THE ULSTER PROBLEM.
WHAT are you going to do about it P That is the question in regard to Ulster which all Liberal politicians try to avoid. Nevertheless till they give an answer it must be pressed upon them in season and out of season, not only by their Unionist political opponents, but by all men who are not blinded by mere party catchwords, and who, whether Unionists or Liberals, really desire the welfare of the United Kingdom and peace and good govern- ment for Ireland. As the memorable gathering in Belfast on Tuesday last showed plainly, it is utterly useless for Liberals to try to get away from the Ulster problem by pretending that it does not exist. When Home Rule is considered as an abstract proposition people may pretend to ignore that problem ; but the moment a Home Rule Bill is actually before the country and an effort is being made to dissolve the legislative Union the existence of the two Irelands becomes instantly and vehemently apparent. The essential truth is made manifest that an incorporating Union is the only just and the only practical way of regulating for the good of the whole Kingdom the relations between the two islands. But though this is our belief we do not want to prejudge the case. If the Liberals think they have a better way of regulating these relationships let they by all means pro- duce it. All we say is that in doing so they must not pretend that there is no Ulster problem. Up till now their plan has been to refuse to recognize this problem and to say nothing about the Ulstermen's absolute determination not to be driven out of the Union and forced under a Dublin Parliament. The Bill in grim silence forces them under such a Parliament. It takes no account whatever of the essential fact that though in the majority of Irish counties there is a strong local majority in favour of a Dublin Parliament, there are other counties in which there is quite as strong a majority in favour of the Union and against Home Rule in any shape or form.
Why, we may well ask, have the Liberals for the most part been so mad as thus to shut their eyes to the Ulster problem ? After all, they are very able and very experienced politicians, and they know very well that the people of Ulster are not bluffing or engaging in empty threats when they say they will not be placed under a Dublin Parliament. Again, they are fully aware that their refusal to make any concession to the Ulster case runs absolutely contrary to the principle upon which their scheme of Home Rule is based. Every Liberal writer or speaker declares that ho is just as much in favour as any Unionist of maintaining the integrity of the United Kingdom. According to him all he is doing is to provide Irishmen with the form of local government which they desire. Why, he asks, should Irishmen have their purely local affairs regulated from London ? Let them manage those affairs themselves and all will go well. In other words, he concedes to the local majority which demands it the right of determining the way in which its domestic affairs shall be managed. But if it is to be a question of the local majority deciding how their affairs are to be managed and what laws they are to live under, how is it possible to refuse the demand of the Ulstermen to remain under the Parliament at Westminster and not to be placed under the Parliament at Dublin ? No one can pretend that in North-East Ulster the will of the local majority is not against Homo Rule. Why then, even if the Liberals feel that they must grant the demands of the South of Ireland, do not they leave Ulster out of the Bill, or, at any rate, those counties of Ulster in which the local majoritye opposed to Home Rule ? The g Cabinet could get rid the Ulster problem by intro- ducing clause into their so desires to stand Bill allowing any county which outside the Home Rule Bill. Under such an arrangement the would still be to us Home Rule Bill is now, and we should have almost as objectionable as it for fighting it strenuously, plenty of arguments b and of expediency. For the both on grounds of principle Liberal, however, who believes in the sanctity of the local majority, the situation would be saved. He would not be violating' e e his own principles, and he would get rid of that nightmare which haunts his dreams, the coercion of Ulster. Think for a moment what a nightmare this must be to the anti-militarist Liberal who sincerely disbelieves in force, and thinks that the greatest of all evils is putting down an insurrection. However lighthearted may be his words about Ulster, he knows in his heart that Ulster is not bluffing, that Ulster will refuse to acknowledge a Dublin Parliament, and that he will then be called upon to use troops to compel the Ulster taxpayers to pay their taxes into the Dublin treasury, to obey the orders of the Dublin Executive, and to carry out the decrees of the Dublin courts of law. It will be utterly hateful to him to see orders given to British troops to fire upon Ulstermen, but he will either have to do this or to repeal the Home Rule Bill as soon as it is passed. And hero we may say that no one must imagine that British soldiers will not obey the Executive in this matter. However much they may loathe the duty, both officers and men will carry out, as they ought, all orders which they receive from a properly constituted authority. Wo can quite understand that the nation will never forgive the Cabinet which gives the orders to shoot down the Ulstermen because they will not be driven out of the Union, but it will not only hold blameless the soldiers who have the tragic duty of carrying out such orders, but would censure them if they refused to carry them out.
We come back, then, to asking once more, what is the solution of this mystery ? Why do not the Liberals fit their Bill with a safety valve as regards Ulster and thus get rid of the appalling difficulties which must crowd upon them the moment the attempt is made to force Ulster under a Dublin Parliament ? The answer, of course, is that the Liberals have been told by their Irish allies that it is an essential condition of any Home Rule Bill which is to be paid as the price of their support that such Bill shall contain no concession or compromise in regard to Ulster. A Home Rule Bill which forces Belfast and the North-East Counties of Ulster under the Dublin Parlia- ment is the only coin in which the Nationalists will accept payment for their services. Therefore, since those services are essential to the Ministry, the Ministry is coerced into violating their principle of yielding to the will of the local majority. They are forced to say to Ulster :—" A. principle which is good enough for the South is too good for you." No doubt we shall be told that we have put the matter very unfairly and that it is monstrous for us to suggest that the Home Rule Bill has only been taken up by the Govern- ment in order to keep themselves in office. Very well ; so be it. Let us assume that this is a piece of party vitupera- tion, and that the Government and the Liberal Party are introducing the Home Rule Bill solely on its merits. In that case we must still press the question : Why is the will of the people of the South of Ireland to be respected and the will of the people of the North ignored ? The answer that will no doubt be given is that it is impossible to frame a Home Rule Bill which would be workable if Ulster were left out. In the first place the Irish people would not have it, and in the second place the financial proposals must utterly break down if the only prosperous part of Ireland were exempted and were to remain under the Parliament at Westminster. But surely this is not an argument for a Home Rule Bill, but rather an argument against it. Put fairly, it comes to this. If Home Rule cannot be granted without doing a gross injustice to the counties of North-East Ulster, then Home Rule had better be abandoned. The fact that Home Rule involves such injustice is a proof that it is not a, sound solution of the Irish problem. Perhaps an effort will be made to turn this argument round and to ask why the people of the North should be allowed to override the claim of the people of the South of Ireland. to self-government. The practical answer is : Never alter the status quo if you cannot do so without committing an injustice. In order to do a great right never do a groat or even a little wrong. But this, indeed, is only another facet of the essential truth that the legislative. and executive Union of the two islands must be maintained, because experience shows that such incorporating Union is the best way, nay, the only just and practicable way, of governing Ireland. Every other attempt to govern Ireland has proved a complete failure. The Union may not be perfect, but at any rate it has had much better results than either the complete legislative independence of Grattan's Parliament or the limited independence of previous Irish Parliaments. Remember, wo have tried every variety of subordinate Parliament. The Union came into existence not out of any inherent wickedness in Pitt, but because every other form of governing Ireland had been exhausted—because, in fact, it was inevitable. In a word, if we robe the Ulster problem to the bottom we find that it brings us to the essential argument for the Union. The incorporating Union is the institution which divides Ireland least, which does least injustice, and which is the best security of good government for her people. The Union is necessary because there are two Irelands, not one. Unless, then, anarchy is to result the people of England and Scotland must hold the balance and prevent civil war. The dissolution of the Union caused by the Home Rule Bill would prove an actual provocation to such civil war. Before we leave the Ulster problem we will once more put on record in these pages the question which was put by Abraham Lincoln with such admirable force in the early days of his presidency. Here is the question :— " I speak of that assumed primary right of a Slate to rule all which is less than itself, and ruin all which is Larger than itself. If a State and a County in a given case should be equal in extent of territory, and equal in number of inhabitants, in what, as a matter of principle, is the State better than the County ? Would an exchange of names be an exchange of rights upon principle P On what rightful principle may a State, being not more than one- fiftieth part of the nation in soil and population, break up the nation, and then coerce a proportionately larger subdivision of itself in the most arbitrary way ? What mysterious right to play tyrant is con- ferred on a district of a country by merely calling it a State? Follow-citizens, I am not asserting anything; I am merely asking questions for you to consider."
Let those Liberals who are wroth with Ulster and for the moment are mad enough to think that they have a moral right to coerce Ulster if necessary with fire and sword ponder well these words of the greatest statesman and the noblest man that the English-speaking race produced since Cromwell. Let Liberals remember also Cromwell's words in regard to alterations in the fundamental Constitution like those involved in Home Rule :- " And, if so, what do you think the consequence of that would be ? Would it not be confusion ? Would it not be utter con- fusion P Would it not make England like Switzerland—ono county against another as one canton of the Swiss is against another ? And if so, what would that produce but an absolute desolation—an absolute desolation to the nation P" Assuredly if Home Rule passes, and Home Rule founded on a gross injury to the men of the North, it must pro- duce " an absolute desolation to the nation."
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