TOPICS OF THE DAY.
BIRRELLISM.—THIRD EDITION.
ON the surface the Government's policy in regard to the Irish situation seems satisfactory, and we need hardly say that we are heartily glad that Mr. De Valera, Mr. Griffith, and the chief firebrands of the Sinn Fein. Party have been put under arrest, and the general public permitted to know what has been blown for over a year to the Govern- ment and all serious students of Irish affairs—namely, the intimate connexion between Sinn Fein and our German enemies. But , though we may be thankful that Mr. De Valera was not actually allowed to receive the Germano- Hibernian gentleman who landed from the submarine, and heartily agree that there is ground for suspicion in the fact that Mr. De Valera had on his person documents show- ing that he (Mr. De Valera) had worked out in great detail the constitution of his rebel .army, and hoped to be able to muster half-a-million trained men," we are by no means easy as to the essential outcome of recent Government action. Though we say it with deep regret, it looks to us as if we were actually going to be provided with a new issue of Birrellism, and as if the Government, unwarned by two previous failures, were once more going to try to turn the tiger into a cat by calling it " Pretty Pussy." _ We hope devoutly that we may prove wrong ; but as long as the Government intention holds, as apparently it does, to bring in a Home Rule Bill ; as long also as the Government use the language of apology such as closes the communiqui as to the guilt of the Sinn Feiners ; and above all, as long as Mr. Lloyd George showers testimonials as to character on the Nationalists, as he did in his speech at Edinburgh, who can say that we are over-anxious in expressing our belief that we are going to have a Third Edition of Birrellism ?
In the First Edition of Birrellism the plan was to pretend that there was so little harm in militant Sinn Feinism that it was perfectly safe to allow Sinn Fein Volunteers to arm and to drill, and to practise, week by week, street-fighting in Dublin and the seizing of Government buildings. Any one who ventured to hint that there was evidence that the Sinn Feinera had got into touch with Germany was regarded, not merely as a lunatic, but as a malignant lunatic who did not recognize " the noble work done by Mr. Redmond, &c., &e." Then came the' Rebellion of Easter, 1916, and for a month or two the public in general, and even the Government, thanked their stars for our escar, and went about saying, quite knowingly : "Strange as it may seem, it was a tiger, and those depressing people who warned us, and were so unkind about Mr. Redmond and the Nationalists, were right after all." But this mood soon passed, and before the autumn of 1916 Mr. Lloyd George had prevailed upon the Government to let him try his hand at a scheme by which the Home Rule Act might be put into operation, with Exclusion for Ulster, and dishes of cream all' round for the. convertible tiger-cats, great and small. Most of the tigers, however, would not even Took at their cream-bowls, and in the end nothing came Of the scheme. But Mr. Lloyd George, who evidently is a convinced Birrellife, • did not lose heart. As soon as he fairly got to work he started the 'great camouflage scheme of the Convention. The Convention was a patent scheme, whose authors assured us that, if you only talked long enough and loud enough and Used words sufficiently dexterously, the tiger really would shrink into a cat. In a word, we had Birrellism, Second Edition, with a considerable amount of new matter—notes, ap- pendices, and receipts for " Safeguards " and " Soft-soap Elixirs." The result was exactly what all sane people expected, and what was again and again pointed out in our columns would be the inevitable result of a second attempt at Birrellism. The Sinn Feiners were not in the least converted by the setting tip of the Convention. Nobody's views, indeed, were changed thereby. Again, -just as in the Original Edition of Birrellism nobody was allowe,d• to take precautions against Irish sedition lest it should annoy the Extremists, who were " so good and happy, playing at soldiers, poor darlings ! " so in the Second Edition no one was allowed to talk about what happened in the Convention, and "strong appeals were made by the advocates of the Government not to embitter feeling and 'endanger the work of conciliation by drawing attention to the plain-spoken and obviously sincere declarations of Mr. De Valera that the Sinn Feiners were on the side of, and in alliance with, the Germans; and meant to help their allies in every possible way they could. That, again, was only " play," though it might be an extremely dangerous thing not to " pretend that one didn't see it." It ia true that the Second. Edition did not actually" end in bloodshed, but otherwise the binding and get-up of the two Editions were extraordinarily alike. In the Second as in the First there were the landing of the gentleman in the collapsible boat ; his inability to sink his boat, so thorough in each case did German construction prove to be; the arrest with the com- promising documents ; and finally, the fixing of an agreed date for the chief event—quaintly enough, both just at the time of one of the Feasts of the Church. Everything was, in fact, in order.
Now, utterly incredible as it seems, the Government appear to be about to get busy with the Third Edition. This sounds a harsh thing to say, and, as we have said, we sincerely trust we may be wrong. But if we are wrong, how is' it that the Government have not already announced. that their mad scheme of introducing a Home Rule Bill has been abandoned ? Un- fortunately all the signs point in exactly the opposite direction. Take, to begin with, the Viceroy's Proclamation. Instead of dealing openly and firmly with the subject of Conscription, and sternly declaring, as it ought to have done, that Conscription would be applied to Ireland, and that all persons, whether Sinn Feiners or Nationalists, who conspired to defeat the operation of the law, whether by " all effective means " or by all means allowed by the Church, would be punished with due severity under the Defence of the Realm Act, it practically ignored the subject altogether. But what is worse, not only did the Proclamation say nothing about Conscription, but it actually went on—a sure sign of weakness—to suggest an alternative to what is, after all, already the law of the land ; i.e., the application of Conscription to Ireland.- It is merely the date, and certain other details, which remain to be decreed by an Order in Council. Surely we are not unjust in calling this Birrellism.
Almost as bad, to our mind, as the weakness betrayed in the Viceroy's Proclamation, is the amazing tone of apology in which the Government communigu4 closes. The Government document shows how at the very crisis of the nation's fate, with the hopes of humanity and civilization and the dearest interests of our Allies hanging upon the sternest and most efficient prosecution of the war, bands of Irish rebels have been proclaiming themselves the allies of Germany, and working with Germany, and that " an important feature in every plan was the establishment of submarine bases in Ireland to menace the shipping of all nations." After this, the Government, in faltering falsetto, shyly, indeed almost shamefacedly, declare that, in these circumstances, no other course was open to the , Government, if useless bloodshed was to be avoided, and their duty to the Allies to be fulfilled, but to intern the authors and abettors of this criminal intrigue." Never was a lamer or more impotent conclusion set forth in a public document. `.You have plotted with our enemies, you have planned our de- struction, you have specifically aided and abetted the cruellest and most bloodthirsty policy that the world. has ever known, the of the unlimited oinking of merchant ships. But hays a care : a little more and you will rouse the !British lion within us. At any rate, we shall have to intern you, and it is possible, if you will go on so, that we shall not be able to give you the lump of Home Rule sugar which we were preparing ' ! Perhaps this is a small matter, but we confess our very gorge rises against the levity with which the most dastardly form of treason is treated in a public document intended for the enlightenment of the whole English-speaking world.
However, even if we are making too much of a piece of official ineptitude, what are we to say in regard to Mr. Lloyd George's apology for the Nationalist leaders ? One would have thought that after dealing with the Government evidence against the Sinn Feiners, and describing these traitors and sedition-mongers, their policy and their ways, he would have ended : " And these are the men with whom the Nationalist leaders have chosen to work in order to defeat the policy of justice and of equitable self-sacrifice for the greatest cause that ever the sword has pleaded in the world's history " Instead, the Prime Minister hastens to give us an assurance, in the most emphatic words at his command, that " the Irish Nationalist leaders had nothing to do with it " (i.e., with the Sinn Fein intrigue with Germany). " That," Mr. Lloyd George continues, " I am convinced of, from the evidence, and I am therefore not in the least surprised at the doubts they have expressed on its existence." We want to be just to Mr. Lloyd George, but how can we read such words as these, and then look at the facts of the case and say that he is treating the British nation to that sincerity of statement which it deserves at such a crisis as the present ? What, too, are we to say of a Prime Minister who, in effect, praises the Nationalists because " they were not even cognizant of " the intrigue ? If this means anything, it must mean that the most you have any right to expect of an Irish Nationalist leader is that he should not actually join in a treasonable conspiracy, but that at the same time he might quite well know of its existence and yet not support the Government in putting it down. Apparently the present Nationalist leaders were such noble fellows that they shut their eyes to what was going on. Apparently, again, they did not read the newspapers or become "cognizant " of what was common talk throughout Ireland, and had even penetrated into England, in regard to Sinn Fein hopes, aspirations, and specific plans. Has Mr. Lloyd George, we wonder, forgotten or never read the text in the Second Epistle of St. John : " He that biddeth him God-speed is partaker of his evil deeds " ? If not, that is a great piece of political and social wisdom to which we invite his attention. In spite of a good deal of internal bickerings and jealousy, the Irish Nationalists have for the past three years and more been wishing the Sinn Feiners " God-speed " in all the essential aims and aspirations of their anti-British policy. An open teat came when the Government adopted the policy of Conscription for Ireland. In a moment the Irish Nationalist leaders had sprung to the side of _Shin Fein in order to resist that policy, not by all legal means, but by " all effective means." It cannot even be pleaded that the Irish Nationalists did not then know the true nature of the Sinn Feiners, for as soon as the arrests had been made, and the Government evidence published, Mr. Dillon and Mr. Devlin condemned the arrests, and refused to abandon their co-operation with Sinn Fein in regard to Conscription.
Before we leave the subject of the Third Edition of Birrellism we must say a word as to the plea in favour of the Nationalists which is being offered by the Radical Press. The gist of the argument appears to be that no one knew or suspected, or at any rate had any right to suspect, the Sinn Feiners of being in touch with the Germans or conspiring for a rebellion with German aid. As a matter of fact, the whole thing had 'been an open secret ever since the early part of last autumn. Ever since Mr. De Valera began to hold his manoeuvres in the County Clam his military policy had been as clear as day. We do not profess to any special sources of information, but we do possess a map of Ireland, and even our Home Rule - opponents on the one hand, and Mr. Lloyd George's friends on the other, will allow us the limited mental capacity involved in the use of a simple syllogism. It was quite clear what Mr. De Valera was up to. In an article published on October 20th, 1917, dealing with " The New Birrellism"—i.e., with the Second Edition of Birrellism- we wrote as follows ".' But,' we can hear the advocates of the new Birrellism ' replying, you don't really mean to suggest that 'Mr. -De Valera .n" any serione design.in•his head when he amuses his Volunteers by. practising taking military possession of the_County_Clare, and apparentli also a good part of the County Limerick ? Didn't
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he give the correspondent of the Daily Mail to understand that he had no particular object in holding his military manceuvree where
he held them ? To suppose there was any .special significance about the place where the manceuvres were held is to attribute plans to Mr, De Valera and his colleagues which it is impossible they
could ever have entertained. Why they chose this particular place for their child's play neither they, nor we, nor anybody else can tell any more than we can tell why a child chooses to play Indians in the south corner of the drawing-room rather than the east.' And yet, if one looks at a map of Ireland. eees where the Shannon debouches, notes how the waterway is navigable for ships of considerable burden, and marks how it leads right into the heart of rebel Ireland, one will understand that practising how to take military possession of the estuary and river might be quite as good business for people who want an absolutely inde- pendent Irish Republic' as learning how to take possession of the Castle or the Post Office, and how to carry on street-fighting. How- ever. if we say more here, we shall perhaps be told that we are playing the cruel game of British ascendancy, and putting wicked ideas into the heads of poor innocent Irishmen who but for us would never have thought of them. Indeed, we are not sure that it might not be held to be a much greater crime to suggest the possibility of criminal acts in Ireland than actually to engage in such criminal acts oneself. We must be content to wonder whether ever before in history a great nation has allowed itself to be twice fooled within eighteen months by the same old fiction. Nothinf, indeed, seems to fit the situation adequately except Lander Ili gram :—
You wept and smiled, and I believed, By every tear and smile deceived. • Another man would hope no more, Nor hope I what I hoped before. But let not this last wish be vain, Deceive, deceive me once again.' "
Needless to say, we quote this not to show any great prescience on our part, though it is curious to note that the Shannon Estuary was apparently the actual place where the May Treason Tree of 1918 was to blossom.—The man in the col- lapsible boat was taken off the coast of the County Clare.— We merely wish to knock on the head the really pre- posterous plea that no one could have suspected that Mr. De Valera and his followers had any connexion with the Germans, or were contemplating a rising in alliance with our enemies. Every one in Ireland and most people here knew it• last autumn, though a great many official people find it convenient to forget this now.
Once more we ask, is there to be a Third Edition of Bir- rellism ? If not, the Home Rule Bill must be at once withdrawn, and, what is more, the policy of Conscription, to which' Mr. Lloyd George stands pledged, must be enforced at once, and the substitute of Volunteering, talked about in the Proclama- tion, abandoned. We are not going to argue whether this method of obtaining the necessary men might not possibly prove a success, though we are perfectly convinced that it would not. In any case, the risk of trying it is too great, because if it failed Conscription would then be impossible. Remember that at this crisis all hangs upon Man-Power, and no large increase of Man-Power can be obtained anywhere else than in Ireland. It is idle to tell us that Mr. Lloyd George is a war-winner, and that therefore it is treason to say anything in criticism of his methods. If he is a war-winner, there is one way, and only one way, of proving it, and that is by increasing our Man-Power. He has put his hand to the plough, no doubt, but he has been looking back ever since. It is still just possible that the furrow may be completed. But if he fails at the eleventh hour he will have let a precious opportunity go by, and may well have added another year to the war.
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