Evening Post. SATURDAY, MAY 2, 1914.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 103, 2 May 1914, Page 4

Evening Post. SATURDAY, MAY 2, 1914.

THEORY OP IRISH HOSTAGES ♦ Though there is still no official word from the Government, the impression prevails that Mr. Churchill's suggestion on the Home Rule question implies more than it directly expresses. Exclusion of Ulster not for six years, but until a federal system is adopted for the United Kingdom, seems to be the line Of compromise now' generally hoped for. If a united Ireland and federalism are made inter-dependent, the effect will be, it is argued, that each will help the other over the Parliamentary stile. Federalism will be demanded as the cure for a sundered Ireland, and dissatisfaction with the Irish anomaly will hasten federalism. In other words, the ideal of Irish unity will make a federal system desirable, and federalism will in turn make a united Ireland possible. A noted exponent of this argument is Mr. F. S. Oliver, author of "What Federalism is Not," who writes : "We must so arrange things that the political hosts must be compelled to make good their promises. We must offer inducements to the due performance of the obligation, too tempting to be ignored j and we must put penalties upon failure too grievous to be risked." All this can be done, Mr. Oliver thinks, if the principle is adopted of excluding Ulster till federalism supervenes. Such a course, he contends, "takes securities from both sides for the carrying through to completion, within a reasonable time, of the whole federal plan. For Unionists, on the one hand, would not be willing to tolerate, longer than was absolutely necessary, a position in which threefourths of Ireland were left isolated and insecure, like a sort of constitutional excrescence. And, on the other hand, the Nationalists would not be willing that tho /inclusion of Ulster, and with it their dream of Irish unity, should be ; indefinitely postponed. .In this .way.

hostages should be taken from both parties for the completion of a federal system. ' ' This is very hopeful, .and lovers of concord would like to see the hope realised; but it is a picture of tho future, and, as such, is liable to some discount. The general idea is that the desire for Irish unity will divide the United Kingdom (federally, of course) and unite Ireland. Even Sir Edward Carson talks of reconciliation and of "Ireland a unit" under a fc-deral system; and Mr. Balfour suggests that partition now will be the best4oad to unity later. But all this is really based on the supposition that racial and religious feeling in Ulster will subside, as it certainly ought to. Unless that change in temper and atmosphere takes place, the plan of postponement pending federalism holds out no real safeguard, and the hostages are far from amounting to a gua-rantee. The emphasis is really not so much on the hostages as on the time-cure. What are the host, ages? On the Unionist side, Mr. Oliver depends on the desire to remove that "constitutional excrescence " (threefourths of Ireland under Home Rule) which the Unionists themselves, by armed rebellion, arc now creating in its lopsided form. But, unless time brings an altered temper, one can easily imagine the Ulster "stalwarts" standihg out still for their own isolation in preference to being merged in the "excrescence." It is not difficult to find out what the Nationalise fear on this point. Today's cablegrams state that they adhere to the idea of a time-limit, and that an effort will be made to fix, by common consent of the parties, a period within which federalism shall operate. Instead of exclusion with a time limit, they may accept exclusion pending federation with a time limit. Insistence on the limitation sufficiently expresses their opinion of the hostages of the Unionists. On the side of the Nationalists, the hostages are more substantial, simply be. cause with them the ideal of Irish unity is a real thing. Also— for the ideal is ever accompanied by the mundane— because they need Ulster's financial resources. But the Home Rule Bill as it exists is not a federal measure, and confers pow. ers that would not be conferred under any plan of federalism yet suggested for the United Kingdom. If federalism eu pervenes, will the Nationalists find it easy to surrender powers given by the Home Rule Bill ? To sum up, the theory of hostages is to a degree plausible, but it stands for little unless time alters the outlook of Irishmen, and particularly of the covenanter*. To permit of that hoped-for change of heart, and partiallarly to dispel the menace of civil war, some sort of postponement plan seems to be necessary, and it is to be hoped that British statesmen have at last struck a line of compromise. , But there is no disguising the fact that it is only a postponement. The real work of reconciliation by good government has to be don« in the years that are to come.