TOPICS OF THE LDAY.
'THE -FUTURE GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND.
WE deal elsewhere with the causes which led to -Mr. 'Ilicimmid's refupal to seize the extraordinary piece of good fortune (from his paint of view) which was pre- sented to him. He threw it away because he and his followers were incapable of understanding that a compromise means sacrifice, means.that half a loaf is better than no bread. But' beyond this national inability to be wisely illogical and to.accept in the concrete a scheme which all sides detest in the abstract: there-were no doubt other influences at work. Mr. Redmond did not dare to be conciliatory for fear he should be called a traitor by the extremists who now so largely contionrish Nationalist opinion, and who were determined not to allow the exclusion of the -six counties. In -reality Mr. liedmond'was the wrecker of. the settlement. And yet, with . a '-irolligacy..of impudence that leaves - one breathless; a conaiderable. portion-of the Radical Press, arid also, -we deeply 'regret ton say, ean organ -which- once was supposed to be- Unionist, have denounced Lord Lansdowne as thevrecker. Nothing could be less true. Lord Lansdowne, very properly as-we :think, --went much farther than most of his friends thought it would prove possible for .him to go in: order to secure peace. The :compromise having failed, the :essential- thing now is to consider how Ireland -is to be governed till the end of- the • war. To begin with,- we must . point out .that: the problem is not half so difficult as is represented by the Nation- alists. and their organs in the English Press. There has boons great •deal of exaggerated talk about the igovernment of • Ireland having ".utterly broken down," and one. would sup- pose therefrom that there was no machinery left for the maintenance of law and order, and that everything must be rebuilt from the beginning. _That_is _an entire mistake. The governinent of Ireland only broke down because Mr.. Birrell did not choose to use the instruments at his hand. •It is not fair to say that your motor-car has broken down when you deliberately refrain from putting any petrol into the tank and purposely leave the tires deflated and the engine out of gear. To talk about the impossibility of continuing Castle govern-: ment is, again, largely nonsense, or ignorance, or -a muddy mixture of both. This nonsense has been indulged in till many people here have really come to imagine that the Castle is sonic sort of feudal institution with chains and dungeons and rnibliettes, and is unfitted for the reasonable adminis- tration of a modem country. In reality Castle government -means no -more than Downing Street government or Whitehall government. All three phrases are pieces of inept generalization.
The Castle is only a place in the centre of Dublin where a good many Irish Boards and Offices happen to be located, The system which they administer, whether good or bad in itself, is conducted just like any other-system of government-- by clerks, and inspectors and secretaries and Heads of Depart- - ments, red-tape, sealing-wax, " folios," yellow envelopes, and what Carlyle might have called " H.M.S. flummery." Very.likely it is ton highly centralized, but that is largely due to the fact that the 'Celtic instinct, like the French, tends towards centralization. Probably also the Irish Government is very.: much- overmanned ; but that, again, is because the Celtic instinct is distinctly in favour of creating as many posts and -offices "under Government " as possible. As the late. Lord St. Aldwyn said after a short period of office as Irish Secretary, every Irishman wants an appointment, and when he. has got it, wants his- son appointed deputy. When; then, people talk of it being impossible to-set Castle govern.; ment once more on its legs, they are guilty of gross exagger- ation. Any .Minister possessed of reasonable firmness and common-sense can easily restart the machine and keep it going, and, if he likes, make a very considerable number of minor repairs and reforms " while running." To cut a long story short, what we would do if we were in the-position of the Government would be to appoint a working Irish Viceroy with a seat in the Cabinet—that is, to revert to thsplan, which has often been employed in the past, of making the Viceroy a member of the Cabinet, and leaving the Irish Secretary as a member of the Administration with a seat in Parliament but outside the Cabinet, like the Financial Secre- tary to -the Treasury. In view of the fact that the Viceroy would have- to make a good deal of use of the Defence of.the Realm Act, we would if possible appoint a General or an. Admiral, or an ex-Governor of one of the oversee Dominions or of an Indian province. During the war and for six months afterwards. the duty -of - the Viceroy .would. be " to carry on " .and to maintain law-,and order. 'Though he would be -a member of the-Cabinet, he wmildclonbtleas make his attend- ances at Downing Street rare-and-occasional, as was the case, if -we 'remember rightly, -with Lord • Spencer when --he .rwas Viceroy in the .Cabinet with--an. Irish Secretary of non-Cabinet rank—an-official-whose chief duty it -would be to let himself be " ragged " by the Irish Members. The latter would no doubt require to come rip_to the high but _not impossible .staud.ard prescribed by the Nationalist. wit—"a man with the heart of an iceberg and the hide of a rhinoceros "—but such persons, though scarce, are not unobtainable. :While the working Viceroy of our thought was keeping order in Ireland, -and picking up and „rearranging the pieces.of the civil administra- tion, allowed to grow rusty under the Birrell eystem of non- government, the Irish. Secretary would- be. Sitting in the best -dug-out he could find at Westminster, hOldieg his -trench against the -Nationalist, bombers. That this would prove an ideal solution we'-do not-suggest, but people -must-never forget. that there are a ',gorid--many problems'to which there is no ideal solution. -That,`-however, does not prevent. the -world from continuing to. go round or human beings from eating -and :sleeping, living and :dying. After all, if the -Nationalists- complained,-as no doubt-they would, the answer, and thetrue answer, would he : " Mr. Redmond- and- his 'friends.- have -willed -it BO:" -They-had- an excellent 'opportunity -of-trying another system= planned--on the most generous lines, -but because it did -net suit' them exactly and in every particular they refused to -accept it. If they= preferred maintaining -a punctilio in regard to the number of Irish Members at Westminster to setting up Home Rule in five-sixths-of Ireland, they must take the consequenees.
Before we `leave -the subject we .may say- that we see no -reason. why ";the-Viceroy for the duration"--should-not-have added to him a Council, "-Executive " or " Advisory,' or a - mixture. of both, of the kind sketched by Sir)Horace'Plunkett -in .a letter to 'Monday's Times. The Viceroy would be able. to refer to the _Council matters_ of civil .administration not .concerned with the due maintenance of law and order, and the carrying out of the Defence -.of .the Realm Act—the Act..which prevents the enemy from en- trenching himself, morally if not -physically, within these :islands. If a Council of a dozen Irishmen of light and leading -drawn from all- parties could thus be formed, the system established would be in effect, though not_ in name, one of interim Crown Colony government..The--Viceroy would be like the Governor of- a Crown Colony assisted by; a nominated Council—a Council -with large powers- in •practice, but • at the same time • with no authority to interfere -with the duties of the Governor in matters concerning the essential safety and welfare of the Colony or of the Empire. At the same- time, of course, the Irish representatives would continue to sit in Parliament, and would-have an equal voice .with.the Members from Scotland or Wales, or -Wiltshire, Devonshire, and Corn- wall, in deciding affairs of .high, policy, or, if they could, in putting Governments in or out of office. Ireland, in a word, would not be any more disfranchised than that Highland area which at the present moment no Englishman or -Scotsman can enter without is passport of the strictest Continental kind.
Let us say in conclusion that we are not in the least fright- ened by Mr. Redmond's threat of ,criticism about thsconduct of the war because he could not get his *hole pound. of flesh. It is true that he stands self-condemned for not having made his criticisms before now, if we assume that they are sincere. For evidently he was willing not to make'them at all if only he were sufficiently_ paid in Irish Members at Westminster 1 Blit be this as it-may, we see no sort of objection per se to criticism of the action of the Government in their-conduct of the war. If Mr. Redmond's points are good, 'they may be helpful. If they are bad or dangerous, ho and his friends must take the consequences, for the British public is not likely to show the Nationalists any mercy if they try to use the engine of Parlia- mentary debate to injure our military and naval administrae tion and to help our enemies to destroy us. We do not believe that the Nationalists intend anything of the soh, but, since they have chosen to use the language of menace, -it is just as well to have a clear understanding on this point.
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