TOPICS OF THE DAY.

IRELAND'S NEW BOGY.

IT looks as if a strong attempt were going to be made . to bluff the Government into unwise and unjust action in regard to Ireland. The plan is quite clear, indeed eonfessed. • It is to raise the bogy of American sympathies for Ireland, and to frighten us thereby into betraying the Protestants and Unionists of North-East Ulster.

A good understanding with America, we are told, is absolutely necessary if we are to establish a sound and safe settlement at the Peace Conference.

But we cannot have cordial relations with America if the Irish influences at Washington are against us.

But we cannot placate the Irish in America unless we placate the Irish here—i.e., the Sinn Feiners.

But the Sinn Feiners will not be placated unless we hand over to them the people of North-East Ulster to do with them what they will.

Therefore, in order to work well with America, and to found the League of Nations, we must present President Wilson with the heads of the people of Belfast and of the Six-County Area on a charger.

That is the offering required, the noble piece of self- sacrifice which the Daily News and the supporters of Home Rule in this country invite us to make in order to secure

the peace of the world sacrifice, be it noted, not of English or Scots interests, but of those who have stood by us and the cause of justice and humanity and democracy during the war.

Even if the premisses of those a-ho call for this ignoble surrender to Sinn Fein were true, and if we could not have the goodwill of America without the sacrifice of North-East Ulster, we should say without hesitation that the sacrifice must not be made. To attempt to found a League of Nations upon an act of betrayal, and to throw over our friends and those who have stood by us in order to placate the Sinn Fein friends of Germany and enemies of the British Empire and People, would be as useless as it would be base. The flower of Peace would disdain to flourish in a soil so dishonoured. When at the end of the American Civil War it was proposed, on the grounds of a pedantic legalism and in order to make reconciliation easier with the South, that the people of West Virginia should be thrown to the wolves, Lincoln brushed all the pedantries and sophistries and injustices aside with the deedaration that he meant to stand by those who had stood by the Union. Therefore the partition of Virginia, which the Virginians had declared could never be permitted, took place, and the ten—or was it fifteen ?— county area herame a separate State of the Union.

As a matter of fact, however, there is no need to invoke these considerations. The premisses on which the Daily News argument is founded, and which are being used to terrorize us into a gross act of unrightcousness and political folly, are utterly fallacious. The able statesmen, headed by the President, to whom Americans look for guidance in great matters of State, are not going to be influenced in a question of such vital moment by the impotent threat that they will lose the Irish vote, for that is what it really comes to. The time is long past when the Irish vote cast a spell of power on Washington. All the better part of American politicians are heartily sick of the Irish vote and Irish domination. That vote, indeed, as far as it is sectional, and as far as it is controlled by Ultramontane interests, is now thoroughly discredited in the United States. The American People noted with indignation the way in which the Irish extremists in their country favoured the German cause, and were so often used as German instruments he Count Bernstorff. With equal indignation they noticed the way in which the Sinn Fein leaders openly supported the German cause and proclaimed themselves the active allies of the Kaiser. Finally, the insults heaped upon the American flag and upon American sailors in Ireland have made a deep impression upon the better part of American opinion. The overwhelming majority of that opinion is quite- determined that the Irish shall not come between us and them and

create ill-blood on any plea whatsoever. This determination of the Americans not to have the cause in which they arms so deeply interested, the cause of a lasting Peace and of a -League of Nations, ruined by an Irish intrigue, has been greatly strengthened by the fact that during the last year Americans have learned a great deal about the Irish question, and have realized how utterly false it is to represent the British People as the tyrants and oppressors of Ireland. The people of North-East Ulster, though they have not anything like the capacity for political propaganda possessed by the Southern Irish, have happily at last put their case before America and made her under- stand, not only what Home Rule would mean to North-East Ulster, but how monstrous is the assertion that England has refused local autonomy to that portion of Ireland which desires it, or that she is acting from motives of selfishness. or from a desire to crush and dominate the spirit of C'eltia nationality. The American People know now that, in spite of the fact that the Sinn Feiners leapt to arms and tried to stab us in the back at the very crisis of the war, not because we had done anything unjust to them or had been tyrannical or aggressive, but because they thought we were at the moment weak and vulnerable, the British Government, with the full endorsement of the British People, have again and again told the Irish that the Home Rule Act can be applied at once to that part of Ireland in which the local majority desires its application, provided that that part of Ireland in which the local majority detests the very thought of Home Rule shall be exempted and shall remain an integral portion of the United Kingdom.

The plea that we are depriving Ireland of the right of self-determination is for Americans absolutely Met, overthrown, and pulverized by the offer that was officially made to Ireland in the Convention, which was accepted by the Ulster delegates, and which Mr. Redmond himself accepted, but which was destroyed by the arrogant intervention of the Irish Hierarchy actin. as the mouth- piece of the Sinn Feiners. The Roman 'Bishops refused to consider the idea of self-determination, even for a moment, unless it carried with it the denial of self- determination to North-East Ulster. Unless they could be given the right to domineer over the Protestant, Unionist, and industrial North, Home Rule for Celtic and Roman Catholic Ireland was pronounced to be utterly worthless. Now that the United States and her head, President Wilson, realize the true situation, as we feel sure they do, there will be little real sympathy for the Sinn Fein demand, though there may be a certain amount of civil consideration. Even if we put aside for the moment the facts that the Sinn Fritters are now asking, not for Home Rule, but for complete Separation and the founding of an independent Irish State, and also that American sentiment is dead against the breaking up of Nations and of Incorporating Uniorn—was not the war of the North and South fought on that very ground ?—it will soon be seen that the Americans have no use whatever for the argument that no Mailman could consent to the partition of the sacred soil of Ireland, mke., &c. America affords plenty of examples of the partitioning of States as proud of their history and of their homogeneity as Ireland, and with a much better historical claim tole treated as an indivisible unit. The people of Massachusetts as a whole were by no means pleased at the demand of the people of a group of counties in the North-East corner of their Common- wealth to be formed into a separate State, but after it became clear that the local majority in the area formed by those counties now constituting the State of Maine was in favour of separation, Maine, with the hearty endorsement of America generally, became a separate community. So too in the case of West Virginia. Though Virginia as a whole was dead against partition, American sentiment was all in favour of the foundation of West Virginia, and no attempt to revoke the war settlement has ever been or ever will be successful. In brief, neither a movement to found an independent Nation within the heart of the British Islands, nor, again, to represent partition as an outrage, will, when the nature of the schemes is properly understood, meet with any support from America in general.

Now that America knows that we have offered to those parts of Ireland which want local autonomy a larger measure of such autonomy than is possessed by any American State, and further, now that they see, as they have seen at this last Election, that Ireland actually has still the right to send some forty more representatives to the British Parliament than her population entitles her to send—while it takes a population of seventy thousand people in England or Scotland to send a representative to .Westminster, it only takes sonic forty-three thousand in Ireland—they realize how necessary it is to discount the declarations that Irishmen are being deprived of the rights of freemen.

In these circumstances our Government will be utterly unworthy of their trust if they are moved a hair's-breadth

by the plea that they must do wrong to North-East Ulster in order to obtain what we fully admit is in itself a thing to be ardently desired—namely, the goodwill of America. The Americans, however, are far more likely to despise us than to welcome us as associates if they see us attempting to buy their favour by so base an act. It should be our aim, not to try to bribe America, but to trust to the instincts of her people for truth and reason. Who here would not feel dishonoured if he saw the Americans trying to win our favour by the offer of a bribe ? Let us judge others by ourselves, and be sure that the Americans, when they realize the intrigue that is being engineered here, will be just. as disgusted as we should be at such an attempt at political Maehiavellism.

We have already gone as far as we have any right to go, and therefore as far as we can go, in our policy of grant"- ing the demands of the Irish extremists. Perhaps indeed we have gone too far. It is now our duty to tell those who returned the Sinn Fein majority that we have finished with all bargaining, that they must take our offer or leave it. If .they do not take it, but instead attempt to raise armed rebellion, the responsibility for what must ensue will be upon their heads and not upon ours. If we lay down that principle and show that we mean it, there will be no outbreak of violence or of armed resistance in Ireland. If, on the other hand, tee give the impression that we can be bluffed into an act of injustice or frightened by the bogy if the Irish cute in America into doing what is wrong per se, we shall no doubt run the great risk of an armed outbreak. Ireland revolts not when she sees us firm, but when she sees us weak. We coddled Ireland at the beginning of the war, and were repaid for it by some of the wickedeat acts in the history of our relations with Ireland—the rising in Dublin at Raster, 1916, the attempted massacre of English soldiers, Irish police, 'and Irish loyalists, and the attempt, led by Casement, to introduce our enemies into the heart of the Empire. It will be found, when the secret history becomes known, that when we showed equal weakness by refusing to apply Conscription to Ireland and dared not do our duty because of Irish threats, we invited, and very nearly obtained, another Irish appeal to arms. If the tide of battle had not turned at the front last July, the Sinn Feiners would have been again in arms. Such was the result of an unjust concession, and of putting an increased burden upon the people of England, Scotland, and Wales in order that the people of the South of Ireland should be released front the duty of doing their part in making the world safe for democracy. If the -Government show themselves afraid of the Sinn Feiners, it is safe to say that we shall begin a set of fresh Irish blunders and tragedies. If on the other hand we continue to treat Ireland with true justice and good sense, and, provoked or unprovoked, carry out the policy which has always been advocated in these pages, of de- veloping Irish industries and Irish resources to the full and under the leadership of the capable business men who mean to attend the Parliament at Westminster, i.e., the Members for North-East Ulster, we shall find the way to put our relations with Ireland on a proper footing, a business footing, not a footing of tumid lies and rancid sentiment.

And here let us say by way of postscript what one must always say in dealing with lreland—namely, that in the last resort the whole business is a tragic farce conducted by a set of fretful frauds, who not only do not believe in their own shams, but at heart utterly despise 118 for be- lieving in them. All Irishmen know, though of course they pretend before Englishmen not to know it, that why the whole of the South and West of Ireland is not at this moment enjoying —perhaps instead of "enjoying "we should say suffering under—Home Rule, is because the Roman Church long ago determined that it was not in its interests to have Home Rule, though it was in its interests to pretend to want it. Therefore the Roman Church pinned its faith and its policy to a condition which it knew would prevent Home Rule without appearing to prevent it. It declared that there could be no Home Rule which involved the partition of Ireland, knowing full well that the local majority in the Six Counties made it impossible in the last resort that the English People would ever consent to Home Rule. This scheme of Maynooth Machinvellism was particularly attractive to the Irish mind. It enabled the Bishops to pose as the best of Irish patriots while at the same time making it quite certain that Home Rule should never be granted. This policy, analogous to the old legal device of placing an impossible condition in a bond, de- lighted the wayward and impish side of the Irish character. It was obviously seen to be annoying and bewildering to the less alert, or, as the Irish would say, infinitely stupid, English intelligence, and yet it was an excellent and safe -ground on which the leaders of the Church could pose 118 the most whole-hearted of patriots. But like all plots of this nature, the great scheme for killing Home Rule not with kindness but with over-emphasis is going to Meet with its due reward. We venture to prophesy that instead of Sinn Fein being kept under the control of Ultramontane Catholicism by the device which we have just described, the end will be that Sinn Fein will take on a Bolshevik character, and will prove to be the wens by which a great many of the Irish people will be drawn into heresy and the renunciation of all religious ties and duties. When that becomes a visible fact, as we believe it soon will, be assured that WC shall see the Roman Church in Ireland imploring the British People with a mixture of prayers and menaces to free it from the monster of its own creation, that worst form of soulless selfishness—" Our- selves Alone."