NEWS OF THE WEEK
•
ACHANGE has come over the whole Irish question since our last issue. The change began with Mr. Balfour's speech last Saturday at Haddington, and the situation was radically, and we think permanently, transformed by a very remarkable letter from Lord Loreburn, published in the Times of Thursday. Lord Loreburn appeals for, a conference to settle the Irish question with the consent of all parties. As we have explained elsewhere, we are not sanguine of the results of a conference, even if one could be called, because it is almost impossible to see any common basis of negotiation. Unionists cannot yield on the only point which would satisfy the Nationalists—the break-up in some form or other of the legislative Union. Nevertheless, Lord. Loreburn's letter has transformed the situation, because he has once for all broken the sinister spell of pretence under which the Liberal Party has been living. It is out of the question that rank-and-file Liberals should allow the same degree of authority as before to•the official assurances of their leaders, now that so weighty and so honest a Liberal as Lord Loreburn has spoken out. He has been a Home Ruler all his political life. Nothing but a profound sense of the dangers ahead can have induced him to call a halt to a policy for which he has so long laboured. The present tone and temper of the Government can hardly survive the publication of his letter.
