ARE THE BRITISH LAWLESS?

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 77, 1 April 1914, Page 6

ARE THE BRITISH LAWLESS?

Under 'the heading "Are the English Becoming lawless?'' an American paper discusses the topsy-turvy tendency and factional hysteria to which the one-time phlegmatic Britisher appears to have become a prey. The article is chiefly notable as summing up in its title the astonishment felt by the outside world at the riotous goings-on of what was only yesterday the most solid and stolid among the great nations of the world, the chief exponent of law with a capital L. To-day the Republican Frenchman, the German Socialist, the unorthodox American, even the Spanish anarchist, all feel that their particular lines of business have been challenged from a, most unexpected quarter, and stand amazed at the spectacle of a staid elderly person out on a most unparalleled orgy of disorder. Firstly, there is woman — the traditioiul reservoir of refinement and conservatism — flourishing hatchets, hftnibd, hikl flj c-itickts ; a business of which British woman enjoy a s*gopjjsJy,

while the rest of the sex looks on openmouthed. Secondly, there are the Ulster " covenanters " bearing arms against the will of Parliament, and backed by a political party with whom " constitutionalism " is among its most hallowed traditions. Of all self-evident contradictions this is probably tho most startling. It is strange reading nowadays to turn back to some of the literary idealisations of the law-abiding Briton. Consider also the Kipling injunction in "A Song of the English",: Keep ye the Lav— be swift in all obedience— Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford. Make ye sure to each his own lhat he reap where he hath sown; By the peace among Our peoples let men know v.c serve the Lord. Service of the Lord, according to the Kiplyig formula, is certainly not very much in evidence in the Motherland at the present moment; though we doubt not that Mr. Kipling could if necessary prove, in elegant verse, per medium of The' Times, that the arming of Ulster is merely one of those little exceptions that prove the rule. That, however, would only be possible under poetic licence. The plain English of the situation is that the action of the Ulster "covenanters" is a trampling on the whole vital principle of the above widely-quoted verse. But Kipling does provide one idea pertinent to the present situation—- the sowing and the reaping. Unionists have -sowed the seed of rebellion boldly and lavishly. The reaping is still to come.