THE IRISH CHAOS.
IT is impossible to describe accurately the state of affairs in Ireland, as nobody can describe chaos. The nearest thing to a faithful account of what is happening is to be found day by day in the Morning Post. All people, whatever their views may be about Ireland, ought to be grateful to the Morning Post for the care with which it collects the news about Ireland. It is a strange experi- ence, like nothing that we can remember, to feel that for detailed narratives of what is happening in a part of the world where the future is being shaped at tremendous speed, one Must depend in many matters upon a single newspaper.
We have before us in Ireland the spectacle of a Pro- visional Government trying to govern, although it has no exact legal` authority—it looks to a Bill of Indemnity to give it retrospective sanction and legality—and no ade- quate physical power to assert its will. The last thing we want to do is to contribute to making the position of the Provisional Government, of which Mr. Michael Collins is the Chairman, more difficult than it is ; for we still hope that the Treaty may produce peace in Ireland in spite of the alarmingly unfavourable symptoms of the past three weeks. We are, however, only taking the main facts as they are, and it is necessary to recognize the gravity of these in order even to begin to think about a solution. If Mr. Griffith and Mr. Collins could depend upon the so- called Irish Republican Army they might be able to establish themselves before long, but the fundamental fact of the situation is that the Sinn Fein troops are them- selves divided. Nobody knows how many of them are loyal to the Provisional Government and how many are followers of Mr. De Valera and his horde of wild, dis- affected men. Even Mr. Collins himself does not know. We hope that the Lord Chancellor was right when he said that a large majority are loyal to. Mr. Collins. Mr. Collins has admitted, however, that in the border county of Monaghan the men of the I.R.A. are beyond his control. He may be able to do something by means of persuasion and by working upon the desire which he believes to be very widespread for the acceptance of the Treaty. But even this is very far from certain. His despondency is only too vividly suggested by his words when the raids into Ulster occurred last week : " What else could any sane man have expected " That is to say, he is himself not much more than a spectator, though he hopes for the best. We imagine that just now almost any crime could be committed in Southern Ireland without fear of punish- ment. Life and property were never more unsafe ; private houses and shops are being looted ; stealing goes on unchecked ; and the antagonism between the two sections of the I.R.A. is diversified by Communistic operations, as in the case of the flour mills near Mallow where a local Soviet has been set up.
Through all this darkness and violence the self-restraint and patient firmness of Sir James Craig shines like a light. How he has managed to hold in leash the fury of those Orangemen whose blood must have boiled when they saw their Parliamentary area invaded and many of their friends carried off into captivity we cannot imagine. At all events, the Empire owes a debt of gratitude to the brain and hand which have directed the policy of Ulster in these terrible times. While Southern Irishmen seem more and more to be casting off restraint, Ulstermen seem more and more to have cultivated it. It is impossible to conceive a more provocative situation than what occurred at Clones, in Monaghan, close to the Northern frontier. The railway train in which were several Ulster Special Constables was raided by the I.R.A. men, who shot down their victims before they had time to retaliate, and opened fire on the train with a machine-gun. Where did the murderers get the machine-gun ? Was it handed over to the soldiers of the Provisional Government when it was the fashion of the moment to see everything in rosy colours and to argue that a machine-gun could not be in better hands than those of the new custodians of the peace ? It is impossible, again, to conceive a more provocative situation than Ulster volunteers and policemen found themselves in when they knew that their kidnapped friends were pro- bably not more than a couple of miles away, but instead of being allowed to rush to the rescue, were required to stand fast on the border line.
We sincerely hope that the Government will make it their business to inform the public of the whole truth. Nothing is more dangerous, under the present conditions, than make-believe and half-truths. The Lord Chancellor did well in the House of Lords on Tuesday to acknowledge that Irish events were never more menacing than they are now, but his warning was general and not fortified by particular facts. It is appalling to think of a section of that magnificent force, the Royal Irish Constabulary, being disarmed in Cork and placed at the mercy of any private spite or malignancy. One reads of these men being armed with nothing but truncheons, and moving about their duties with the knowledge that rifles and revolvers may be pointing at them in spite of the theoretical truce from behind any windoiv. The circumstances are puzzling in the extreme, because if the Government should offer, by physical means, to help the Provisional Government in putting down disorder, they would at once give an excuse to the De Valera faction to say that England was ruling Ireland with her troops just as before, that the negotia- tions had changed nothing, and that the Treaty was a lie from beginning to end.
One thing, however, the Government can do with perfect justice and lawfulness—indeed, it is their obvious duty to do it—and that is to give Northern Ireland whatever help it requires in keeping its boundaries intact. At all events, for the present, there can be no doubt in the mind of anyone, whatever view he may take of the Irish settle- ment, where those boundaries legally lie. They were settled after the most prolonged, careful and anxious discussion in 1920 and were incorporated in an Act of Parliament. A large part of the present trouble—indeed, we may safely say the largest part—comes from the fact that the Government have spoken about those boundaries with two voices. They allowed, and we fear we must say wilfully allowed, Mr. Collins on the one side and Sir James Craig on the other to form quite different opinions as to what the proposed change in those boundaries under the Treaty would mean. Sir James Craig distinctly under- stood that there would be merely a small rectification by which a few parishes would go to the Free State and a few other parishes would be brought within the Northern frontier. It was evident, from Mr. Boner Law's speech in the House of Commons when he advised the acceptance of the Treaty, that he believed the same thing. Mr. Collins, on the other hand, has given his friends to under- stand that Mr. Lloyd George encouraged him to expect that substantial parts of Northern Ireland would be transferred to the Free State.
It is preposterous that there should be any misunder- standing on such a simple matter of fact. The misunder- standing is due to the Prime Minister's fatal habit of setting people together on a quite insecure foundation in the hope that his magical touch will strengthen the foundation after the parties to the dispute are standing upon it. We admit that in several notable • instances Mr.Lloyd George has made this plan succeed, but it is a fearfully dangerous plan, because it is always open to both sides to say with literal justice that they have been misled. As it is, we do not know where we are. Mr. Lloyd George was given in the House of Commons, on the opening day of the Session, the opportunity of answering the plain question whether he had or had not promised Mr. Collins a serious alteration of the Northern frontier, and he evaded the issue. He contented himself with saying that Mr. Collins and Sir James Craig were both Irishmen, and that though they seemed far apart in their opinions, as Irish- men always did at first, time would very likely bring them together and the best thing to do was to wait. It is not to be wondered at that the Ulster representatives in the House of Commons have decided to have nothing more to do with the Treaty. They are naturally very sore, indeed, and in this matter the Government have only themselves to thank for the mess they are in. It is true that the ratification of the Treaty does not depend upon the consent of Northern Ireland. Even without the Ulster votes, and without whatever votes may be cast in sympathy with Ulster, the Government may well be able to carry the Treaty. But we warn them that if they go on tampering with the feelings of Ulster, there can never be anything resembling a settlement in Ireland.
An idea has been- growing up among that part of the public which is guided more by catchwords than by steady political thinking, that the Ulster boundary could be settled quite- well " in accordance with the wishes of the popula- tion." Such a simple solution is unfortunately impossible. One only wishes that it were possible 1 When self-deter- mination comes to be applied, it has to take into account not merely race and religion, but the economic insepara- bility of particular districts, and the fact that groups of ill- assorted persons must exist within any boundary which human wit could devise. The case for substantially retaining the boundary line drawn in 1920 has become. stronger, not weaker, as the result of recent events. Why on earth should any sane person wish to cut off limbs from the one part of Ireland which is governed fairly, efficiently and honestly ?
Mr. De Valera, cherishing his desperate hopes, becomes week by week more uncompromising. He has thrown over all the proposals which he himself made about an alterna- tive to the Treaty, and has reverted to a demand for independence and republicanism without reservations. We are glad to see from the latest copy of the Gaelic American which has reached us, that that truculent news- paper is now disavowing Mr. De Valera. It ridicules him for trying " to keep himself afloat " by booming " his faked Irish Republic," and it informs him frankly that his leadership is at an end. That is a good sign. But Mr. Collins earnestly believes that the De Valera Party is strong enough to- attempt the coup cl'etat which we men- tioned as a possibility over a month ago. We shall say only one thing in conclusion. We ask the Government to tell us at once, beyond the possibility of misunderstanding, what was said to Sir James Craig and. Mr. Collins about the boundaries of Northern Ireland.
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