TOPICS OF THE DAY.
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PROSPECTS OF DISSOLUTION.
IN spite of the protestations of Government newspapers, and in spite of the pledge to the Irish members, of which we wrote last week, we are convinced that there will be an appeal to the nation before the third time of asking on the Home Rule Bill, that is, some time within the coming twelvemonth. We base our belief not upon any Micawberish idea that something is bound to turn up, not in effect upon the likelihood of a chapter of accidents, but upon two things : (1) the compelling force of sane, sober, non-party public opinion ; and (2) the fact that in the last resort it will suit the Liberal Party managers, both at headquarters and all over the country, better to have an election before the third time of asking of the Home Rule Bill than immediately after the Bill is passed.
We will to-day deal with the general demand which we believe is certain to arise that the country shall be con- sulted before the third time of asking. Remember that it cannot be pleaded against a dissolution at this period that the Government would be throwing away all their work upon the Irish Bill, and that this is too much to ask of them. It is carefully provided in the Parliament Act that a dissolution between the second and third passings of a Bill shall not have this effect. A dissolution before the Bill has become law need not cause a week or a day's delay in the passing of Home Rule, provided that the appeal to the electors still gives a majority in the Commons for the Bill. When the majority of ordinary, quiet, moderate Liberal electors realize this fact, as they will realize it before long, the demand for a dissolution just before the third time of asking, and not just after, as the Government are now said to purpose, will be irresistible. What will make it irre- sistible is the knowledge that the Protestant majority in North-East Ulster are absolutely determined to oppose the Act by force if it is passed without having received endorsement at a general election. Very possibly a large portion of the people of North-East Ulster would oppose it even if it bad such endorsement, but the solidarity of the Protestant North will not be anything like as great if the Act has been endorsed at a general election. What is even more important is that the Unionist Party in England and Scotland will, as we know from Mr. Bonar Law's speech, give no support to North-East Ulster if the Bill has been able to get a popular endorsement at the polls, but on the contrary are likely to use their best endeavours in that event to get North-East Ulster to bow to the will of the United Kingdom as a whole. If, however, such popular endorsement is not obtained, then North-East Ulster will not only be solid itself, but will have the solid support of the whole Unionist Party, that is, of more than half the people of England and at least half the people of Great Britain. We say with absolute confidence that in these circumstances moderate Liberal opinion will insist on a dissolution just before instead of just after the passage of the Bill.
They will insist on a dissolution on perfectly sound and reasonable grounds. They will argue : " It is not common sense to wait till the Bill is passed and then in effect ask the country's opinion on it, when the other course —that of asking the opinion of the country first— may either get rid altogether of the painful duty of coercing Ulster or else make that coercion infinitely less bloody. North-East Ulster in all human probability will begin the policy of resistance as soon as the Bill becomes law. This means that the Protestants of the north will have to be put down by force of arms, i.e., by the shooting of people in the streets of Belfast. But how criminally foolish we shall look if when a few months later the inevitable appeal to the country comes we find that the nation is after all against the Home Rule Act, and that the blood that has been shed on both sides has been shed in vain ! We shall be utterly disgraced as a nation by such a result. Our hands will be red with blood that need not have been shed. When the widows and the children cry out on those who took the lives of husbands and fathers when there was no need, what shall we answer ? On the other hand, if the country shows itself determined to have the Home Rule Bill, and therefore determined to put down with the sternest hand all resistance to the popular will, how infinitely better will be the position of the coercing Government ! They will have behind them the tremendous force of a popular endorsement. Even if there is still a certain fanatical resistance to the will of the United Kingdom, it will be put down with far less difficulty. Men will be much more overawed by a successful dissolution than by the determination of a Cabinet to shed blood like water in Ulster whether they have or have not got the majority of the people on the side of their measure. In short no Liberal Govern- ment ought to insist upon coercing Ulster in the dark and without a clear order to carry out such coercion. If the Government have to strike Ulster, then in the name of humanity let the stroke be as sharp, as vigorous, and as overwhelming as possible. But an overwhelming stroke can only be delivered when the Bill has been countersigned by a general election."
The feeling that we have just expressed is certain to be the feeling of a very large number of Liberals and also of the great mass of balancing electors. What is more, these views are certain in one way or another to be brought home to the Government, say this time next year, with almost irresistible force. As the time for shedding the blood of the Protestants of Ulster draws near, we may feel sure that a deputation from the ministers of religion in Ulster of all shades of opinion will go to the Prime Minister, reinforced by a certain number of Liberal Free Churchmen and by a great many members of the Church of England. In no party spirit but with perfect sincerity such a deputation could urge upon the Prime Minister the simple and deeply moving considera tions which animated their appeal. They would not, or course, dream of asking him not to strike, or to give up his policy, nor would they attempt any interference. They would merely ask him to get the maximum of consent for his measure so as to make the coercion of North- East Ulster, if it must come, as brief as possible. Are we seriously to be told that such a deputation would be met by the Prime Minister with a bow or a sneer or a mere denial : " Go about your business and do not trouble me. If the people of North-East Ulster resist the law of the land, I shall know how to deal with them. They are preparing rebellion, and it is not for rebels to dictate to the Government the manner in which their crime shall be punished. The Protestants of North-East Ulster will find that the Government have, without a dissolution, plenty of power to teach them their duty " ? Till we actually read the reports of such words, or their equivalents, from Mr. Asquith, we shall not believe in the possibility of their utterance.
Our belief that the ordinary Liberals and Radicals will not permit the Government much longer to take the line that the Nationalists have a right to their pound of Protestant flesh without any further consultation with, the nation, and 'that a whiff of grapeshot, or rather of machine guns, will be quite sufficient to force the Home Rule Bill on the northern counties, is strengthened by two very significant paragraphs which we find in The New Statesman (April 26th), the new weekly organ of advanced Socialistic-Radicalism. Here are the paragraphs in question :.— " Ulster has of late been in the background as far as the press is concerned; but there is no reason to think that the fact has either depressed her will or affected her temper. Mr. William Moore's expulsion from the House of Commons was the occasion of a good deal of speech-making, unreported in England, which would make amazing reading in this country if we could realize how recklessly the audiences are prepared to 'make good.' The renewed anxiet:- of the Government, vouched for by the Daily Telegraph, gives credit to a rumour prevalent, we understand, a few weeks ago in Dublin, to the effect that the Royal Irish Constabulary in Ulster had been instructed no longer to spare the feelings of the authori- ties in its reports regarding Ulster's preparations for a fight against the Muckle Hure o' Babylon and for We won't have it'— the fighting spirit is not more definite than that—but to state the naked truth though the sky should fall. According to the Daily Telegraph's correspondent, the Government has hitherto been hoping for the trouble to come to a head before the passing of the Home Rule Bill.
There are three points in this Ulster business to which we invite the attention of our readers. The first is the fact that Ulster is not bluffing : what has to be faced there is not merely mock drills and dummy cannon, nor even genuine arms (though these are in hand), but a fanaticism which is proof against all reason, and an
actual habit of violence and bloodshed maintained by annual rioting. The second is that the exigencies of English party politics will create no reaction in Ulster. She may be abandoned by the English leaders ; but her motto is ' Ourselves Alone' : in Irish, Sinn Fein.' The third is that the situation has most significantly changed since 1893, the date of the last Home Rule Bin. Then Ulster proposed to defend the scattered Protestants of the South against tho perils of Catholic government. She said 'Ireland shall not have Home Rule.' To-day she says We won't have it 'and only Ulster folk were permitted to sign the Covenant of la:t September. Whatever her so-called leaders may say, Ulster is obliged by her own logic to allow the rest of Ireland, which she utterly despises, to have Home Rule, so long as she herself is made exempt from the operation of the Act."
In our opinion what the Fabians are thinking to-day will in this case prove to be what the Liberal Party in general will be thinking this time next year. Very important and, if we may say so, absolutely in accordance with all that we have said during the past year in these columns, is the New Statesman's appreciation of the fact that the situation has changed enormously since 1893. As we have so often urged, the fact that Ulster has given up the attempt to dictate to the rest of Ireland and now takes the much stronger, much more logical, and much more intelligible line of saying, " Even granted that you must yield to the rest of Ireland, you have no right to sacrifice us," makes Ulster's case irresistible. You cannot, as we explained last week, shoot men down by the thousand—that is what street fighting with machine guns must come to—in the name of the local majority, when the men in question constitute that majority. That strange Delphic oracle which is found not only in the individual subconsciousness, but in the general sub- consciousness of a mass of men, is beginning to whisper to the Nationalists : "You can only have your way about Home Rule if you are willing to except those counties of Ulster in which the majority is against you, i.e., is determined not to go under a Dublin Parliament. You must take or leave your Home Rule on those terms." It does not matter to the oracle how disagreeable these words may be to the Irish. It will care not, even if they stamp their feet and declare that they are being mocked and betrayed, that Ireland is one and indivisible, and that if they are not given the right of taxing and coercing and shooting the people of North-East Ulster, Home Rule is both an outrage and a mockery. The Delphic oracle was always dumb to the " back answers " of those that were sent into a frenzy of anger or despair by its riddles. The oracle of public opinion is just as dumb and just as grim. It will care nothing for the fury of the Celt, and will only mutter once more : " You can have Home Rule if you like, but only without Ulster. Take your choice." It is because they all know this in their hearts that the Nationalists are so determined that they will not have a dissolution before their Bill becomes law. They will not risk the appeal to the people, because they are more than doubtful what must be the result of that appeal. If they really believed that the people were with them, does any sane person really suppose that they would throw away so potent an asset as a popular endorse- ment of the Bill ?
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