The Evening Star FRIDAY, MAY 1, 1914.

Evening Star, Issue 15481, 1 May 1914, Page 6

The Evening Star FRIDAY, MAY 1, 1914.

The House .of Commons is no nearer a solution of the Irh^h Irish Home Rule, problem than it was

before the debate on Mr Austen Chamberlain's motion, which demanded a full and impartial inquiry into all the circumstances connected with, the recent naval and military movements on Ulster. For two obvious reasons the Government dared not face such an inquiry, and therefore refused it•; and the House of Commons, by a party majority of 80 (which is less than the full strength of the Coalition majority), has endorsed tho Government's refusal. The verdict thus given is a \ striking illustration of the oftrepeated charge that a parliamentary party may retain office even when public opinion and the facts of the ease are notoriously antagonistic to them. No one doubts that orders were given to the Army and Navy to move against Ulster; that those orders could not have been carried but; and that there has been deliberate concealment, if not misrepresentation, of the facts. In other words, the party vote is valueless as an exoneration and useless as an authoritative declaration, save that it says pretty plainly to all and sundry that the Government are going on with their Bill at all hazards. It is important, * however, to remember that, so far, it is the original Bill, and the Bill only, that is before ( Parliament. All the talk «f concession and the promises of amendments are merely pious hopes which have not materialised, while there is no definite proposition under consideration. The net result of the recent turmoil is that Irish Home Rule is in the same position as evor, and that the Empire is stage nearer a solution. At the same time there is renewed talk of the possibility of a " settlement by agreement." Mr Churchill—who, as usual, has been the stormy petrel—in the course of making and answering recriminations of a more rather than less provocatory character, resurrected his own federal solution of the Irish problem. This, it will be recalled, was likened, at the time it was made some months ago, to a return to the old Saxon Heptarchy. But the idea, none the less, has much in its favor —it will be found in germ in Mr Joseph Chamberlain's early speeches, ■ and its author has never discarded it; on tha contrary, he quite recently stated that he did not withdraw one single word on its behalf. In spite of tho storm and heat of the moment, the Minister's statement was at once seized upon and regarded as the only important contribution to the debate. The Unionists treated it seriously; the Nationalists, through their leader, declared that they would do their best with it; and the Liberals were amazed and dumbfounded. Then followed another of those extraordinary admissions that tho Prime Minister and his colleagues seem always to bo making. "Mr Churchill," said Mr Asquith, in a crowded and expectant House, " has '' made the offer on his own account, and " not on behalf of the Government, but I " I sympathise with the spirit in which " it has been made." What the nature of Sir Edward Carson's answer will be all the world knows: "Ulster must be "left out of the Bill, and must stay I " out until she wishes to come in of "her own free will. She cannot be ! "forced in." That is Sir Edward Carson's answer; and being what it is, the problem, as we have said, remains as far from solutiou as ever. The I Government; not Ulster, must find the answer. To speak scornfully of the gun-running episode is beside the mark, and, we arc afraid, exhibits that same disregard for the facts of the situation that has been characteristic of tho Government's attitude throughout. It is this that constitutes the real menace to a settlement. Tho Government have not yet learned, or frill not acknowledge .that they have learned, that a settlement on the lines of the present Bill is impossible. It. simply cannot be done. Mr Balfour knows it, and the Government know it. "You must exclude

" Ulster now if you want her to come "in later"; and ©very man in the House of Commons, no matter how he voted, knows that\ Mr. Balfour is right. The Unionist "Leader—for ho is still this in the estimation of tho country—is prepared to abandon all that he had ever striven for on behalf of a united Ireland, and to throw over all that ho has ever urged against her for the sake of peace and to avoid the curse of civil war. And men of Mr Balfour's high intellectual gifts imd sterling character do not talk lightly when they are desirous of gaining the ear of the nation. Mr Balfour has no doubts on the question. He knows"that' Ulster will fight, and his object is to prevent bloodshed. Such, then, is the position at the present hour. It is certainly far, very far, from satisfactory, but at least Ulster has made clear where sho stands. We repeat, it is for tho Government to take the next stop.