In spite, however, of this attempt to throw discredit on
Mr. Winston Churchill's statesmanlike efforts to avoid civil war, we still cannot believe that Mr. Asquith and his colleagues will deliberately adopt the attitude of the Prussian drill- sergeant in Barry Lyndon and find their only answer to what is going on in the north of Ireland in striking Ulster on the mouth, with a "Hound, you mutiny !" As Macaulay pointed out in 1833 (see a very timely letter in Friday's Times), every argument urged to show that great Britain and Ireland ought to have two distinct Parliaments may be urged with fur greater force for the purpose of showing that the north and the south of Ireland ought to have two distinct Parliaments, or, we may add, for leaving the north with the Parliament which it now has, and under which it desires to remain. To shed the blood of Ulster in order to support the denial of a truth of this kind would be a crime, but it is unthinkable that before committing this crime the Government should, through the mouth of a leading Cabinet Minister, proclaim that they are fully aware of its nature, and thus take away from themselves the excuse when civil war comes that they did not know what they were doing.
