The existence of these courts was, of course, a criminal offence under the ordinary law of sedition; but in Ireland, after the proc- lamation of Sinn Fein under the Crimes Act as a dangerous associa- tion, they came within the prohibitions of the Crimes Act of 1887, and every person taking part in them was liable, after conviction before a court of two resident magistrates, to a sentence of six months' imprisonment. But the difficulty of the Government in dealing with them lay in the fact that evidence was almost impossible to procure as to their personnel or the proceedings that took place before them. It was, in short, not until the ordinary law was superseded by military administration that the Sinn Fein courts were dis- solved, not by the ordinary processes of law, but by force. Once scattered, under the influence of counter-terror, they ceased to appeal even to the sentiment of the people, who on the whole had had reason to fear the incidence of a justice wholly irresponsible and arbitrary in its methods. 1
For the highly idealized Sinn Fein account of the organization and work of these courts, see " The Republican Police and Courts of Justice," in the Irish Bulletin, vol. v., No. 46, Aug. 4. For the Sinn Fein Land Settlement Commission, see ib. No. 49, Aug. 9.
In the spring of 1921 the Bang's writ was once more running in the " disturbed " counties, the courts were sitting, juries were attending, and litigants were appearing to press their suits.
This change, with many others, was due to the more con- sistently vigorous policy introduced by Sir Hamar Greenwood, who had succeeded Mr. Ian Macpherson as Chief Sec- sirffamar retary on April 4 1920. Though formerly a Liberal 0re T H Home Ruler, he realized that the distempers of Ire-
woou ana ijij j fl ,.
the Coa- iand nad passed beyond hope of cure by any panaceas stabuiary. which British Liberalism was prepared to apply,
and that the choice for the Government lay between yielding to force or opposing force to force. The first necessity was to restore the moral of the forces of the Crown. The men of the R.I.C. had for more than a year borne with amazing patience and courage the campaign directed against them. But with the intensification of this campaign towards the middle of 1920 their patience and their discipline had begun to break down. Time after time they had seen men they had arrested, for serious crimes against the State, released after a few days of easy imprisonment. Again and again they had been " let down " owing to a clamour in Parliament and the press which threatened to become inconvenient to ministers. They were murdered wholesale, and none of their neighbours dared to help them in their death agonies, still less to give evidence against their assassins, not one of whom was punished. They were subjected by order of the " Republic " to a rigorous boycott, and the tradesmen, the farmers and the creameries refused to supply their wives and their babies with the very necessaries of life, since to do so was to involve themselves in the same penalty. For armed and organized men to endure this for ever was not in human nature, and least of all in Irish human nature. In short, there was apprehension that the police, realizing that Sinn Fein had succeeded in breaking down the law, would begin to take the matter into their own hands.
The Royal Irish Constabulary, indeed, was by this time but a remnant of a once magnificent force. The campaign
of murder and boycott had largely done its work;
the men were resigning under a threat of murder or aad-Taas." other outrage on their parents, and any young
man who was announced as going to join the force was promptly shot. At the same time the catalogue of crimes of all descriptions in Ireland was reaching appalling proportions; and it became necessary for the Government to adopt a far stronger policy, if the country was to be saved from lapsing into utter anarchy. In March Mr. Ian Macpherson, in answer to a question in the House of Commons, had estimated the numbers of the Irish Republican army at 200,000, thus out- numbering the forces of the Crown in Ireland by about five to one. In July the troops in Ireland were increased to 60,000, and the supreme command was taken over by Sir Nevil Macready,
1 Dail Eireann had fixed a prescription of 20 years as giving legal title to land. A Sinn Fein Court in county Cork ordered the sale of his farm by a man whose family had held it since 1847, and the distribution of the proceeds among people who claimed to be descendants of the owner who had emigrated to America after the great famine. (Private information.)
The "Black
a general 2 with a long and distinguished record. On the loth the Government issued instructions for the reorganization of the R.I.C., the depleted ranks of which were to be filled up with English and Irish ex-service men; and at the same time there was created an auxiliary police force consisting of 1,500 ex-officers, divided into 15 mobile companies, for the purpose of carrying out special duties wherever they might be required. Since there were not enough of the dark green uniforms of the R.I.C. to supply all the new recruits, these were clothed tempo- rarily in military khaki, with a black hat and arm band to distinguish them as constables whence the name " black-and- tans." They must be distinguished from the auxiliary police, whose uniform continued to be khaki with a black glengarry cap, and who were therefore also sometimes known as " black- and-tans." The whole of this force was placed under the con- trol of Maj.-Gen. Sir Henry Tudor, 3 who was established in the Castle as Police Adviser.
The presence of this force soon altered the condition of things in Ireland. The military, who after the great disbandment had consisted mainly of raw boys hardly able to bear the weight of their rifles, had been no match for the strapping guerrillas of Sinn Fein. The " black-and-tans " and the auxiliary cadets (it is well to distinguish them) were men hardened by years of service at the front and brave to recklessness, as they needed to be. Systematically distributed over the disturbed areas of the country, they proceeded to break up the Sinn Fein organ- ization; soon its leaders were " on the run "; and the authority of the Crown was gradually reestablished in wide districts where for months past the de facto Government had been that of the " Republic." In the performance of this difficult and very dangerous task serious irregularities were sometimes com- mitted, but on the whole the " black-and-tans " were not unpopular; for they broke the Sinn Fein terror and as the women put it saved the boys from being forced into the murder gangs. 4 Soon, however, the wildest reports began to circulate about the outrages committed by them, reports grossly exaggerated, but none the less having a basis in fact. There is, indeed, no evidence whatever to support the accusations of outrages on women, or indeed of any gross crimes committed on innocent people, and these may be characterized as absolute lies. But there is evidence that some of these men by no means all brought to Ireland the loose view as to the rights of property which had been current during the war at the front, and helped themselves to what they needed without always discriminating between the loyal and the disloyal.
More serious were the issues raised by the " reprisals " carried out by the force, or rather by some of its members, when any of them were murdered. In matters of this sort it is not the function of the historian to approve or to condemn, but to explain; and in this case the explanation is not far to seek. The general attitude of the " black-and-tans " is explicable by the abnormal conditions under which they worked. They found themselves in a country nominally and even apparently at peace, for its normal life continued through all the troubles, and among a people polite and outwardly even demonstratively friendly. They soon discovered that this was all illusion; that the country was a prey to civil strife in its most cruel and barbarous form; and that the seeming urbanity of the people was too often a treacherous mask. It is not surprising if, not knowing the people as the old R.I.C. men had intimately known them, they were often unable to distinguish realities from appearances, and confounded the veiled Sinn Feiner with the real Sinn Feiner, and the loyalist with both. As for reprisals, they are best explained by instances.
2 B. 1862. In addition to distinguished war service in Egypt, S. Africa and the World War, Sir Nevil Macready was commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police 1918-20 and had dealt success- fully with the great police strike.
3 B. 1871. Served with distinction in the S. African War and throughout the World War. He commanded the gth Division in France in 1918.
4 From private information. Reports about this, as about most matters in Ireland, are very contradictory.
Reprisals.
