THE RIGHT OF REBELLION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—Surely Mr. Robert Lynd's definition of the position of Ulster (Spectator, August 24th), as "a claim to veto, not the inclusion of the Unionist counties in the Home Rule scheme, but the application of the Home Rule Bill to any part of Ireland," may be described as, not only "not a little disingenuous," but something bordering on misrepresentation, and betraying the distorted vision of the partisan. "The suggestion to omit the predominantly Unionist counties from the scope of the Home Rule Bill," advocated by the Spectator, never passed beyond the academic stage, and never entered the region of practical politics. True, Ministerialists, with motives too obviously sinister, and in the hope of discrediting Ulster and scoring a point in political strategy, endeavoured to elicit from Ulster Unionist leaders some formal admission of the kind, but Sir Edward Carson. very wisely refused the bait. It has been perfectly well known from the first that Mr. John Redmond, the real author of the Home Rule Bill, could never assent to the exclusion of the Unionist counties, as without them Home Rule would be economically impossible.
North-East Ulster simply claims the right to remain, as at present, an integral part of the United Kingdom, under the jurisdiction of the Imperial Parliament at Westminster, and if that claim ipso facto kills the demand for Irish Home Rule that is not Ulster's concern or responsibility. Ulster is admittedly essential to the Nationalist scheme for Irish self- government, but, in flagrant violation of every argument in favour of that scheme, she is to be coerced into acquiescence without consideration and without consultation. As you your- self, Sir, have put it in a previous issue of the Spectator, if the granting of Home Rule to Ireland necessarily involves a grievous wrong to North-East Ulster, then the Government have no moral justification for their present policy, even were it free from the taint of a corrupt bargain to maintain themselves in office by the purchase of Nationalist votes Like Mr. Robert Lynd, I am myself a North of Ireland man,. and what surprises me is that a man of his antecedents, who professes to know his Ulster, could ever have supposed for a moment that she would take any other course than that at present adopted. And, as you have well remarked, what are we to think of so-called statesmen who have brought them- selves to such a pass in apparently complete ignorance of the real state of affairs in Ulster and the inevitability of the pre- sent critical situation P The pity of it is that all this ferment, with its inevitable aftermath of bitterness and bad blood, is raised, as the outcome of mere party exigencies, at a time when all the evidences point to Home Rule as a dying cause, when Ireland is basking in the sunshine of prosperity, and agitation is only kept alive by the dollars of those who, un- familiar with existing conditions there, cherish only the bitter memories of the evil past.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Royal Societies Club. ULSTERMAN.
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