TOPICS OF THE DAY.
IRELAND AND CONSTITUTIONAL REALITIES. R.h aDs E VdAd Le nEl yR Ab' Sr uagmh at zingus telegramo ttoh et h lea nPope f tealit s. It has made us see with what tottering pre- cariousness they build who build upon a foundation of paradox. Lest we should make matters worse and by some hasty word hinder, not help, what is going on in Downing Street, we intend to say very little about the Conference, but to treat it as if it were a case in court. There is, however, no sort of objection to, but rather very strong reasons for, considering the constitutional realities of the situation.
Is Ireland to be forced or bribed, or hall bribed and half forced, to remain in the British Empire ? No ! A thousand times No ! The Empire is a matter of good will. It was created by love and loyalty on the part alike of the Mother and of the Daughter States. The bond that binds us is the strongest thing in the world— the bond of a common desire to remain united. But in such a union there can be no thought of coercing any part of the whole to remain in an unwilling conjunction. The moment any one of the States composing the Empire makes it clear that it desires to leave the Empire it must go. It will go not only in its own interests, but in the interests of its fellows and of the Empire as a whole. We assume, of course, that the action is not one of mere whim, but a clear and properly considered determination. In a word, the Empire must always obey the law of its being, and that law is liberiy. It is a true and worthy Holy Alliance whose service is perfect freedom. But this extreme, though perfectly legitimate, extension of political voluntaryism does not apply to the integral parts of the Empire. These integral units could not be governed internally by any principle so fissiparous. If we were to apply it generally, we might come down to parishes constituted as sovereign States. In the civil polity there must be bedrock communities—States in which the people have agreed to be merged for their safety and welfare into indivisible units. Such a unit the United States, wisely, rightly, and successfully, declared itself to be at the time of the Civil War. Such it will remain for all time. The great belt of continuous territory between the Atlantic on the East, the Pacific on the West, the Canadian Border Line on the North, and the Mexican Line on the South is not to be subdivided into independent nations.
The same arguments apply to Australia and to Canada, to New Zealand and to South Africa. They must sink or swim as units. They could not allow provinces, from whims or fancied hates or jealousies, to cut themselves off and in a fit of the sulks to call out " Shan't play any more ! ," Propinquity, interaction of parts, strategic reasons, commercial reasons, and reasons of national safety, all forbid complete severance in the instances we have named—though, of course, they may allow varying degrees of local self-determination, according to the special conditions of each case.
We believe, as we always have believed, that the United Kingdom is one of those indivisible units. It ought to be united, and can only be disunited with danger. If due regard be had to the safety and welfare of the unit, the British Islands cannot be broken up and independence given to any separate fragment or fragments. By inde- pendence we mean, of course, the power to dissolve at will any union of love and loyalty, and to dissolve it without the consent of the other party or parties. Therefore, we have desired to maintain the Act of Union, though willing, if not anxious, to grant a great deal of local autonomy Co Ireland—provided always that the existence of the two Irelands is properly recognized. Such heal autonomy would not, however, recognize, either directly or indirectly, the right of severance. That matter would be made clear and secure by the retention of representatives of both Irelands in the Parliament at Westminster. Sup- posing these to be the true principles of political action in the case of Ireland, what result would be reached if we applied them in practice ? The first point, as we have said above, is clear. It is useless to attempt to coerce the Southern Irish into remaining in the Empire, though not in the United Kingdom, against their will—i.e., merely as subjects of the King-Emperor. They do not acknow- ledge the ties of willing loyalty which are the essential ties of our Empire and therefore can have no place in it. There remains to be considered the question, Can ws and ought we to carry out the principle of indivisibility in the unit called the United Kingdom ? In our opinion, we ought in theory to carry it out. In practice we cannot. The Government have given away the case of the Union by offering a complete independence to Southern Ireland. They have officially admitted, in defiance of all considerations of geography, trade and strategy, that Southern Ireland has a constitutional and moral right to leave the United Kingdom altogether, and to be placed in the position of Australia or New Zealand.
That is, they have ignored the purely voluntary basis of our Empire, and have proposed as binding ties which could not be maintained without alarming every State of the British Empire. They have, in effect, gravely offered the power of quitting the British Empire at a moment's notice to a community which has told us plainly that it hates the British Empire and has no wish to have anything to do with it ! But they have done more than this. They have in the last few months, and especially during the Armistice, incredible as it sounds, acknowledged as a dc facto government an administration founded on murder. They have even allowed it and its emissaries to extend their usurped authority into the Six County Area. Yet not a year ago Parliament made a solemn covenant with the people of Northern Ireland that they should not be subject to Southern Ireland, and the Six Counties set up a new excellent system of local autonomy within the United Kingdom.
People talk as if, in spite of this offer to Southern Ireland of permission to leave the United Kingdom, and in spite of the way in which we have let the actual government of Southern Ireland drift out of our hands, we could in the event of the Conference breaking down restart the game where we left it, and go back to our half-finished, or rather wholly unfinished, work of preventing and punishing mur- der, of maintaining law and order, and of preventing the people of Southern Iroland recognizing the Sinn Fein Government rather than the lawful Government of the United Kingdom.
Considering our financial position, and considering the military situation in the rest of the world, we say frankly that it is idle to talk about pouring troops by the hundred thousand into Ireland and restoring order by resolute government, and so forth. No doubt, in a different world ana with s different set of rulers from those we have now got or have got in prospect, we might re-subdue the South of Irelana, but things being as they are it is utterly impossible. Even if we could afford it we could not do it without weakening our military strength throughout the world. If we send 200,000 men to Ireland—and we should probably want more than that to make a really good job of it—we shall have given notice to all the people who want to make risings in other parts of the British Empire that they can do so with impunity. Every seditious man in India will be thrilled by the inflaming thought of " Now or never ! " It will be the same throughout Asia Minor and the other parts of the old Turkish Empire. Especially will the call be heard in Palestine. There the Arabs are beginning to nurse a deep sense of grievance against us as the men who professed to free them from the oppressor but are now going to put up a worse oppressor in the shape of the international Jew. Last, but not least, the Russian Bolsheviks will hear the call and recognize that England's difficulty is going to be their opportunity. Finally, the seditious elements in England, inspired as they always have been by Sinn Fein malignity and Bolshevik gold, will do their very best to create revolutionary troubles in this country. We admit these last will not go very far, but they may be a source of worry. In any case, the idea of going back to Ireland and entirely altering the game which we have played for the last ten years is not one which can now be carried out. " Too late ! Too late ! Too late ! " would be the epitaph of any such attempt. Where, then, do we stand ? What can we do We will give a plain answer. We believe that, if the Conference breaks down, the only thing we can do is what we have suggested on several former occasions in these columns. We should drum the Southern Irish out of the United Kingdom and out of the Empire, taking, of course, all essential precautions for our strategic safety, for the safety of Northern Ireland, and for providing full com- pensation to any true Loyalists who may not desire to live in the South, but wish to remain within the United Kingdom or the British Empire. We propose this policy, remember, not because we like it, or think it a good policy in itself, but only because we believe that the Government by their hopeless mismanagement of the Irish problem have brought us to a place where it may prove the one and only path of safety, though a very disagreeable path. We hate it as much as can any of the people who at first sight will protest against it. But, because we may hate a road, it is no reason for not taking it if it is the only one possible, i.e, if the other roads are infinitely worse and more perilous. As to our being able to keep this absolutely autonomous Southern Irish State in order we have no sort of doubt. What ought to have made the Southern Irish realize that they must continue partner with us in order to flourish should now make us realize that we have got them com- mercially at our command, and also have every moral right to use that commercial power if they should refuse to carry out whatever fiscal arrangements we consider just to ourselves and to the North of Ireland when disunion takes place. The last thing we want to do is to be cruel, vindictive, or unfair to Southern Ireland, but we must let them know quite plainly that if they attack the North, or persecute the Protestants in the South, or take any other hostile action against us, we shall not send troops into the South, or take any other military action, but shall simply apply a tariff to their produce which will be sufficient to meet all the fiscal obligations which will be declared to be theirs at the disunion.
Remember, this will not be fining the British consumer. It will be merely the giving of a magnificent preference to Canada, the rest of the Empire, the United States, and also to friendly neighbours like France, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. We must say once more, let no one think that we suggest this scheme out of love of it per se. Apart from the grounds of necessity which we have set forth, it has only one ground of attraction for us—we should be no more yoke-fellows with murderers, or supporters of murderers, or, what is almost as bad, people who refuse to join with us in putting down murder as a fine art, or at any rate as a military art. We are delighted to be fellow-citizens with gallant, some- time foes, like General Smuts, or even General Hertzog, but we find no pleasure in being fellow-citizens with Mr. De Valera and his supporters. The thought of such fellow- citizenship fills us with disgust.
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