TOPICS OF THE DAY.
MR. BONAR LAW AND THE CRISIS.
IN his speech at Wallsend on Wednesday the leader of the Unionist Party showed the three highest qualities of statesmanship—firmness, moderation, and insight into the realities of the political situation. Mr. Bonar Law evidently recognizes to the full that the point we have all got to consider at the moment is not what is the best -way of regulating the relations between the component parts of the United Kingdom, but how to avoid the unspeakable horrors of civil war. We deeply regret that it should have come to this, but come to this it has, and no pretence will alter the fact. We Unionists believe that the only satisfactory way of regulating those relations is the legislative Union. In order, however, to avoid civil war we are willing to sacrifice Unionist principles as long as those sacrifices do not, as Mr. Bonar Law said so well, mean loss of honour or ruin to the national interests.
The partial undoing of the Act of Union by the establish- ment of a Parliament for the south and west of Ireland, that is, the Home Rule Bill with homogeneous Protestant Ulster excluded, will be a bad Bill, but, bad as it is, it will be so infinitely better than civil war that Unionists are willing regretfully to acquiesce in it.
Again, as Mr. Bonar Law pointed out in unanswerable terms, the only reasonable, just, and sincere way of meeting the Irish crisis is for the Government to take the people into conference and, ask their verdict on the Home Rule Bill. If the country is with the Government, as they say, the Liberal Party have nothing to lose but every- thing to gain by submitting themselves and their Bill to the verdict of the people. The right of the people to exercise a veto over legislation of the highest im- port, which alters the whole fabric of our govern- ment, is a democratic principle, and it is a Unionist principle. But though we hold that a Government which denies this principle is unworthy of its trust, we are willing to sink that principle in order to avoid civil war.
Mr. Bonar Law was right, then, in insisting as he did that a general election or Referendum on the Bill is the true way out. We are sure, however, that he represented the whole weight of Unionist opinion when he also let it be seen that if the Government are determined to risk civil war rather than face the electors he would forgo the demand for a general election. Anything is better than failure in the supreme duty of making every possible sacrifice to avoid civil war. That, of course, is what Mr.
Bonar Law meant when with perfect clearness, and we are certain with perfect sincerity, he said at the end of his speech : "If I have correctly understood Mr. Asquith, if he does mean to extend to us an invitation such as I have indicated, then we shall not decline to respond to it, and -we shall carefully consider any proposals he may make to us, and consider them with a real desire to find a solution, if a solution be possible." Mr. Asquith, it will be remem- bered, spoke of "an interchange of views and suggestions, free, frank, and without prejudice." That is the invitation which Mr. Bonar Law accepts. In refusing to lay down conditions which must govern such interchange of views, Mr. Boner Law was, we think, wise. Those conditions, we agree with him, should not be shouted across the country by the leaders. Rather they should be the first things discussed when the meeting of the leaders takes place. If too many preliminary conditions are laid down beforehand, ambiguities and misunderstandings are certain to arise.
If after Mr. Bonar Law's speech a meeting does not take place between the leaders of the two great parties, on the basis of trying to discover some method of avoiding civil war, our political system will have been proved to be bank- rupt not only of patriotism, but of common sense. For ourselves, we hope that the negotiations will be conducted with the smallest possible number of negotiators. No doubt the responsibility of negotiating alone is one from which party leaders very naturally shrink. Nevertheless there can be no harm in our saying that we should like to see Mr. Asquith and Mr. Bonar Law left to meet and come to an agreement by themselves, and not attempting to consult anyone else till the negotiations were over.
Each statesman by this time thoroughly knows the views of his party, and no real good would come by perpetually running backwards and forwards to try to obtain the acquiescence of this or that extremist or over-cautious colleague. The two leaders, in our opinion, had much better shoulder the responsibility, do their best, and leave it to the country to judge whether they have done their duty. Though we have no access to official secrets, one thing is clear and of good omen. The so-called conditions laid down by Mr. Asquith and the expression of his personal views put forward by Mr. Bonar Law do not preclude a settlement through the exclusion of the homogeneous Ulster—a settlement, be it noted, not asked for by Unionists in order to provide a solution of the Irish problem, but simply and solely to prevent the outbreak of civil war. The exclusion of those portions of Ulster in which the Protestants and Loyalists are in a majority, and are determined to resist being forced under a Dublin Parliament, does not in any true sense ruin the Govern- ment's Bill or prevent them from doing what they say they must do and will do—establish an Irish Parliament and Irish Executive on College Green. Every Bill of the nature of the Home Rule Bill has to have an area prescribed, to which its clauses are applicable. The exclusion of the homogeneous Ulster only means, in the last resort, an alteration or reduction of this area. If, then, the two sides can agree to the area to which the Bill is to apply, civil war may be avoided. We cannot believe that this question of area cannot be settled by men who are, we are sure, sincerely anxious to avoid bloodshed.
When the question of area of exclusion is settled, we hold that all that the Unionists, if they are wise, will ask as regards the Home Rule Bill is that any amendments required shall be consistent with the alteration of area. The Unionists, in our opinion, must not attempt to demand other changes. Such changes, if any, must be made by those who desire a break-up of the present legislative Union for the south and west, and not by those who regard that break-up as an evil only less great than civil war. The Liberals must take the responsibility of saying what financial alterations are to be made in the Bill, and how far the regulations in regard to the Customs House or the Post Office ought to be modified. We may point out, however, that it is entirely a mistake to sup- pose that the consequential amendments, i.e. the amend- ments required by an alteration in the area to which the Bill is to apply, present any very great difficulties. As an able correspondent of the Times, who signs himself "Ulsterman," pointed out on Tuesday, the alteration of the Bill in no way offers insuperable difficulties. It would not be a day's work for a competent draftsman. What is to be the area excluded is also dealt with very usefully by "Ulsterman." In effect he comes to the same conclusion which we came to some weeks ago. North-East Ulster should, he urges, be made into a County Palatine, with a Chancery Court and Admiralty Court of its own, after the manner of the County of Lancaster. North-East Ulster will, of course, continue to send representatives to the House of Commons. Here, no doubt, as all Unionists are in favour of the principle of one vote, one value, they will be perfectly willing that the representation should be on the English and Scottish standard of value, or, roughly, one representative for about sixty thousand inhabitants. The English depart- ments would find no difficulty in including in their spheres the County Palatine of Belfast. To begin with, statutes applicable only to Ireland passed before the year 1913 might continue to be applied to the County Palatine where such application was not inconsistent with the inclusion of the said county in the kingdom of England.
Though in our opinion the only essential difficulty about exclusion is the question of area, we by no means wish it to be thought that we consider the drawing of the boundary line an easy matter. Clearly it is one of much difficulty. We are sure, however, that men like Mr. Asquith and Mr. Bonar Law would find it possible, with goodwill and with the fear of civil war before them, to lay down the general principles upon which it should be drawn, and then, with the aid of experts in geography and in ethnological and religious statistics, to draw a map which would work without injustice. No doubt, fanatical extremists on either side might easily wreck a scheme • of this kind, but we are assuming that neither Mr. Asquith nor Mr. Bonar Law would permit such wrecking. We may by way of illustration suggest a method of arriving at the area which would give us that homogeneous Protestant and Loyalist Ulster of which Mr. F. E. Smith originally spoke. It has always seemed to us that the plan would be to take as a basis the four Protestant counties of Antrim, Armagh, Derry, and Down. The next step would be to add to them such portions of the Ulster counties bordering on them as have a clear Protestant majority. It would be essential for a sound and lasting settlement that those districts should be joined to the four counties. It is possible, too, as " Ulsterman " suggests, that in some cases districts in which the Catholics predominate might even be cut out of the four counties and placed outside the boundary of exclusion. It would clearly be better both for the Catholics and for the Protestants that this should happen in such cases. To put it in another way, the four counties would be the basis of exclusion, but there would be a readjustment of the boundaries in order to bring in Protestant districts and keep out Catholic districts. Another way of accomplishing the same object would be to take the six Plantation counties as the basis of exclusion, but to eliminate from those Plantation counties wherever possible the districts in which the Roman Catholics were in a majority. All that is wanted is agreement upon a principle of this kind. The rest is skilful map-making. The result would in all probability work out as a homo- geneous Ulster with about a million inhabitants, in which the Protestants and Loyalists would be two to one or over. No doubt the extremists on either side would be deeply disappointed, and would bitterly upbraid the two leaders for coming to any such agreement. But if Mr. Asquith and Mr. Bonar Law are convinced, as we believe they both soon must he, that civil war may be avoided by exclusion, can we be wrong in saying that they would be perfectly content to face such upbraidings ? We believe that both statesmen, even if it was a case of ruin to their political careers, would think those careers well lost if by their sacrifice they had prevented civil war—civil war, remember, not merely in the mountains and moors of Ulster, but civil war in England and Scotland, and civil war which, to judge from Canadian offers of help for Ulster, may have its echoes beyond the Atlantic.
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