THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, AUGUST 29, 1921. THE IRISH NEGOTIATIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17872, 29 August 1921, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, AUGUST 29, 1921. THE IRISH NEGOTIATIONS.

The latest exchange of letter-s between Mr. de Valera and Mr. Lloyd George brings an Irish settlement no nearer, but it at least leaves the door open for further negotiation, and that is a matter for profound thankfulness. It is difficult to fathom the motives underlying the Irish leader's confused, and, in the face of imminent tragedy, almost trivial, reply to the offer of the British Government. Probably they are very closely related to the interplay of conflicting influences which centre round the Dail Eireann. Their political interest lies in the circumstance that they led to the framing of a reply which might quite reasonably have been treated as a final rejection of the British terms. There is much internal evidence that the writer of the letter hoped it would not be so regarded in spite of its dangerously uncompromising terms, and Mr. Lloyd George has wisely refused to accept it as Ireland's auswer. He interprets the mind of the Dominions as well as the Mother Country in determining that the great vision of Irish peace shall not be prejudiced by any impatience in British statesmanship. Britain is engaged in a definitely constructive effort to demonstrate her sincerity, not only to the outside world —the American newspaper comment published this morning shows that the United States, at all events, are satisfied —not only to Mr. de Valera —if not by this time convinced he is deaf to reason — but to the Irish nation. In recapitulating the British offer, in reciting, article by article, the charter of Ireland's new freedom, in enlarging upon her complete liberty of action within her own shores, Mr. Lloyd George is appealing beyond Mr. de Valera to the great body of Irishmen and Irishwomen. It may not be easy to reach the conscience or touch the imagination of a nation steeped in Mr. de Valera's' sophistry, but Englishmen, Scotsmen, and Welshmen and all the overseas British peoples will agree that the effort is worth making, that the heart of Ireland, in spite of its bitter passions and unfortunate obsessions, is worth winning, and that it should be wooed with candid pleadings and patient expostulations. If the negotiations should unfortunately break down the British people will desire the assurance of their own conscience that the resultant tragedy is none of their making, bui is wholly the responsibility of Ireland's leaders.

Mr. de Valera's letter is worth a second reading. It improves on acquaintance, less because of what it contains than because of what it does not. contain. It neither mentions Ulster nor makes a formal demand for a republic, and these omissions are all to the good. Instead it most unkindly gives Britain the rank of a foreign Power and demands a settlement on the principle of " government by consent of the governed." These highsounding political principles are apt to develop the characteristics of a boomerang. If this particular formula is to be applied to Ireland, let it he applied all round, and what are the results? It clearly entitles Ulster to her own form of government and therefore justifies the " mutilation" against which Mr. de Valera protested so energetically in his last letter. More than that, it gives the Unionists of the South a claim to secede from any administration Mr. de Valera might establish, and to found a kingdom within a republic, no matter how arbitrary and humiliating this further instalment of " mutilation " might prove to the Irish people at large. And how does the Dail Eireann stand the test of such a principle? A reign of terror has long since stifled free election in Southern Ireland, and though the Dail Eireann may claim the acquiescence of Irishmen it cannot claim their consent. Nor does it speak with more than empty authority when it defines Britain as a foreign Power. As Mr. Lloyd George pertinently remarks, the most famous of Irish national leaders have not so regarded her. Mr. Lloyd George quotes one famous phrase of Grattan's. Another comes to mind: " Connected by freedom as well as by allegiance the two nations, Great Britain and Ireland, form a constitutional confederacy as well as one Empire." Daniel O'Connell, even when agitating for the repeal of the union, believed repeal would not weaken the real bond between Great Britain and Ireland, and had nothing in common with the revolutionists who declared for the separation of the two countries by physical force. Is the word of the Dail Eireann, a creation of yesterday, to prevail against the tra ditional nationalist policy of the Irish people, against the prayers of the crowd which knelt outside Dublin Mansion House a few weeks ago when the present negotiations were inaugurated, against the passionate echo which the King's moving appeal for peace awoke in thousands of Irish hearts? Any British Government which accepted Mr. de Valera's demand for separation at its face value would not only be foolish but criminally faithless to Irish and British traditions.

And there is the fact of geography, upon which Mr. Lloyd George lays strong and wholly justified emphasis. It cannot be changed or in any way modified. Nature has linked Ireland's fate with that of Britain, and no political principle can divorce

them. Sweep away the forms of union and you leave the fact of union unchanged. The British offer gives Ireland as full a measure of separation as within the circumstances of her geography she can have. Were she a republic Ireland would still depend upon the British Navy for her freedom. The independence she is offered is in no way limited except by recognition of this fundamental The invitation extended to her is to enter a free commonwealth of free nations, to maintain associations and traditions which are agelong, and to share in moulding a civilisation which, in spite of its shortcomings, is the world's best. If Ireland is so blind as to reject the offer Britain must still insist upon the maintenance of a union for precisely the same reason which led Lincoln to face a bloody civil war. " Physically speaking, we cannot separate." That is the crux of the whole matter, and Mr. Lloyd George has done well to make it the core of his lucid and exhaustive rejoinder to Sinn Fein theorisings. As Mr. de Valera has shown a disposition to draw his political maxims from the United States he may be recommended to study the writings and speeches of Abraham Lincoln, whose words answer every one of his •specious pleas and who almost exactly anticipated the present Irish situation with the observation:— " The people are the rightful masters of both congresses and courts, not to overthrow the constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the constitution."