TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE DOUBLE BETRAYAL.
Mr. Lloyd George has given a pledge to the Unionist Party and the people of North-East Ulster in the following words " I can support no settlement which would involve the forcible coercion of Ulster. Is that sufficient F Knowing the nature of Politicians and their genius for befogging a plain issue and bemusing the people of Great Britain, we do not think it is.
• We do not want to be unjust to Mr. Lloyd George, but can any one say that he deems it absolutely impossible that a year or eighteen months hence Mr. Lloyd George could declare that circumstances had changed greatly since the Peace, that the need for a final settle- ment of the Irish problem had become urgent, that deep embarrass- ment was caused in Europe by the failure to settle that problem, and finally that the settlement could not be made " if North-East Ulster proved selfish and recalcitrant," and that accordingly a solution of the problem " not involving the partition of Ireland, though providing ample guarantees against the forcible coercion of North-East Ulster," must be adopted ? Clearly no sincere person would venture to declare the taking up of such an attitude by the Prime Minister as beyond the bounds of possibility.—SrEcTAToE, November 23:d, 1918.
THE Government, or rather the Prime Minister—for he alone is in power, and has but to move his hand to make the Puppets squeak—is guilty of a double betrayal. He has betrayed not only Ulster but the Unionist Party. He has betrayed Ulster by first promising never to coerce her and now by applying the subtlest and most virulent form of coercion. She is being coerced in a bad cause as in a good cause Portia coerced Shylock. Ulster is told, in the language of menace, that she can have her pound of flesh if she likes to insist upon it. But woe to her if she claims her rights. The whole world shall ring with her selfishness and her guilt. She and her people shall go down to posterity as those who might have given Peace and Happiness to Ireland and Union and Security to the Empire, but who refused the opportunity in her selfishness and her pride. When Ulster, amazed at the impudence and false- hood of such an attack, asks why she is chosen as the side from which all concessions and sacrifice must come, she is shouted down by the clamour of a gramophone Press, which does not represent public opinion, but is merely the faithful exponent of its Master's Voice. Ulster is sordid and domineering. She asks too much. As a matter of fact, she has asked nothing. She has only reminded the Prime Minister of the solemn pledges ho made to her, and has pointed out that she stands exactly where she has always stood. Fate and the Force of Circumstances have decreed that there shall be two Irelands. Ulster only insists that if the right of self-determination is to be applied to Ireland, as an essential principle of political justice it shall be applied to both parts of Ireland. The South, that is, must not be allowed to separate herself from the rest of the United Kingdom by claiming self-determination and then be allowed to deny the sacred principle when tho Ulstermen rely upon it to protect themselves and their liberties. Never since Henry VIII. invoked the law of consanguinity to divorce Katherine of Aragon and then denounced it in order to marry Anne Boleyn has there been so cynical a perversion of principle. Incredible as it will sound to the historians of other ages, this is Ulster's solo crime. She asks that what is held to be justice for the South shall be justice for her. But when she thus asks that what is sauce for the goose shall be sauce for the gander, she is told that she asks too much. What other crime but this can be brought against her ? She has broken no pledge in the spirit or in the letter. She did not rise in insurrection at the crisis of the War in order to enforce her claims on the Imperial Government. She did not refuse to let her sons play their part in defending the United Kingdom and the Empire. She has never conducted a murder-campaign. Her leaders have again and again prevented any reprisals in kind on the Roman Catholic minority within her bound- aries. Even under the strongest temptation there have been no attempts to kill or to kidnap Sinn Fein chiefs in the Six County Area. . Provocative tactics have instead been borne with a temper and a patience which give denial to all the calumnies that have been poured out against her. Ulster has not even claimed a right to take part in a Con- ference in which her interests are by necessity in some measure involved. At the very beginning she showed her wisdom and also her good faith and sincerity by a public and formal declaration that she made no claim whatever to veto any arrangement- which the Imperial Government chose to make with the South—provided, of course, that the rights of the Six County Area (acknowledged and confirmed in the Act of 1920) were respected in the spirit and in the letter. Though, as part of the United Kingdom and represented in the Parliament at Westminster, she had a moral and a legal claim to take part in any Consti- tutional settlement, she waived her claim with the proviso just mentioned. Once more she made it impossible for am- one to say that she claimed a right of veto. That was the reason why she could not take part in the Conference. To have done so would have been incompatible with her determination to claim no right to interfere between Great Britain and the South.
Yet, in spite of her record of loyalty and good faith and of her reticence and reasonableness in a very difficult position, she is to be accused of refusing to allow peace and prosperity to come back to Ireland.
It is always well to study the lessons of history and to see how great statesmen in the past have dealt with diffi- culties similar to those of our day. Curiously enough, we can find in American history an almost exact analogy to the situation which now confronts us in Ireland. West Virginia, at the beginning of the Civil War—may the omen be absent—separated herself from Virginia and became a sell-determined State. Later, Mr. Lincoln and his Administration had to deal with the question whether the great and proud State of Virginia was to be partitioned. In spite of the disloyal part she had played, and was playing, many upholders of the Union shrank from what was represented as rending her in twain. Would it not prolong hatred and malice ? Could Virginia ever forgive such mutilation ? Her proud people declared that they never would. Was it worth while to incur their eternal enmity ? Why should not the people of West Virginia be generous and reasonable I Why should they insist on their pound of flesh ? Why should they not remain in the State of Virginia, mitigate its fierceness, and so help the Union ? Why should West Virginia not make a little sacrifice in order to secure benefits so great and so lasting ?
How did Mr. Lincoln deal with these pleas ? Like the great and sincere statesman he was, he refused utterly to build his policy on a foundation of paradox. He would have none of the sophistries which the Lloyd Georges of his time tried to impress upon him. The words of his Cabinet minute are so apt and so impressive- that ye cannot do better than quote them verbatim :- " Can this Government stand, if it indulges constitutional constructions by which men in open rebellion against it aro to be accounted, man for man, the equals of those who maintain their loyalty to it ? . . If so, their treason against the Constitu- tion enhances their constitutional value ! . . . It is said the devil takes care of his own. Much more should a good spirit— the spirit of the Constitution and the ITnion—take care of own. I think it cannot do less and live."
• • • •
" Doubtless those in remaining Virginia would return to the Union, so to speak, less reluctantly without the division of the old State than with it, but I think we could not save as much in this quarter by rejecting the new State as we should lose by. it in West Virginia. We can scarcely dispense with the aid et West Virginia in this struggle ; much less can we afford to have her against us, in Congress and in the field. Her bravo and good men regard her admission into the Union as a matter of life and death. They have been true to tho Union under very severe trials. We have so acted as to justify their hopes, and we cannot fully retain their confidence, and co-operation, if we seem to break faith with them. . . . The division of a State is dreaded as a precedent. But a measure made expedient by a war is no precedent for times of peace. It is said that the admission 01 West Virginia is secession, and tolerated only because it is out secession. Well, if we call it by that name, there is still different,! enough between secession against the Constitution, and scceseioi in favour of the Constitution.. . • ." LINCOLN, Opinion, December 31st, 1862, MS.
Is it possible to controvert the wisdom and sincerity of Lincoln's attitude ?• Is it possible to-say that the case 01 West Virginia is not in essentials on all fours with the case of North Ireland ? Is it unfair to say that we have right to expect Mr. Lloyd George to display as high a spirit and as just a temper as did Mr. Lincoln ? • We have shown how signal, how complete has been tP betrayal of Ulster. But perhaps it will be said that Iv are estopped by what we wrote in November, 1918, the passage placed in italics at the head of this article, from making any complaint in the matter. If we felt sure, as we obviously did, that Mr. Lloyd George was going to betray Ulster, how can we say that he has deceived us ?
The validity of such a defence of Mr. Lloyd George we must leave to the judgment of our readers, for we have left ourselves scant space in which to deal with the second item in the Prime Minister's programme of betrayal—the betrayal of the Unionist Party. The great political Vampire has left it white and bloodless, just as he did the Liberal Party. Already there are signs that he is looking around for new victims. The Wee-Frees have a little blood left that they can be coerced or cajoled into rendering up. The Labour Party still shows signs of redness, and therefore may be drawn upon. Besides, there is still some vitality in portions of the Coalition. Out of these " remains "—the leavings of the great feast of blood—Mr. Lloyd George means, it would seem, to seek further political sub- sistence.
Is there no one left in the Unionist Party with enough courage and energy to make an effort to save it ? It is a great opportunity, and curiously enough requires no great labour. The first Unionist with the gift of leadership who will take the gloves oil and go for Mr. Lloyd George will win the day. Remember, the country as a whole does not love the Prime Minister. He has never touched its heart. His strength is in the Commons, in the Caucus, and in a kept Press—not in the constituencies. Give one vigorous push and the idol will collapse. Drive away the Vampire, and for a day or two deprive it of its accustomed food, and it will lose its power. Its appetite is always growing for a food that is always wasting. But that does not make for -strength.
If at this moment the country were consulted on a plain and straight issue, the verdict would not be for Mr. Lloyd Uleorge but for Ulster and against Sinn Fein.
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