A FRENCH VIEW OF IRELAND.t
WE commended M. Eseouflaire's accurate and spirited little book on Ireland when it appeared in French last winter. We are glad to see that it has been translated. M. Escoufiaire is one of the few foreigners who have taken the trouble to study the Irish question, instead of accepting at their face-value the theatrical assertions of Nationalists and Sinn Feiners. His inquiries have naturally led him to conclude that " the Irish question is an international imposture," and that Ireland is in no sense " oppressed " by Great Britain. He surveys Irish history and finds that Ireland's religious and economic grievances have long since been removed. He comments ironically on Mr. Dillon's sue- eeesful endeavours tq wreck the policy of conciliation after 1903, lest Ireland should be deprived of a political grievance. To the • Small Country Houses of To-day. (Second Series.) By Lawrence Weaver. 'Country life Library of Architecture." London : Country Life. 125s. net.) t Ireland an Eneniy of the Allies? By R. e. Esconfiaire. London: Murray. Itis. net.] logical mind of a Frenchman the conduct of the Nationalists throughout the war seems selfish in the extreme, and that of the Sinn Feiners treasonable. M. Escoullaire describes the Sinn Fein revolt of Easter, 1916, and remarks bitterly that " what Pearse was asking these rebels to do was nothing less than to stab us in the back when our fate was in the balance at Verdun, and when our soldiers were writing in their blood at Faux and Dointurnont the most heroic page in the history of France." M. Escouflairo cannot excuse the Irish for helping the German enemy. Ho is not taken in by the sentimental nonsense of the Nationalists, and ho says again and again that Ulster is right in not letting herself be deceived. He predicts that . " English Governments will still try to content Ireland with Home Rule in one form or another, with which no one will ever be satisfied." Or they may " Give Home Rule to Roman Catholic Ireland. Exclude the North-East of Ulster. Define clearly military, economic, and political safeguards, without which the Empire cannot exist or she will go to her doom. Ireland would be dissatisfied with this regime ; that I need hardly say. There will be nothing to be done but let her howl."
Escouflairo answers the charge that we have failed to govern Ireland by the neat retort : " Does not the very fact that they [the British] have succeeded everywhere else show that they are not primarily responsible for the Irish muddle ? " His well- informed little book desers-c-s to be widely read here and in Ireland and overseas.
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