TOPICS OF THE DAY.
MR. ASQUITH'S ULSTER SPEECH.
IN our opinion, Mr. Asquith's speech at the Manchester Reform Club on Friday, December 5th, marks a very real advance towards a solution, we will not say of the Irish problem or of the Home Rule problem, but of the problem of how to avoid civil war. Mr. Asquith took up Sir Edward Carson's stipulations as to the preliminary conditions of a settlement, and, in effect, accepted them in principle. Here is the passage in which he dealt with them :-- " Speaking on behalf of those whom he [Sir Edward Carson] represents, he lays down three preliminary conditions to any settlement. What are they ? First, that • no settlement must humiliate or degrade us.' By `Its,' of course, he means the Protestant minority for whom he speaks. Secondly, that we,' and by that he means Ireland, `must not get any treatment different and exceptional from that offered to any and all the other parts of the United Kingdom.' He must have the same protection of the Imperial Parliament, `and above all'—and this I under- stand to be his third condition= and above all•–and it is here our loyalty to you comes in--we must have no Bill, or no Act, which establishes a foundation for the ultimate separation of your country and ours.' Those conditions are naturally expressed by Sir Edward Carson in vague and general language, and I will not say of them what was said of my own statements at Ladybank, that they are obscure or ambiguous ; but read in their natural sense, I take this first opportunity that has offered itself to say that I do not find anything in any of them with which, in prin- ciple, I should be disposed to quarrel. I say advisedly in principle, because it may very well be that there might be room for considerable divergence in the discussion of details."
Mr. Asquith then discussed the stipulations seriatim. He naturally agreed that there must be nothing humiliating or degrading in any settlement, either to Ulster or to any other part of Ireland. As to the second condition he was more explicit. The case of Ireland was first in point of urgency and must come first, but the principle of Home Rule in its fullness applied equally and in the spirit of equality to all parts of the United Kingdom, " but with due regard to special circumstances." In other words, the system granted to Ireland was to be in principle applicable to the rest of the United Kingdom under some form of Federalism or " Home Rule all round." Though applied first to Ireland, it could and should be applied later and with due deliberation to the rest of the United Kingdom. In the position thus assumed by Mr. Asquith there is, of course, nothing new. He has ever since 1886 been in favour of " Home Rule all round," and in recent years his predilection for it has been well marked. For example, when in March, 1912, a Motion in favour of Scottish Home Rule was introduced into the House of Commons, Mr. McKinnon Wood, the Secretary for Scotland, was put up by the Government to give it his support. The Resolution, which implied " Home Rule all round," was carried by a majority of 98 (226-128). The year before, i.e., in March, 1911, Mr. Asquith received a deputation from Scottish Liberal Members in favour of Scottish Home Rule. To this deputation Mr. Asquith was understood to have declared that " he had always presented the case for Irish Home Rule as part of a fuller scheme." The deputation was also said to have gathered from Mr. Asquith's speech that an Irish Home Rule Bill would be followed up by Bills establishing local Parliaments in Scotland, England, and Wales. Mr. Asquith, therefore, has made no " concession" in declaring that whatever scheme is applied to Ireland must be applicable to the rest of the United Kingdom. That, in principle at any rate, has always been his policy. Mr. Asquith then dealt with Sir Edward Carson's third point. There he was, of course, in entire agreement with Sir Edward Carson. " We have supported Home Rule in Ireland now for a generation because we believe it to be not a stepping-stone to, but a prevention of, separation." After this came a passage which we venture to call the " operative " portion of Mr. Asquith's speech, a passage which deserves to be quoted verbatim :— " We believe that our Bill as it stands, and as we know it, has no such intention and can have no such effect, and we are perfectly prepared, and here I speak to some of our old Federalist friends, friendly critics, to consider with an open mind, with a view to meeting every reasonable objection, any of the stipulations in the Bill—I refer only to one, or what seems to some persons to be one, the case of the Post Office—which, in their view, have a separatist or an anti-Federal tendency.. Those are not the essence of the
measure. They do not go down to its foundations. They are not concerned with its principles. Make as clear as you can, not only by express enactment, but by the spirit and scope of your measure. that on the one hand you are maintaining the supremacy, over all persons and communities, of the Imperial Parliament, and on the other hand that you are drawing together and not separating the different constituent elements of the United Kingdom."
The speech ended with the following significant passage in reference to the special case of Ulster: "I agree with Sir Edward Carson, and those of whom he is the spokesman, that we have to consider carefully and sympathetically the case of the Irish minority. Whether their apprehensions are well or ill balanced, the serious fact is that they exist. They are genuinely and deeply felt, and, quite apart from any such con- tingency as overt resistance of the law, they constitute, until they are abated or removed, the one formidable obstacle to Irish self-. government. I have never said a word from the beginning until this moment to minimize their gravity or to disparage their weight among those by whom they are felt ; but equally we must keep in mind the case of the majority, men who have worked and struggled during more than the lifetime of a generation, and who see the goal so long struggled for now at last actually within their sight, and last, but certainly not least, we must have regard to the fortunes of this United Kingdom in all its constituent parts."
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