TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE HOME RULE DEBATE IN THE LORDS.
rf1HE Home Rule debate in the House of Lords, 1. though it does not by any means show that we are out of the wood, has undoubtedly done something to reassure the nation. Lord Crewe's speech, we must assume, would not have been made if the Cabinet were not prepared to go a very considerable way in amending their Bill—in fitting it, so to speak, with a v to prevent an explosion. Let us try to see what is the position occupied by the Unionist Party in regard to these proposals. The Unionist position could not have been better stated than it was by Lord Lansdowne, who explained it, not only with perfect lucidity, but in the true spirit of statesmanship. He showed exactly what the Unionists will be doing if they are able to agree to an Amending Bill, and why they will do it. They will not do it because they are in the slightest degree converted to Home Rule, or because they think time or circumstances have improved the chances of Home Rule proving a solution of the Irish problem. They see quite clearly that this has not happened. But the shaping of a sound solution of the Irish problem is not the business in hand. The business in hand is the avoidance if possible of civil war. To use our metaphor again, if the very dangerous engine named Horne Rule is to be put upon the rails, the Unionists must see to it that it shall at any rate be fitted with a safety- valve to prevent an immediate explosion which might very well prove fatal to the nation and the Empire. To sum up : the Government have the power to put the engine on the rails. It is also clear that they are so reckless, or so much in the hands of reckless people, that, unless the Unionists.work hard to prevent it, they may, in a fit of ill-conditioned despair, actually turn the engine loose on the rails without first fitting a safety-valve. Therefore Unionists must bend all their energies to seeing that a safety-valve is fitted, and that it is as far as possible an adequate safetv-vadve. In a moment of such peril it is of no use to say that the engine will be a dangerous and a bad engine even then. Of course it will, but it will not be nearly so dangerous or nearly so likely to explode as if nothing is done. While, then, the Government, or at any rate a very considerable portion of them, and also of the Liberal Party, are in a mood to listen to the suggestion of fitting a safety-valve, that is the work which we must "get down to" at once and in earnest.
If the considerations we have just stated are accepted, another principle must be observed. It is clearly of no use for the Opposition to trouble themselves to enter upon the hazardous and difficult task of fitting a safety-valve unless, as we have said, it is adequate The engine might just as well go upon the rails without a safety-valve as with one which will not prevent disaster. An inadequate safety-valve, indeed, is worse than none, for it may give a sense of false security to a driver who, if it had not been fitted, might at the last moment have refused to take his locomotive out of the shed. To delude him with the notion that he has got a working safety-valve when he has not is to court even greater dangers than now exist. But if this principle forbids the acceptance of an inadequate safety- valve, Unionists must also remember very carefully to obey another principle of action. They must recognize that what they are doing is not building a new engine, but simply and solely fitting a safety-valve. They must not be tempted to do too much, or to essay the hopeless task of rebuilding the engine when they set out to make the existing pattern less dangerous. The reason for this is plain. The more strongly they feel that the engine is hopelessly bad in design and cannot work satisfactorily, the more they must guard themselves against an attempt at rebuilding which can never succeed. If they wanted some sort of a Home Rule engine to run out of the yard, it might be reasonable for them to try to make improvements. As they believe that every Home Rule engine will prove a danger, they must take no responsibility beyond that involved in saying : "You ought not to use the thing at all, but, if you are absolutely determined to do so, at any rate let us help you to avoid an immediate explosion." In practice what we have been saying means that the Unionists must consider what is now the minimum which will prevent civil war, and not go one single inch beyond it. The worse the engine, the more sternly they must refuse to take any responsibility for it beyond adding a safety contrivance. As far as we can judge, it would seem as if the only safety apparatus that in existing circumstances will do the work will be the Exclusion of Ulster treated as a wait. The safety-valve of excluding the six counties, which might have been accepted three mouths ago, may, we fear, have ceased to be possible.
Still, as we said last week, the question is really a question of area. And here we may make a practical suggestion which may be of use. We have always held that Home Rule is not, and never can be regarded as, a mere Irish question—a question which can be left to the various political sections of the Irish people to settle for themselves. England and Scotland have rights in the matter, and those rights cannot be ignored. But the question of the area to be excluded is a very different matter, and might, we think, very properly be left to be settled by Mr. Redmond and Sir Edward Carson. It is quite possible, however, that, as we have said, things have now travelled too far for this, and that nothing but the Exclusion of all Ulster can avail. If that be granted, certain consequential amend- ments will, of course, be absolutely necessary. We still believe that the consequential amendments which were published in the Spectator would, in the commercial phrase, "do the needful." In any case, we are certain that here the Unionists should not ask for or insist on anything but the minimum of change. It is clearly impracticable that there should be two seta of Custom Houses or two sets of Poet Offices in the island. If, then, Ulster is excluded, both the Customs and the Post Office must be retained in the hands of the Imperial Government. We note that it is argued that another consequential amendment will be the retaining of the administration of the Land Purchase Acts in the hands of the Imperial Government. Upon this matter we do not feel so certain. No doubt from the point of view of the Imperial taxpayer there is a great deal to be said in favour of this being a reserved matter in the case of the Dublin Parliament, as it would, of course, naturally be in the case of Ulster, which will remain in the United Kingdom. If, however, the Nationalists insist upon their pound of flesh here, we do not think it can be said that this is a consequential amend- ment of the essential kind—provided it is made clear that, if the Dublin Parliament is given the power of dealing with Land Purchase, it must expect no financial help from the Imperial Government, but must manage the concern for itself. The Imperial Government would, of course, be free whenever they wished—and the sooner the better—to complete purchase in the excluded area, or rather in the area still included in the United Kingdom, and therefore still subject to administration and legislation from West- minster.
Assuming, as we think must be the assumption, in view of the tone of Lord Crewe's speech, that the Government as at present advised do really desire to reach a settlement through an amending and excluding Bill, we must next ask : What should be the policy of the Government ? Ought they, after recognizing the attitude of the Unionists, or rather of the Ulster people, at once to table their maximum concessions, or ought they to do what Lord Crewe, and before him Mr. Asquith, seemed to favour —put in what might be called " dummy " terms, with the intimation that they may be "extensively" altered and developed by the Unionists ? As the plainer and the more honest way, we would rather that the Government did not begin by " dummy " terms involving a very narrow area of Exclusion and some impossible provision for a time-limit, but should instead at once recognize the facts of the situation. It is to be feared, however, that the Govern- ment will prefer to proceed by " dummy " terms, with the intimation: "These are our proposals, but if they do not suit, why, they can be altered." In that case we greatly hope that Unionist opinion will keep steady in the matter, and that there will be no outburst of indignation on the production of the Bill next week. Instead, Unionists must themselves take charge, and undertake the task of amending the Government Bill in such a way as to make it capable of doing its work. ' But here once more let us enter our caveat. They must not allow themselves. to be carried away by suggesting any more than the minimum of change which will effect the purpose of pre- venting civil war. They must banish sternly from their minds all possibility of general improvement in the Bill, and must stick solely to safety-valve, explosion-preventing provisions. The reason why the Government seem inclined to insert "dummy" provisions to begin with is, we have no doubt, the fear of annoying or seeming to betray their allies, the Redmondites. They do not want to give anybody in Ireland the opportunity of saying : "You have gone back upon your promise to us, and are taking away with one hand what you are giving with the other." What the Government want is something very different. They want to be able to say : "The Lords have been at their old ungenerous game again of trying to spoil our legislation for the good of Ireland. Circum- stances have unfortunately given them the power to exact harsh- terms, and they have, after their wont, exacted them. It now remains for the Nationalists to say whether they will accept those harsh terms, or whether they will run the risk, and it is a very great risk, of losing all by trying to get as much as they no doubt deserve. We can, of course, pass the Bill without any amendment if we like, but is it worth while ? The Nationalists must surely see that, even if we do, we cannot make at all sure of delivering the goods. None know better than the Nationalists how impossible it would be to coerce Ulster without incurring the risk, or rather the certainty, of a sudden revulsion of feeling in England and Scotland which would probably destroy the Home Rule measure for goodand all. Surely, then, they had better take the delivery of three- quarters of the goods as an instalment—namely, the South and West (which we can certainly give them)—and wait till they can obtain the remaining quarter through the process of converting Ulster. It may be cruel of the Unionists, through their use of the House of Lords and of a rebel conspiracy in Ulster, to withhold a quarter of what is due to the Dublin Parliament, but, after all, it is no good to kick against the pricks. Three-fourths of a loaf is very much better than the very imminent risk of getting no bread at all."
The calculation that at the last moment the Nationalists will not care to throw away their chance of a Dublin Parliament is very likely a sound one. They know that if an Amending Bill is rejected, and the Home Rule Bill passes automatically, the Government will be forced to make an immediate appeal to the country. But in existing circumstances the electors may very well return a Unionist majority sufficient either to repeal the Bill, or to amend it in a far more drastic way than it is now proposed to amend it; in fact, to reduce it to nothing but a measure of enlarged local government. No doubt Mr. William O'Brien and Mr. Healy will call loudly upon Mr. Redmond, in Disraeli's phrase, "to hand the Government back the poisoned chalice." Nevertheless, and in spite of the protests of the National Volunteers, Mr. Redmond may feel that the principle of the choice of evils will compel him, though most reluctantly, to take three-quarters of a loaf—three provinces instead of four. If he does, the seeds of great future trouble will no doubt have been sown in Ireland, but at any rate we shall have done the one thing now possible for Unionists to do—avoided the supreme evil of civil war.
We have only one more word to add. Any automatic time-limit must, of course, be absolutely barred by the Unionists. Nothing must induce them to consent to such an outrage on justice and common-sense as that. We do not, however, see why there should be any objection to a Poll of the People being taken in the excluded area as a single unit at the end of the first six years, or, indeed, of every six as long as it may be demanded. That, of course, is not a time-limit. If the province of Ulster, or the six counties, or whatever the area may be, should at a future time wish to go under the Dublin Parliament, it would obviously be impossible to prevent such action. In fine, in order to save the face of the Government and the Redmondites we see no objection to a Poll of the People being taken in six years' time, unless, of course, Parliament shall in the meantime have ordered otherwise. That is a clause which, whether inserted in words or not, is always present in every Act of the imperial Legislature.
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