TOPICS OF THE DAY.
IRELAND WORSE AND WORSE. NOTHING which has since happened causes us to revise our judgment of last week that Mr. Michael Collins has sacrificed the Treaty to Mr. De Valera. At the best of times it was obvious that it would be difficult to put the Treaty into operation. But now Mr. Collins has thrown away what remained of hope With both hands. Mr. Churchill tells us that the intentions of Mr. Collins and Mr. Griffith are sincere, and that we must not prejudge the situation too hastily. This means only that the Govern- ment are flummoxed by the disaster which has visited their policy and that they cannot see clearly what to do. We can tell them one thing that they ought to do—a thing which honour and duty alike require them to do—without any necessity for groping forward to ultimate solutions. Acting strictly from their own point of view and without injuring their hopes that the situation may mend itself, they ought to say : " For the very reason that we stand by the Treaty we shall also stand by the Ulster Loyalists whose fate is involved in the Treaty. We have made a genuine and generous offer of freedom to the South, an offer which gratified the whole world of foreign onlookers, and it remains for the South to accept or reject. But an essential part of the Treaty to which Mr. Collins and Mr. Griffith put their names was that Northern Ireland should be allowed to contract out of the scheme and to have her safety guaranteed. We shall never be false to that part of the Treaty. We do not forget that, after all, our friends as well as our enemies are owed some considera- tion. - If organized assaults on Ulster are made by any of the Southern factions, or rather if the present attempt continues, Great Britain will be found at the back of Northern Ireland."
Unfortunately, Mr. Churchill did not say that. He did not with gracefulness and warmth say the necessary encouraging word to the Six Counties. As it is, Northern Ireland will go on feeling depressed and suspicious. She will feel that she is to be " let down " after all. This is deplorable, because there can be no rectification of the Northern boundary, however small, without the consent of Ulster. Yet the saving word that might have worked magic was withheld. It is characteristic of Englishmen that in a real crisis they always draw together. However deep their political differences may go in ordinary times when they are informed by their instincts that an emergency has come which admits of no party self-seeking—an emergency which must be met once and finally one way or the other—they nearly always hit upon a common solution. We could point to no surer sign that there is a general recognition of the gravity of the crisis in Ireland than that men of all schools of thought here are visibly drawing together. During the past week Radical and moderate Liberal newspapers have written virtually in the same sense as the Unionist papers. If the South means to try to coerce the North, Englishmen, Scotsmen and Welshmen will side with the North against coercion. They will not consent to a savage tyranny merely because it crops up disguised under the title of a secular fight for freedom. If this process of coming to- gether develops—and it will develop if Northern Ireland is deliberately threatened while the faction leaders of the South persist in speaking equivocally instead of as honest men—we shall soon hear a united cry from all the British political parties that though they wish Ireland well, and would give the South everything it can in reason demand, they will refuse to consent any longer either to trickery or to the continuation of a regular system of assassination.
As regards the issue of the Treaty in so far as it did not concern Ulster, we gladly admit that Mr. Churchill spoke plainly and soundly. He made it quite clear that if Mr. Be Valera and other Republicans take office in the new Irish Government and refuse the oath of allegiance to the King the Treaty will be considered as violated by that act and at that moment. In forming the coalition with Mr. De Valera, Mr. Collins, of course, said that he was not acting against the Treaty but that he wanted the coalition because without unity it, would be impossible to restore order in Ireland. But what now remains of the Treaty I Under the terms of the coalition a Government is to be set, up which will guarantee to the Republican or De Valera minority about 57 seats as against 64 for the Free State majority. Moreover, in the new Ministry four out of nine seats are to go to the anti-Treaty party. Yet again, the long-awaited general election which was to have been on the simple issue of the Treaty is to be a sham and a mockery because it is being arranged in advance. Instead of a Constitutional Free State Parliament we shall have another Dail, which unless it changes its rules will be subject to the Republican oath. Finally, the coalitionists have been contemplating giving representation in this new Dail to the Roman Catholic minority in Ulster. This, of course, would be a violation of the Treaty that would admit of no palliation. The surrender made by Mr. Collins to Mr. De Valera seems, in fact, all the more far-reaching the more one looks into it. And yet we are told on the best 'authority that the vast majority of Irishmen are in favour of the Treaty and desire nothing better than an opportunity to vote in accordance with their heads and hearts at a really free general election. Mr. Griffith recently estimated the De Valera minority at only about two per cent. of the voters ! Now we must return to the position of Ulster, which is the real matter left in doubt by Mr. Churchill's statement. It may be that there will be no formal attack upon Derry, though at one moment the manner in which the rival forces were disposing themselves bore a striking resemblance to the disposition of the troops when James II. attacked the town in 1689. A much more formidable, because a more insidious, danger for Ulster than formal invasions across the frontier is the irregulars' present plan of producing anarchy within the Six Counties. The Six Counties are the only area in Ireland where a civil and legal admin- istration is still in force. It is appalling to think that partisans, calling themselves patriots, who profess both education and religious feeling should lend themselves to the diabolical scheme of drawing the Six Counties into the welter of anarchy which afflicts the rest of Ireland— all in order that Ireland should be treated as a whole! The principle is that there must be " no partition." If the body of Ireland cannot be handed over to Republicanism in a healthy condition then it must be handed over dead. At all events, the Republicans must have the whole body. Mr. Stephen Gwynn, who is, of course, not sympathetic towards Sir James Craig's Government, appealed in the Observer last Sunday to the Roman Catholic minority in Northern Ireland not to resist the rule of Sir James Craig's Government or, at least, not to join in attacks upon Ulster Loyalists. He said plainly that if the Northern Govern- ment did not try to protect itself against the organized campaign of destruction and murder and the attacks on the police it would " cease to exist." That is the simple truth.
The Southern factions, unable to keep order anywhere in their own territory, have nevertheless enough energy to make these attacks upon the North. They have apparently occupied some ten square miles of territory, quite apart from the general stirring up of tumult and the arson and murder. It is like Bismarck's policy of distracting attention from his difficulties at home by fastening a quarrel upon an enemy abroad. And the British Government are in a very large measure responsible. Immediately the joyful news of the signing of the Treaty had been announced, without even waiting for ratification, they proceeded to sell the apparatus of war to the South. Rifles and transport were handed over, not merely to the more or less responsible persons, but to the I.R.A., which has proved itself to be to all intents and purposes an independent body. Thus the enemies of Ulster are armed and Ulster is not armed to anything like the same degree. It is really a heart-breaking situation. The British Government have made it possible for those who hate us to launch heavy attacks against those who have always been loyal to the King and have faithfully served him. They took upon themselves a terrible responsibility, and now that the danger which they risked has become real they cannot shuffle off the responsibility but must recognize what it involves. Northern Ireland must be protected. It is quite beside the point to say that we must not " disturb the atmosphere of peace " or do anything " to injure the prospects of the Treaty." In our past history, whenever British subiecta in any part of the world were in danger, either as to their persons or their property, the British Empire intervened. Are we really to be asked to believe that what we have always done as a matter of course in any part of the world on behalf of any one who legally claimed British citizenship cannot be done now in the case of men who have clung to their allegiance through thick and thin ? Are they to be allowed to go under ? If the Government should delay and wait and watch while such a thing either happened, or became inevitable, we might just as well cross the words " fidelity " and " treachery " out of the dictionary or reverse their meanings. If help in the form of ships and men cannot be sent, at least the balance which was upset by the Government themselves when they armed the South and did not arm the North should be corrected. We owe it to the Northern Loyalists to aid them in their need and the very least help the Government can offer is the wherewithal for self- protection. Here is a comparatively simple duty—a much simpler matter than that of helping the Southern Loyalists whose fate is beyond description unhappy and undeserved. We greatly deplore the fact that Mr. Churchill did not utter the reassuring words which the situation required.
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