christianity. The Turks are a warlike race. They hate the
pacifism of races like the Jews and the Armenians. To them it is
effeminate weakness. They despise the drunkenness of Christian
tribes. They are abstainers by religion. And the plundering of the
peasants by Christian extortioners has done more to set the
Crescent against the Cross than any preaching of Christian doctrine
could have done by itself.”
“I am proposing to return to this part of the world to visit Armenia in
the spring, unless the Bolsheviks from Angora capture it between
now and then.”
“Well, good luck to you!” said the young Englishman. “Nothing
would tempt me to go. Please remember that if half the Armenians
reported to have been massacred had really died, there would not
have been any Armenians left to visit!”
The Bolsheviks have captured Armenia, and the Allies do nothing
to help. Therein the Armenians have a real grievance. Their really
marvellous propaganda had secured them the sympathy of the
whole Western world. They had received distinct or tacit promises
from the Allies and the League of Nations. But neither the one nor
the other has done anything to save them from their frightful fate at
the hands of Russian Bolsheviks and Kemalist Turks.
Prince S——, the nephew of Abdul Hamid, is a cultured Turkish
gentleman of the very first order. His beautiful little daughter was
educated in England. She speaks perfect English, her father
admirable French. Over the Turkish coffee, thickly sweet and
delicious, we discussed the future of Turkey. I had met the prince
and his daughter first in Switzerland, at Caux, overlooking the
Montreux end of the Lake of Geneva. The Castle of Chillon, and
mountains of Savoy on the French side make a picture of
extraordinary beauty. Then, as in Constantinople, he spoke warmly
of England. I have seldom met a foreigner who had a higher opinion
of England and English institutions. In Turkish matters the prince
appears to stand half-way between the Turkish Nationalists and the
representatives of the old order. He looks for the day of an
independent Turkey, self-governing and governing with intelligence;
but he appears to think that day has not yet arrived. Before that,
there should be universal education for Turkey, free and progressive.
The rich, natural soil of agricultural Turkey should be subject to
intensive cultivation on modern scientific lines. Land should be made
available for all would-be cultivators; estates limited in size, but not
alienated from the owners by the State.
Till the day of its emancipation arrives this patriot prince would
have for Turkey the assistance of England. It was obvious to the
least interested amongst us that Constantinople suffered atrociously
from the divided authority of the Allies. Who were their masters—
French, Italian, British, or Greek—the wretched Turks really did not
know. Each set of nationals in authority got into the others’ way.
There were general suspicions and dislikes. Could the prince have
had his way, Turkey would have been ruled jointly by Turks and
British until education in responsibility had gradually but surely fitted
the Turks to be absolute masters in their own house.
This amiable cultured Turkish gentleman admitted the awful
atrocities committed by the Turkish Government in the past against
the Armenians, and regretted them. His secretary and not himself
spoke of equally fearful cruelties practised upon the Turks by
Armenians—the same dreadful game of reprisals with which a mad
world appears to be anxious to destroy itself.
A marked feature of the British personnel in Turkey is the extreme
youth of most of its members. Those who do not take themselves
and their work very seriously do not suffer. Those who are
conscientious and have their country’s interests really at heart suffer
acutely, not only through the physical strain of getting things done
against indifferent officialism in a country of unequalled opportunities
and matchless interest, but from the mental pain which is born of
seeing great opportunities passed by, or seized by wiser people in
the interests of nations other than England.
 There is a new-born Socialist Movement in Constantinople—at
least, it calls itself Socialist. It came into being as the result of a
successful tram strike. As a matter of fact it is really a Trade Union
Movement. It has little knowledge of the economics of Marx. Its
leader would be described as a Radical in England. I have the same
view about the Socialist Movement that Prince S—— has about the
Nationalist Movement—that a period of education would be a
valuable and is, indeed, a necessary precedent to the agitation for
Socialist government, even municipal government.

When we boarded the train in Constantinople it was intensely hot.

Within an hour of leaving it blew so cold that the women of our party
were constrained to put on their furs. For two days the intense cold
lasted. Not until we had passed over the bleak moor and forest lands
of Bulgaria, reminiscent of certain parts of Scotland, did we begin to
feel anew the warmth of autumn days. Milder Serbia warmed our
blood, and we ventured to make an excursion into Belgrade, where
the express rested for four hours. Tired of train food, we betook
ourselves in a party to the Hôtel Moscou and enjoyed a first-rate
supper amongst the joyous Serbs.
I hope to see Belgrade by day in order to revise my opinion of the
city. As it is, I have the poorest opinion of it. Its streets are paved
with cobble-stones and are full of shell-holes which would hold the
proverbial horse and cart! In the pitch black of the night—for the
streets were either badly lighted or not lit at all—we were constantly
tumbling into the smaller of these unspeakable holes or twisting our
ankles on the round cobble-stones. One required the feet of a
mountain goat to maintain oneself erect in such abominable
thoroughfares.
But a pleasing experience superseded the unpleasant memory of
Belgrade streets. I had been given a letter to post to Budapest by a
lady in Constantinople, who feared it might be opened if posted in
that city. I had given a solemn promise that this should be done. To
venture into those Belgrade streets alone was impossible. I had to
wait until my fellow-delegates had done feasting. Time passed, and
still they ate and ate. Soon it would be impossible. The train was due
to leave in a little while. I waited. The eating went on. I rose to go
alone. M. Marquet’s kind French heart was touched. He went with
me. We wandered over half Belgrade before we found the post
office, and when we found it it was closed! We walked to the back of
the premises, and there were two young men packing letters into
bags. In a mixture of French, English, and German we contrived to
make them understand we wanted a stamp. One of them, smiling
broadly, took out his pocket-book and produced the necessary
article, sticking it on to the letter himself, which he then pushed into
his bag. We laid down a substantial coin. But with a graceful bow
and a fine smile he declined payment. We shook hands cordially and
parted, the travellers with a happier estimate of Belgrade than its
stones had supplied!
If one can in any real measure judge a country’s state from the
railway train, Serbia and the highlands of Jugo-Slavia are enjoying
considerable prosperity. At the time we passed through the country
the same abundance of produce was everywhere visible as in
Belgium. In addition, the little pigs for which Serbia is renowned were
numberless. They ran all over the lines at the railway stations and
clustered in herds round every cottage door. The neat, bright comfort
of the mountain farms of the Tyrol made a very profound impression,
and were a real joy to those of us who were on the look out for as
much happiness and prosperity as we could discover in a world torn
with sorrow.
A rush round the city of Trieste, a long wait in the railway station in
Venice on account of a serious railway accident just ahead, a peep
at Milan, a glimpse at Lausanne, and we were on the last stage of
our long journey to Paris. The journey had been fairly comfortable
with the exception of the last day. There was no water for washing in
our carriage. I mean by “our carriage” the one in which the English
delegates were. We gave mighty tips, but the attendant would not be
comforted and refused to get us more water! He protested savagely
at the amount of water the English people used. He complained of
the number of times we thought it necessary to wash ourselves. We
were thoroughly in disfavour. We bore the discomfort and the feeling
of not looking our best till we got to Paris. There came relief,
cleanliness and good coffee. Twelve more hours and we should see
the home faces once more and recount our adventures to interested
friends.
Every one of us vowed we would not go abroad again for a very
long while. Every one of us has broken that pledge. It must be so.
The human spirit, once having escaped from the circumscribing
atmosphere of native city or even country, will never more be content
to be environed perpetually by so much less than it has known. It
must go out again and again to the scenes and the people it has
known in other lands, or break its wings against the bars of its cage,
imprisoned in the infinitely small and narrow. Let all who can travel,
for the broadening of their minds, the widening of their outlook, the
strengthening of their sympathies. And let those who cannot travel
read, so that they may know what the men and women of other
lands are thinking and feeling, and may co-operate with them in the
shaping of brighter and better things for mankind.
 CHAPTER XV
THE DISTRESSFUL COUNTRY

Late one evening I was returning home from a Fabian lecture

when a tall, middle-aged man, with slightly wavy hair and a pair of
merry blue eyes, accosted me. He carried under his arm a large and
rather untidy brown-paper parcel, which looked as though it might
contain groceries and gave him the appearance of the middle-class
father of a family. His voice was soft and pleasant, his accent
unmistakably Irish.
“Pardon me, madam, but are you an Irishwoman?” he asked
interestedly.
“No,” I replied. “I was born in Yorkshire. But why do you ask?”
“Forgive me, but your voice carries a long way, and I could not
help hearing a part of your conversation with the lady who left you at
Hampstead. You were talking about Ireland. Your voice and the kind
things you said about Ireland made me think you might be an
Irishwoman.”
“No,” I said again; “I am not Irish, but I am going to Ireland to-
morrow.”
“Ah!” he said, drawing a deep breath. “And why are you going to
Ireland at a time like this? Surely not for pleasure?”
“No, indeed; there can be no pleasure in Ireland for anybody with
a spark of human feeling. I am going to Ireland to try to discover the
truth, if that is possible.”
“You are a newspaper woman, then?” was the next query. I made
no further answer, feeling that the conversation with a perfect
stranger, albeit a courteous and sympathetic one, had gone on long
enough, when he began to speak with added warmth both of speech
and manner.
 “Ah! you English people, you do not understand, you never will
understand Ireland. In your imagination you have peopled our island
with devils and conceive it to be your duty to exterminate the plague.
‘The dirty Irish’ is the way you think about us. Hunting down Irishmen
is by some Englishmen regarded as legitimate sport. I am a native of
Cork. I am not a Sinn Feiner. I do not want to see Ireland cut loose
from the Empire. And I deplore as much as anybody the murders on
both sides. But I understand my countrymen. I doubt if you do. I very
much doubt if you can. The differences are too great. But whosoever
goes to Ireland without clearly realizing that the English and the Irish
are two distinct and separate nations will fail to understand the things
he sees and hears when he gets there. I am constantly hearing talk
on this side about the possibility of Ireland making terms with
Germany, becoming even a German province if she secures self-
government.” Here his voice became louder and his manner more
excited than ever; the newspaper he was holding dropped from his
hand and fluttered away in the wind. “Surely if such people
understood the racial differences between English and Irish they
would realize that the same applies, though in a much greater
degree, to the German and Irish?”
“Believe me,” I said, holding out my hand, “there are many people
in this country who do understand and who labour continuously to
create understanding in others. They yearn to bring about peace
between the two countries. Between peoples who speak the same
language war is a crime. I am going to Ireland to get more
knowledge about her, to talk to her people directly. And when I return
I shall join the band of workers for peace and reconciliation.”
He raised his hat, renewed his apologies for detaining me, and
disappeared. Under the gas lamp I caught a glimpse of tears on his
lashes—tears of a strong man for Ireland, his native land, a suffering
thing he cannot help.
The Labour Party’s delegation to Ireland had not included a
woman. Several members of the Women’s International League, and
a few Quaker women on errands of mercy, had visited the country.
This was some time before the Labour Party had decided upon an
official visit. The secretary of the party had received from an
Irishwoman a letter imploring him to include a woman amongst his
investigators, but it was not thought wise to do this by the men on
account of the danger and inconvenience. When one of the
executive proposed my name as one of the delegates Mr.
Henderson, with the most paternal solicitude, suggested that the
Executive Committee ought not to take upon itself the responsibility
of running any woman into such real danger as existed for travellers
in general and investigators in particular in Ireland at that time. So
the proposal fell to the ground.
No such objection was raised when the delegation to Russia was
appointed. On the contrary, Mr. Henderson strongly pressed me to
go to Russia. I cannot imagine that the concern of this genuinely
kind-hearted man for the safety for his women colleagues was in
abeyance on that occasion. Mr. Henderson had been to Russia and
suffered considerable danger himself. I can only conclude that this
serious-minded colleague of mine believed the danger to be greater
in Ireland under British rule than in Russia under the rule of the
Bolsheviks! I agreed to go to Russia with some reluctance on my
own account. Not because of any fear of going. Atrocity stories and
wild tales of epidemics had no terrors for me. But the time of the
proposed Russian visit was inopportune. I had received invitations to
go to Poland, Spain, and Hungary. Preparations for the journey to
Madrid had already been made and had to be cancelled.
But there were no obstacles to the Irish visit. I wanted to go.
Irishwomen wanted me to go. I received one pressing letter after
another. The Labour Party’s objection was laughed to scorn. I must
say the idea that women who have lived more summers than they
care to confess cannot be allowed to take the responsibility for their
own lives, but must be a burden and a charge, whether they like it or
not, on the consciences of their men comrades is in these days
vastly amusing; particularly to the women of the Labour Movement,
whose conception of progress is of equality of effort, of danger, of
suffering, and of reward for men and women.
None the less, I understood and valued at its very real worth the
altogether gracious and kindly thought which lay at the root of the
action of the Labour Executive.
 It was impossible to resist the pleading of Irishwomen that as
many women as could do so should go over there and see with their
own eyes what the women and children of Ireland are called upon to
endure.
On Saturday, January 15, 1921, I left Euston for Holyhead, alone,
and without having in any way advertised my intention. I landed in
Dublin in the evening and proceeded to friends in one of the
suburbs. We drove from the station in a jaunting-car. In such a
fashion did I get my first glimpse of Dublin under what the majority of
Irishmen consider to be foreign occupation. Westland Row Station,
as well as Kingstown Harbour, was full of soldiers and police.
Passengers coming off the boat were heavily scrutinized. We were
closely examined in the train. In the streets and public places of all
sorts in every town I visited during the ten days of my visit, even in
country villages and lanes, the atmosphere was tense with the
expectation of the sudden assault, the quick firing of rifles, the rough
arrest, the climbing of military lorries on to the footpaths, the
humiliating search, the heart-breaking insult. Women and men alike
feared these things. Here was an equality of treatment which nobody
objected to so far as Irishwomen were concerned, least of all the
Republican women themselves, who would think shame of
themselves if they were unwilling to suffer what their men are called
upon to endure. But the pity of it! Little children are often victims.
Boys and girls have been shot dead.
On this night the streets of Dublin were lively with the clatter of
armoured cars and lorry loads of singing soldiers not too sober.
Occasionally a distant shot was heard. Now and then a side-car
packed with merry little dare-devils flaunting their green flag
provocatively for the sheer fun of the thing would rattle past. One
trembled for the ignorant folly of madcap youth.
My host, who is one of the best-known and most highly respected
citizens of Dublin, did everything in his power to bring me into touch
with every shade of Irish opinion, so that I might judge of things for
myself without bias or pressure from outside. I never was in any
country where there were fewer attempts to make proselytes. He
himself is a Quaker, and has a long record of devoted service to his
country and to the less fortunate of his fellow-citizens to his credit,
which inspired confidence and respect. His beautiful wife and lovely
children gave me a warm Irish welcome, and, although an
Englishwoman and, therefore, a justifiable object of suspicion, I was
never permitted for a moment to feel myself an intruder.
From Saturday night till Tuesday morning the hours were packed
with incident. I think it would have been difficult for anybody to see
more people and hear more tales of woe than it was my lot to see
and hear during these ten days in Ireland. Amongst my new
acquaintances were Republicans of all sorts, Nationalist Home
Rulers, Unionists, Labour Party officials, Trade Unionists, Quakers,
humble citizens with no particular political affiliations, Catholic priests
and Protestant ministers boys and girls from the country “on the run”
in the city, newspaper men, writers of books and pamphlets, British
officers, lawyers by the dozen, ex-soldiers, high-born ladies, the
widows of men executed in the rebellion of 1916, suffragettes,
women doctors, temperance folk, members of the Irish Republican
Army, commercial travellers, and men and women suspected of
being British agents and spies. I should like to disclose the names of
all these interesting persons. In most cases I have full authority to do
so. But when that permission is coupled with a declaration that they
do not care two pins about the consequences to themselves, I am
involved in too great a responsibility to be reckless in a matter where
human life and liberty are so manifestly involved.
But because I believe even the present British Government, more
profligate of its power than any Government of modern times in this
country, would scarcely dare to mishandle a man so great in the
esteem, not only of Ireland but of the whole world of culture, I feel I
may write freely of that towering personality, Mr. G. W. Russell (“Æ”),
whom I met several times in Dublin, always to my great spiritual
profit.
Picture a face and figure not unlike those of William Morris in the
prime of his life, with a tenderness joined to his strength which I
imagine was less conspicuous in the English poet. Masses of wavy
hair tossed back but occasionally falling over a fine square forehead,
a full mouth, glorious eyes full of humour and gentleness, a soft
musical voice; the frame of a Viking, the heart of a saint, the
imagination of a poet, the vision of a prophet; a man to whom
children would run with their troubles, whom women would trust
unflinchingly, whom men would serve with utter loyalty; the
embodiment of the real Ireland, the Ireland that is not known in
England—this is the man whose devoted, lifelong work for the
salvation of Ireland is being wantonly and savagely annihilated by
British troops.
Mr. Russell spoke without a trace of bitterness, though I know he
suffers keenly, when he told me of the destruction of Irish creameries
and of the difficulties which co-operative enterprise is meeting with in
every part of Ireland. He edits the Irish Homestead, and there he has
voiced the complaints of Irish co-operators in language of the
greatest beauty; but to hear him tell the story himself was a pleasure
fraught with pain to his English auditor.
“It cannot be that the system of reprisals has become an integral
part of the British nation’s scheme of justice?” he asked, as we sat
talking by the fire in the house of a friend. “It would be too terrible to
think that that were true.”
“The British people do not know all that is happening here,” I
replied. “Oh, I know they ought to. Enough has been said and written
about it. The ignorance of affairs outside the little circle of their own
interests of the average man and woman makes me almost despair
of democracy at times. But there is this explanation of the inactivity
of the British public about Irish matters. In the first place, very many
people know nothing. Those who do read that part of their daily
paper which is not devoted to the sporting news or the Divorce Court
proceedings read a partial tale. The news is generally coloured in
favour of Dublin Castle and the Black and Tans. I cannot believe that
British co-operators would be content to tolerate the things which are
being done to Irish co-operative enterprises if they knew the facts.”
I was given a tiny yellow book containing the facts which I
promised to help circulate in England. It is an amazing story. The
statements would have appeared incredible to me had I not seen
with my own eyes the blackened walls and twisted machinery of the
gutted creameries in several parts of Ireland. Forty-two attacks by
the Crown forces on these village and country town institutions had
been made up to the time of my conversation with “Æ.” In these
attacks the factories were burned down, the machinery destroyed,
the stores looted, the employés beaten and sometimes wounded
and killed.
Questioned in Parliament, the Government has excused itself by
declaring that the creameries were centres of propaganda and of
Sinn Fein activity. They alleged that in two cases shots were fired at
the troops from the buildings. The most searching inquiries by
responsible people, including Sir Horace Plunkett, failed to produce
any evidence in support of the charges of the Government. But Mr.
Russell is not concerned about the result of these inquiries. He
wants a Government inquiry into the whole of the circumstances
connected with this particularly lamentable form of reprisal, and this
inquiry is steadily denied. Why?
Travellers in Ireland to-day see all over the country these new
ruins, centres of village industry and culture utterly wrecked, and the
peasant farmers and their families driven back to their lonely farms
to live in poverty and isolation; driven back to feed not only upon
their own scant produce but upon the black passions of hate and
individualism from which the co-operative idea had begun so
successfully to rescue them.
“Surely the English workmen begin to realize the connexion
between our problem and theirs,” said another distinguished co-
operator. “If our economic life continues to be so seriously disturbed,
or if it be destroyed, we cannot buy from England as we have been
doing. Do you know that, with the single exception of India, Ireland is
the best customer that England possesses within the British
Empire?” The political views of this cultured gentleman are distinctly
non-Republican, yet his house is not safe from the official intruder,
and he is tormented hourly with the sense of outrage and injustice
which the destruction of his life’s labours must necessarily produce.
“To us it would be simply unbelievable but for the other follies we
have seen perpetrated by your statesmen, that any Government with
the least knowledge of the world-situation could willingly add to its
dangers and difficulties. Yet I cannot believe that the members of the
British Government are all ignorant and stupid.” This third speaker
was a man who had served with distinction in the British Army during
the war. But the droop of his figure, the gloom in his eye, the bitter
curl of his lips—everything about him spoke of a confidence lost and
a faith killed.
“Two millions of adult people in Great Britain either wholly or
partially unemployed; wives and children beginning to hunger;
industrial strife on a scale hitherto unimagined clouding the horizon;
men by the million trained to kill, ready to be used by one side or the
other in a class war; hate and violence the fruit of it all, and appalling
suffering for all classes before one side recognizes the right of the
workers to an assured and abundant life and the other side realizes
that Russia’s way is not the way even for Russia. All this and more—
and yet the British Government actually or tacitly encourages the
troops to add Irish tens of thousands to the British millions of
workless, starving, hating men and women, and is slowly but surely
converting the only revolution in history which makes a point of
preserving the rights of private property into something which will be
akin to a class war for a Communist republic—an issue which I
should deeply deplore.”
I am bound to confess that I discovered no substantial evidence
that the civil war in Ireland has either a Communist basis or a
Communist ideal. The utter conservatism of the Irish is the most
striking thing about them. Their determination to win self-government
is based almost entirely upon that conservatism, the love of the
Ireland of history, the passion for the Irish tongue, the devotion to the
ancient faith, their love of the soil—these things and the memory of a
thousand wrongs put upon them by the alien conqueror have much
more to do with Irish discontent than any desire to hold the land in
common and convert the industries from private to public ownership
and control; which ideas would, indeed, be repugnant to the last
degree to the peasant owners of the South and West of Ireland.
Speaking on this point with some of the workingmen leaders I
asked how far, in their opinion, the Communist propaganda had
captured the Irish workers. “Scarcely at all,” was the quick reply.
“There was fearful anger over the cruel death of Connolly. His
execution did a great deal to unite the Labour Movement in Ireland
with the Republican Party. It was the sheer brutality of it. The poor
fellow hadn’t more than forty-eight hours to live. He had been shot in
the scrimmage in Dublin, and gangrene had set in. Yet they dragged
him out of his bed groaning with pain, put him on a chair and shot
him—the brutes! They think it’s all in the day’s work to shoot a ‘dirty
Irishman.’ But our people will never forget Connolly and the way he
died. No; the Irish workers are not Communists. They just hate
England and want to be quit of her.
“Ay, and there’s the case of Kevin Barry while you’re on about the
killing. Do you know they tortured that poor lad to get him to tell the
names of his comrades? We have his affidavit. They bruised his
flesh and twisted his limbs and then they hanged him—hanged him,
mind you, when the poor lad begged that he might be shot as a
prisoner of war! Your Prime Minister calls it war when he wants to
excuse the murders of his own hired assassins. But if so, our men
are prisoners of war when they are captured. Who ever heard of a
civilized nation hanging prisoners of war? But praise be to God,
every time you hang a boy like Kevin Barry you make hundreds of
soldiers for the Republican Army. Eighteen hundred men in Dublin
joined up the day Kevin was hanged.”
The little man who thus broke in began to fill with tobacco the bowl
of his small black pipe, and when he had lit it he turned on me,
fiercely demanding: “Why have you come to Ireland now? Why didn’t
you come before? Why don’t more of you come? How many
thousands of our brave boys have got to be killed before you folks
find out what your bloody troops are doing to Irish men, women, and
children?” And he flung himself out of the room.
I felt sorry to have appeared indifferent for so long, and said so to
the rest of the assembled company. “But to tell you the truth, I have
lived all these years under the impression that Irish men and women
preferred to win their own battles in their own way; that they
regarded rather as an intrusion any effort of English people to help
and advise them. From the first hour of my political life I have been a
supporter of self-government for Ireland; but I never dreamt that you
wanted me, or any of the rest of us, to come to Ireland to say so. I
believed that you wanted to work out your own salvation.”
“So far as advice is concerned you were right,” said a young fellow
with a large freckled face and fine eyes. “I reckon the English can’t
teach us much about politics.”
“I’m not so sure,” I said very softly. “After all, you have not got what
you have been fighting for during more than a hundred years, and
you have not got rid of the oppression that has tormented you for
several hundreds of years. Perhaps it is possible that co-operation
might have done it. We can all teach each other something. Ireland
has glorious lessons for us English. Perhaps you could have learnt a
little of something from us.”
There was a long pause, and I continued: “It is of the first
importance to carry the plain matter-of-fact people of England with
you. Ordinary men and women in England have a strong sense of
justice, but their imagination is weak. They find it difficult to
understand what they do not endure themselves. They find it hard to
believe in the wounds unless they can lay their fingers on the prints.
You must admit that some of the things which are happening in
Ireland are almost incredible. One thing which makes it difficult to
open and keep open the minds of English people on the subject of
Ireland’s wrongs is what they regard as Ireland’s wrongdoing, the
killing of soldiers and police. Of course, a certain section of the
newspaper press exploits this to the last degree. Why do you do it?
Why use the methods so hateful in the others? Why put an argument
in the mouths of the enemy? Why soil and stain a good cause?”
“Because we are at war,” was the prompt reply. “You have just
heard that your Prime Minister says so. He justifies the methods of
the Government because it is war. We do not like killing people; but
can we be expected to sit quietly whilst our own men and women are
killed and their property looted? It isn’t in human nature. Would
Englishmen sit quiet under such provocation? We don’t like it. And,
remember, we don’t kill innocent people like the other side. Every
person executed by the Irish—executed, mark you, not murdered—is
tried by the Republican Courts and found guilty on substantial
evidence of traitorous conduct or brutal murder.” He folded up the
copy of the Irish Bulletin he had been reading, and then proceeded:
“I’m glad you came over. I wish others would come. I’m sure you’ll
help Ireland. Tell your people that if it’s war they want, war they will
get till every young man in Ireland is dead. Then they can begin with
the old men and the women—they’ve begun with the women—and
after that they’ll have to wait till the children grow up. But they’ll find
them every bit as keen as their fathers. It’s in the blood of us. There
are only two ways to peace, and God knows we want peace. You
can either give Ireland her freedom, or you can sink the whole
country in the sea. It’s the peace of the dead you’ll get if you won’t
have that of the living.”
It is only fair to say that nine out of every ten of the Republicans to
whom I spoke expressed sorrow and regret that the policy of
violence had been adopted instead of that of passive resistance.
“But now that the fighting has been begun it is very difficult to stop
it without laying ourselves open to the charge that we are
weakening, or without giving the British Government the opportunity
of saying that its policy of reprisals has succeeded. The very thought
of these things is hateful to the sons and daughters of a brave
fighting race.” The distinguished old lady who said this drew herself
up as she spoke with the dignity of a queen and flashed swords and
daggers from her fine proud eyes.
Her house had been searched twice by Crown forces. They did
some small damage to doors and windows, nothing serious, for she
is a woman of property and social position, an outstanding example
of the thing I found to be true, that the severity of the reprisals, the
ruthlessness of the visitations, the length and discomforts of the
imprisonments were generally in proportion to the means or in
accordance with the religious beliefs of the suspects. Age and sex
did not count.
During an official reprisal which I witnessed in Cork, the blowing-
up of two excellent shops in one of the main thoroughfares, when
armed troops kept the crowd moving, and armoured cars, fully
manned, kept the roads, I heard an old woman tremblingly ask a
good-natured Tommy carelessly swinging his rifle as he moved
people along the pavement, what the matter was. “We’re only going
to send all you bloody Catholics to hell,” was the cheerful reply.
To refer once more to the searchings of private houses and shops:
I investigated three cases, the one to which I have referred, the
house of the old lady and her secretary, and two others, both shops.
The usual practice is to knock loudly and demand admittance, but to
give no time for anyone to run to the door, which is frequently burst
open. Sometimes shots are fired into the passage as a precaution,
killing or wounding perchance the man who is descending the stairs
to answer the summons, which often comes in the middle of the
night. A soldier stands guard over each member of the family. If the
house be big enough each is placed in a separate room. If it be small
they are turned into the streets and guarded there. A rigorous search
is made, beds stripped, mattresses sometimes bayoneted, drawers
opened and their contents tossed out, pictures pulled off the walls,
letters opened and read, cupboards emptied—the whole house
turned topsy-turvy. A shop is usually looted of half its contents.
Recently, in the attempt to restore discipline, the householder has
been requested to sign a paper stating that the soldiers left all in
order and stole nothing. But no opportunity of checking is allowed,
and the dazed and frightened woman (it is generally a woman, for
the men are “on the run”) signs quickly, and would sign anything to
get the soldiers and police out of the house and her terrified children
into their beds.
In the case of the little sweet and tobacco shop the whole family,
including two young children and an old woman, were turned into the
street at midnight and made to stand there in the pouring rain for two
hours. The gentle young Irish mother with the soft voice and
seductive Irish drawl told me the story.
“It was me brother they wanted. He’s in the arrmy. But it’s weeks
since Oi saw the face av him. Oi couldn’t tell thim where he was, but
they wouldn’t belave me. It nearly broke me heart to see thim poke
thurr bayonets thru the pickshure av the Blessed Virgin. An’ all the
swates was trampled on the flure. The bits av tobaccy wint into the
pockets av the crathurs. An’ the pore children was gittin’ thurr deaths
av cold in the rain outside. An’ now the pore lambs will nut slape
widout a light over thurr beds in the noight furr the fear av the cruel
men that is on them. An’ what have Oi done but keep moi house an’
pay moi way like an honest woman? Shure,” she said, with a droll
look and a twinkle, “if Oi knew whurr moi brother was, would Oi be
tellin’ the soldiers? Oi would not, indade. Wolfe Tone is the name av
him. An’ wouldn’t they be afther shootin’ at sight a man wid a name
loike that?”
The Irish sense of humour never forsakes them even in their
deepest distress. Mrs. A. Stopford Green, the widow of the great
historian and herself an historian of merit, told me of a Catholic priest
who had his home invaded and sacked. Standing amongst the
wreckage of his little home, he exclaimed, between tears and smiles:
“Glory be to God! They’ve taken everything they could lay their
hands on. But there’s one thing they haven’t taken, because they
can’t take it, and that is—the laugh!”
I came to one house in order to have an interview with a young
Irish patriot who is “on the run.” He came secretly and at great risk to
himself. He was cheerful and jolly; but, like everybody else in Ireland,
he showed clear signs of strain and of an imminent breakdown. Eight
times his premises had been searched, and each time valuable
things had been stolen. Even whilst we talked a telegram from a
friend arrived to say that the night before they had raided him again
and taken away a pair of much-prized army boots.
A splendid type of cultivated and idealistic young manhood, he
was hunted hourly from pillar to post on suspicion of ill-doing; but his
life’s work had been humanitarian, designed by the slow but sure
methods of education and co-operation to win the suspicious and
illiterate peasant from his bondage to ignorance and intolerance.
He had been tried once and acquitted. He and his friend had been
lodged in the guard-room. There was a struggle, and bombs, and the
dead and mutilated body of his friend was carried out. The story was
set about that the two of them had thrown the bombs at the troops.
The bombs were lying loose in the guard-room. Nobody believed a
story so thin. The pacific reputation of the two men was well known.
Everybody asked why live bombs were left lying about in such a
place. Were they put there to furnish an excuse for premeditated
crime? Some believed this. Nothing is clear. In the subsequent
inquiry before a Military Court composed of young and ignorant
officers with a natural prepossession in favour of their profession and
caste, it was denied that Clun’s body was mutilated. But a reliable
witness told me that he had counted thirteen bayonet wounds.
The first thing which impressed me about the Sinn Feiners I met
was their culture, then their courage, finally their spirituality. I speak
now of those I met in the city—probably two hundred. Many of them
would have been shot at sight if they had been seen coming out of
their hiding-places to meet me. At the moment of writing more than
one of those with whom I talked lies in a dark and dismal prison cell,
notably Desmond Fitzgerald, head of the Republican Propaganda
Department.
What amazed me continually was the entire absence of bitterness
in the speech of most of these people. Bitterness they must have
felt, and yet so sure are they of the goodness of their cause and of
its ultimate triumph, that they can talk with calmness and even
humour of the tragic events of which so many of them are the central
figures.
“They say in England that this is first and foremost and all the time
a religious quarrel; that the domination of Irish politics by the Pope is
to be greatly feared if Ireland gets self-government. What have you
to say to that?” I asked the handsome youth whose effective
propaganda has filtered through to every country in Europe. It is one
of the important facts of the present situation that the conduct of
England towards Ireland is breeding a cynical contempt for England
throughout the world.
“I have to say of the first statement that it is not true, and of the
question that the fear is groundless. The Irish priests have tried in
vain to stop the ambush. They have denounced it from their pulpits.
But they have protested in vain. This defiance is the symbol of a
conviction that the place of the priest is at the altar. When he leaves