THE ULSTER PROBLEM.
[To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR...I
do not know whether you would care to print the enclosed. I got it printed to send to some friends. It was sent to the Prime Minister, who seems to be in the dark about what is going on up here. It is a really dreadful business, but cannot be wondered at. The people here who are Unionists are determined never to submit to be ruled under the terms of the Home Rule Bill, and will die sooner. The Government must either be bereft of their senses or else they do not know the real position in the North. If the Government persist, this place will be a regular Inferno next year. Will you permit me to say that there is hardly a man in Ulster who agrees with your view of omitting the North-Eastern Counties Jf there is any omission it would never work. It must be all Ulster or none. I am a Home Ruler of a moderate type, but I hate and detest the Government's Home Rule Bill. It is unworkable, and if it did work would ruin the country.—I am, Sir, Sze., ED. THOMPSON. Camowen House, Omagh.
"Omagh : Dec. 17th, 1913.
"Dear and much-respected Sir,—As a moderate Nationalist and sincere believer in the wise and statesmanlike policy of Mr. William O'Brien and Mr. T. M. Healy I feel myself compelled to write and say how grievously disappointed I was with your speech at Leeds. I bad hoped from your previous speech at Ladybank that you were about to open up communications with the leaders of the Unionist Party in order to try and effect some reasonable compromise on the Home Rule question. I am convinced such • policy would bear good fruit, and hundreds of thousands of the best Nationalists in this country think the same, and very much regret the apparently uncompromising action of the Govern- ment. If you understood the real position of affairs in the North of Ireland I feel sure you would adopt a different attitude. No real lover of Ireland or of the British Empire desires to see Home Rule effected in a deluge of blood, which will divide Irishmen for ages, and destroy not only your Government, which has effected so many useful reforms, but the Liberal Party and the best interests of Ireland and the Empire as well. Clearly you do not realize the position is the North of Ireland. I can quite understand this, because I am informed by many local officials in different parts of the country that no direct orders have been given them by those in authority in Ireland to tell the actual facts or to trouble themselves to make minute inquiries. The real fact is this. The North of Ireland is like an armed camp, the men numbering, I am told by those who are in close touch with what is going on, at least 100,000, with the expectation of 20,000 more thoroughly organized and drilled men from England and Scotland. These men have been drilled by old soldiers, under the eye and supervision of experienced pensioned officers of the Army and many officers who are serving at present. They possess all the requirements of a field army except artillery. They have engineers, signallers, maxim guns, a splendidly organ- ized body of bicycle scouts, an excellent medical corps; and they are filled with enthusiasm and a spirit of determination, and almost exultation, which no one who has not witnessed it can possibly over-estimate. They are under a perfect sense of dis- cipline, and that they are under restraint at present is simply and solely due to the confidence they have in their leaders and the orders of the latter. Every week for months past not only have they been drilled carefully and systematically, but they have attended camps of instruction and have been lectured in the mechanism and use of the rifle. The country possesses hundreds of rifle clubs and thousands of expert and well-trained rifle shots. At the present time all these men are being quietly armed. The rifles have been in the country for two years, and are now being distributed all over the country at night by motor-cars. It is impossible for me or anyone to exaggerate the existing danger, and it is right that someone should tell you directly what is going on and what a terrible menace to all the interests I know you desire to protect is daily, nay hourly, being organized and perfected. If you insist on passing your Home Rule Bill, which I tell you is very defective in many essential particulars, and in its present form cannot really be of much benefit to Ireland, and is greatly distrusted and disliked by hundreds of thousands of the best Nationalists in Ireland, you will undoubtedly create a civil war in the North of Ireland which it will require the whole strength of the British Army to suppress, even supposing the British Army itself to remain loyal and trustworthy. I can give you an example of how much you can depend on this loyalty. At present an English regiment is stationed in Ireland, and these men and their non-commissioned officers have been heard to say, over and over again, that they would never fire a shot against the Unionists of the North, and that if they were pressed they would at once go over and join the North of Ireland men. I implore you not to believe those who tell you the threats of the Northern men are all bluff and bravado. These men are full of the most deadly form of fanaticism, viz., religious, and if they are ordered to fight they will do so with a fervour and fury which will give each man of them the force, energy, and enthusiasm of half a dozen ordinary individuals. Young and old, rich and poor, are fired with the same sentiments and determination ; and remember the popula- tion up here in the North is a peculiar one in every sense. They are not easily moved, but they have the grit, the physical strength, the dour, fixed, dogged will which when once roused will be found almost unconquerable; and even if conquered, what then? Instead of the best friends a nation ever had, you would have produced the worst and most deadly enemies it is possible to conceive. There is not a man of them who would rest day or night, planning and organizing, and would not be satisfied until indeed Parnell's threat was realized, and the last link which bound Ireland to Great Britain was severed, ' never to be joined again.' You have the chance of enlisting all reasonable men in a grand policy of conciliation and peace. This can only be done, as Lord Loreburn suggested, by a conference of reasonable, sensible, and resourceful men. I beseech you to adopt the suggestion while there is yet time. The sands in the hour-glass are, however, quickly being lowered, and if progress is to be made something should be done at once. Home Rule, I am quite certain, will be no benefit but a curse to Ireland if the present policy of the British Liberal Party is carried out, and the Home Rule Bill of 1910 forced on this country only with the indifferent support of the Nationalist people of Ireland OUTSIDE THE POLITICIANS, and the violent and unquenchable hatred of all the Protestants and a very considerable number of educated and thinking Inde- pendent Nationalists. I know Ireland well. I have lived in it all my lifo. I love the people of all classes and creeds. I have not a trace in my mind of either political or religious bigotry. I know well the dire consequences that will result if the present policy of the Government is carried out to its terrible alternative, and it is only after deep thought and an agony of mind beyond descrip- tion of what is in store for my country that I venture most respectfully to approach you in the hope, nay, in the belief (because I was a member of the House of Commons for over five years, sitting on the same side of the House of Commons with you), that you will listen to reason, and join with the sensible men of all parties in an attempt to settle the Irish question on moderate and reasonable lines, and that you will he no party to full steam ahead, which if attempted will assuredly Land our country on such dangerous rocks that she will be broken up and destroyed, and every plank in her construction will cry out for evermore curses and anathemas on the head of those who would not be warned in time; who listened to false and interested advisers, and refused to pay heed to those who had no axe to grind except their country's welfare.—With much respect, believe
Ex-M.P. North Monaghan."
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