THE IRISH PROBLEM: A SWISS ANALOGY.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR-1
Sia,—One utterance at least of President Wilson's will find an echo in every freemen's heart, and mightily comfort the People of Ulster in
the present crisis. It deserves to be emblazoned on a banner : "Thai every people has the right to choose the sovereignty under which they shall live." And he appropriately added : "That the small States of the world have the right to enjoy the same respect for their sovereignty ar.d territorial integrity that the great nations expect and insist on." The cardinal fact is that there are two nations in Ireland ; and this the Britiah public seems unable to seize. There is no real unit that can be called " Ireland " other than geographical (indeed, never has been\ and in that sense Macedonia is a unit too. These two nations arc largely different in origin, and utterly different in ideals, political, religious, and industrial Among white people, two more divergent communities could not be found. It is impossible for any joint govern- ment to be successful ; their aims are mutually exclusive. The best thing for all the five nations in the United Kingdom is a just and im- partial central government, like that of India, which favours none at the expense of the others. But if things have reached such a pass in one of the communities that something like cantonal separation of areas must be tried, then in God's name let a fair proportion of the territory be delimited as the home of loyalty to the Empire, toleration, progress, and independence from the asphyxiating influence of clerical interference. In this matter I would like to point to the example of the Swiss cantons. It may not be generally known that although nominally there are twenty-two sovereign States, this very religious difficulty has forced them to divide again into twenty-five or more. In Switzerland many of the difficulties we have in Ireland are not found. Bitter racial feelings do not survive from the era of persecution. The political conditions are the result of free choice on the part of each canton. Again, the theological temperature is there cool and moderate, ;0 malts in Ireland wo are still in a sense in the sixteenth century Yet in spite of all this, at least two of the cantons, where both religions arc strongly represented, have found it best to delimit their area again and form each two governmental units. I refer to Basel and Appenzell. ln the Annuaire Statietigue de la Suisse these cantons are divided into Basel-Land (pop. 176,154) and Basel-Stadt (134,937); Appenzell Auseer-Rhod en (57,859) and Appenzcll Inner-Rhoden (14,611). Each, I am told, is self-governing like the original cantons. Unterwalden also is quoted in two parts Unterwalclen O.D.W. (17,081) and Unter- walden N.D.W. (13,760). This arrangement on the part of the cool and practical Swiss points the way in which peace may perhaps at last be found. As far as respects population, among existing sovereign States Ulster wouid, with 1,581,000, rank higher than Salvador, Panama, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Montenegro, Luxemburg, and several others, of which the smallest is Andorra, with six thousand people And to assume (as the Nationalists do) that every ieland has an indefeasible right to be under a single government is to ignore, among other things, the division of San Domingo into two separate Republics, the partition of Borneo, and the very history of Great Britain
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