TOPICS OF THE DAY.
EXCLUSION STILL HOLDS THE FIELD.
wE see nothing in Mr. Asquith's speech in Tuesday's debate to make us waver in our belief that the Prime Minister intends in the end to accept Exclusion— unless, of course, some miracle wore to open out a line of least resistance in another direction. Our ground for this belief is easily stated. If Mr. Asquith had made up his mind that Exclusion was impossible, if he were deter- mined, as many of his Liberal supporters declare he is, not to allow Exclusion, but merely meant to propose some unacceptable substitute such as " Home Rule within Home Rule," which has no chance of averting civil war because it would be unanimously rejected by the Ulster Protestants, assuredly he would say so at once. If Exclusion were not his policy, nothing would be simpler than to say so at once, and thus avoid those very great and real risks which he runs by allowing the impression to prevail that there is to be Exclusion. The first of these dangers is in his own party. Undoubtedly the belief, or rather the dread, that Mr. Asquith will yield in regard to Exclusion is not only causing perturbation amongst his Nationalist allies, but producing great bitterness among that section of politicians, not very numerous perhaps, but still important, who are represented by the Daily Chronicle and the Daily News. To say that they become furious at the mere suggestion of Exclusion is to put the matter mildly. Why on earth should Mr. Asquith annoy them, and run the risk of driving some of them to kick over the traces, if in the end he means to adopt their policy of refusing Exclusion ? To irritate large sections of his followers is what no statesman and no party leader ever does gratuitously. Mr. Asquith is surely not a sort of political practical joker who would think it funny a month hence to turn round upon his Radical followers and say: "How nicely I took you fellows in! You got into a pretty fuss about something which was never going to happen. It made me roar to see the state you were in, and all for nothing." Unquestionably, if Mr. Asquith does not mean to grant Exclusion, he is playing his hand in the maddest fashion. But if his action is inexplicable on the theory that he has decided against Exclusion, it is perfectly intelligible if he has come to the conclusion that, since be will not have civil war, ho must have Exclusion as the only way out. In that case, no doubt, be would think it wise to break the disappointment gradually to his Radical supporters. If he had plumped out Exclusion at the beginning, he would probably have caused an explosion, whereas there is a hope that six weeks' or two months' talk on the matter may to some extent accustom his followers to the idea. The Duchess of Meld in the play asks Bosola why he did not tell her at once that her execution bad been decided upon, but put her off with a series of vague generalities. Bosola, who, if grim, is not unfriendly, replies: "It was to bring you by degrees to mortification." Mr. Asquith knows that the Radicals will be mortified by his decision, but wishes them to reach that point by degrees.
There is yet another reason why, in our opinion, Mr. Asquith would, if Inclusion at all costs is his policy, have announced it on Tuesday, and told people they were absolutely and entirely mistaken in thinking that his plan was for Exclusion. In that case he must have said "I do not wish yet to disclose exactly what my plan is, but in order that there shall be no false hopes and mis- understandings, I am bound to tell you that those who think I can accept Exclusion are entirely mistaken. Exclusion is not compatible with the principles I have laid down. I cannot agree to it." That would have been perfectly consistent with Mr. Asquith's refusal to divulge his scheme prematurely, and would have avoided the very great risk which he is now running of raising false hopes, and causing deep disappointment to those who in Ulster, and, indeed, in every part of the country, are making sure that there will be no civil war because the homogeneous Ulster, the Ulster of the six counties, is to be excluded. Mr. Asquith must know that if even now he were to announce that he was not going to allow Exclusion, and that the order must be" Full steam ahead" on to the rocks of civil war, there would be something like consternation amongst the thousands of people who greeted his original speech with a sense of heartfelt relief because they held it to mean the only solution which can now save us from civil war. To hold out food to a famishing man, and then when it is within his grasp to whisk it away, is the height of madness. But if people would be disap- pointed now and feel the anger which disappointment causes, what would be their feelings six weeks hence, when to the shock of disappointment would be added the terrifying thought that we were already almost on the rocks, and that the fatal Bill was to be introduced at once and forced through Parliament? Every week, every day, in which a no-Exclusion decision, if it has to come, is delayed must make things worse.
Quite apart from the feeling in this country, the sense of injury in the Ulstermen would be very deeply stirred. Already close observers notice the growth in Ulster of that dangerous sense of fanatical elation which comes in all movements of a revolutionary character before the final outbreak—a temper which renders the task of the moderate element very much more difficult; a temper, in short, akin to the mood of those who, when they believe that a dangerous operation is almost certain to be necessary, clamour to be rid of the anxiety, and insist on getting it over as quickly as possible. That is a grave danger now, but it is a danger which will be multiplied a thousandfold if Ulster's hopes of escape from civil war are suddenly dashed to the ground. For remember that though the feelings of the Ulstermen are on edge, and though they are excited, as men always must be, by the imminent sense of doom, they are not anxious to fight. All the talk about their "longing for a scrap," "enjoying the excitement," and so forth, is mere conventional nonsense. The Ulster people no more want to face rifle fire and shell fire than do the inhabitants of London or any other English city or county. They value their lives as much as we do. They dread the thought of being shot down, and they would be intensely relieved to hear that there was an honourable escape for them from the heavy re- sponsibilities they have undertaken. But remember also that though they dread civil war so greatly, there is something which, rightly or wrongly, they dread infinitely more, something which they are now pledged in honour not to endure—that is, being placed under a. Dublin Parliament. It is folly for the Liberal Party to trade upon the fact that the Ulstermen hate the thought of bloodshed, and would avoid it if they possibly could with- out giving up that of which the loss is more hateful than death. But it is worse than folly, it is sheer madness, to imagine that the dreadful situation with which we are now faced may be made easier by first encouraging amongst men placed as the Ulstermen are placed the thought that there is an honourable escape from civil war, and then suddenly telling them that they have been fooled for the last two months. and that there never was any real intention of finding them an honourable way out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
We say with all deliberation that if Mr. Asquith has never meant Exclusion, then his action is not only inexplicable, but fixes a responsibility upon him so terrible that we do not care to define it in words. He would have deliberately blown the furnace of civil strife hotter than it was before, and would stand before the country without the slightest excuse for having done so. A word from him would have prevented this extra aggrava- tion of the difficulty, and he refused to give it. Until this shall be proved by Mr. Asquith's words, whoa he mates his statement at the beginning of April, we absolutely refuse to believe it possible.
But it will be said: "If your view is the true one, why did not Mr. Asquith say clearly and at once that he meant to concede Exclusion ? " We have supplied one part of what in our opinion is the answer in what we have said above. Mr. Asquith wanted, like a prudent Parliamentary tactician, to let his extremists down gradually, to bring them by degrees to his view, or at any rate to accepting his view, with a sense of chastened rather than violent mortification. In addition to this, Mr. Asquith, like all Prime Ministers, is intent upon securing his daily or hourly majority in the lobbies for the essential financial work in which Parliament is now engaged, and must be engaged under the rules and customs of the Constitution till the end of the financial year, that is, till the end of March. For
securing his necessary votes in Supply and preventing a catastrophe in some division, it is his business to keep his majority intact, and to run no risk of throwing any section of his followers into temporary sulks. He might easily have done this had he prematurely announced that he meant to escape from civil war through the doorway of Exclusion. Such an announce- ment, definitely made at the beginning of the Session. might have provoked the Nationalists to give him a lesson by letting his majorities run low, even if they did not mean actually to turn him out. But this chastening of the Government might easily have been carried too far and an accident might have happened.
After Mr. Asquith has got hisfinancial business through, sulks and disappointments will not matter half so much, and he might very well calculate that by skilful driving, "waiting and seeing," yielding and delaying, he could manage to keep his Ministry going. He will not have his back against any financial wall, and the worst part of the explosion will come whilst Parliament is enjoying its Easter recess. When it reassembles the Nationalists will be in a position to tell him explicitly whether they mean to adopt the attitude that the Bill is ruined and that they will have no more of it, or whether they will take an Irish Parliament with an Irish Executive for a part of Ireland as an instalment, and then try to win over the six counties of Ulster by showing that they can be much better and more sympathetically governed from Dublin than from London, or whether they will throw over the whole Bill and go back to the status quo.
Most politicians, we suppose, would say that Mr. Redmond would certainly reject Exclusion and elect for the destruction of the Bill. That Mr. Redmond would threaten such a course we do not doubt, but our own con- viction is that he would not persist in it. People forget what a very strong position Mr. Asquith now holds for fresh bargaining with the Nationalists. In the first place, he cau tell them, perfectly truly, that if they will not accept temporary Exclusion, the only alternative is a General Election, and that a General Election must throw away the whole work of the last two years, and with it the hopes of the Plural Voting Bill, upon -which the Government, erroneously as we think, build so greatly. In all probability Mr. Redmond would be inclined to reply to this : "You cannot frighten us Nationalists with a General Election, because we know that, however inconvenient to us, it would be far more inconvenient to you. It would mean the loss of the Welsh Bill as well as the Home Rule Bill, and the Welsh are a section of your followers whom you dare not alienate by a General Election."
That sounds a strong point, but remember, if driven into a corner, Mr. Asquith has another card which he can play. That is his own resignation. If the Irish insist upon their pound of flesh and upon the pledges which were made to them when they voted for the Budget, it will always be open to Mr. Asquith to say that he, at any rate, must resign and leave it to some other Liberal statesman, if he can be found, to face the problem of civil war. But can anyone seriously suppose that the present Government could survive the resignation of Mr. Asquith and of those members of the Cabinet who would go with him P In the threat of resignation Mr. Asquith holds a winning card, a card which, in our opinion, would force the Nationalist leaders to do their utmost to persuade the South and West of Ireland to accept Exclusion as the best of a bad job.
There remains for us, and for others who regard Exclusion as the only way out which is left, to meet what we mar call the " physical impossibility " argument, the argument that you cannot fit the Exclusion of the six counties into the present Bill, and that therefore it is no good to talk about it. On this matter we have tried an experiment, the experiment of asking an expert Parliamentary draftsman to sketch for us the consequential amendments which it would be necessary to make in the Bill if the area to which the Home Rule Bill is to be applied is not to be all Ireland, but Ireland minus the six counties. This sketch of the necessary consequential amendments we hope to be able to publish next Saturday. We do not say that the result will be a good Bill, because the basis of the whole thing—i.e., the existing Home Rule Bill—is bad ; but we do say with confidence that the Bill thus amended is no physical impossibility, and that it would be ten thousand times less bad, or, if you will, less impracticable, than civil war.
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