TOPICS OF THE DAY.
" THE ERROR OF THEIR WAYS."
"THE Sikh Government have asked for war, and by God they shall have it." That was Lord Dalhousie's answer to the insults offered to the Indian Government by the military Junkers of Lahore. It is with such words that we should have expected the British Government to answer the insults and outrages of the Sinn Feiners. The Sinn Feiners have not only dared to proclaim a war upon us, but have actually attacked us in arms, and by methods repudiated by all civilized nations—methods which even the Germans would not have adopted. By arson, by mid- night assassination, and by the massacre of unarmed men they have shown the quality of their National Sovereignty. If our Government and its agents failed to find words such as Lord Dalhousie's, they might, at any rate, have kept silence. Instead, we are faced with the incredible humilia- tion of seeing the Viceroy of the Crown and a British Field- Marshal literally imploring the silent tyrants of Sinn Fein to tell him what they want, in order, apparently, that he may try to discover some way of satisfying them. The dear, naughty tiger will not turn its head even to look at the dish of cream which the British House of Commons has been diligently preparing for it, and so Lord French upon his knees says in effect to Sinn Fein, " If you will not look at our dish of cream, do please, kind tiger—for after all you are a very kind and noble beast—tell us what you do want in order that we, your best friends, may see whether we cannot prepare it." We are not exaggerating. Here are Lord French's actual words at Belfast—words which it is a humiliation even to transcribe :- " He was firmly persuaded that most of those who declared themselves as enemies of the British Empire were earnest and single-minded in their belief that they were only aiming at the good and welfare of their country. " They held that they were making war, and that everything they did was justified as acts of war. Could it be that they really wished to push the British Empire to take up that warlike challenge in earnest ? Had they the faintest conception of what that would mean to them ? Did they realize that the British Government was offering them more than anything they could get under any Irish Republic P " One would have thought that an Irish Viceroy, speaking in Belfast, had touched bottom when he implored the Sinn Feiners to remember what was the huge amount, and valuable nature, of the bribe which the British Government was offering to them. But no ; the representative of the British people could sink even lower than that :- "Surely it was not too presumptuoui to hope that even at the eleventh hour some one of their number would speak out and show these deluded men the error of their ways."
But let no one say that there were no words of threat or warning in Lord French's speech. With an absence of humour which is unbelievable in a man of his experience of the world and his Irish ancestry, Lord French actually uses in effect the old cliche, " A little more and you will rouse the British lion within us."
" It cannot be too clearly known [Lord French went on] or too widely circulated that the Government will never under any circumstances listen to any proposals either for the estab- lishment of an Irish republic or for the coercion of Ulster."
Take care or you really may, however unlikely it sounds, go a step too far and find that we have a backbone after all ! Oh ! do please think of the dreadful consequences if you were by some accident really to rouse the British Sloth !
Lord French did not make this gallant declaration the peroration of his speech. We suppose he thought it might look provocative to the tiger to end on such a note. In order to obtain one more chance of placating Sinn Fein, he ended by what can only be described as a good downright whimper at those naughty, wicked, unkind Sinn Feiners :— "The Prime Minister only a few days ago again invited the leaders of Sinn Fein to come and state their case. Why don't they do it ? Why should this killing and murdering continue ?
• Why don't they say what they want ? They know what they 'cannot get, but we don't know what they want. Will no one show them the error of their ways, or condemn with all em- phasis they can employ the murder of innocent men ? I fear it is too, late ,to hope for this, but let us never cease to try for reconciliation by peaceful means."
" Oh, dear ! Oh, dear ! Will no one tell us what the tiger wants ?' If it won't tell us itself, why won't some kind friend show it the error of its ways and tell it how naughty it iB of little tigers good at heart to growl and claw and tear innocent people to pieces ? I am afraid it's all no use ; but, at any rate; never, oh ! never, will I try to make you better, Mr. Tiger, except by gentle words and kind treat- ment ! "
But even the words, which no one can say we have paraphra sed unfairly, were not the end. Here is the actual peroration as given in the report in the Morning Post of Monday :- " We desire, above all things, to give the country the utmost measure of political freedom, and we hope, sometimes against hope, that peaceable reconciliation may eventually be effected. But having said so much, I should be wanting in my duty if I did not repeat what I have said before, that we are deter- mined that the Irish people should enjoy the same protection and the same peaceful privileges as the people of any other part of the United Kingdom, and the Government will not hesitate to employ all the forces at its disposal to attain this end if, unhappily, they are forced into the use of drastic measures."
To continue our metaphorical summary, what does this mean more than " Do please, Mr. Tiger, remember that if this were to go on for very much longer we might have, though we should hate it terribly, to give you quite a sharp little rap, but please, please don't make us do it " ?
Could there be a greater proof of the humiliation which we are suffering in Ireland and of the absolute failure of the Government's policy than the fact that a man by nature so gallant and with such experience of dealing with great affairs as Lord French should have been reduced to a condition of mind so abject ? We hate to have to use such words in regard to a man who has served the State in arms and stood between us and the foe in many a stricken field, but there is no choice. We should not be doing our duty if we did not implore our countrymen to realize that something very bad must have happened and is happening in Ireland when we have symptoms so unpleasant as Lord French's moral surrender to Sinn Fein. Here is a way of judging the nature of the speech. Mr. Lloyd George talked of Lincoln the other day, and pointed to him as an example of how we should act in Ireland. Can anyone for a moment imagine Lincoln speaking or allowing one of his chief subordinates to speak as did Lord French ? Would Lincoln have told the South when they were in arms against the Union that they were very fine fellows at heart, and that if they would only be so very kind and good as to say more clearly what they wanted he would try to meet them in every possible way, and so forth and so on ? That was not the kind of language which Lincoln, moderate, kind hearted, and reasonable as he was, addressed to the South. He never asked for explanations or wildly and tearfully implored somebody or anybody to go and show the South " the error of their ways." Instead, he made it clear to the whole people of the United States what the South were doing, and what their action meant. Again, he never left a moment's doubt as to how he intended to meet their appeal to arms.
In their perplexity and in their instinctive if bewildered sense of imminent peril, the„,, British people are asking everywhere, " What has happened ? Why can't peace be restored in Ireland ? How is it possible a minority not merely in the United Kingdom, but in Ireland, can put us in a position of such terrible hniniliation and danger ? How has it all happened ? Why has it hap- pened ? "
We can answer in half a dozen words. The Government has ceased to govern. This is not a new or unknown phenomenon. Governments before have ceased to be able to govern, and always with one result. Such a failure has always brought with it the direst consequences. It was this failure to govern, not the growth of revolu- tionary ideas, nor any great distress in the country, which brought the French Revolution. Again, in Russia only three years ago it was not the power of Lenin and Trotsky or of their predecessors which caused the Revolution. It was the inability of the Tsar and his Ministers to govern that laid Russia in ruins. We are not governing in Ireland, and we have not governed there since the rebellion. Witness our failure to apply conscription to Ireland in fact although we applied it in name, and our failure to make the people of Ireland bear other obligations in the war which they ought to have borne, and which were so nobly borne here. That is why these things are happening in Ireland. There is no mystery about the matter. As we sowed we are reaping.
At first the rebel spirits in Ireland, neither very brave nor very determined, could hardly realize that we were ceasing to govern. As the truth dawned upon them, however, they took greater and greater liberties. At last policemen and magistrates are murdered at will, Government property is burned and destroyed whenever the insurgents wish. Derry is made uninhabitable for decent people. In order that the Sinn Feiners may show their power, a British general and two colonels are kid- napped in broad daylight. When the Minister in charge of. Irish questions in the House of Commons reads the news in an answer to a question he speaks of the general being " arrested." Apparently the official in Ireland who telegraphed was like Lord French. He did not wish to show disregard of national feeling, and so used the word " arrested " as less likely to annoy the enemy before whom he trembled than a plain word like " kidnapped." The Minister did not, it would seem, at first find anything strange in the word " arrest." It was only when it was pointed out to him what the phrase meant that he realized that "arrest" was not the right word !
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