The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. THURSDAY. MAY 17, 1917. THE IRISH PROBLEM.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 117, 17 May 1917, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

THURSDAY. MAY 17, 1917. THE IRISH PROBLEM.

>*07- iAe cause ihat lacks assistance, For the lcrong that r.eeds reeittanee. For the future in the distance, An_ the good that tee can da.

The proposal— that the British Government has made To the Irish parties break ; fresh arround. Under the original Bill Ulster was placed under the Irish Parliament. The amending Bill proposed that a poll should be taken in the lister counties on the question of exclusion. . which would be by counties; but the j House of Uords amended this by exclud- ' ing the whole of Ulster. In the negotiations; conducted by Mr. Lloyd George, which followed on the Irish rebellion last j year, the e_clusion of si_ of the nine i Ulster counties was proposed, and the j Nationalists agreed to this. The negoj tiations. however, fell through, and Mr. Asquith stated that no Bill would be l introduced unless the Irish parties were ! in agreement. In March the Nationalists i raised the question again in the House, and after a heated debate, in which Mr. j Doyd George stated that the Government would not coerce Ulster, but that j the rest of Ireland could have Home [Bale. Mr. Eedmond and his followers i walked out of the Eouse in protest. Tie j unsatisfactory state of Ireland, the need j for unity in fan—tin _ the Germans, and l the knowledge that failure to settle the I Irish question was affecting American j and other neutral opinion of Britain, created a widespread demand for a j settlement, and these proposals are the ! result. The main element of these is to I set up an Irish Parliament for all Ire- ! land ertcept Ulster. The new ground is the proposal to set \ up a Grand Statutory Council to transact all business common to the e_ciuded area and the remainder of Ireland, with the power to direct that any enactment of the Dublin Parliament shall apply to the excluded area. As regards the area to be excluded, the cable messace is a little vague. The words are. "cutting out Lister, including the south-eastern counties. ~ Of the three cc_n_es to be < under the proposals last year. Monaghan and Cavan are. rou_hty. in the south-east, but Donegal is in tie north-west. These three counties are overwieinaa—gly Nationalist, while two i others. _ erana_a_b and Tyrone, have | Nationalist majorities, and the question | whether tb_se two shotald be included or esciuded has been one of the main factors impeding a settlement. The I words. "including the sorrth-p_stem : countifs" therefore probably refer to Tyrone and Fermanagh. If tie whole of t—ter s to ac e___d—l _ __ the complete government of the new Irish ParI Lament, tr.e proposals are m one respect a retrogression, but against this is tie I lact that the new proposal for the I Grand Statutory Council nave- tne Irish Parliament a cert—m amount of stead of. as proposed last year, comjplete authority over three counties. It j will be objected that these three counties, being overwhelm—igiy Nationalist, should be under tne Irish Pariaaanent. but the Grand Council is to be composed equally of members of tie Dublin Parliament and Ulster members of the House of Commons, so that the Nationalists in these three counties will have representation wheE matters common to their counties and the rest of Ireland are concerned. The same argument applies to Fermanagh and Tyrone. where there is a Nationalist majority, ■but not so large. The whole of Ulster now sends IT Nationalists and 16 Umon__s to Parliament, so that if the j whole is excluded —whicli we do not think is proposed—the Nationalists representing Ulster on the new Council will be in a majority; but if Cavan, I Monaghan. and Donegal are included I with the rest of Ireland, the Unionists | will have a majority. That, however, will not matter much, because the equal number of members furnished by the Irish Parliament will all be Nationalists, and. at any rate. non-Unionists. Tie scheme is admittedly a compromise, and the objections to it are obvious. It is. however, in its Statutory I Council tic- furthest. concession yet \ made by the Unionists to the Nationalist-. The Unionists, it should be rememj bered, have a majority in the Cabinet. ;J__i it is to be nresxtmed t_a_ Sis _&-

tvard Carson has agreed to the proposals. I The scheme has the great merit of . avoiding co_.plete e__usion and the ! setting up of two s_arplv divided States in Ireland. It gives the Parliament at Dublin a substantial voice in the government of Ulster, and full autonomy for all the other provinces, and it seems to us that with such a link between the rest of Ireland __d Ulster as t__ Council it' w-_l be easier to work for greater unity' than will be if Ulster is completely cut off from her neighbours. Unfortunately the acceptance of any such scheme by the Nationalists is do_btfuL Mr Redmond's position has grown much more difficult since The rebellion, and whie he m2v wish to >cc the whole question settled on these lines, there is _is party, in Parliament and out of it. to consider. Only the other day three Catholic archbishops, fifteen Catholic bisnops and three Protestant bishops in Lreand signed a manifesto strongly condemning the partition of the country, and according to a cable message from London tins manifesto and a letter on tie same subject by Archbishop Walsh, one of the signatories, were thought to prove that any proposal for a sertiennent embc !y- ---| ing a partition would be abortive. The question is, will this settlement be regarded as a partition? The Sinn ; Feiners. the pro-Rebel party cpposed to Mr. Redmond and his party, have been steadily extending their organisation, and their increasing :nI fiuence has, been _iown in the results of | by-elections. This raovement has been ! encouraged by tie delay in indang a ■ Home Rule settlement. All who w__ to ! see peace in Ireland will tierefore wait I with keen interest, not un___ed with i an.vieTv. for news of the reception of {these proposals.