Trevor West on Horace Plunkett

Century of Endeavour

Horace Plunkett, Co-operation and Politics

Trevor West

Colin Smythe, Bucks, UK, for Catholic University of America, Washington DC. 1986

Although this book also was published long before I sat down to write 'Century', to my eternal regret I had not come across it. I am adding the following notes on it in support of the Plunkett et al background to JJ's political work, and also with particular reference to the contemporary need for a re-evaluation of the need for co-operative organisation. I am also adding some notes on the political background, under the Tory 'kill Home Rule with kindness' regime, based on Andrew Gailey's 1987 book on that theme, published by Cork UP.

Background

Horace Plunkett, the third son of Lord Dunsany, went to Wyoming in 1879 to pick up experience of the cattle trade. Michael Davitt had been to the US seeking support for the Land League. A reporter for the Omaha Daily Bee smelled a story and interviewed Plunkett, who suggested that the land agitations would ruin many landlords, who would be motivated to transfer their interests to the US. Plunkett at the time was not a supporter of Parnell or the League. In his Wyoming experience, which lasted intermittently until 1889, he did however pick up a feel for practical problems and social interaction with the farming community. He identified the free range system as a recipe for disaster.

On his return to Ireland Plunkett managed the estate, the elder son John being an MP. He picked up his feel for history from Lecky, who was MP for TCD from 1895 to 1902, and had critical views on the role of the Catholic Church in the formation of the Irish character, which he regarded as lacking the industrial virtuse of the protestant tradition. In his view of the future, Plunkett was influenced by Berkeley's Querist, as was JJ, indicating a common philosophical attitude to development economics.

Co-operative Union

Plunkett's introduction to the co-operative movement dates from 1885, when he attempted to organise the Irish graziers to combine in the development of a dead meat trade, taking advantage of the then innovative refrigeration technology, of which he had experience from Wyoming. This however did not succeed, so he cultivated links with the Co-operative Union in Britain, attending their Ipswich Congress in 1889. The movement in Britain was consumer-led, and the Belfast Co-op was founded in this year. Plunkett took up the leadership of the Irish section of the Union, and with Fr Finlay from 1890 initiated a campaign to introduce co-operation to Irish agriculturel production. This was an all-Ireland campaign, with a strong Ulster Protestant component. The consumer co-op model however proved difficult in the Irish context, but the key factor turned out to be the Laval separator and steam-driven churn, which was revolutionising dairy production in Scandinavia; Danish butter was taking over the British market. European agricultural co-operation rather than British consumer co-operation were the way forward.

The IAOS

The first co-op creamery was set up in 1889 in Drumcollogher, Co Limerick, despite opposition from the gombeen-dominated nationalist press and political establishment. By the end of 1891 there were 15 co-ops, and Plunkett went to Balfour (of 'bloody' fame) seeking official support, and to the RDS, through which existing agricultural support was channelled. The RDS however snubbed Plunkett, preferring to deal with the Co-operative Union, from which they sought technical support. The Ascendancy element who ran the RDS preferred to deal with Britain. Problems also arose at the co-operative grass-roods over dealings with the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS). The CWS wanted to set up its own creameries, rather than to deal with producer co-ops. The result of this was the formation of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society at a meeting in Dublin in 1894. The platform at this meeting had a somewhat Establishment flavour, which perhaps militated against the subsequent development of the movement; there was a hint of the 'kill Home Rule with kindness' political philosophy.

Plunkett never met Parnell, though he had hoped to; there was some common ground in their economic thinking, which did not however get developed. Plunkett's unionist politics, which he later abandoned, was ripe for erosion, and a Parnell meeting had it taken place would perhaps have stimulated this process. In 1892 however he accepted a unionist nomination, and stood for parliament in South Dublin, against Balfour's advice, who valued his work on the Congested Districts Board; he was under the illusion that it would '...strengthen his influence in Ireland and ...facilitate (his) economic and industrial work.' He fell foul of Davitt, who regarded his co-operative schemes as distracting the Irish farmer from politics. He did however develop good relations with the Parnellites after the split.

The Recess Committee and DATI

Plunkett was instrumental in pulling together the broad-based Recess Commmittee which produced a Report in 1896 which had a dramatic effect, removing Irish issues from the Westminster arena and effectively making a Home-Rule-based case for the development of Irish agriculture, industry and technical education. In effect Plunkett was developing a Home Rule set of policies within the Unionist Party, to the chagrin of his colleagues therein. In the 1900 elections he lost his seat, being attacked by the Nationalists for his policy of trying to may the Union acceptable. He continued his association with the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction (DATI), which had been on of the fruits of the work of the Recess Committee, but on the whole his venture into politics under the unionist label was a disaster, and gave the co-operative movement a quite unneccessary political flavour, which hampered its development.

Plunkett's role in the early 1900s was in the DATI lead, with Ministerial status (though not an MP). In this context he was able to ensure that technical education was secular, and that the co-operative movement had a State subsidy. He interacted positively with Douglas Hyde and the language movement, and with Pearse in St Enda's, likewise with George Russell, Standish O'Grady, W B Yeats and Lady Gregory. Lennox Robinson worked for him, founding Carnegie Libraries. George Russell editing the Irish Homestead gave it a literary flavour; the movement was a focus for Irish writers. Alice Stopford Green, whose brother E A Stopford was on the IAOS Committee, while supporting Plunkett's economic movement, was critical of its lack of philosophy. Plunkett's problem was how to do this without losing his unionist supporters. Despite this, Russell aspired to synthesise co-operative ideals with nationhood.

Kilteragh; Plunkett House...

In 1903 Plunkett took a house in Foxrock, Kilteragh, which became his base for the following 20 years, and a focus for many positive contacts and developments. The names of practically everyone ofsubsequent national significance figure in the guest book (cf p98). He developed a model farm, which was run by one Thomas Wibberley, who demonstrated a scheme for supporting dairying with fodder crops, in such a way as to support enough autumn calving to enable, with winter feeding, continuous all-year milk production, a key requirement for local creameries to enable consistent supply of the export market. This problem remains with us; it was addressed by JJ in a 1932 SSISI paper, and by RJ in 1972 in a Bord Bainne report, along with other projects for agricultural co-operatives. RJ 25/07/07. This aroused considerable interest at the time and many farmers came to see it, in the 1914-1916 period.

After Plunkett's retirement from DATI in 1906 (after the Liberal victory), he took up the IAOS again, so that by 1913 there were 985 local co-ops, turning over £3.3M. The current HQ, Plunkett House in Merrion Square, was established, with a reference library, supported by the Carnegie Foundation. In this positive environment it is unfortunate that Plunkett's 1904 book Ireland in the New Century, which contained many positive ideas, did not get the support it deserved, due to his criticism of the Catholic Church, which drew the fire from the Catholic Nationalist element in the political arena.

The Ulster Dimension

Despite the Home Rule tensions, there was great interest in the IAOS in the North. The Irish Textile Journal in Belfast was supportive; the Tyrone Constitution reporting the foundation of the Fintona creamery called for another in Omagh. The Belfast Evening Telegraph also commented faviourably, expressing surprise at a positive innovative industrial initiative emerging from Munster. In 1891 Plunkett met with the emergent Belfast Co-op, and established links with the Liberal Unionists, whose MPs Musgrave, Sinclair and Andrews were involved with the Recess Committee. Harold Barbour, of the Lisburn textile firm, was an active supporter of the IAWS and continued to lead the UAOS in the post-Partition situation. The problem was how to persuade Catholics to support a movement visibly led by Liberal Unionist notables, but it did prove to be a significant cross-community unifier, even post-Partition, according to the Irish Homestead extracts given by West (pp 108-9).

In 1907, after Plunkett had resigned from DATI and was again primarily in the IAOS lead, his associate Anderson was like him a unionist, while Russell (AE) and Father Finlay were nationalists. The problem was how to hold the movemnent together in the polarising Home Rule enviromment. Sinn Fein emerged in 1905 as another factor; in January 1908 AE brought Arthur Griffith to meet Plunkett at Kilteragh, but they did not meet again until 1922 (p115). They had common ground in their aversion to violence. Plunkett at the time saw the General Council of County Councils evolving a quasi-parliamentary role. Edward Martyn, of literary movement fame, was President of Sinn Fein and was a supporter of the IAOS. Visitors to Kilteragh included Roger Casement and Alice Stopford Green. By August 1911 Plunkett was prepared to admit, privately, that he was a Home Ruler, opposing with Sinclair and Andrews the right for Ulster to use force against the process (p117). T W Russell, the East Tyrone MP who had taken over the DATI from Plunkett, distanced the DATI from support for the IAOS, removing the subsidy, under the influence of the Parliamentary Party. Plunkett feared that this would drive some of the liberal unionists who had been supporters of the IAOS in Ulster into the arms of Carson.

Home Rule and Partition

In October 1908 Bob Barton, a young member of a progressive Wicklow land-owning family, after graduating from Oxford began to work for the IAOS, being welcomed by Plunkett. He brought his cousin Erskine Childers to meet Plunkett at Kilteragh; Childers was by then well-known as the author of the Riddle of the Sands which had been influential in changing British naval strategy in the light of the perceived German threat. Childers and Barton toured the western co-operatives in 1908, motivating Childers in the Home Rule direction. Subsequent contact with Ulster liberals via Plunkett enriched Childers' Framework of Home Rule published in 1911. (p119). Childers at this time wrote from an imperial political position, advocating dominion home rule, with complete fiscal independence. This position subsequently was adopted by Plunkett in 1920 wih his Irish Dominion League. Carson's response to Childers' book was a collection of essays by Austin Chamberlain and others, highlighting the importance of imperial defence. Carson had supported Plunkett and the DATI development, and had noted the hostility of the nationalist to this progressive economic development. The Ulster opposition to Home Rule was however seen in two-nation terms.

Plunkett and AE argued strongly against the 'Rome Rule' bogey, and saw to it that Propertional Representation was embedded in the 1914 Bill, with the support of Carson and Bonar law. In the Ballymoney rally of Protestants against Carsonism in 1913, Alec Wilson instanced the experience of the IAOS which had 1000 societies nationally, most with Catholic and Protestant members, all managing their business without sectarian issues. Plunkett argued for a concession in terms of temporary inclusion of Ulster with right to opt out, confident that IAOS positive experience would preserve unity. Plunkett met Carson in January 1914; the latter admitted loss of control. Basically the Tories were in command. The Larne gun-running in April 1914 introduced the arms dimension; basically this was a Tory coup against the Liberal Home Rule process. Plunkett responded with An Appeal to Ulster not to Desert Ireland in June, in which he argued forcefully against the Partition disaster. Then in August came the war, and the Bill was shelved.

The War in the 1916 Rising

As soon as war was declared Plunkett gave priority to using his US contacts in the interests of getting the US in as an ally of Britain. A key contact was Colonel Edward House, a Texan who had helped Wilson get elected as President, who recognised him as has special adviser (p138). Plunkett visited the US in 1914, 1915 and 1916; on the first two occasions he was promoting US entry, and in 1916 he was influential in getting an Irish-American group to meet Balfour when the latter was visiting Wilson, seeking a generous settlement of the issues as seen on May 4, underlining the threat of Partition. This had no political effect, but helped at the time to mollify Irish-American opinion (p144). This however in the post-1916 situation must have fortified Plunkett's image in the Irish context as being basically supportive of the British position.

Prior to 1916, the co-operative movement in Britain had been supportive of the Irish trade unionists in 1913. Once the war came, Plunkett House staff were totally pro-British. Initial goodwill however was undermined by the British treatment of those Irish who volunteered; Redmond's volunteers were split up among English and Scottish regiments. On April 23 Mahaffy the TCD Provost lunched with Plunkett at Kilteragh. On the following day Plunkett, on the phone to the Castle, began to get an indication of the 'dies irae' situation. On April 26 Plunkett went to the Castle and sent a cypher telegram to Balfour urging the importance in the US context of stressing the German influence on the Rising, based on the Casement capture. On May 7 he met with General Maxwell and did his best to prevent executions, without success. He also tried to get Asquith to see that the Rising had nothing to do with Sinn Fein; he blamed the Nationalists for not producing a decent Home Rule Bill. Of the leaders of the Rising, Connolly was closest to Plunkett, as evidenced by his Reconquest of Ireland, with its chapter on the Ralahine pioneer co-operative. Plunkett helped the Connolly family get to the USA. Basically his position remained for all-Ireland Home Rule supportive of the British war effort.

The Convention

When the Convention met in July 1917, with a view to trying to reform the Irish political structure, Plunkett emerged as Chairman, after being proposed by AE. De Valera had just then been elected for Clare, but the emerging strong position of Sinn Fein was unrecognised in the Convention structure. There was however a tentative SF link via AE and Edward McLysaght, the latter being in touch with Bulmer Hobson and James Douglas, but the Irish MPs from Redmond's party had 40 members, and the Ulster Carsonite input was strong and vocifeous. Plunkett did his best to promote all-Ireland Dominion Home Rule, with an optional delayed opt-out Ulster counties. Discussion on this, which might just have had a positive outcome, was side-tracked into Land Act issues, with the result that in the end Lloyd George, under Tory and Carsonite influence, imposed Partition. The failure of the Convention contributed to Plunkett's subsequent negative image with the emergent national movement. The Customs and Exise issue also concerned the Northern industrial interest. Plunkett enlisted Pigou the Cambridge economist in the drafting of a paper with which he hoped to win Northern industry for his all-Ireland model, in which context he had hoped to develop the economy co-operatively without resort to protectionism. This however in its transmission to the Ulster group was post-scripted in support of the Lloyd George/Tory model (p108).

During the Convention, JJ was actively in touch with the SF input via AE, and with the Convention via Childers; see the 1910s Political module of the hypertext. He was also reporting on it for the Manchester Guardian. He had met with Plunkett in 1914, after his 'Civil War in Ulster' book had been published, but Plunkett was inclined to dismiss him as having '...great learning but no experience'.

Post-1918

After the Convention had failed, and before the SF landslide, Plunkett did his best to rally moderate opinion, with his Irish Reconstruction Association, aiming at self-government within the Empire. He tried to draw on South African experience via Smuts. His by then tenuous links with unionism were by now abandoned, and he kept being attracted to some sort of political role, though usually without success; for example he tried to encourage support for the war aims without conscription, but got labelled as being effectively pro-conscription. He campaigned against Partition, in Britain on the Liberal network, and then in the US, where he was reported dead, and had occasion to complain of his obituary (p186). Later he launched the Irish Dominion League, supported by the Irish Statesman. His situation however went from bad to worse, but when in the war of independence situation the Tans were burning co-ops Plunkett was in the lead of the IAOS seeking the support of the co-operative movement in Britain to put pressure on the Government and expose the military versions of these events, which suggested they were the IRA in British uniform (p190-1).

Plunkett maintained his contact with Erskine Childers, who by 1921 he had evaluated as 'fanatical' and a malevolent influence on de Valera, preventing the compromise '..which the Irish increasingly want.' When the Treaty negotiations were going on Plunkett wrote 'Erskine Childers is said to be the most arcane stickler for independence and de Valera largely to be in his hands'.

Partition and Civil War

With the ratification of the Treaty Plunkett became an active supporter of the Free State, with a view to supporting the reconstruction of economic life. He met with Collins at Kilteragh; he had been introduced by Lady Lavery; Plunkett was favourably impressed. Four days later Collins was dead, '...a calamity of the first magnitude'. In the civil war Foxrock was a minor battlefield; Plunkett sought protection for his house. Plunkett held out against the use of the death penalty, urging deportation instead, with Childers in mind. Plunkett was nominated by Cosgrave to the Senate; he got support for a trip to the US with a view to updating himself on US agricultural policy, and exploring how the US Congress handled legislative reference, with the Oireachtas Library in mind.

When he was in the US his house was blown up, and then subsequently burned, his reward for being a Senator. George Gilmore subsequently admitted rsponsibility for the initial act; he regarded Plunkett as '...one of the most determined enemies of the independence movement and was close to the British government in its efforts to destroy it'. This illustrates the complexity of the problem of how the movement for economic democracy relates to the movement for national independence. Gilmore was a positive role-model for successive subsequent left-republican projects, in the 30s and again in the 60s, but even he had not understood how far Plunkett had evolved from his initial unionist position, and how important this evolutionary process would have been for northern unionists, had the IAOS remained a key factor in national economic development..

Free State and Aftermath

The Irish Statesman was revived and ran from 1923 to 1930. Besides Plunkett, Lionel Smith-Gordon, WB Yeats and George O'Brien were directors; AE became editor and incorporated the Irish Homestead in it. Writers included Austin Clarke, Padraic Colum, Robin Flower, Alice Stopford Green, Oliver StJohn Gogarty, Douglas Hyde, Sean O'Casey, Liam O'Flaherty, Bernard Shaw and many others, including JJ. This was the swan-song of the inclusive Irish national consciousness which could have emerged had all-Ireland Home Rule not been killed by the Toty-Orange imperial conspiracy. It was soon to overlaid by the catholic-nationalist exclusivist culture initiated in the context of the Eucharistic Congress, which dominated up to Pope John XXXII time, despite the best efforts of the 'Bell' and the handful of critical intellectuals who remained.

The partitioned IAOS survived in the Free State, but the UAOS, due to its initial non-sectarian nature, fell foul of the Stormont regime and the grant was withdrawn in 1924. It continued with support from some enlightened industrialists. In the Free State the Plunkett House Library was transferred to what became the Plunkett Foundation near Oxford, also in 1924. Lennox Robinson fell foul of the Church and was forced out of his Carnegie Trust job, founding libraries all over Ireland; the HQ of the Trust was transferred to Scotland. JJ in the context of his Barrington Lectures tried his best to keep the Carnegie network alive, but the Scottish HQ tended to regard lecturing on economics as subversive.

There was an Empire conference in 1924 on agricultural co-operation, and Plunkett contributed to this, in the light of his Irish experience. He visited Ireland in 1925 and continued from then on to network with the Free State government, being greatly impressed with the work on the Shannon hydro-electric scheme. He visited Belfast in 1928, taking a dim view of Stormont. The assessment of Plunkett as having been primarily an agent of the British crown continued, in the minds to those leading the 'national independence movement' in its successive forms, resulting in the co-operative movement never having evolved the leading role in all-Ireland economic democracy to which it aspired. The burning in 1972 of the premises of the Belfast Co-op (founded 1889, with the initial Co-operative Union wave) testified to the continuation of this false consciousness. A minor celebratory conference took place in 1954, with the issue of a Centenary Handbook, to which JJ contributed a short paper.

There is much to be done to re-habilitate an important constructive economic thinker and activist, who left a positive legacy of contemporary relevance, despite having been '...deprived of his parliamentary seat in 1900 by the unionists, driven from office in 1907 by the nationalists, denounced for espousing dominion home rule in 1919 by Carson, and burnt out of Kilteragh in 1923 by the republicans' (p217)

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