TOPICS OF THE DAY
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IRELAND AND COMPULSORY SERVICE.
MR. ASQUITH'S words make it clear that the Government have not closed the door on the idea of compulsory service for Ireland. If they could be convinced that compulsion would be the best way out of the difficulty, or rather let us say the least troublesome way out, they would, of course, adopt it. This, it is urged, is essentially a matter for the Executive to decide. They presumably know far more of the facts than we do, and we have no right to call them fools and cowards if they decide against the policy of compulsion which we have come to think is the wisest in the circumstances. We admit this in the abstract, but look at the situation I Only seventeen per cent. of the men of military age, according to Sir Edward Carson's estimate, have come forward in Ireland. Irishmen sensitive for the honour of their country, and well aware that men who do not take up arms against bullying and barbarism are proving their own unworthiness, not to say their incapacity, for self-govern- ment, are overcome with shame at these figures. Lord Wimborne may say they are most creditable. That is not the light in which we see them.
Looking back, we recognize that it might have been better to coax Ireland along by gradual stages in company with ourselves. But it is now too late to go slowly ; the need for men is very urgent, and the only practical question is whether or not compulsion could be applied to Ireland without any pre- liminaries. We believe that it could, for after all Irishmen have not lived through the war without watching the logic of our own proceedings. They may pretend to know nothing about it, but that would be only a pretence. Are they not really quicker and more clever than we are I We seem to remember that in Ireland Englishmen are often spoken of as stupid people, and we are humble enough to feel that there is something in the charge. Indeed, when we look at the out- come of our policy of conciliating Ireland by letting her do exactly as she pleases, we are certain that there is something in it. By resorting to compulsion we should be doing nothing whatever unfair, illegal, or what could be in any way regarded as unexpected. Even the Home Rule Act provides for the unimpaired direction of all naval and military affairs by the Imperial Government. On no grounds of morality or equity could it be argued that we should be demanding protection for ourselves by force. We do not require unwilling Irishmen to fight for our hearths and homes. We require them to fight for a principle—a principle of freedom and nationality—in which they are as profoundly concerned as we are ourselves. We know that the fence—or should we say bank ?—of Com- pulsion in front of the Irish horse is a very stiff one. But our own belief—or perhaps rather instinct, since in a desperate matter of this kind we are frankly guided by feeling no less than by reason—is that the horse would take the bank without touching it. We have tried to coax the lonely horse by follow- ing roundabout bridle-paths, and by opening gates, and he has stopped short and refused quite small obstacles. We have tried riding him on the easiest of snaffles. All to no purpose. There is not a shadow of reason for hoping that he will go any better so long as he thinks that the rider on his back is not a man of great heart and a romantic ambition. So let us try the other way. Let us make a bid for his respect and admiration. Let us show that we mean to reach the distant point across country. That is what we feel ought to be done if the Government are not in possession of some prohibitive facts of which we know nothing.
We cannot, however, regard as prohibitive facts mere idle talk about the terrible danger of a rising all over Ireland. The dangers at present are as great as they physically can be. Everywhere we hear of the spread of the Sinn Fein movement. The people think us incapable and slow-witted, and despise us accordingly. By far the best treatment, as it seems to us, is to draw upon their renowned fighting qualities. A bold, an adventurous, a romantic act would be much more after the Irishman's own heart. He will often go with adventurous men, but he will not follow men whom he thinks dull and undecided, with no touch of gallant decisivenets. If the decision to apply compulsion to Ireland could be associated with some prominent personality famous in war—that would be the best way of all. Why not Lord French ? If he were given a commission to bring Ireland under the scheme which binds all the rest of the kingdom, we feel pretty sure he would - succeed. Dark and idle talk about the daniers of risings, and riots, and resistance when a Government only does its duty has in truth no more value in Ireland than in England, and we are inclined to think a good deal less. We were told that if compulsion were applied in England the industrial North would rise in anger, that the Clyde would seethe with revolt from end to end, and that the hammers of the riveters would be turned against the hated soldiery. Nothing of the kind happened. All went peacefully. Not a cat mewed. We suspect that we should have much the same experience in Ireland. Thousands of young men are as ready to take to fighting as a duck to water. As they are now left to make their own decisions, instead of having them made for them, they follow wrong-headed and misguided fancies. But they would be happier—much happier in thousands of cases—if they were relieved of the necessity to satisfy the exactions of the Sinn Fein propaganda. Let it not be supposed that Irish- men always come into that movement of their own free will. The thing is in the air. Thousands are intimidated.
There is another very important fact which must not be forgotten. Feeling is rising here now, and it will rise to a perilous point if thousands of strong and brave young Irish- men are deliberately and permanently left out of the struggle. Men here who find it a very real hardship to join up under what is for them the agonizing " combing out " process, and men who are sent back to the front with wounds barely healed, will not calmly tolerate the wholesale exemption of Ireland. We ought not to let this trouble and danger advance upon us. We are already warned. The more the prosperity of Ireland waxes the greater is the offence to our own men who are on the doubtful verge of service. They can stand the spectacle of exemptions for genuine personal reasons to any extent; they cannot stand the exemption of a whole country for what seems to them, and probably is, an empty political reason. It makes them mad. In the American Civil War Lincoln was faced by this very same Irish difficulty. He went hard and straight at the fence. There was Irish rioting, but when it was over there was complete calm and contentment. No Irish-American in the long run dared to say that it was not his business to save the Union or end slavery. Compulsion in Ireland would, as here, admit necessary exemptions. That would be unavoidable in a land of small farming. But we earnestly believe that the principle of compulsion would be quietly, and eventually gladly, accepted. It might well be the salvation of Ireland.
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