EIGENTUM IN STiTU TS WELTWXTSCHAFTY KEL BIBLYOTHEK T g1¢ Ulster Opportun A UNITED IRELAND LONDON T. FISHER UNWIN. LIMITED PRICE SIXPENCE NET. ULSTER’S OPPORTUNIT A UNITED IRELAND Urster's OPPORTUNITY A UNITED IRELAND YY AN IRISH K.C LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN, Ltp. 1 ADELPHI TERRACE i017 FY = - ‘ fa or - : w yr ‘ / ND m PD Q 0 er oo] mm Ce t 0 ¢) h <I M~ om ULSTER'S OPPORTUNITY: A UNITED IRELAND. An International Question. OME RULE for Ireland and for all Ireland H has suddenly developed into a question of urgent international importance, by the universal recognition of the right of Small Nations to a government of their own choice. In reply to the American demand for a statement of their objects in the War England and her Allies in a joint Note declared their determination to enforce “the reorganisation of Europe, guaranteed by a stable settlement based alike on the principle of nationality and on the right which all peoples, whether great or small, have to full security and free economic development. . . . The liberation of the Italians, Slavs, Roumanians, Czechs and Slovacs from foreign dominion.” England, for herself, insisted with special emphasis on the rights of Small Nations in the eloquent memorandum of Mr. Balfour which accompanied the joint Note of the Allied Powers. As Foreign Secretary of the Empire, Viscount Grey, representing his Government and his nation, speaking on October 23rd, 1915, declared — “T take it on the word of the Primd Minister that we shall fight until we have established the supremacy and right of free development under equal conditions, each in accordance with its genius, of all States, great and small, as a family of civilised mankind 3 ~~ 0) -— -) oN oO 4 52, [=i ! Zc .) - > El 1 He Hal bs io. 1 ht Ig © § iy j © IS is Ty. “tr 2 nn N |e oN nn oN Hy — 1 — on = 3 () £ Even Germany has paid a lip homage to the principle of nationality. The Chancellor of the German Empire, Von Bethman-Hollweg, on November oth, speaking before the Reichstag on the possibility of creating courts of arbitration and a permanent peace organisation, says :— . “Germany will honestly co-operate in the examination of every endeavour to find a practical solution, and will collaborate for its possible realisation.” And then he adds these momentous words :— “This all the more if the War, as we expect and trust, brings about political conditions that do full justice to the free development of all nations, small as well as great ” But as might have been expected, it is from the great Republic of the West that has come the most eloquent vindication of national liberty. In a series of speeches of unparalleled power President Wilson has insisted on Lincoln’s great principle of “Government by the people for the people.” “No peace,” he declared, “can last, or ought to last, which does not recognise and accept the principle that Governments derive all their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that no right anywhere exists to hand peoples about from sovereignty to sovereignty, as if they were property.” “There must be an inviolable security of life, of worship, and of industrial and social development guaranteed to all peoples who have hitherto been under the power of governments devoted to a faith and purpose hostile to their own.” Finally, declaring the principles for whose maintenance America has felt constrained to enter into the War, he proclaims her determination “To fight for the ultimate peace of the world, for the liberation of its peoples—the German peoples included— the rights of nations, great and small, and the privileges of men everywhere to choose their way of life and obedience. [ 3 ] “ Civilisation,” he concludes, “itself seems to be in the balance, but right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the thing which we have always carried nearest our hearts— } “For Democracy. “For the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own Government. “For the rights and liberties of Small Nations.” The English Government was slow to realise the international importance of the Irish question or the necessity for putting its own professions into practice. When the question was raised some little time ago in Parliament the Premier replied by a non possumus. He suggested dismemberment of the country as the only practical solution. Home Rule for all Ireland, he declared, was impossible so long as any section of Ulster objected. Mr. Lloyd George resented indignantly the suggestion of Mr. Dillon that he was “going back on Home Rule; was abandoning his own principles and professions ;” but Mr. Dillon was abundantly justified by the record of the Premier. It was Home Rule for all Ireland that Mr. Lloyd George, as a distinguished member of the Liberal Government, helped to pass into law. It was for that he spoke and voted. He was a member of the Cabinet which successfully opposed two motions in the House of Commons for the exclusion of any portion in Ulster. “Evil communications,” says the copy book, “corrupt good manners.” When the Premier, sitting between Sir Edward Carson and Mr. Bonar Law, emphasised his refusal to put the people of Ulster “under the heel ” of the Nationalists, he was echoing an Orange shibboleth which he must have known to be absurd. It is probable he regretted the phrase the moment he uttered it. He has over and over again voted for the inclusion of the whole of Ulster in the Home Rule Act, and he has constantly main- [ 4 |] tained that the safeguards in the Act and the ultimate authority of the Imperial Parliament afforded Ulster absolute security. Hardly less deplorable was his assumption that the Unionists of Ulster form no part of the Irish nation ; no one would resent the suggestion more indignantly than Sir Edward Carson, who has over and over again claimed the name of Irishmen for himself and his followers. Lord Charles Beresford as a strenuous Unionist, has been in the thick of the fight against Home Rule. But even Lord Charles has declared in a letter to the Zimes that “all Irishmen are proud of being Irishmen, all are proud of the land of their birth; no one really wishes to see Ireland divided.” It must never be forgotten that if there is a division in Ireland to-day it is a division of British manufacture. The Orange faction was cherished and encouraged as “ England’s garrison in Ireland.” In Grattan’s day all Irishmen, North, South, East and West were united in the struggle for Irish self-government, and of all the Home Rulers of that day the men of Ulster were the most vehement. When the Premier now regrets that the opposition of a majority in four counties of Ulster blocks the way of Home Rule, he must not forget that such opposition was stimulated, and to a large extent created by his colleagues, Mr. Bonar Law and Sir Edward Carson, and will inevitably cool down when that stimulus is withdrawn. The instant appeal of the Irish Party from the zon possums of the Premier to the over seas dominions, and to the American Republic seems to have suddenly startled the English people and the Government into a realisation of their position before the tribunal of the liberty-loving nations. For their treatment of Ireland in the past and at the present they are absolutely without defence. The most | 5 strenuous Unionists in Great Britain, in the Press and on the platform, have now joined in urging an immediate settlement of the Irish question, The response to the appeal of the Irish Party was overwhelming in its unanimity and enthusiasm: of the strenuous support of the over seas dominions there had been already abundant proof. Every selfgoverning Colony in the Empire had proclaimed itself in favour of Irish Home Rule. South Africa, the latest addition to the Empire family of free nations, has been amongst the most enthusiastic in its support, By the Australian Senate the demand for Home Rule was reiterated in a resolution of unanswerable force, carried by a majority of 20 to 2 + “ Enjoying and appreciating, as we do, the blessings of Home Rule here, we would humbly express the hope that a just measure of Home Rule may be granted immediately to the people of Ireland. In this crucial hour, when the might of your Empire is being wielded to maintain the right of self-government for small nations, we feel confident that the whole people of Ireland would be grateful, loyal, and enthusiastic supporters of that high policy. “They ask for it through their representatives-—never has request more clear, consistent and continuous been made by any nation. As subjects of your Majesty, we are interested in the peace and contentment of al] parts of the Empire, and we desire to see this long-standing grievance at the very heart of the Empire removed.” It is interesting to observe what is thought in the Dominions beyond the seas of the armed resistance of the Ulster minority to Home Rule :— “ Honourable Members will recollect,” said Senator Stewart, “that just prior to the outbreak of the war there was some hope that Ireland would be granted a measure of Home Rule. At that particular time, we found one very prominent member of the British Parliament in open rebellion against the Government. I refer to Sir Edward [ 6 | Carson. He bought ships, purchased ammunition, and organised and drilled troops for the express and unconcealed purpose of opposing the British Government if it decided to give a complete measure of Home Rule to Ireland. “To the disgrace of that Government, he was allowed to go about his ordinary avocation unmolested. He was allowed to preach his sedition from one end of the country to the other without let or hindrance. He was permitted to inflame the minds of multitudes in Great Britain and Ireland. Why? Because he was a member of the privileged classes of Great Britain. We know, too, that the very officers in the British Army threw their commissions in the face of the British Government rather than take part in putting down the rebellion which Sir Edward Carson was endeavouring to organise. They flaunted their commissions in the face of the Government, and the Government said nothing, but took it as quietly as if it were a lamb or a sheep before its shearers.” Senator Lieut.-Colonel Sir Albert Gould (N.S.W.) joined with Senator Stewart in saying that it is deplorable that any British Government should have allowed people to openly arm themselves for the purpose of fighting it, as a certain section was permitted to do, just prior to the outbreak of the war. In Australia there appears to be no squeamishness about the enforcement of an Act of Parliament on a recalcitrant minority. The fervour of the Dominions’ response to Mr. Redmond’s appeal might fairly have been expected. But the great Republic which has heretofore abstained from direct interference in the question was, if possible, still more earnest in its demand for a settlement of the Irish problem on the basis of National Self-Government. It was, indeed, a rude awakening to the Unionists, who believed that Americans, apart from a few extremists of Irish descent, were either apathetic or hostile to Ireland’s claims. It is now nearly thirty years ago since Mr. Gladstone declared that England's treatment of Ireland { 71 was the blackest page in her history, and was universally condemned by the whole civilised world. England then treated the opinion of the civilised world with self-complacent contempt. She can no longer assume the same self-complacency, when Mr. Gladstone’s faithful lieutenant, Mr. Asquith, declares “ throughout the length and breadth of the British Empire and the whole of the King’s dominions the one derided failure of our statesmanship is to be found close to our own borders in Ireland.” A dozen years ago Mr. Roosevelt, then President of the United States, said to me in the White House : “J can thoroughly understand the feelings of Irishmen. No one can read their history and fail to appreciate them, It was the history of Mr. Lecky that first made me a Home Ruler; I cannot understand how the author of that description of the Union could be himself a Unionist. I cannot understand how any man could read that history, far less write it, without becoming a Home Ruler. It seems to me that expedience as well as justice are so strongly in favour of the reform that it cannot be long denied to [reland.” The publication of this opinion by the eminent ruler of the greatest of free nations excited hardly a ripple of interest in England. But England cannot afford to be indifferent to-day, when Mr. Roosevelt writes in response to the Irish Party (— «1 most earnestly hope that full Home Rule will be given to Ireland—Home Rule relatively to the Empire such as Texas or Maine or Oregon now enjoys relatively to the National Government at Washington. Of course, Ireland should remain part of the Empire. Ihave no more sympathy with the irreconcilable extremists on one side of the question than on the other. I am sure that the Canadians and Australians feel in this matter exactly as Americans do, and that both permanently, and as regards this particular war, it would be an immense advantage to the Empire to give Ireland Home Rule.” i 8 ] Ex-President W. H, Taft is not less emphatic in his pronouncement — “We in the United States,” he writes, “are hoping earnestly for a speedy settlement of the Irish Home Rule question. It would much help to solidify and hearten American public sentiment in the great cause for which the democrats of Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, and the United States are fighting shoulder to shoulder, and which they must and shall win.” lt is an open secret that the same view has been expressed by President Wilson to the British emissary—Myr. Balfour. The American response to the Irish appeal has been fervent and universal. At special interviews, or by speech and resolution at great public meetings, congressmen, senators, judges, and governors from every quarter of the States have urged the immediate settlement of the Irish question by the concession of self-goverment to an unmutilated Ireland. Quotation might be multiplied almost indefinitely from the pronouncements of Americans eminent in ability and position in favour of Home Rule. Let it suffice to quote the pronouncement which nearly two hundred members of the American House of Representatives, including the Speaker—Mr. Clarke—have addressed to the British Premier — “You are quoted as saying that the settlement of the Irish question is essential to the peace of the world and a speedy victory in the war. May we, the Members of the American Congress, suggest that nothing would add more to the enthusiasm of America in the war than a settlement now of the Irish problem in accordance with the principles announced by President Wilson in his address to Congress, asking it to declare war on aristocracy for the world-wide safety of democracy and of small nationalities.” The Times—Saul amongst the prophets—once the most bitter and effective of the opponents of Home S Rule, has, through its Washington correspondent, collected a vast body of evidence in favour of an Irish settlement. Here is a summary of the conclusions at which he has himself arrived :— “ The future of the world, in the opinion of most farsighted Americans, depends upon the closest co-operation between the two great Anglo-Saxon democracies. There are many obstacles that will have to be overcome before that co-operation can be reached; . . . but, as things stand, the worst of all these obstacles may easily be the Irish question. This not only because of the direct political influence of Irish irreconcilables. This is considerable, but it might be overcome. It is because Americans in general are Home Rulers. They are inclined to attribute the tragedy of our relations with Ireland to the same John Bullish stupidity that produced the American Revolution.” England can no longer ignore the opinion of the whole civilised world, especially the opinion of America, to whom she is bound by so many ties. Still less can she ignore the professions of her Allies, and of herself, that they are waging war for the liberation of small nations. She cannot persist in the face of the protests of her friends and the taunts of her enemies in forcing a foreign domination on Ireland. She cannot deny to Ireland the freedom for which she is fighting with such desperate energy, and with such limitless expenditure of blood and treasure, for other small nationalities. Ireland is as well deserving of liberty as the Poles, the Belgians, the Serbians, the Roumanians, the Montenegrins, the Slavs, the Czechs, and the Slovacs. There is, moreover, this vital distinction: the other small nations must wait for their liberation till the end of the war : it is in the sole power of the British Parliament to establish forthwith self-government in Ireland. [ 10] A Constitutional Settlement. 7fHE measure of Home Rule already embodied I in Act of Parliament satisfies the national aspirations of the vast majority of Irishmen. A lesser measure was accepted by Mr. Parnell, the acknowledged spokesman of the Irish Nation. Amendment and improvement may be called for, but in principle the Act suffices. An ingenious agreement has been developed by the irreconcilable Unionists, the conditional rebels of the North who were themselves responsible for the Sinn Fein rising in Dublin. “The denial of Ireland’s legitimate demand for Home Rule,” they admit, “has created disaffection in Ireland, therefore,” they argue, “ Home Rule must still be denied till disaffection has disappeared.” Every day that Home Rule is denied must strengthen and extend the influence of militant Sinn Feiners. The coercion of the Ulster minority is declared to be “unthinkable.” Is it proposed to perpetually coerce a disaffected majority in Ireland? The small rump of the ascendancy faction may rejoice in the prospect, but decent Irishmen of all parties would deplore it, and such a policy would disgrace the Empire in the eyes of the whole civilised world pledged to the liberation of small nations. The Sinn Fein movement when it was first started some years ago, consisted of a number of peaceablydisposed persons whose policy, “Irish for the Irish,” found expression in the encouragement of Irish manufacture and of the Gaelic Language. The denial of Home Rule in deference to the threats of armed resistance by a small minority in Ulster was solely responsible for militant Sinn Fein, [ 11] But the number and influence of militant Sinn Feiners, though it has been increased by the unmerciful severity with which the Dublin Rising was revenged, is negligible in comparison with the number of constitutional Home Rulers. Irishmen are shrewd enough to realise that an Irish Republic and complete separation from England is impossible; England could no more be expected to consent to the secession of Ireland than America to the secession of the Southern States, and no reasonable Irishman could expect to defeat the military and naval powers of Great Britain. By an overwhelming majority the representative bodies in Ireland have rejected the unpracticable policy of Count Plunkett involving the complete severance of Ireland from the Empire —the elections in Roscommon and Longford are of no real political importance. Grattan, Flood, O'Connell and Parnell all repudiated the suggestion of such severance. It was one of the fundamental propositions in Grattan’s famous address, 16th April, 1782, that the “Crown of Ireland is inseparably annexed to the Crown of Great Britain.”—(Irish Debates, Vol. L., p. 337). Whoever “wears the Crown of England also wears the Imperial Crown of Ireland,” declared Flood—(Irish Debates, Vol. I, p. 452). Throughout O’Connell’s long agitation for Repeal of the Union he insisted on the retention of “the golden link of the Crown.” “The King de facto in England,” he declared, “is the King de jure in Ireland.” Parnell accepted Home Rule as a satisfactory settlement of Ireland’s claims. Only fanatics or factionists believe, or pretend to believe, in the possibility of a complete severance of the British connection. Even Count Plunkett himself is a very recent convert to the separatist policy. A little more than a year ago he had no objection to the British connection when he was pressing his claims to the position of Under-Secretary at the Castle. [ 12 ] But the Sinn Feiners are not all republicans. Many of them who denounce the Home Rule Act—secured by the arduous and protracted struggle of the Irish Party as an effective solution of the Irish question— profess to believe that it is only in Repeal of the Union and the restoration of “Grattan’s Parliament” that the true remedy is to be found. Remembering how long the Irish question has been before the public, how exhaustively it has been discussed and dissected, it strikes one as strange that even at the present hour the vital distinction between Home Rule and Repeal of the Union should be so little understood. There are intelligent Englishmen who believe that Home Rule would be the sure forerunner of separation; there are intelligent Irishmen who believe that the restoration of Grattan’s Parliament would be a greater boon to Ireland than Home Rule. A very little accurate knowledge of the subject demonstrates the absurdity of either view. The acceptance of Home Rule is an absolute bar to separation; the restoration of Grattan’s Parliament as it existed before the Union is both undesirable and impossible, From the first it was manifest that the Union forced on the Nation by corruption, fraud, and violence meant ruin for Ireland. Naturally, the “Repeal of the Union” was the form in which the remedy first presented itself to the Irish people. Within ten years O’Connell inaugurated his Repeal agitation, never wavering from the declaration in his speech against the Union that, as a Catholic, he “would willingly purchase that Repeal by the imposition of the Penal Code in all its unmitigated ferocity.” But the agitation was foredoomed to failure. In Repeal of the Union ultimate separation was inevitably involved, and separation can never be wrung from England except by armed force. When Butts great Home Rule Conference was held in the Rotunda, in Novem- [ 13 ] ber, 1873, the restoration of an Irish Parliament became for the first time a question of practical politics. At a meeting of the Dublin Corporation in 1843, Isaac Butt, then a brilliant young barrister, was the spokesman of the Unionist minority opposed to Alderman Danijel O’Connell’s motion in favour of Repeal. It was said that O'Connell, at the conclusion of the debate, prophesied that. Butt would yet be the leader of the National Party in Ireland. However that may be, a careful perusal of Butt’s long and elaborate speech against Repeal reveals no single argument against the alternative policy of Home Rule. He objected, as Macaulay had objected, to O'Connell shirking the details of his policy of Repeal. He pointed out that there never was a constitution in Ireland which gave to an English king responsible Irish advisers, and he significantly concluded :—¢ If Alderman O'Connell calied for an Irish Cabinet as well as an Irish Parliament, it would be a very different question.” O’Connell himself, a little later, seems to have arrived at the same conclusion. When Sturge Brown, a well-known English politician, suggested a Federal solution of the Irish difficulty, the suggestion was favourably received by O'Connell. “The Irish,” he wrote, ‘“ desire a Parliament to regulate all the local affairs of Ireland; in matters wholly relating to England they do not desire to interfere.” Again, in December, 1844, he wrote :—“I will own that since I have come to contemplate the specific differences, such as they are, between simple Repeal and Federalism, I do at present feel a preference for Federalism, as tending more to the utility of Ireland and the maintenance of her connection, than Repeal.” The great Home Rule Conference in the Rotunda in 1873, under the presidency of Isaac Butt, followed [ 14 ] close on the disestablishment of the Irish Protestant Church, and it is worthy to note that a large number of prominent Protestants and Conservatives participated actively in the proceedings, and expressed their hearty concurrence in the policy of Home Rule. Dr. Maunsell, the editor and proprietor of the Dublin Conservative organ, the Evening Mail, was one of the most active supporters of the policy. Colonel King-Harman, afterwards one of Mr. Balfour’s unpaid coadjutors in Coercion, declared :—% We have come here to say that Home Rule is a matter of vital necessity, not only for this country but for Great Britain.” Lord Francis Conyngham regretted he was unable to attend. Lord French wrote to “wish success to the movement for an Irish Parliament on a Federal principle, which would include all the benefits that could reasonably be expected from an unqualified repeal of the statute by which the legislative Union was so unjustly enacted, and at the same time afford Ireland the great advantage of being duly represented on all Imperial questions.” Lord Robert Montague proclaimed his hearty good wishes for the success of the movement,” and the O'Connor Don expressed his “decided opinion in favour of Self-Government,” though he did not think the moment opportune for its concession. The Home Rule policy, formulated at the Rotunda Conference has been ever since the policy of the Nationalists of Ireland. It differs essentially from the old policy of Repeal. By Repeal, as has been already said, separation is necessarily implied. Home Rule repudiates separation. By the acceptance of Home Rule the Irish people have for the first time abandoned their claim in an independent Parliament and attorned to the Union. By the acceptance of Home Rule the absolute supremacy of the Imperial Parliament is expressly acknowledged. { 15 1] ‘To talk of such a compact as the disruption of the Empire is the sheerest absurdity. The Empire gains by Home Rule the freely tendered loyalty of the one country whose loyalty is most essential, and whose disloyalty has been heretofore most dangerous to its stability. While Home Rule commends itself to England as a pledge of Ireland’s loyalty to the Empire, to Ireland it offers far greater advantages than the impossible policy of Repeal. Grattan's Parliament was valuable solely because it was native and resident. The Home Rule Parliament will be both, but it will be, moreover, what Grattan’s Parliament never was, fully representative of the people. Above all and beyond all, under Home Rule there will be for the first time an Irish Executive responsible to Parliament, and, therefore, responsible to the people. Under Grattan’s Parliament an alien Executive by systematic corruption controlled the Irish House of Commons ; under Home Rule the Irish House of Commons will control a native Executive. Grattan’s Parliament, nominally independent, was completely subservient to the Executive that corrupted it. The Home Rule Parliament will, so far as Irish affairs are concerned, be practically supreme. | 16 ] A United Ireland. OR Irish disaffection the remedy is not repres-F sion, but’ conciliation. When the Sinn Fein rising was suppressed England missed an opportunity. If, following the precedent of the Boer rebellion, mercy had tempered justice, disaffection would gradually have disappeared. In an article in the Fortnightly Review, “ A Plea for Mercy,” written just after the rising, I strongly deprecated a policy of vengeance. But the Government failed to appreciate the lesson that history has persistently taught: in Ireland relentless severity begets, not fear. but resentment. Martial law extinguished recruiting in Ireland. To the disaffected Irishman the war is England’s war, and while England ill-treats Ireland, he won’t help her to win. It is strange to hear well-meaning Englishmen complain with mingled wonder and indignation that Ireland is disloyal to England. If Englishmen, on the advice of Sir Horace Plunkett, will read Anglo-Irish history, they will no longer expect the impossible ; they will rather be surprised at Ireland’s readiness to forgive and forget. Even now Ireland offers loyalty in return for liberty, but, grown distrustful from frequent betrayal, she refuses to pay the price before the goods are delivered. England is ready to close the contract. An Ulster minority blocks the way. Mr. Lloyd George’s proposed settlement of the Irish question by the exclusion of six counties in Ulster is dead, never to be revived. Both parties accepted it, but neither party wanted it. The Unionists hoped the Nationalists would reject it, the Nationalists that the Unionists would amend it. [ 17] Nationalists support Home Rule, Unionists denounce it, but all Irishmen unite in opposing the dismemberment of Ireland. Once convince the Ulster Unionists that Home Rule is inevitable, and they will accept the inclusion of Ulster as the lesser of two evils. It is not hard to show that the policy of exclusion was never supported on its merits by any section of Irishmen. The real issue between Irish Nationalists and Unionists was, Home Rule or no Home Rule for a united Ireland. For more than a century the battle was fought on this issue by O’Connell, Butt, Parnell, McCarthy, and Redmond. Home Rule was denounced by the Unionists as “treason,” “rebellion,” and “dismemberment of the Empire” It was applauded by the Nationalists as the liberation and regeneration of Ireland ; but through all those years there was never a hint from any party that the solution of the question could be found in the dismemberment of Ireland. In the strenuous second reading debate in 1886, . when Mr. Gladstone first raised the question, Home Rule for all Ireland was the only issue before Parliament. In 1893 I was present every day in the House when Home Rule was discussed, week after week, month after month, on second reading, committee, and report, and I never heard from any quarter the faintest suggestion that any part of Ireland should be excluded from the jurisdiction of the Irish Parliament. During the fierce agitation in Ulster in the autumn of 1912 there was never a hint of exclusion. The famous Covenant, so enthusiastically adopted, so universally signed by the Unionists of Ulster, was in effect a repudiation of the policy of exclusion. It is important for the right understanding of the present Irish situation to recall the pledge of mutual support contained in the Covenant :— [18] “We whose names are underwritten, men of Ulster, loyal subjects .of His Majesty King George the Fifth, humbly relying on God Whom our forefathers in days of stress and trial trusted, hereby pledge ourselves in solemn Covenant throughout this, our time of threatened calamity, to stand fast, one to the other in defending ourselves and our children’s equal citizenship in the United Kingdom, and in using all the means which may be found necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland, and in the event of such a Parliament being forced upon us, we further solemnly and mutually pledge ourselves to refuse to recognise its authority. Iu sure confidence that God will defend our rights we hereto subscribe our names.” It will be observed that the Covenant pledged its signatories to stand by each other in mutual resistance to Home Rule. Such a mutual pledge, it is plain, could be dissolved only by general consent. It is wholly inconsistent with the policy of exclusion. When the six counties consented to Home Rule for their brother Unionists elsewhere, they were bound in honour to accept it for themselves. In October, 1912, the policy of exclusion was expressly repudiated in Parliament by the leader of the Irish Unionist Party : «] ask no separate treatment for Ulster,” Sir Edward Carson emphatically declared, “ that is not our policy and never has been our policy.” The mere hint of exclusion provoked the following protest in a letter to The Times from Mr. J. Allan, Hon. Secretary of the Ulster Unionist Council — «T have had frequent opportunities of knowing the feelings and opinions of the Belfast people and all Unionists in Ulster, and 1 bave never yet heard one man suggest the settlement of this question by exclusion of the four North-Eastern counties from its operation. . . . The unanimous opinion of Unionist Ulster is dead against any such settlenent.” [ 19] It was not until the 13th of June, 1912, that the policy of exclusion was first raised, not by any member of the Unionist party, but by a Radical free-lance, Mr. Agar-Robartes, M.P., on an amendment in committee to exclude four counties in Ulster from the operation of the Home Rule Bill. This amendment was denounced by the /7isk Times as “a trap to secure the admission that the Northern Unijonists were willing to abandon the Unionists in the rest of Ireland to their fate”; but it was supported by Sir Edward Carson on the express grounds that it would wreck the Home Rule Biil if it were carried. : In January, 1913, on the Report stage of the Bill, Sir Edward Carson himself moved an amendment for the exclusion of the entire province of Ulster, But his object was still not to mend the Bill but to end it. That it was a mere wrecking amendment was abundantly proved both by the debate in Parliament and the comment of the Unionist press. The frontal assault having failed, the frontal defence against Home Rule having collapsed, it was resolved to attack it in the flank by a proposal of the exclusion of Ulster. The claim of the Unionist majority in certain counties of Ulster not merely to reject Home Rule for themselves, but to deny it to the overwhelming Nationalist majority in the rest of Ireland, did not commend itself to the British sense of fair play. An attempt must, therefore, be made to put the same claim in a more plausible form. Sir Edward Carson and his colleagues did not expect to carry his amendment, they did not desire to carry it. Any stick is good enough to beat a dog. The amendment was framed and moved in the hope of wrecking Home Rule. In his reply to Sir Edward Carson, Mr. Asquith directly challenged the purpose of the amendment. “ Under the claim to exclude Ulster from the operation of the Bill [he said] is a claim, not ostensibly, but actually [ 20 ] and admittedly put forward that because Ulster is opposed to Home Rule, Ireland as a whole is not to get Home Rule. It is a claim to a veto, an absolute veto I” The purpose of the amendment was explained beyond the possibility of misconception by the very able Irish correspondent of The Times as “a shrewd and perfectly legitimate piece of tactics.” In its editorials the J7zs4 Times, by far the most widely circulating and most influential organ of Unionism in Ireland, was equally candid in its appreciation of the amendment. It had declared the amendment of Mr, Agar-Robartes for the exclusion of four Ulster counties as “a trap to induce Ulster Unionists to desert their brethren south of the Boyne.” Of Sir Edward Carson’s amendment for the exclusion of all Ulster, it wrote :— “We have the strongest objection to the segregation of Ulster from the rest of Unionist Ireland. A strictly Southern Parliament would be hopeless from the beginning, and the lot of the Southern Unionists, deserted by their brethren in Ulster, would be intolerable. The Irish Unionist members contemplate no such desertion. The amendment is legitimate tactics on their part, they assume doubtless that the Government will reject it, but if the Government rejects this formal amendment then it must accept in the sight of all men the responsibility of civil war.” The amendment was, as its authors expected and desired, rejected by a big majority. The Home Rule Bill was passed for a United Ireland, the threats of civil war in Ulster grew fiercer and fiercer, and the mustering and arming of Ulster volunteers progressed apace. It is idle to inquire if the Ulster threat of civil war was really intended to be carried into effect, or if it was, like the Ulster exclusion proposals, what the [risk Times would call “perfectly legitimate tactics ” for the defeat of Home Rule. The same threats had been uttered by the same party when [ 21 ] the Irish Church Bill was passing through Parliament, the Orangemen then declared themselves prepared “to kick the Queen’s crown into the Boyne,” and “to line the last ditch” in defiance of the Imperial Parliament. The Bill passed and nothing happened. The recent Orange threats of rebellion against the Home Rule Act were not taken seriously in England or Ireland. “Ulsteria,” as it was wittily nick-named by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, was believed to be a noisy disease but not dangerous, Anyhow, all danger (if there ever was any) of an Ulster loyalist rebellion has been now happily dispersed. But there was a sudden change in public opinion when the commanding officers in the Curragh refused to take part in the suppression of an Ulster rebellion, “Conditional ” mutiny in the Army was rightly regarded as a far more formidable danger to the Empire than conditional rebellion in Ulster, It was then for the first time that the suggestion of the exclusion of Ulster or of some portion of Ulster which was “legitimate tactics” on the part of the Irish Unionists was accepted as practical politics by the Government. The King sought a compromise on those lines in the famous Buckingham Palace Conference and failed. That failure can be easily understood. Neither side wanted the exclusion. Each side was afraid it would be accepted by the other : complete Home Rule, or no Home Rule, was then, and always has been, the issue between them. The War intervened, and after a regrettable delay the Home Rule Bill was passed into law. While Nationalists were irritated at the long delay, Unionists were furious at the enactment of Home Rule. It will be remembered that Mr. Bonar Law denounced it as a treacherous betrayal, and declared that a pledge was to Mr. Asquith what a treaty was to the Germans, “a scrap of paper,” to be torn up at pleasure. There can be little doubt that Mr. Bonar Law, [ 22 ] who afterwards proved himself an efficient and loyal colleague of Mr. Asquith, has long ago realised, not merely the wisdom, but the absolute necessity of the course pursued by the late Premier. To have further postponed the enactment of Home Rule would have meant utter disaster in Ireland, where it would be regarded as a deliberate betrayal. It would have infuriated in the highest degree Irish opinion alike in Ireland and in America and in the Colonies, and it would have been a death-blow to Irish recruiting. Instead of the spasmodic rising of a few thousand Sinn Feiners there would have probably been a real Irish rebellion, supported by the great body of the Irish people. That tremendous danger was averted by Mr. Asquith’s statesmanship. The Irish Nationalists vied with the Unionists in devotion to the Empire. Lord Kitchener described Ireland’s response as “ magnificent.” Irish soldiers, crying “God save Ireland” as they charged, proved themselves the bravest of the brave in Flanders, Gallipoli, and Serbia. Even Lord Selborne has a word of praise for “the loyal and patriotic action of Mr, Redmond during the two years stress of War.” So much has the enactment of ‘Home Rule already accomplished. Mr. Birrell was right in his emphatic declaration in the House of Commons that the Sinn Fein rising was not an Irish rebellion. Three or four thousand men and boys at the most were concerned in the rising. It has been said that the sympathy with the Sinn Feiners has largely increased since the suppression of the insurrection and the wholesale execution and imprisonment of the insurgents, and that there is far more disaffection now in Ireland than at the time of the rising. I think that is so. But the extreme Unionists, who seek to draw from that fact an argument against the concession of Home Rule, are absolutely illogical. It was the delay in the con- [ 23 ] cession of Home Rule that provoked the rising, it was the extreme severity of the punishment inflicted on the rebels who surrendered that excited sympathy for the victims. The further delay of Home Rule and the continuance of martial law cannot fail to promote disaffection. Out of evil good comes, and there can be no doubt that the disaster of the Sinn Fein rising has been a lesson and a warning to the contingent rebels of Ulster. They must realise the danger of playing with fire; they must picture to themselves their beloved Belfast devastated as Dublin has been devastated by conflict with the irresistible forces of the Empire. With the suppression of the Sinn Fein rising the last was heard of an Ulster rebellion ; that cry will never be raised again. ‘These considerations greatly helped Mr. Lloyd George when, just after the Dublin rising, he, with characteristic courage, at the unanimous request of the Cabinet, tackled the task in which His Majesty had failed, of effecting a compromise which might be even reluctantly accepted by Irish Nationalists and Ulster Unionists. Sir Edward Carson was no doubt in a chastened frame of mind at the moment, realising that the rebellion preached in Belfast had been practised in Dublin. I have known Sir Edward Carson for many years at the Irish Bar and in Parliament, and I have no doubt of the absolute good faith with which he accepted Mr. Lloyd George's proposals, inspired by devotion to the Empire, the hope of enlisting Ireland’s cordial sympathy and support in the conduct of the War. But realising that the acceptance was, above all and beyond all, a Unionist confession that Home Rule was inevitable, Sir Edward Carson may also have reasonably hoped that Ulster, when the choice was allowed her, would voluntarily have joined hands [ 24 ] with the rest of Ireland in giving Home Rule a fair trial. It was doubtless with this hope that he persuaded his followers to accept it. His task was a hard one. The acceptance, nominally at least, involved the scrapping of the solemn covenant which pledged the Unionists of Ireland to stand or fall together ; it involved the abandonment to their fate of the 400,000 Unionists (be the same more or less) of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught. Most humiliating of all, it involved the abandonment of their Ulster Unionist brethren in the Ulster counties which it proposed to bring under the immediate jurisdiction of the Irish Parliament. Still, even the irreconcilable Unionists at first raised no objection to the scheme in confident expectation that on the Nationalists would fall the responsibility of wrecking it. The logical consequence, a Nationalist refusal, was clear. It was “unthinkable” that the Ulster Unionists should be coerced to the acceptance of Home Rule. The Nationalists would accept no Home Rule from which the Ulster Unionists were excluded. Therefore Home Rule was impossible. Q.E.D. When Sir Edward Carson’s followers, on the advice of their leader, accepted the Lloyd George proposals, the next move was ‘with Mr. Redmond. His task was even harder than Sir Edward Carson’s. Like Sir Edward Carson, even more emphatically than Sir Edward, he had repudiated the policy of exclusion. It was a denial of the ideal for which the long battle had been doggedly fought. “Ireland a nation! Ireland united and free” It was an ostensible surrender of the policy of Parnell, whose eloquent proclamation of a United Ireland Mr. Redmond quoted with approval in the House of Commons. “We cannot give up a single Irishman. We want the energy and patriotism, the talents and the work of every Irishman to ensure that this great experiment shall be successful.” [ 25 ] Mr. Redmond was attacked in front and flank. The extreme Nationalists protested against the acceptance of a mutilated Ireland. The Unionists taunted the Nationalist leader with his repudiated pledges. The Catholic Hierarchy ranged themselves strongly in favour of rejection. By many Irish Nationalists it was believed that Mr. Redmond had set himself an impossible task ; it was feared that even with the cordial support of his trusted colleagues, Mr. Dillon, and Mr. Devlin, he would fail to carry the unpalatable proposals. Amongst the “ Die Hard ” Unionists a corresponding hope’ was felt. When Mr. Lloyd George's scheme for the immediate establishment of Home Rule was made public there was not a whisper of dissent from Lord Lansdowne or Lord Selborne. When the proposals were accepted by the Ulster Unionists the extremists still maintained an approving silence awaiting the inevitable rejection by the Nationalists. The Morning Post was then the solitary voice shrieking in the wilderness, “faithful alone amid the faithless found ” to the exploded policy of coercion. It was only when the impossible happened, when the Nationalists accepted the proposals, that the irreconcilables’ protest began. Their tacit acceptance was pure bluff. When Mr. Redmond “saw them,” Lord Lansdowne kicked down the card table. There was no real inconsistency in the action of sither Mr. Redmond or Sir Edward Carson when, in apparent defiance of their pledges, they accepted the policy of exclusion and commended it to their followers, Both had good ground for believing it to be the easiest way of securing a united Ireland, Mr. Redmond, at least, made no secret of his policy. The representative Conference held in Belfast of the Nationalists of the counties proposed to be excluded, Antrim, Down, Derry, Armagh, Tyrone, and Fermanagh, and the cities of Derry and Belfast, at his [ 26 ] instance, by an overwhelming majority adopted the Lloyd George proposals, “ for the temporary and provisional settlement of the Irish difficulty,” on the express ground that ‘in view of all the circumstances of the present situation in Ireland they offer the best means of carrying on the fight for a United Seifgoverned Ireland.” With the national acceptance of proposals formulated with the full consent of a Coalition Cabinet, Home Rule has, by common consent, become inevitable. Even Lord Selborne, while protesting against immediate action, declared, “It is quite clear in my mind that the welfare of the whole United Kingdom demands that Home Rule should be given a fair trial” Mr. Bonar Law, Mr, Balfour, and Sir Edward Carson, Mr. Long and Lord Landsdowne, have confessed that Home Rule now on the Statute Book cannot be repealed. The long battle is over, the victory won in the face of strenuous resistance and repeated defeats. The eloquent words of Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons in 1886, spoken on the very eve of foreseen and inevitable defeat, have proved prophetic. “You have wealth [he said], you have rank, you have station. What have we? We think we have the people’s heart, we believe and know we have the promise of the harvest of the future. I believe there is in the breast of every man who means to vote against us to-night a profound misgiving, approaching even to a deep conviction that the end will be as we foresee it, and not as you do, that the ebbing tide is with you and the flowing tide is with us.” Mr. Gladstone’s statesmanship has triumphed, the issue is no longer Home Rule or no Home Rule; that question has been finally decided. The issue is now a united or a dismembered Ireland. Mr. Lloyd George's latest proposal was an improvement on that which went before. It proposed a [ 27 1] reconsideration of the question of exclusion by the Imperial Parliament, and it at least makes some pretence of preserving the integrity of the Nation by the establishment of a Coalition Council for all Ireland. But events have travelled rapidly since Mr. Lloyd George's first proposal was accepted, from all quarters, Nationalist and Unionist, has come a vehement protest against even a temporary mutilation of Ireland. The memorandum of the Irish bishops, Catholic and Protestant, is a notable illustration of the strength of feeling on the subject. The suggested dismemberment of the country was largely responsible for the srowth of the Sinn Fein movement. In a selfgoverned Ireland that movement would rapidly disappear. Mr. Lloyd George is too intelligent not to have known that the Irish Party could not now accept a policy of dismemberment if they would, and that they would not if they could. His real proposal was in the postscript of his letter to Mr. Redmond ; “The assembling of a Convention of Irishmen of all parties for the purpose of producing a scheme of [rish Self-Goverment.” At such a Convention in no quarter will the mutilation of Ireland find support, and the Nationalists will be eager to make all possible concessions to secure a United Ireland. It is to be hoped the Convention will be thoroughly representative of all shades of Irish opinion. For Chairman, General Smutts would be an admirable selection. There was much to be said for the genuine policy of the Unionists, Mr. Balfour, in a recent speech, most eloquently lamented the lost hope that Ireland, like Scotland, might grow prosperous and contented under the existing form of government. But there is nothing to be said from any point of view in favour of the policy of exclusion when it has once failed as a tactical stratagem to avert the concession of Home ule. [ 28 ] Like Mr. J. Allan, Honorary Secretary of the Ulster Unionist Council, I have had the opportunity of discussing the question with many Unionists, and I have never yet met a single one who favoured the policy of exclusion. The dismemberment of Ireland, as we have seen, has been condemned on its merits both by Sir Edward Carson and by the Unionist Press. It would be fatal to the prosperity of the excluded counties and cities, marooned at the extremity of an alien Ireland. Their prosperous industries are financed by the great Ulster banks, “The Belfast,” “ The Northern,” and “The Ulster.” The Belfast Bank has three offices in Dublin, the Northern three, and the Ulster four. All those banks have scores of branch offices and agencies scattered through the provincial towns of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught. The segregation of six Ulster counties from the rest of Ireland would be a disastrous blow, not merely to the prosperity of the Ulster banks, but to the system of credit on which Ulster industries depend. Belfast and Derry have a large and profitable wholesale trade in the south, east, and west: that trade could hardly survive the exclusion of Belfast and Derry from a self-governed Ireland. The Ulster members of the Irish Bar, even the most prominent Unionists who sit for Unionist constituencies are, as I have reason to know, strongly and unanimously opposed to the policy of exclusion, Heretofore they have secured at least their fair share of legal practice and patronage. They bitterly resent the prospect of banishment from the Four Courts of Dublin. Sir James Campbell would, I fancy, be rather reluctant to abandon the position of Lord Chief Justice of Ireland to preside in the Supreme Court of the six counties, [ 20 ] But not on material grounds alone or mainly rests the appeal to the six counties to give Home Rule, in the words of Lord Selborne, a fair trial before they decide upon exclusion. As Lord McDonnell points out, the exclusion of six counties of Ireland, apart from the strenuous opposition of the overwhelming majority in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught would give “a thoroughly unwelcome system of government,” not merely to the Nationalists of the excluded counties, but also to Unionists of the twenty-six included counties, who are naturally anxious that if Home Rule must come it should come for a united Ireland. Ulster Unionists cannot lightly contemplate the desertion of their Unionist brethren of the provinces of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, and of the included counties of Ulster, in violation of pledges in the solemn Covenant of mutual support. How bitterly that desertion would be resented may be judged from a protest in the frish Times from the Rev. T. L. F. Stack, of the County of Tyrone. «Of all the people in the world,” he writes, « the Ulster Unionist Council has scrapped the Covenant, and wiped the ground with Ulster’s honour.” If Home Rule would be bad for the excluded counties it must be worse for the Unionists of the included area. The number of Irish Unionists may be roughly estimated as about a million. Of those more than a half reside in the six counties proposed to be excluded. If a million Unionists almost monopolising, as they claim, the wealth and intelligence of the country could not hold their own in a Home Rule Parliament, to what fate are the Unionists of the six counties abandoning their scattered brethren in the included area? Assuredly it is not a desertion which, remembering their pledge of mutual support, they can contemplate with pride. The six counties have so far successfully resisted [ 30] compulsion. It is for them now freely to decide that they will come in until they wish to go out, rather than stay out until they wish to come in. The sacrafice is not great. Self-interest, loyalty and patriotism dictate an immediate, if provisional, inclusion. If they elect to remain out, Nationalists cannot be blamed for making their position uncomfortable. If they elect to come in, Nationalists have the strongest motives for generous conciliation. Their duty to their brother Unionists ; their duty to their country ; above all, their loyalty to the Empire in the hour of stress and trial, combine to urge that they should throw in their lot with a United Ireland. Sir Horace Plunkett, a life-long Unionist, writes: “No sane Irishman believes that Ulster can be coerced, but all the best Irish thought is confident it can be won.” The sooner the better. If the thing is to be done at all, “’twere well ’twere done quickly.” “Time is,” as the lawyers say, “of the essence of the contract” If the six counties of Ulster consented to inclusion they might reasonably demand a Coalition Ministry as the price of the concession, and experience in England shows that it is in war-time a Coalition Ministry is most successful. Seeing that Mr. Asquith and Mr. Bonar Law, after such bitter conflict, worked harmoniously together, there is surely no reason to despair of hearty co-operation of Unionist and Home Ruler in a Coalition Cabinet in Ireland. Party rancour would be quenched, and kindly feeling evoked by their common interest in the successful progress of the war. The immediate creation of an United Irish Parliament would be an irresistible stimulus to Irish recruiting ; would dissipate whatever lingering hopes Germany may yet entertain of Irish disaffection, and would be cordially welcomed in America and the Colonies. The Irish Unionist Press can do much to promote such a settlement, which I am convinced the vast [ 31] majority of Irish Unionists desire, though they may hesitate for the moment to give public expression to their views. On the kindred question of inclusion or exclusion of Dublin University and Trinity College from the jurisdiction of a Home Rule Parliament, there was afforded a singular illustration of what an able and courageous newspaper can accomplish. Mr. Campbell, Member for Dublin University, moved its exclusion, the amendment was reluctantly accepted by Mr. Redmond, and was adopted by the Committee of the House of Commons. But it was strenuously opposed by the Unionist fresh Times. “The future of the Dublin University |it wrote] is fixed in Ireland. Its essential asset thust be the respect, confidence, and goodwill of the whole Irish people. It has always enjoyed the respect, and is beginning to enjoy the confidence and goodwill. The amendment would be fatal to Trinity’s educational interests. It sets up a barrier of distrust between the Protestant and Catholic youth of [reland. It divides the youngest and most generous elements of our democracy into hostile camps.” The protest was effective. Mr. Campbell’s amendment was withdrawn, and Dublin University cast its lot in with the rest of Ireland under a Home Rule Parliament. It is about time the /7is/z Times should, with the courage of its convictions, make the same emphatic protest against the exclusion of the six counties from a self-governed Ireland. Now that the clear issue is raised, Home Rule without the six counties or with them, its duty seems plain. It has declared its conviction that the policy of exclusion would be “the least desirable of all possible Irish settlements of the Irish question.” It should endeavour to give effect to that conviction. The concluding paragraph in a recent editorial goes to prove that it appreciates the present position. [ 32 1] “ The word Unionist,” it writes, “ has lost its familiar meaning, but it will take a new and honourable lease of life if the Unionist Party now decides to make itself the champion of a United Ireland.” Surely Sir Edward Carson, who assured a meeting of seven hundred Unionist delegates from Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, “you need fear no action of Ulster which would be in the nature of a desertion of any of the southern provinces,” could not now refuse to listen to such an appeal. No reasonable concession would be refused which would induee the six counties to exercise an option they have secured in favour of the policy of a united rather than a dismembered Ireland. Sir Edward Carson has declared that it is not the legislation but the administration of an Irish Parliament he fears. His fear of maladministration would be at least diminished if he were assured of a Coalition Cabinet. There is still another administration safeguard which I have already suggested elsewhere, and which might be worth a trial. We have district and county councils in Ireland. There seems to me to be no valid objection, if Ulster so desires, to the creation of provincial councils as well. To an Ulster Council the local administration of the province might be safely entrusted. There is special encouragement in one memorable declaration of Sir Edward Carson. “If Home Rule is tried for part of Ireland I, as an Irishman, hope and pray that it may so work that Ulster of her own motion may come in” Can he not, as an Irishman, go one step further and invite Ulster with her wealth and intelligence to lend a hand in the successful working of Home Rule ? In the Life and Letters of Sir John Henntker Heaton, recently published by his daughter, an interesting little incident is recorded — « Heaton introduced his old friend and Irish rebel and Colonial statesman, Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, to [ 33] Sir Edward Carson, and they had a happy talk on the Terrace. ‘If all Irishmen were like Duffy,” said Carson, at its close, ‘I would gladly consent to Home Rule for Ireland.”” Might not Sir Edward Carson extend to Mr. Redmond the confidence he was willing to repose in the Irish rebel, Sir Gavan Duffy? It is at least encouraging to read that the two leaders now occasionally meet in friendly converse in the Lobbies of the House of Commons. The financial provisions of the existing Home Rule Bill are generally admitted to be defective, but if Mr. Redmond and Sir Edward Carson joined hands they would have no difficulty in securing generous financial provision for Ireland : almost any form of Home Rule to which they both assented would be passed without opposition. The alternative is disaster for both countries. Sedition spreads in Ireland while unthinking Unionists rejoice in the belief that the power of the Irish Parliamentary Party is undermined. It was the same fatuity that inspired the Unionist exhortation to the National Volunteers, when they were first being enrolled, to repudiate the control of "Mr. Redmond in favour of Sir Roger Casement. Quite recently Lord Midleton exultingly declared that at the next election in Ireland every member of the Irish Party would be rejected by his constituency. The prophecy was absurd ; but assume it to be true : for every repudiated member of the Irish Party a Sinn Feiner would be returned. Is this a prospect to which England or Ireland, Unionist or Home Ruler, can look forward with satisfaction ? i The Unionist Press has been beating the air in its daily appeals to Mr. Redmond and the Irish Party to revive recruiting in Ireland or to accept conscription. It is about time they addressed their appeal to their own Party with whom the remedy lies. The Ulster Unionists have consented to Home Rule for over [ 341] four-fifths of Ireland, by accepting it themselves they can solve the Irish difficulty and demonstrate their loyalty to the Empire in its hour of trial. [t has to be fully realised that the veto of a Unionist majority in four Ulster counties is now the sole obstacle to the settlement of the Irish question—so earnestly desired by Great Britain and Ireland, by the British Allies and the Dominions beyond the seas—a settlement that would help the winning of the War and justify before the world England’s professed enthusiasm for the liberation of Small Nations. An indefinite submission to such a veto is unthinkable. The Outlander minority in South Africa were allowed no veto on the concession of Self-Government to the Boers; no pro-German faction will be allowed to obstruct the liberation of Poland, The utter absurdity of the claim of the Ulster extremists is unconsciously revealed in a recent editorial in the Irish Times :— “It is not only the official Nationalists, driven, perhaps, to despair by the increasing failure of their prestige, who clamour for the coercion of Ulster. Some independent men who really desire a settlement as much for Ireland’s sake as for their own, have been tempted, by the new and imposing influences which the Government has invoked, to make a similar appeal to compulsion. They suggest that a generous scheme of Home Rule for the whole of Ireland would isolate a handful of Northern fanatics, whose opinions the Government could afford to disregard. The people who talk thus have little knowledge of Unionist Ulster or of the essential needs of a real Irish settlement. There can be no isolation of any section of Unionists in Ulster. A threat of violence to the smallest minority of them would create instantly a fierce and solid unity of resistance to the best scheme that the wit of British statesmanship could devise.” Here is an undisguised claim that “a handful of Northern fanatics” are entitled to a perpetual veto [ 35 1] on Home Rule, demanded by the overwhelming majority of the Irish people at home and abroad, and by the voice of the civilised world. It would be wasting argument on unresisting imbecility to expose the utter absurdity of such a claim. Courage, patriotism, honour and self-interest demands the Ulster veto should be withdrawn. A settlement by universal consent is much to be preferred, but a settlement there must be on the only possible lines, Home Rule for a united Ireland. The coercion of the four counties is *“ unthinkable,” because the necessity for coercion can never arise. Armed resistance in Ulster against the law of the land and the forces of the Empire is “unthinkable.” Does any sane man believe that the great protagonists of conditional rebellion, Sir Edward Carson, First Lord of the Navy; Sir James Campbell, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland; Mr. Chambers, the Irish Solicitor-General; Mr. Bonar Law, the leader of the House of Commons; and Sir Frederick Smith, the English Attorney-General, would resign their places to lead the armed manhood of four Ulster counties against the forces of the Crown. Let the Act be put in operation and the Ulster Unionists will either freely accept or peaceably submit, and turn Home Rule, as they turned the much denounced Land Act of 1881, to the best possible advantage. The German hope that the declaration of war would create a centrifugal force for the disruption of the British Empire has been completely disappointed. The self-governed colonies beyond the seas have rallied to its defence with a wholehearted devotion. 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