Evening Post. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1914. WAR AND THE HOME RULE ISSUE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 69, 18 September 1914, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1914. WAR AND THE HOME RULE ISSUE

The cable brought us an unpleasant reminder yesterday that even the terrible ordeal through which the Empire is now passing cannot entirely quench the fierce fires of the Home Rule controversy. That this controversy would bo continue to divide the nation as to make it unable or unwilling to face a foreign foe was plainly among the miscalculations of the Kaiser, which combined to bring his country to its present pass. Could he only have delayed operations until' civil war in Ireland had divided the United Kingdom, and even the whole Empire, into two hostile camps and paralysed both the military and the naval defences for their legitimate uses, the progress of his campaign and the history of the world would have been very different. The march to Paris would have been a very easy business if the army and the navy of Great Britain had been doomed to look on. It is possible that German hopes of British dissensions may have been revived by the proceedings in the House of Commons on Tuesday, especially if the reports have been as highly coloured as those of the military operations. But it is quite certain that these hopes will be disappointed. It is certainly unfortunate that at this crisis in the country's fortunes a number of the Government's supporters should have walked out of the Chamber while the Leader of the Opposition was speaking, and that his followers should have retorted by leaving in a body as soon as he had done. Despite these inopportune differences, however, the united front which the Empire has presented to its enemies ever since they seemed likely to strike is not going to be broken by the bitter feedings ithat ha-ve found expression in its supreme tribunal. It was, fortunately, only on an incidental issue of the Home Rule controversy that the House of Commons got to loggerheads. The (Question was. not the granting of Home Biile or the exclusion .. of Ulster, but the terms of a postponement on which both "parties are agreed. It was on the 30th July, when AustriaHungary was already at war with Servia and mobilisation was proceeding apace throughout Europe, that the Government, after conferring with the Opposition, decided that the time- was not suitable for proceeding with a bitter party fight. The measure then before the House was not the Home Eule Bill, which had gone up to the House of Lords long before, but the Amending Bill, which proposed a conditional and temporary exclusion for I some of the northern counties. In announcing the decision at which he had arrived, with the approval of the Leader of the, Opposition, the Prime Minister said: "We shall therefore propose to put off the consideration of the second reading of the Amending Bill — of course, without prejudice to its future — in the hope that by a postponement of the discussion the patriotism of all parties will contribute what lies in our power, if not to avert at least to circumscribe the calamities which threaten the world. In the meantime, the business which we shall take will be confined to necessary matters which will not be of a controversial character." The trouble on Tuesday was that the suspensory measure introduced by Mr. Asquith does not postpone the passing of the Home Rule Bill, but only its operation. To postpone the passing of the Bill, as the Opposition desired, would, said Mr. Asquith, "place it at the mercy of a chapter of accidents." No doubt it would, but the Opposition naturally objects to see the Home Rule Bill removed from the chapter of accidents while the Amending Bill is left to take its chance. We cannot see that the Government has "broken its solemn pledges," as Mr. Bonar Law alleges, and whatever tactical advantage it may temporarily seem to have gained from a misunderstanding will surely be made good to the Opposition for its forbearance when the final reckoning is made up. In the statement that he has made outside the House, Mr. F. E. Smith, who is usually -the most pugnacious and provocative of Unionist speakers, has sounded just the right note, and the country will not forget it when the controversy comes up for final settlement. Mr. Redmond's appeal to his countrymen to "allow this great war .to swallow up all smaller issues" and to see that union in the field leads to union at home, is also admirable. It bears a close resemblance, though its eloquence is less exalted, to that wonderful appeal of Richard Lalor Sheil to the military services of Catholic Ireland when the Irish Municipal Bill of 1837 was before the House:— "The blood of England, Scotland, and of Ireland flowed in the same stream and (Trenched the same field. When the chill morning dawned, their dead lay cold and stark together; in the same deep pits their bodies were deposited; the green corn of spring is now breaking from their commingled dusts; the dew falls from heaven upon their union, in the grave. Partakers in every peril, in jthe glory shall we not be permitted to participate? And shall we be told, as a requital, that we are estranged from the noble country for whose salvation our ltfe-btog.4 »46_poured out?" ,Wg .believo

that both tlie logic and the emotion here represented will make an even stronger appeal to the nation at the end of the present war than they do now, and that, with regard to Ireland just as much as to the Dominions, the Kaiser will prove to have unwittingly played the part of a true friend and consolidator.