CONCESSIONS MUST BE MADE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 76, 31 March 1914, Page 7

CONCESSIONS MUST BE MADE

OR CIVIL WAR INEVITABLE LETTER FROM EX-COLONIAL GOVERNORS. LONDON, 30th March. Lord Chelmsford (ex-Governor of New South Wales) and Lord Sydenham (ex-Governor of Victoria), in a letter, point out that civil war, the destruction of the Army, and the elimination of the Empire as a worldfactor are inevitable unless the ex* tremists of both sides make concessions. They urge that it is the t leaders' duty to confer and to agree to a fresh solution of the whole Home Rule prob- | lem. The letter goes on : " The new Army Order is tantamount to an acknowledgment that irregular questions were put to the officers at the Curragh, necessarily leading to an unprecedented request for assurances concern* ing the interpretation of orders which might be given in a certain hypothetical case. The lamentable event* of the past week are directly due to this initial blunder, which is the cause of anxiety alike to the Government and the Opposition. Surely the Governrnerit must now realise that a policy which is profoundly perturbing the conscience of & very large part of the nation, cannot be carried out to the bitter end, and the extremists of the Opposition must see that unbending insistence on a policy of negation regarding Ireland is equally hopeless." The letter concludes :•— " We firmly believe that true patriotism, statesmanship, the desperate nature of the" situation, and the model-ate element in the community, which may prove to hold the casting vote at the general election, demand the adoption of a middle course. We have both been apart from Home politics for many years, but we do know that the British community beyond the seas is looking on with the deepest apprehension as to what is happening in the Motherland. Is it too late to make this appeal to the leaders of both parties in the State on behalf of the safety, honour, and welfare of the Sovereign and his dominions?" Lord Esher, ih a letter in reply to^ Sir J. A. Simon's advice to democratise the Army, suggests that Lord Morley present Sir J. A. Simon with a copy of his " Monograph on Cromwell. ' He adds that « democratised conscript army^ina«n^uc^ as jt- is ina-

possible to democratise a voluntary army like ours — would prove a powerful weapon for fighting on the Continent of Europe, but would be a fatal instrument for domestic use in the hands of a tyrannical Parliamentary majority, or thoso of some political swashbuckler.