19 JULY 1919, Page 2

The British public are talking vaguely and generally about Dominion

government, but are our readers aware that it is merely a phrase, and that no one apparently means by it any- thing like Dominion government such as exists in the Colonies ? There is another question we should like to ask. Has it occurred to them that it is most unfair to abuse Sir Edward Carson for daring to suggest that the Home Rule Act shall not come into operation, when similar things are said every day by Mr. de Valera and his colleagues ? The Sinn Feiners are dead against the Constitution established by the Home Rule Act, and will accept it in no circumstances. They toll us, indeed, that they will not accept full Dominion government. They want separa- tion pure and simple and nothing else, and they at any rate have had the honesty to say so. We are aware that English Home Rule leaders and English Home Rule organs of opinion, like the IV estminster Gazette, the Daily News, and the Manchester Guardian, suggest that this is not true, and that the Sinn Feiners would in reality be quite glad to take anything they can get in'the way of Homo Rule, but we do not see the slightest ground for believing any such thing. The distinguished Liberal leaders and newspapers that we have mentioned are misled by the tactics of Parliamentary politicians to which they are so well accustomed. The Sinn Feiner, however, is of a different complexion, and we do not in the least believe that the tiger will ever tamely lap skim-milk out of the Home Rule saucer.