TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE GOVERNMENT AND THE IRISH QUESTION. THE attempts of Liberal newspapers to show why the Government cannot act on Mr. Balfour's advice and dissolve before the Home Rule Bill is passed for the third time over the heads of the Lords would be amusing, or at all events instructive as a study in mental attitudes, if it were not that such "credulous optimism" leads on too often to the worst disasters. The irony of facts is only too familiar in modern history ; those bluff and untactful persons (as they seem to Radicals) who talk about war and blood on the slightest provccation, are generally saved from the more sudden upsets and surprises of fortune by the very fact that they have surveyed the prospect and faced the facts. Their exaggerations are a kind of safeguard in themselves. As these persons always expect the worst, they are naturally not bouleverses by something better than the worst. Fire-breathing statesmen involve their countries in war no more, and perhaps rather less, than the amiable gentlemen who outdo Pangloss in their trust in the per- fection of ordered things. To drift into a catastrophe because you will not think so vilely of humanity as to believe that a disaster can come out of men's passions is one of the most common approaches to war. The strange thing is that, when this policy of blandness and perfect trust that the consequences of one's acts will not be what they will be is practised in other countries, our Liberal observers are quite alive to its futility. They watch the optimistic manceuvres of President Wilson's diplomacy in Mexico, and they all exclaim that here is a policy which is bound to fail, because it affords neither a way of advance nor a way of retreat ; they reproach the United States gently with adopting a course that really involves compulsion without the determination (which, of course, would be very wrong) to apply compulsion. Yet in relation to Ireland the Government are following an exactly similar course. They drift on from week to week towards the inevitable end. They talk as though the threats of bloody resistance in North-East Ulster did not exist, or as though, if they did exist, they could be spirited away by the soothing set smile of the whole Liberal Party. What lies behind the smile is, of course—for there is no other way—the necessity of applying the com- pulsion of the Cossack to Ulster Protestants. We are certain that there must be tens of thousands of Liberals who know peifectly well that it is impossible to deliver the "most unkindest cut of all" in Ulster and yet expect that in the sequel the Orangemen will behave as though the agreeable smile had been a sufficient compensation for the loss of all that Orangemen hold most dear.
For months we have been pointing out that there is an extremely simple alternative course. We believe that just before it is too late the Government will accept that course, because we are almost sure that the Liberal Party, even if their leaders do not hesitate for shame or want of nerve, will shrink from the methods of the Cossack. Such methods are not, after all, the métier of the Liberal Party. It is an odd thing, though, that in the vicissitudes of politics it should fall to Unionists to remind Liberals of that fact. The alternative course is that the question of Home Rule should be submitted to the electors before the "third time of asking" of the Home Rule Bill instead of after the "third time of asking." It is an enormous assistance and gratifi- cation to have Mr. Balfour's authority thrown unreservedly on the side of those who believe that Liberals may yet be persuaded to recognize that there are numerous advantages in the policy of consulting the people before the Home Rule Bill is placed on the Statute-book and no advantages in the policy of consulting them afterwards. It is not too much to say that Mr. Balfour's speech marks a new stage in the discussion of Home Rule. The fact that he is no longer leader of the Opposition gives his authority, as we think his opponents would admit in his case, the full value of the intellectual independence which is one of his most familiar qualities. The attention he commands is so great that he can afford to say his mind without any of the tricks of exaggeration or points of mere party debate. He is a kind of Elder Statesman who sees his country in peril and offers advice rather for the good of the commonwealth than for the advantage of any one group. His advice is likely to have, and we believe already has had, a weight to which no other Unionist who earnestly joins with him in pressing a particular solution of the Irish difficulty on the Government could possibly pretend. When it is fairly understood how much in accordance with every tradition of the Liberal Party the plan would be of consulting the people about Home Rule before blood is spilled, and how much the Government would be strengthened in enforcing Home Rule in the only possible way in which it ever could be enforced, all other points of argument lose their interest and relevance by comparison. The continuous repetition, for example, of the Liberal argument that what is called Carsonism is " sedition " and should be treated as sedition will not be thought worth while even by the most patient readers of Liberal newspapers. Let it be admitted for the moment that it is sedition. What then ? It is there in a most dangerous form, and is the one reality in all the fogs and phantoms of the situation. But since when, we wonder, have Liberals been converted to the view that the right of rebellion in the defence of rights and liberties cannot exist ? Some of their arguments to-day read like the denunciation of a Parliament man by a Malignant.
But let us get to the advantages from the Liberal point of view of consulting the electors before an attempt is made to coerce Ulster. There is no possibility of the Government continuing to lead a useful existence after the passing of the Home Rule Bill. An almost immediate dissolution would follow in any case. Some Liberal newspapers pretend that the Government will survive to the end of their allotted span and pass the Plural Voting Bill, but this is certainly not the general expectation even among Liberals. The question of the time of dissolution affects only a few months this way or that. Now the Parliament Act specially provides for an appeal to the country. Liberal critics find it con- venient not to mention this fact, which may easily be forgotten by the less well-informed of their supporters. A Bill can be taken up exactly where it was before a dissolu- tion if the same party is returned to power. The time already expended on the Home Rule Bill will not in any sense have been wasted if the Government are right in thinking that the electors approve of the Bill and will return them to power in order to carry it into effect. The next point is that if the Government won the sanction of the electors for the Bill at a general election, the whole attitude of the Opposition would be changed. The Opposition Lords do not pretend to have the right of exercising any function over and above that of ascertaining the will of the people. If the will of the people were declared in favour of Home Rule, the resistance of the Opposition, not only in the Lords but in the Commons, would cease. We do not say that the resistance of North-East Ulster would cease, because we cannot, of course, be answerable for that. But we can at least say this with certainty : all moderate men on the Unionist side would acknowledge that the verdict of the people must be accepted, and therefore they would not only refrain from encouraging North-East Ulster to resist, but, as dutiful citizens, would actually do their best to secure that the King's Government should be carried on. In other words, Home Rule would be put into practice with as little friction as possible. Our Liberal critics say : "What is the use of that ? The only promise that would be of any use is that if a general election is granted and the electors declare in favour of Home Rule, North-East Ulster will undertake to accept the people's decision." It would be dishonest to promise what one cannot guarantee, and we recognize that it is impossible for Englishmen to promise anything in advance as to what will happen in Ulster. But we repeat that we are on perfectly safe ground in saying that the movement in -Ulster would be tremendously influ- enced by a vote disapproving of resistance. Orangemen conducting a campaign—however violent their indignation would naturally be—without the support of the Unionist electorate in England, Scotland, or Wales, would not be able to keep the field very long. The coercion of Ulster would thus be reduced to its very easiest terms.
On the other hand, if the Bill is forced through without a dissolution the Government would have to deal with the outraged feelings of all Unionists in England, Scotland, and Wales reacting on Orange passion. Money and volunteers would pour in to the support of the insurgents. Liberals say, "But there will be a period of many months between the passing of the Home Rule Bill and its coming into operation. It is in that peaceful interval of preparation that the Government will dissolve, and they will therefore never be faced by the brutal facts of civil war." If Liberals really believe this we venture to say that there never was a greater delusion. The moment that the Bill became an Act the Ulstermen would proceed to form a provisional Government. It would be known that this Government was being set up expressly to flout the Dublin Parliament. Does anyone think that in Ulster the turbulent hot-heads on either side would hold their hands while such preparations were being made ? Pangloss himself could not think that all was for the best with the memories of the Derry and Dublin riots fresh in his mind. If the Government persist in carrying through their Bill without reference to the people they will find that before the Dublin Parliament can be established they will have to get rid of the trouble- some provisional Government in Ulster, or at all events in four Ulster counties. We have not been let into the secrets of the Orangemen, and we do not predict these things because we have been told that they are "on the programme." We are only- forecasting what anyone who considers the conditions might see for himself is certain to happen. Whether the shooting and clubbing begins on the Unionist side or the Nationalist side, it will certainly begin in the circumstances we are imagining. Rioting will spread like wildfire, and an army of anything between sixty and eighty thousand men will be needed to keep the peace. Whenever an attempt is made to move the troops from an apparently pacified district rioting will break out again. Any foreign observer who suddenly appeared in our midst at the present juncture and remembered the traditions of the Liberal Party in the discouragement of brutality and force would probably say that Liberals had taken leave of their senses. "It is impossible," he would exclaim, "that the Liberals can really mean to accept all the disadvantages you mention and dispense with all the advantages that are offered in order to stay three or four months longer in office." We are not so uncomplimentary as to say that the motive of the Government can be summed up in the desire to hold office for a few more months. We certainly do not think it can be. For there is another very potent reason for avoiding an election before the "third time of asking," and that is the pledge given by Mr. Asquith to Mr. Redmond. It may be that in the end, as we have often suggested, the Government will fall not on the Home Rule Bill, but on some other measure of the first magnitude and significance, such as the promised Bill for the reform of the Lords. In that case the pledge to Mr. Redmond would not be deliberately broken.
The alternative method by which the Government might find a way out of the Home Rule difficulty is not expressed solely, however, in the terms of a general election. We have written so far solely of the possibility of a general election before the Home Rule Bill becomes law because Mr. Balfour's speech concerned itself only with that point. But we ourselves have always preferred the use of the Referendum. The merits of the Poll of the People are first that it asks a verdict on a particular Bill—will you have this Bill or not ? Yes or No P—whereas a general election is bound to introduce a large variety of confusing questions ; and, secondly, that it does not involve the fall of the Government. It is true that Liberals, for some reason that we do not comprehend, generally speak of an adverse vote on a Referendum as necessarily meaning the fall of the Government, but this is not the practice in countries where the Referendum is in force. If it be said that the examples of Switzerland and the United States do not offer a fair analogy, because the party system as we understand it does not prevail there, there is still the example of Australia. There the party system operates, and the Referendum ascertains the wishes of the people with the greatest exactness and simplicity without requiring the Government to leave office because a particular Bill is not popularly approved. In the House of Lords Lord Lansdowne has already recommended the use of the Referendum as the solution of the Irish question. The Opposition hardly needs to be converted to the introduction of this means of finding out the people's wishes. But what of the Government ? Mr. Asquith has admitted that it might be useful under certain conditions. We hope it may still be possible to persuade Liberals that the Home Rule issue presents the ideal conditions. In a way we are now arguing against ourselves, for in many respects we should prefer a general election that would probably rid the country of the Govern- ment and all their works. But if there were any sacrifice to be made we should think it well worth making in order to introduce an instrument of government so simple in its management and so truly democratic in its effect as the Referendum. To the Government, so far as we can see, the Referendum might commend itself even where the idea of a general election is unsatisfactory. For we can understand the reluctance of Mr. Asquith, in one sense, to advise that Parliament be dissolved while he controls a large majority. A dissolution in these circum- stances, he would say, is against all Parliamentary. practice. But this objection does not apply to a Referendum. It is, of course, conceivable that if the Referendum were adverse to Home Rule the Government might feel that they could not carry on any longer, in spite of the Australian precedent. If they took that view they could then dissolve Parliament, and the country would return a verdict on their general policy. In this way it would be possible to get a clear judgment of the country on the Home Rule Bill, and yet the Government would retain office till after the subsequent election. We have always regretted that the Lords did not proceed further with Lord Balfour of Burleigh's Bill. If only certain clauses had been abstracted from that Bill, a Machinery Bill for putting the Referendum into force could have been passed and kept for future use. It is not by any means too late to do this. If when the Lords meet in the spring they will carry such a Machinery Bill it would be ready for application at any moment. If the Government should agree to a Referendum there would then be no excuse for people to say that no one knew how the Referendum was to be applied, that there was no machinery for the purpose, or that the delay which would be caused by the creation of machinery put the whole proposal out of court.
By one means or another the Government must be persuaded to seek popular sanction before they proceed to Cossacks' work in Ulster. Their present inclination to put the Bill on the Statute-book and to let loose hellish passions in Ireland, and then at their leisure to find out whether they have been right or wrong in their interpreta- tion of the people's wishes, is the maddest and most culpable policy of which any modern British Government have been guilty. To think that this game of gambling with men's lives is the policy of the party of humanity and conciliation ! Truly the irony of men's doings is beyond belief.
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