Conscription and Ireland The Government may be congratulated on the
attitude it has adopted to the problem of applying conscription to Ulster. It might have been better to omit Ulster altogether from the scope of the Bill, for the number of men affected is small, and it is open to all of them to join the Territorials. As the Bill stands, it merely empowers the Government to extend conscription to Ulster ; and it is a power which it will be wise not to use except in war, in spite of Lord Craigavon's desire to the contrary. The conscription of the Catholic minority in the Six Counties would both create internal tension and disturb the satisfactory relations that exist at present between Great Britain and the Free State. To mar those relations for the sake of a few thousand conscripts from Ulster would be a major blunder. Mr. de Valera, reiterating the Free State's claim to the whole of Ireland, has, with no logical justification, used the conscription issue to further his campaign to end partition, and may derive some advan- tage from it. The question of Irishmen resident in England should raise no difficulties ; they have the choice of accepting conscription or going home, as some have already done.
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