IRELAND AND ITS OUTLOOK

Southland Times, Issue 17679, 17 June 1914, Page 5

IRELAND AND ITS OUTLOOK

MAGAZINE ARTICLES. Ireland looms large in all the seriouat monthly periodicals as a them® for comment—much of'it extremely gloomy irt lone. Professor A. V. Dicey in tha “Nineteenth Century and After” declares that “ England must insist uporc uttering her commands.” He advocates! either a referendum on the subject od Home Rule or an immediate dissolution, of Parliament, followed at once by ai general election. He says that that Asquith Government refuses to hold a; referendum on the ground that “ tha English people are too stupid to understand or answer (he question whether' the present Home Rule Bill shall or| shall not be passed into law.” Professor Dicey characterises tills as “a monstrous slander.” and writes that “ m British farmer, a British artisan, a British merchant, even a British Duke ifS not intellectually so inferior to the inhabitants of Melbourne or of Sydney, who work the referendum with ease, that he cannot form or express an anted! igent opinion whether the Home Rule. Bill should or should not become Die law; of tlie land.” As to a dissolution. Professor Dicey, as a constitutional lawyer,, gives his reasons for slating that that King may constitutionally dissolve Pai t liament in the present situation. Pail-* ing a referendum or a dissolution Professor Dicey secs nothing before thot United Kingdom except ” a civil war or 1 a repeal, without the consent of the nation. of the Act of Union between Great Britain rind Ireland.” "Either of theso ill-starred events,” lie writes, “ would. - shake the foundations of the Ftate, Their concurrence may well destroy th* power of England and ultimately break! tile British Empire into fragments.” The refusal of certain military ofCi-« cers r in Ireland to take military action! against the Elsterm.cn at the bidding off the Government is discussed from aHi angles. Professor .1. H. Morgan, off London University, expresses the opinion: that the Ulster Covenanters have bent guilty of treason-felony, and that l;,o> army officers are liable to he cashiered for disobeying orders, and in earlier times might have been indicted for criminal conspiracy. He holds that it wan: perfectly legal to arrest the Covenanter** or their leaders for troason-fc-lony and to despatch military assistance in order: to carry om the arrests. Major-General Knox, however, in the# same review, declares that “ to take th* initiative and use military force for tha furtherance of the domestic policy of a. party in power is to put the chiefs off that party out of court with the citizen, and to outrage the conscience of both. - citizen and soldier.” He adds that “ th» soldier when gi - . - , n the alternative of active hostility 10 his fellow citizen or' dismissal from the service of his King" declines to he an agent of premeditated iniernecim - strife. Had Colonel Seely been a soldi-T the knowledge of military law and military custom expected front his rank would have saved his fellowMinisters much obloquy and the army, from an undeserved hhiw." LieutenantColonel Alsager Polio.-k writes in th* same vein in the ” I'ortnightly,” remarking tliat, "to aid the political party actually in office hy shooting down thos* who are in opposition to its policy is m> part of the soldiers’ duty. With political disputes the army lias nothing t» do ; therefore, an order to the army Irr act as the instrument of a political part - . - cannot lie a ‘ lawful command.’ ” This officer points nut that there is no section in tin- Army Act under which; soldiers arc required to wage civil war. Mr Arthur Ponsonhy, M.P., in discussing the army crisis in the “ Contemporary,” arrives at the conclusion that non, oniv’ laid the Prime Minister led his. party through a very tough encounter, hut mat " iho net result was that they Pad emerged triumphant.” Ho expresses the opinion that the army will ho v. rv effectively controlled hy the Prim*, Minister, who has taken oyer the portfolio of the Secretary for War. Mr I'onsonbv writes concerning the crisis . •• H, must he owned that the carelessness, the indiscretions, the contradict tions. and the equivocations which attended the whole proceeding made llrivvorst possible impression, and plunge.! the whole party into gloom and despondency” The contributor deplores th* necessity that compels Great Britain t* maintain a standing army at all. It isdue. he considers. " to the still remaining' relies of barbarism, which exist irt the relations of one stale to another. Mr Ponsonhy puts the matter in this wav - •• If an officer at the Curragh refuses to fight in Elster, because he, sineerel” and conscientiously believes to* Ulstermen are in the right ; if a private* soldier re - ilist's to shoot on men of lii*> own class, with whose grievances he has the deepest sympathy, by all means lee them both resign or “ disappear.” But do not for one moment suppose that yni can continue to maintain a standing army on tiiis principle of optional obediIn the "National Review” Mr Maxsa accuses the Government of having organised a “ pogrom ” (or massacre a la. Russo - ) in Ulster in March last, and Earl Percy, elaborating the same theme, demands the impeachment nf the Ministors He wraps himself m the mantle of Cassandra, and foretells the horrors of revolution and civil war. It , very depressing —and, it may bo hope 1, overdrawn.