THE IRRATIONALITY OF IRISH NATIONALISM.
FJVERY one with a faculty for argumentation must have despaired sometimes when he found himself opposed in a discussion to a person on whom logic had no
effect, for whom syllogisms did not exist, and in whose mind a rationally presented series of connecting links in argument inspired nothing but some new and fantastic irrelevance. The man with the rational mind in such circumstances recognizes at length that all his rationality is of no avail, that every pohit of learning and dialectic on which he prided himself might just as well not have been uttered, for he has all the time been following the futile occupation of punching a featherbed or kicking against a brick wall. Englishmen who read the reports of Irish debates in the House of Commons know something of that despair. We cannot go into the whole of the debate which took place in the House of Commons on Thursday week, but let us, to illustrate our meaning, disentangle a few arguments from the mass. The National-
ists—and the same thing is true of what may be called the moderate Sinn Feiners, if there be such persons—
base their claim for independence upon the rights of small nationalities, and upon what in the jargon of the day has come to be known as self-determination. Surely if these men had any glimmerings of statesmanship they would at once accept the offer that has been made to them over and over again that they may set up a Parliament in Ireland which will not control the Six Counties of North-East Ulster where the population is predominantly Unionist and Protestant. Obviously if the majority of the people in the South and West of Ireland have a right to determine their own political destiny, the local majority of the Six Counties have an exactly similar right. That is the merest
logic. If the Dublin Parliament should succeed; there can
be no doubt whatever that within three or four years the excluded part of Ulster would be begging and praying to come in. If we were Ulstermen, we should always be rubbing in the fact that the unwillingness of Irishmen in the South and West to set up a Parliament where they have a really homogeneous population is the most alarming fact in the situation. Within the area which is undoubtedly of their own way of thinking the Nationalists could carry on quite happily without being baulked and tormented by all those tiresome Protestant or Unionist objectors from Ulster. We feel sure that if we were Home Rulers we should actuallysay : "We would rather be without miserable anti- Irish Irishmen like you North-East Ulster people." Directly the Nationalists began to talk in that strain, and especially if they began to make an obvious success of their affairs, Ulster Unionists and Protestants would begin to hesitate, to ask themselves questions, and to wonder if, after all, there was any need to hold out loner. But the Nationalists seem to be by temperament or brain-power quite incapable of appreciating this. History for them tells its stories in vain. Suppose that during the risorgime»to of Italy Garibaldi, Mazzini, and Cavour had said : "We will have all or nothing. There shall be no partition. If we cannot include in our new State some city where the population is thoroughly pro-Austrian and full of anti-Italian patriots, then we will not create a New Italy at all " ! Yet, if we can imagine the creators of New Italy being so mad, their madness would not have exceeded what is solemnly and eloquently asserted by Irish Nationalist Members in the House of Commons. Mr. Ronald MacNeill in his excellent speech put the case extremely well. He pointed out that loyal Irishmen who had knight for the maintenance of the Union for generations were anxious not to be obstructive when war came, and they abandoned their insistence upon maintaining the Union. The answer of the Nationalists and Sinn Feiners to that was, as Mr. MacNeill put it, that they wanted " self-deter- mination for Munster, Leinster, and Connaught, coupled with domination over those who are outside their own borders." " That," he added, " is the sort of self- determination which I do not think the Peace Conference is likely to support." This reference to the Peace Conference reminds us of the appeal which the Sinn Feiners have sent to Paris demanding independence for Ireland as being the right of a small nation. We do not ourselves think that there is any sense, justice, or safety in asking other nations to settle the affairs of our overeign State. but as the Sinn Feiners, with their customary irresponsibility, have taken this action, it would surely be advisable for the Unionists of Ulster to deliver a counter-attack. Just as an admirable counter-statement was issued by the Ulster Unionists when the Lord Mayor of Dublin despatched his glowing misstatement about Irish history to President Wilson, so might Ulster Unionists now tell the truth to the Peace Conference. They might invite the Peace Conference to nile that if small nations have the right of self-determination, a similar right shall be extended to any tract of territory in a new small State not to be separated from the country to which it pre- viously belonged if a majority of the inhabitants express that desire. Such a right is surely co-ordinate with the right of self-determination. Could there be a proposition more opposed to the principle of self-determination than that a nation has a right to wrench away from the allegiance it professes and loves sonic such district as that of North- East Ulster ? It might be said that the Unionists and Protestants of North-East Ulster arc really secured by the pledges of the Prime Minister, but it would be a fine thing, and a great thing, if, in spite of the fact that they felt reasonably secure, they asserted the right we have described for other small communities.
We wish we could do justice to Mr. Macpherson's speech, in which the contrast between the prosperity of Ireland and the intense cruelty of the shootings, persecutions, and oppressions being carried out by Sins Feiners was sharply and ably drawn. But we must content ourselves with referring finally to the speech of Mr. Lynn—a maiden speech which was a real contribution to the debate. Mr. Lynn talked of the repetition by the Nationalist speakers of the " ancient litany " of imaginary wrongs. Here lie put his finger on one of the most ridiculous of Irish irra- tionalities. The argument that the British Government should now do something wrong and foolish in order to atone for the faults of Englishmen of past generations is a negation of all statesmanlike ideas. If the principle of such a demand is justifiable, why is it not applied to the Roman Church ? If Protestant Englishmen must make amends for injustices or crimes said to have been committed generations ago, by what right do Roman Catholics demand to be free from the same obligation ? On these terms the Roman Catholics owe reparation for the massacre of St. Bartholomew, for the two Irish massacres of the seventeenth century, and for the terrible Irish rebellion of '98. Why should the poor English race be the only one to which is applied the law that the sins of the fathers must be visited on the children " ? The argument, of course, does not bear looking into. Shake- speare as usual told the truth : " Crimes like land are not inherited."
We earnestly hope that Mr. Lynn will-press his deinaud for information about the relations, before and during the war, between the Sinn Feiners and Germany. He traced those relations back to 1911, and stated explicitly that during the war secret wireless installations were established, German submarines were supplied with petrol and other necessaries, large quantities of German arms were landed, and elaborate arrangements were made for a German occupation. The British public want to know • exactly where the Sinn Feiners stand. What is the truth of all these matters? If a Parliament is set up in Dublin, it will, of course, be a Sinn Fein Parliament. It is really utterly indefensible for the Government to say in effect : " We will not allow any information to be published about the character of these men to whom we may entrust the task of setting up a Parliament to rule the greater part of Ireland, and who will have licence to make any trouble they please at your very doors." Mr. Lynn has failed three times to get an answer, but we hope he will persist.
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