TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE IRISH SETTLEMENT.
IT is the duty of all good citizens to give the proposed Irish Settlement every 'chance. For our part, we can promise that there shall be no obstruction, no vindictive- ness, no dwelling on the past. Let the experiment be tried wholeheartedly. Let it be.tried in a spirit which will prevent anyone saying in the future that the Unionists would not allow peace to come. That must be unsayable by any honest and reasonable man. We have under the Agreement to trust to the honour of Sinn Fein. We accept the obligation and await the result in good faith. But though we insist so strongly that it has become the duty of Unionists as well as of everybody else to help the Settlement by word and deed, and also by a conscious effort to forget and forgive, we should not be sincere if we pretended to approve of the Settlement on its merits, or to regard it as something which involves the minimum of risks and dangers. We do not approve of the underlying principles ; and we do not approve of many of the details. We believe further that, though the British portions of the United Kingdom, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland come safely out of the imbroglio, Southern Ireland is probably condemned to be one of the worst governed States in the world—a land of civil disorder and intimidation, overshadowed by the selfish and suffo- cating power of a reactionary sacerdotal caste. In spite of this, we feel that it had become impossible to struggle further to save the Irish people. The Government for the past two years had been, if not deliberately, then unconsciously but none the less surely, riding for a fall in Ireland. They had brought things to such a pitch that a surrender to Sinn Fein had become inevitable. All that remained for -true Unionists to do was to strive, as we have striven, to make the inevitable surrender as little harmful as possible and as little unjust. More than that became impossible the moment the Conference was seen to be carried on in the spirit adopted by the Cabinet. Ulster is, we believe, protected by the Settlement. But, alas ! we have to admit that she owes her safety rather to her own courage and stedfastness than to the action of the British Government. Ulster was not thrown to the wolves because those who, if we are to judge by the newspapers, were willing to throw her did not at the last moment dare to do so. Nevertheless, we devoutly hope that Northern Ireland, however sore she may feel at the attempt to coerce her which failed, will be able to accept fully and frankly the Settlement now made, and will determine that, if it fails, it shall be through no fault of hers.
To be more explicit, we are particularly anxious that the Northern Government and People, who, Heaven be praised ! still remain in fact as well as in name our fellow- citizens, should agree to a rectification of the boundaries of Tyrone and Fermanagh. If that delimitation is fairly and properly arranged, it ought to prove a blessing, not an injury, to the North. It will relieve North-East Ulster of sonic of the worst elements in her present population. The more homogeneous Northern Ireland is the safer she will be. She will not suffer but gain_ by increasing the proportion of Protestants. She will banish from her borders tormentors and disturbers of the peace, not good citizens. It must be admitted that a rectified boundary might in certain cases inflict hardship on the Protestant inhabitants of the excluded parishes. To meet this we suggest that persons in the said parishes should be given a right of option, i.e., the right to remain citizens of Northern Ireland and to leave the excluded districts with full compensation for having been deprived of their present status. They should, that is to say, be bought out by a special provision in the new Act.
Although this is our feeling about the boundary question, we record it " without prejudice " to a fuller and better consideration. It may be that Northern Ireland can show good cause for not altering her present statutory boundaries on grounds which are not now appreciated by us. If she can, we shall not be on the side of those who would deprive her of her legal rights. Meanwhile, we would strongly urge on her the considerations we have set forth.. Now as to Mr. Lloyd George. That praise unstinted is his due we fully and gratefully admit, provided that his work proves good, as we devoutly hope it will. Subject to this necessary condition he has our unconditioned gratitude and thanks. A real Irish Peace would make amends for every fault great and small with which we have felt obliged to charge him in the past. Once more, we mean to make every effort to secure a settlement which, if not ideal, shall at least be permanent. We have got to live, and we have no intention of asking the English people to live on a diet of regrets, however poignant and however well justified. We must deal with the present, not with the past. We, who recovered front the loss of America, shall not perish from the loss of Southern Ireland and of a population whose motto is " Ourselves Alone ! " Such persons had better receive the Heaven for which they long—an inglorious isolation.
No account of the negotiations would be complete without a mention of the characteristic part which was played by the King. It is astonishing how much room there is still left for sincerity and personality to make themselves felt even within the very exact limitations of the constitutional monarchy. No one could have been wiser and more helpful than the King was, and he was enabled to do what he did simply by being himself. He never showed the remotest trace of a desire to :intervene in the interests of his own position or dignity, though one can hardly conceive a question more likely to stir up the sensitive feelings of a Sovereign than the dismemberment of a kingdom. The King derived power and earned the admiration of his subjects because in these most trving of all circumstances he acted strictly on the advice a his Ministers. There must have been moments for His Majesty when nothing but a miserable failure, plus the inevitable humiliation, seemed likely to reward the scrupulous propriety with which he behaved. But the unmistakable earnestness with which he spoke to the people of Ireland at the opening of the Northern Parliament has, after all, had its reward. It was in keeping with the King's attitude that when the Settlement was an- nounced he wrote a telegram of hearty congratulation to the Prime Minister, which was just that kind of straight and simple message which is written by men who are capable of taking genuine pleasure in the success of others. How different, how vainglorious, and how hollow, however grand, would have been the language in such a case of a Sovereign who did not fit by instinct and by training into the traditional ways of British government !
When all has been said about the main happy fact that a settlement has been reached, and about the necessity of making it produce all the benefits of which it is capable, we cannot shake off the feeling that in appear- ance, at any rate, North-East Ulster has been shabbily treated. That loyal and compact population has been dealt with as though it were hardly a party to the Settle- ment at all. The agreement between Great Britain and Sinn Fein, on the face of it, makes it look as though it paid better from a money point of view to be traitorous than to be loyal. The Sinn Feiners are left to tax them- selves almost as lightly as they please, while the Northern area is rewarded by having still to bear the heavy taxation of the United Kingdom. This is a sorry contrast. But we want to say that in our opinion it will not remain so. We predict without hesitation that in five years North- East Ulster will find that she is far better off under British taxation, high and even oppressive though it is now, than Southern Ireland will be under Sinn Fein taxation_ Besides, the Unionist Party will not always be under an anaesthetic. Then any injustice to North-East Ulster can and will be put right. Let Northern Ireland therefore endure in silence and with dignity. Time will not only justify her but will reward her.
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