The question of the appeal to the people brings us
to the last, but the most important, point in the whole crisis. No one who endeavours to find some way out of the present impasse without bloodshed ever gets to close quarters with the subject without finding the way blocked by one master- fact (Mr. Oliver in his letter to Friday's Times tells us that he has found it, just as we have found it). That master-fact is the agreement made with the Nationalists when they con- sented to vote for Mr. Lloyd George's Budget—the agreement that the Home Rule Bill should be passed without an appeal to the people either by a General Election or by a Refer- endum. No one knows the exact terms of the compact, and no one knows whether it is verbal or in writing. It might, however, well have been written in blood, for it is only too likely that its final fruits will be bloodshed. The Govern- ment, as Mr. Oliver has also reminded us, have repudiated the act of the two Ministers who made the compact with the officers at the Curragh. Wby should not they repudiate the act of the Ministers who made the compact with the Nationalists?
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