We cannot know till next week whether this difficulty will
be got over. If it is got over, then the hopes of a real settlement will have a real foundation. If the difficulty is not got over, the English people must not let themselves be persuaded into think- ing it was due to bad temper or unreasonableness on the part of the North. It will be due to the essential fact that there are two Irelands, and that nothing can be done towards solving the Irish problem until that fact is fully recognized. Hitherto the Nationalists have always refused to recognize it, with the result that their cause has been at a perpetual stay. If only they would see and understand the consequences of the existence of this fact, their difficulties would vanish. They know, as well as we know, that the Southern Irish can get almost any terms they like in the matter of independence as long as their self-determination does not include the persecution of the Six County Area. Their Constitution could be as free as that of the Dominions, and might go even further. It might be virtual independence, provided that security, or compensation for disturbances, was given to
the Protestant minority in the South, and provided also that our strategic safety was not interfered with. As long, however, as the demand for Nationalist Home Rule includes the right to dominate the Six County Area and to persecute it if it objects to that domination, it is utterly impossible to satisfy the Irish demand.
Previous page
