THE IRISH SETTLEMENT.
(To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."1 SIR,—Through the darkest days of the Irish loyalists, up to the very end, you have been so true a friend that your defection at this moment and your blessing of the instrument which delivers them, North and South, into the hands of their bitterest enemies come as one of the worst shocks of all. "We do not approve," you say coldly, " of the underlying principles; and we do not approve of many of the details." But you start by saying that it is the duty of all good "citizens" (are you already a Republic in imitation of the future pinchbeck Irish Free State, and have you ceased to be subjects of the King?) to give the Settlement every chance. You have not one word for the Southern loyalists, and you seem to have so misread the " Treaty " that you think that Ulster is safe. Why, Sir, any arrangement which substitutes the Republican Assembly for the Imperial Parliament as the Suzerain of Ulster must lead to the interference of the fanatic and the rebel with the formerly loyal Province. Northern Ireland, says the Nation— delighted, as usual, to find that the enemies of England have scored—will be powerless to Control functions, such as the management of railways, definitely committed to the Free State. With rebels able to hold up her rolling-stock, how is Ulster safe? We are trying Ulster very high, and before your next issue it may be that the perverted ingenuity which has been striving to alienate the loyal• province will have succeeded.
But what of the Southern loyalist? The Northerner has at least a choice—the Southern Protestant has none—and, as many of us know well, the exultant threats of those who covet our laud will now be put into operation. In six months there will not be a Protestant in the South of Ireland. And those landlords who have not already sold their property? There is not a word in the Treaty to safeguard them, though again and again the word of British Governments has been pledged that they would get the terms that they have been pro- mised by Acts of Parliament. Are the gunmen likely to find the money? Or is the present Government, which shrinks at the expense of a troop of Life Guards, prepared to give ot50,000,000 to a class which it has deprived of the status of British sub- jects and made citizens " by virtue of " allegiance to a non- existent Commonwealth? No, the gunmen have a shorter and cheaper way of taking our land and our cattle, and they have proved its efficacy during the past two years—but not on a largo scale, for it was sometimes dangerous; an over-zealous policeman might disregard the orders of the Sinn Fein officials in Dublin Castle and shoot, or an English subaltern might have crude notions of the duty of protecting ex-officers and soldiers, in spite of the hints of political generals and at the risk of their displeasure if a rebel or a houseburner was hurt. But in the future? Can even any English Minister believe that pale intellectuals like Griffith, even if they wished, would be able to keep those who (with his assent) have been encouraged to believe that anything can be obtained by the revolver from their revenge? It is possible that Mr. Chamberlain was deceived and believed in "safeguards"; it is impossible to believe that the Lord Chancellor did not sacrifice them to what, for some reason or other, he believes now to be the greater necessity.
To loyalists in Ireland, North and South, these politicians have dealt a cruel blow, and ruined many so far as their worldly affairs go. To countless followers, who believed in them and the causes they have advocated, they have committed a worse crime, they have destroyed our faith. How can We ever believe them again? How can we ever commit ourselves wholly to any cause they advocate when we know that in six
months they may tell us that they made a mistake and were all wrong? How can we ever applaud their denunciation of their opponents when in a period of a few weeks we find that they are meekly following what the Nation and the Daily News, and the credulous Labour delegations who visited Ireland, have been preaching for years? How can we respect their intelli- gence when they swallow as facts the history of Arthur Griffith and the dogmas of De Valera? They will answer that they did it in the interests of peace, but they might have had peace by surrender two years ago, and saved hundreds of lives and millions of property In those days perhaps they still believed that it would not profit them to gain the applause of the Daily News if they lost their own souls. They have wrecked a great party, they have covered themselves with ignominy, they have earned the contempt both of friends and of enemies— for the Westminster Gazette is mean enough to think that they ratted with an eye to a General Election. Whether they had this motive, or whether they seriously believed that it was worth while to betray their friends in order to conciliate their enemies is immaterial : they made the mistake of doing evil, from whatever motive, in order that good might come of it. And they will have their appropriate reward, for no one will trust them. What is terrible to contemplate is that under a syndicated Press the voice of the people, the inarticulate people which is largely Conservative and which longs for a Conserva- tive policy and a leader it can trust, is not heard. The situa- tion is, alas! not a new one. There is at all ages a temptation to " score" in politics, and even Disraeli wavered for a moment, and, in the hope of defeating the Whigs, made friends with the extremists—though he would never have gone so far as to give away a portion of the United Kingdom. But there were giants in those days who did not hesitate to rebuke back- sliding in their leaders. In the new Life of Lord Salisbury (vol. i., p. 91) is an extract which might have been written to- day : " The nation leans strongly on the Conservative creed, but has little confidence in those by whom it is professed. The party can only regain their position in the nation's trust by belying the slur which recent faults have cast upon them. . . . If the old strategy is to be renewed, and . . . momentary success is to be schemed for by all arts and at all hazards—if triumphs are to be purchased by the sacrifice of all that makes triumph precious—the certain punishment of a trust knowingly and willingly misplaced will not delay to overtake them." Disraeli accepted the reproof and regained their trust, but he had not already, in the pursuit of that strategy which Lord Salisbury is castigating, disrupted an Empire.—I am, Sir,
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