LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
[Letters of the length of one of our leading paragraphs are Often more read, and therefore more effective, than those which fill treble the space.]
THE INDEPENDENT LIBERAL PARTY AND THE IRISH QUESTION.
(To as EDITOR Or TR. " SPECTATOZ."1 Srll.-1 am a Liberal and a Home Ruler, though what I am going to say may make it doubtful to those of my own faith whom I venture to criticize My sympathies are with the Independent Liberals. I regard Mr. Asquith as the most wronged and calumniated man (with the exception, perhaps. of Lord Haldane) in English politics. I am an old admirer •,f Mr. Lloyd George, clinging desperately on the slenderest grounds to the hope that he will emerge from his compromising position prepared to fight as mightily as ever for causes he seems to be selling for a very low market price. I want to say that, if it is his intention to allow the Conservative Party to undo the work of Cobden, Gladstone, Campbell-Bannerman, Mr. Asquith, and himself, the Independent Liberals are playing right into his hands. They are throwing away Free Trade with both hands. They are for a generation committing the land question to the party that invariably legislates in the interests of landowners. Unless Free Trade be maintained, not only will England be subjected to disorders to which tholes of Ireland will furnish no parallel, but she will lose the one material security she has against the active hostility of other nations and make the holding of her enormous Empire impossible. Unless the land question be grappled with earnestly and soon the wildest experimental quackery, intensifying existing industrial diseases, will threaten our manufacturing pre- eminence with its death-stroke. And all for what? That the Independent Liberal Party may show its sympathy for an association of conspirators in Ireland that utterly despises it and would contemptuously reject any 'Home Rule offer it oould make and carry on its present methods in frustrating the efforts of even a majority of friendly Irishmen to operate its machinery. What does it hope to gain? Not office surely? Not the expulsion of the present Government? The one thing that will keep the Government in power, reprisals or no reprisals, is its Irish policy, and that for two definite reasons—one, that most people would dread the uncertainty in beginning all owe again with a Government that had no agreed proposals to mats and would be faced by an opposition to any proposal more ruth- less, more uncompromising, and more confident because of what It would regard as its own triumph; the other, that there are hundreds of thousands of people who do not see policies theoretically or test them by fundamental principles, but whose common sporting antipathies have been aroused by black- guardly and cowardly attacks upon honest policemen and officials until now they confess to a sympathy with reprisals and see almost justification in the very word. Orators in the comforting but blinding atmosphere of party meetings may pooh-pooh this and say they hear opinions to the contrary. Of course they do. They are in the swirl of the current and do not notice the off-takes that silently steal away from the main stream. I have for thirty years taken an active interest in our politics. I have worked hard for my party. Latterliv I have travelled much over the length and breadth of England, making it my business to get the opinion of the common man. I have met all sorts and conditions on familiar terms. I rarely meet Conservatives. My lines are not cast in such pleasant places. Nearly all of the unobtrusive sort I have sounded vote Liberal or Labour, not because they are enthusiasts, 1i:A because it has been their practice so to do. With scarcely se exception they have declared that the Sinn Feiners have cooled them on the question of Rome Rule. They will respond to the fighting challenge by fighting. Liberalism cannot afford to loss their support even if it be not quite as strong as I think it is. If either the Labour or the Liberal Party thinks it can win on its attitude towards the Government's Irish policy it is barking up the wrong tree. Its discomfiture will be the most litter and confounding in its history, and the Tories would make this an absolute certainty if they first gave an unmistakable assurance that they would not introduce even a modicum of Protection.
I freely concede that the first question should not be Victory, but Justice. Well, let Independent Liberals search their hearts. Are they quite sure that Justice is their consurnieg motive? Would they not be doing far better for Ireland ae(a for their own claims on the constituencies if they sincerely and generously assisted the Government with the experiment eni- bodied in the present Ileme Rule Bill, making it as much a non-party question as the war and as it should be now that the principle of Home Rule is accepied by all parties? Mr. Asquith's ministry carried a measure which it found im- possible because not acceptable to both Irish parties. Mr. Lloyd George offers each Irish party its own organization and makes provision for future mention by agreement. With a strong, traditional prejudice against any Tory proposal I have fallen back on my conscience and tried to take a detached and impartial view. I have come to these conclusions :—
That Sinn Feinism cannot be negotiated with because it trill not be.
That by its resort to force and dastardly methods it has lost all claim to be negotiated with.
That the paramount duty is to stamp out this force and this discreditable and discredited society.
That Sinn Fein cannot be said to be representative of all the Irish. That "Dominion Home Rule" is a mere incantation betraying an absence of thorough thought on a very special and distinct problem. That the Government Bill may not be perfect—in fact, is not— but it is a beginning. If the experiment should fail after being honestly tried it can be amended. That if Ulster should make a success of it there will be evidence that the South could.
That if Ulster should not, England will get assistance thereby from the most unquestionable quarter as to what amend- ments would be required for both North and South.
That it is therefore the duty of both Opposition Parties to turn squarely to Sinn Fein and say: You You are injuring your own cause. You cannot bully Britain. We detest your methods and will assist the Government to defeat them. Expect nothing from us till they have ceased. Begin with the measures of Home Rule that you can get, try them well, and help us to make them better."
The Independent Liberal Party's criticism of the Govern- ment's alleged encouragement of reprisals seems to me neither fair nor ingenuous, let alone generous. It shows no sympathy for the great difficulties. It is accompanied by a belated con- demnation of the provoking atrocities which is confined to formal resolutions and parenthetic introductions to burning words against reprisals. It is coolly oblivious of the original and unpardonable failure to blaze out in wrath against the first assassinations. It looks like a calculated, realization of the salue of the charge as a party weapon and does not convince She public. It asks us to believe that the Ministry are not only a group of liars, but such fools as not to see their interest in being clear of the offence. It ignores the repeated assurances of Sir Hamar Greenwood. It does not disprove his statements by confronting him in the House with discrepant speeches, orders, letters, or even hints. Surely, if it has been difficult to put down crimes it would be more difficult to prevent reprisals. I asked an Irishman if the Government vras really getting the better of the Sinn Feiners. "No," he said, "not the Govern- ment, but we are." " Do you mean by reprisals?" I asked. His answer—" Yes, and there is no other way "—showed me plainly what a handful the Irish Secretary had in both sections. Would not the Independent Liberals do infinitely more to stop reprisals if they joined the battle front with the Ministry against the originating cause? To me Mr. Asquith has been almost an idol and Sir John Simon a cherished hope. I thought the Prime Minister's references to them at the Constitutional Club egotistically mocking and entirely wanting in dignity, but I would like to see them take a different line from that which they are taking. Is it too late to look for truces inside as well as outside the House? It would be an example and an inspira-
tion to the Empire.—I am, Sir, ec., A LIBERAL.
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