TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE INVITATION TO MR. DE VALERA.
T is our duty, as it is the duty of the whole of the British people, to throw no obstacle whatever in the way of the attempt which is being made by Mr. Lloyd .George, even at the very expiration of the eleventh hour, to obtain a peaceful settlement with the people of Southern Ireland. We may think the attempt hopeless owing ;to the character and nature of those with whom we have to deal; and hopeless also because of the attitude which they tae up not only towards England, but towards the other section of the Irish people. Again, we may feel that matters should never have been allowed to drift into a condition in which the Government has been forced to address their effort at conciliation to men who have sanctioned, if not actually ordered, the deeds that have been done in Ireland during the last two years. What could have been worse statesmanship than to use the two inter- .mittent currents of concession and coercion applied -by the Government—sometimes by taking military measures, so half-hearted and so restricted that they encouraged the soldiers to take the law into their own hands and to commit the soldier's worst crime—the crime of indiscipline; sometimes by deliberate inaction, when action was imperatively demanded, for fear there might be questions in Parliament ? That type of govern- ance has produced a condition of things so bad that one must acquiesce even in bad ways or, indeed, almost in any way of trying to get things right. . The only plan open at the moment to men who keep the end of peace always before them is to let the Govern- ment have one more try. We must not merely adopt an- attitude of sombre acquiescence, but must, as far as - we can, loyally support the attempt to discover a right line in obliquity. We will give no one an excuse for saying if failure comes that failure was due to Unionists who would not be helpful in good works.
In making no protest against the invitation to Mr. De Valera, we assume, of -course, that no attempt, direct or indirect, will be made to coerce the Six County Area or to give any body, whether official or unofficial, an oppor- tunity to bring pressure upon. the Northern Parliament in order to bring about a loss of that right of self-determina- tion which has been accorded them by law. No negotiations must be allowed to take place unless they recognize the existence of the two Irelands. No alteration in the present division of _Ireland must be made save by the express and unconstrained agreement of the people of the Six County Area.
No one in England or Scotland will ever dream of for- bidding the banns of a just and self-determined union between the two parts of Ireland. Instead, every one in Great Britain will welcome such a union if it can be obtained without force or fraud. What we cannot do without shame and dishonour is to be parties to the coercion of the Six County Area. Apart from that dis- honour, coercion would bring not peace but. a sword. Honour and common sense further forbid us to try what may be described as imperative persuasion upon Ireland. Even if there were any chance of its prevailing, which there is not, we must not attempt it.
If the Wee Free Liberals or the Nationalists tell us that by making such a condition we are rendering useless the efforts at conciliation made by Mr. Lloyd George, our reply is plain : "You are not merely asking us to do evil that good may come. You are actually asking us to do evil when worse evils are certain to come."
It is greatly to be feared that it is on this point that Mr. Lloyd George's attempt will break down. We note that Mr. De Valera, in his telegram of limited and pro- visional acceptance to the Prime Minister's invitation, states that he can "see no avenue by which peace can be reached if you deny Ireland essential unity and set aside the principle of national self-determination." And so once more, and even by the road of murder tempered by sentimental pacifism, we reach the dominant fact which for thirty years we have endeavoured to keep before our readers—the fact that there are two Irelands, and-that so long as the Southern Irish declare that they cannot be satisfied in the matter of their claim to self-determination, unless they are allowed to rule over that part of the North of Ireland in which they are in the minority, peace can never come into Ireland through Home Rule. If the Irish claim is that it is a crime not to recognize the will of the local majority in the South and West of -Ireland, and a crime to recognize it in the North-East of Ireland, no hope of conciliation is possible. A paradox so glaring, so ridiculous, so criminal, cannot be made into an idol, especially as the first demand of the worshippers is the spilling of innocent blood. Though in a different sense, then, we must agree with Mr. De Valera that there is no avenue by which peace can be reached. if you set aside the principle of self-determination, in the name of domina- tion—if you claim self-determination when it suits you, but trample upon it when its fruits are not to your liking. No doubt Mr. De Valera, in his carefully worded tele- gram, depends upon the use of the words "National self- determination." If he does, we tell him, and tell him truly, that he cannot fight us with a word or trick us with an adjective. But we may go further, and, following the example of Abraham Lincoln, put to him the question which Lincoln put in his address to the legislature of Indiana in February, 1861. The Commonwealth of Virginia was claiming at that moment to secede from the Union, but was at the same time insisting that she had the right to prevent a group of counties in West Virginia from seceding from her to form the State of Western Virginia. Lincoln began by asking what was the special sacredness of the State, just as we might ask what was the special sacredness of an island. And he went on with that tragic irony which he knew so well how to use—" I speak of that assumed primary right of a State to rule all which is less than itself, and ruin all which is larger than itself." (Sinn Feiners seek not only to rule the Six County Area, but also to ruin the United Kingdom.) Lincoln went on to ask the following pertinent questions, which we may well address to the Sinn Feiners and their English supporters : "In what, as a matter of principle, is the State better than the county ? Would an exchange of vames be an exchange of rigids upon principle ? On what rightful principle may a State, being not more than one-fiftieth part of the nation in soil and population, break up the nation, and then coerce a proportionally larger subdivision of itself in the most arbitrary way ? kat mysterious right to play tyrant is conferred on a district of country, with its people, by merely calling it a State ? " We cannot resist the tempta- tion to add Lincoln's final words, which may serve us, as it served him, for a peroration : "Fellow citizens, I am not asserting anything ; I am merely asking questions for you to consider. And now allow me to bid you farewell."
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