TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE ULSTER AMENDMENT.
ALTHOUGH the amendment moved by Sir Edward Carson on Wednesday was defeated by the antici- pated majority, we do not hesitate to describe it as the most important and most enlightening which has yet been discussed in the debates on the Home Rule Bill. Anyone who reads the debate must feel as though a bright light had been turned on in such a way as to explore every nook and cranny of the Government case. Sir Edward Carson spoke with a weight and sincerity which deeply impressed even those who well know that seriousness always lies behind his more characteristic invective. The proposal for the exclusion of Ulster penetrated to the very heart of the matter, and showed up in the most vivid manner the incoherent political philosophy on which the Home Rule Bill rests. Nothing else could have proved in so conclusive a manner the utter inability of the Government to produce even a passable argument in justification of their refusal to apply the same principle to Ulster as to the rest of Ireland. If the Irish Nationalists have a right to Home Rule simply because they want it, then Ulster Unionists have an equal right to the form of government which they desire. There is absolutely no difference between the two cases. Ulster Unionists wish to be left where they are. Why should the Government listen to the Nationalists but be obdurately deaf to the appeal of Ulster Unionists ?
We should be unjust to Mr. Agar-Robartes if we did not remember to give him the highest credit, before we say a word more, for the amendment which he—most courageously as a Liberal—moved in June for the exclusion of the four north-east counties of Ulster from the operation of the Home Rule Bill. But that amendment, though it exposed the weakness of the Government's case in exactly the same way as the debate of Wednesday exposed it, had not, of course, the moral force of Sir Edward Carson's amendment. The latter was the formal and official protest of the Ulster Unionists against being driven out of the incorporating Union of Great Britain and Ireland against their will. After Mr. Agar-Robartes's amendment it might still have been said : "No doubt what Mr. Agar-Robartes proposed would have fitted the Home Rule Bill with a safety- valve, but why was it left for a Liberal to suggest the safety-valve ? Surely if the Ulster Unionists felt that it was necessary to have a safety-valve, in order to prevent civil war in Ireland, they would have proposed it themselves." Such a criticism is no longer possible. The Ulster Unionists have themselves asked for a safety- valve, and now that the request has been refused by the Government we cannot believe that sober and temperate opponents of Home Rule who have hitherto had mis- givings about " sedition" in Ulster will any longer doubt whether Ulster Unionists would be justified in resisting the authority of a Dublin Parliament. Nothing since the debates on the Home Rule Bill began has so thoroughly clarified the situation as Sir Edward Carson's amendment.
Since the introduction of the Bill (and even before it was introduced), we have urged, that the only con- ceivable way in which Ulstermen could defeat the Home Rule Bill—or, if they could not defeat it, could at all events demonstrate decisively the justice of their case on the very ground taken up by the Government—was by moving an amendment for the exclusion of North-East Ulster from the operation of the Bill. We need not say, then, how gratified we were by the decision of the Ulster Uuionists to bring on the debate of Wednesday. To those who have not carefully followed the tactics of the Opposition to Home Rule it would seem astonishing that Sir Edward Carson's amendment was not moved long ago. The explanation, of course, is that the Ulster Unionists were restrained by a chivalrous regard for their brother Unionists in the South and West of Ireland. These minorities, they felt, would be left in the lurch if Ulster succeeded in getting itself excluded from the Bill, and would have just cause of complaint at the betrayal. It was our own opinion throughout that though on keen- sideration of some aspects of the case this was a natural view to take, the interests of the Southern Unionists would not by any means be sacrificed by an amendment excluding Ulster or part of it. Not only Ulstermen but the Southern and Western Unionists themselves have since come round to this opinion. They see that an Ulster amendment does not really sanction a bad Bill, because the Bill as a whole is being fought root and branch just the same. To put a safety-valve into an engine which is a thoroughly bad engine is not to approve the design of the engine. It is simply—on the assumption that the engine is going to be used in any case—to reduce its capacity for mischief from a high degree to a lower degree. But this question of the " betrayal " of the scattered minorities of Unionists has caused so much searching of hearts among Unionists who but for this objection, would have consented long ago to an amendment for the exclusion of Ulster, that we must quote exactly what Sir Edward Carson said :—
" My colleague in the representation of Dublin University and myself are both of us men who come from south of the Boyne. We are just as solicitous about these scattered minorities in the south and west of Ireland as anybody else is. My firm conviction is, and I believe it is now shared by the majority of these people, that even by the exclusion of Ulster, if this Bill unfortunately becomes law, they would be in a far better position than they would be if Ulster were retained in the Bill. What would be their position under a Home Rule Parliament ? They would have a few representatives from Ulster who would really have no power, who would be at variance with the whole ideas of those who come from the south and west. But what would they have if Ulster was excluded ? They would have the same representation here in this House as they have now to watch their interests in this House and to take care, as far as they were able at all events, that there should be some watch over the way they were treated and over the administration of the new Government in Ireland. In addition to that, they would have in Ireland itself an Imperial power and an Imperial force which could not be disregarded by the subordinate Parliament for the rest of Ireland."
Another criticism to which Sir Edward Carson's amend- ment is open is that it embraced the whole of Ulster, which includes a large proportion of Home Rulers, instead of confining itself to the predominantly Unionist North- Eastern counties. Sir Edward Carson defended his plan on the ground that a province is a more natural area for separate treatment. Although in the whole of -Ulster the Unionist members have a majority of only one over the Nationalists, it is still obvious that so far from there being a strong desire for Home Rule in the province as a. whole, there is actually a majority against it. Moreover, the Protestants greatly exceed the Roman Catholics when the province is taken as a whole. We our- selves, have never asked for more than the ex- clusion of the north-eastern counties, but in any case the demand for the exclusion of the whole of Ulster does not in the least obscure or invalidate the principle of Sir Edward Carson's amendment. As Mr. Bonar Law said: "You could make an amendment—and if it were made I should vote for it—that any county in Ulster could decide by a plebiscite whether to go into the new Parliament or remain in the British Parliament." Nothing could be plainer than the point at issue. We repeat that if the Nationalists have a right to choose a. form of government after their own hearts, the great and prosperous community of Ulster Unionists, who are the architects of their own well-earned fortunes, have exactly the same right. If this is not so the Home Rule Bill rests on no intelligible principle whatever. The Government could not attempt to dispute the point, because it is, in fact indisputable. Mr. Asquith's argument that Ulster Unionists could not claim a " veto " on the wishes of Ireland did not merely fail to meet the point, it did not come within range of it. Ulster Unionists have built up their prosperity and contentment under the Union. All they ask is that they should not be thrust out of the polity under which they have achieved this success, and be forced under a Dublin Government which would be alien to them in both political aims and religion. The Liberal retort amounts to no more than this : "If Ulster is excluded the whole financial scheme breaks down and the Home Rule Bill is lost." But is that any answer to the searching moral question involved in the proposal to deprive Ulster Unionists of the form of government to which they are devotedly attached ? Of course it is none whatever. An honest statesman would admit that if he could not produce a Home Rule Bill without doing a gross injustice le would not produce a Home Rule Bill at all. We appreciate and admire the staunchness of principle which caused Mr. Pine to exclaim that if this act of oppression were carried out in the name of Liberalism he would never again call himself a Liberal. At the end of the debate Mr. Churchill made the extra.- ordinary remark that if a Conservative Prime Minister wished eventually to rescue Ulster from the operation of a Home Rule Act he could do it "with the greatest facility." But if it would be so easy for a Conservative Government why on earth cannot a Liberal Government do it now ? We cannot understand how Mr. Churchill could argue with a straight face in favour of the compulsion of Ulster, for het has led the way, in his speech on federalism, in asserting the right of almost any fragment of the United Kingdom to have the form of Government it desires. There was another very important point in the debate which must be mentioned—Mr. Boner Law's prompt declaration, in answer to Mr. Asquith's challenge, that the Unionist Party would not feel justified in supporting resistance in Ulster if another appeal to the electors on the question of Home Rule went in favour of the Govern- ment. We thoroughly agree with Mr. Bonar Law. But the Unionist leader's declaration makes it absolutely imperative—and we are sure that every Unionist throughout the land will see clearly that this is so— that if an election should take place on Home Rule it should be the object to fight the election on this issue uncomplicated as far as is humanly possible by other issues. The unhappy fact is, however, that it never is possible strictly to contest a general election on an undivided issue. Each side brings up any and every title to unpopularity which happens to have been earned by the other side. An election which was supposed to be on Home Rule might only too easily go wrong through the introduction of Food Taxes. The Liberals would none the less claim the result as a victory for Home Rule, though we are absolutely certain that any election fought on the Home Rule issue pure and simple would affirm the maintenance of the Union by an overwhelming majority. The danger of an election going wrong in this way is so pressing that we are convinced that it has only to be stated for the Unionist leaders to come to the con- clusion that nothing must be allowed to stand in the way of the accomplishment of the chief immediate purpose of statesmanship—the saving of the Union. The one and only true solution, we must add, of the ever-present difficulty of ascertaining the opinion of the electorate on any given point lies in the Poll of the People. "Is it your will that such-and-such a Bill shall become law ? Yes or no ? " By no other means can popular opinion be tested with absolute accuracy. In conclusion, we trust that no one, and in particular no Liberal, will run off with the notion that because Ulster Unionists have failed to get themselves excluded from the Bill the danger of civil war and bloodshed in Ireland has passed away. The exact reverse is the truth. Now that Ulster Unionists have made their appeal and have been turned empty away they know, what before was not certain, that they have nothing to rely upon except their own power of resistance. By their act of rejection on Wednesday the Government have enormously increased the moral force which lies behind that resist- ance. Liberals have brought themselves several steps nearer to the odious point of coercing Ulster. Let them be under no illusion. Ulster is as determined as ever to resist, and now has a new sanction. The Government have been fairly and formally warned, and they have ignored the warning. The illiberal task of carrying out whatever oppression and repression may be necessary will fall to them alone, and they will share the discredit and odium with no one.
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