LORD SPENCER AND THE ULSTER MEETINGS.
THE" invasion of Ulster" by the Nationalists has created a novel difficulty for the Irish Government. Upon the Tory theory of ruling Ireland it would be no difficulty at all. It would be regarded at Dublin Castle as an invasion of a friendly country by a commo'n enemy ; and the only question to be determined would be in what form aid could be given most effectually to the Orangemen. But, for two reasons at least, this is an impossible position for a Liberal Government to take up. In the first place, they have to govern the whole of Ireland, and not merely a part of it. They cannot say to themselves,—There is one loyal province and three disaffected ones, and all we have to do is to treat the people of the one as friends, and the people of the others as enemies. They are alike subjects of the Crown, and in that character they have the same claim to be protected in the exercise of their rights as citizens. The fact that they are disaffected subjects does not override this claim, except in so far as their dis- affection passes from feeling to action. Consequently, when the Nationalists " invade " Illster,—when, that is to say, they hold meetings at which Nationalist speeches are made and Nationalist resolutions are moved and voted,—the Government have to exclude the element of place from con- sideration. They cannot say,—There are bands of seditious people crossing the frontier of a friendly power, and it behoves us to help our allies to turn them out. If the Nationalists have not gone beyond their rights in holding meetings in the South of Ireland, they are not going beyond them in holding meetings in the North. Either what they say at these meetings is a direct incentive to rebellion, and then the Government are bound to put a stop to them everywhere ; or what they say keeps within the line which the Government think it wise to tolerate, and then they cannot atop meetings in one place while permitting them in another. Whether, in the present condition of the country, it would be wise to forbid Nationalist meetings all over Ireland, is a different question ; but it is not one that need be considered now. The particular cause of complaint against the Govern- ment is, not that they have not forbidden Nationalist meetings all over Ireland, but that they have not forbidden them in a particular part of Ireland. A second reason why the Government cannot simply treat the Ulster Loyalists as friends and the Nationalists of the South as foes, is to be found in the peculiar character of Ulster loyalty. We do not for a moment question its genuineness,— all we wish to say is that it is, and always has been, a very self-willed loyalty. The Orangeman must be taken on his own terms, or not at all ; and a Liberal Government is seldom able to take him on his own terms. Moreover, though he is him- self loyal, he is very far from being a cause of loyalty in others. Irish disaffection has more than one source, but it is in part the result of a method of government with which the Orangemen have consistently identified themselves. The Liberal theory of ruling Ireland is that, in all points which do not concern the integrity of the Empire or the laws of morality, Ireland should be governed in accordance with the ideas and wishes of the Irish people. Liberals may differ among themselves as to the extent to which par- ticular measures conform to this rule ; but they are agived upon the rule itself. The Orange theory substitutes for the ideas and wishes of the Irish people the ideas and wishes of the English people and that section of Irishmen which prides itself upon being in agreement with the English people. The religious and educational history of Ireland is one long ex- position of what has come of this method of ruling ; and a large part of the present business of the Imperial Government is to convince the Irish people that it is completely laid aside. Alliance with the Orange party would be an exceedingly bad way of bringing the change home to a nation which is decidedly unwilling to recognise it. Irishmen would argue that Govern- ments, like men, must be known by their friends, and that a treaty between the Castle and the Orange Lodges would mean at the least a hankering after Protestant ascendency, and the happy time when Papists were made to know their place.
So far, therefore, we have found no reason why the Govern- ment should deal with Nationalist meetings in Ulster in any different way from that in which it deals with them elsewhere.
But the effect of a meeting has to be taken into account, as well as its character. A meeting, whether seditious or not in itself, may lead to a breach of the peace. The Salvation Army has made us familiar with meetings of this kind in England. The object of their demonstrations has been the reform of the bystanders ; but the bystanders have very often hated to be reformed—at all events, in this precise fashion ; and they have made their dislike evident by a variety of violent acts. It has been much the same with the Nationalists in Ulster. They have come to preach Home-rule ; and though the English people do not intend to give them Home-rule, they see no cause to forbid them from asking for it. But Home- rule in the mouths of Nationalist preachers is peculiarly dis- tasteful in Ulster. It goes against the traditions which are the heritage and the glory of the Orange party ; and their first instinct is to show their detestation of it by an opposition meeting. Obviously, they have the same right to meet and proclaim their sentiments in speeches and resolutions that the Nationalists have ; but, as a matter of fact, when they meet anywhere near each other on the same day the end of all things is a free-fight. It is impossible for the Government to allow this without divesting themselves of one of their first functions,—the maintenance of order. Con- sequently, they have to make their choice between three alternatives. They may forbid Nationalist and Orange meet- ings impartially ; or they may allow both to go on unmolested and send a sufficient body of troops into the district to prevent the two parties from flying at one another's throats ; or they may judge each case on its merits. The first belongs to a class of measures to which it is perfectly right to resort if the end they have in view can be attained in no other way. The second has the disadvantage of being very costly, and of putting the Executive and the populace in open and needless antagonism. The third points directly to the compromise which Lord Spencer has devised. It says, in effect, to both parties,—You may each of you hold your meetings, but they must be separated by an interval either of time or space sufficient to prevent all danger of con- tact. If the Lord-Lieutenant " sees no reason to prohibit a meeting, he will not, as a role, allow any counter-demonstra- tion to be held in the same neighbourhood on the same day.. The counter-demonstration will not be interfered with, pro- vided there is no objection on other grounds (if held at a time and place which will not bring hostile bodies into close prox- imity), and will itself be similarly protected." We do not see what else the Irish Government could have done, unless it had been prepared to allow the Orangemen to force a particular policy upon it, much as a conjuror forces a particular card upon some one in the audience. Lord Spencer being, ex hypothesi, not of opinion that Nationalist meetings ought to be forbidden in general, would yet have been forced by the Orange party to forbid them in detail. Whenever one had been announced they would have nothing to do but to fix an opposition meeting to be held side-by-side with the Nationalist meeting ; and the Government would have been driven either to prohibit both or to send a small army in order to keep those attending them from flying. at one another's throats. In presence of this latter necessity, the only course they would have been likely to take is total pro- hibition ; and thus the Orangemen would really have wrested. from the Government the right of deciding what meetings shall be allowed and what forbidden. We believe that the common sense of the country will approve the choice Lord Spencer has made.
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