A CAMPAIGN OF REBELLION

New Zealand Tablet, 19 June 1913, Page 25

A CAMPAIGN OF REBELLION

The following able leader appeared in the Dunedin Evening Star of June 12:There was a time in the history of England when much less than what Sir E. Carson, K.C., has recently said and caused to be done, in and out of Parliament, would have led its author and inciter to Tower Hill. It says much for the restraint and good temper of the British Government and people, and is a healthy indication of - the - better times in which we now live, that Sir E. Carson’s .treasonable talk and acts have, so far, been treated as rhetorical fustian and bluff. We think the Government and Mr. John Dillon axe wrong in so regarding these threats of armed resistance to the law, but their attitude has the negative virtue of giving their bellicose author plenty of rope. The Ulster revolt, of which Sir E. Carson is the head and the British Unionist Party the pliant tools, is the most reprehensible and treasonable domestic movement of the century. What, briefly, are the facts Threefourths of the people of Ireland, and one-half of those in the province of Ulster, have for a generation, consistently and without change, demanded the abolition of Dublin Castle rule, and the right to conduct their domestic concerns in their own way. To-day the House of Commons, more than once, by majorities of 100 odd, has said that this demand is just and shall be granted. The decision has been endorsed by ©very public man of note in every Oversea Dominion of the Empire, and in some of them by a formal but unanimous resolution of Parliament. Of no other question now before the Empire as a whole can the same be said. Tariff Reform, of which British Unionists are continually and quite wrongly saying that it has been asked for by the Dominions, pales into comparative insignificance in contrast with the oversea support that stands solidly behind the Irish Home Rule Bill. And yet Home Rule for Ireland is to be fought even unto the shedding of v blood. Sir E. Carson and Lord Charles Beresford, in the House of Commons, to a ringing accompaniment of Unionist cheers, declared that they were ready to be shot doWn, and 18 Unionists (mostly Ulstermen) met with an ovation at Euston square station on the eve of their departure to appealwas ever impudence so magnificently exalted ? the British Democracy on behalf of the Irish Democracy. On what grounds do these worthies base their action On nothing, absolutely nothing, but religious bigotry of the most bitter and most odious kind. The one half of Ulster that Sir E. Carson represents will not lose under Home Rule a single right or liberty which is now theirs. Its people will continue members and citizens of the Empire; the Imperial Parliament will still receive their representatives, and they will have perfect liberty to send whom they will to the Dublin Parliament. But these safeguards are swept aside. Everything must give way to the insistent clamors of religious fanaticism. Protestants have oppressed Catholics in the pastergo, if Catholics get the upper hand through a local Parliament they will oppress Protestants in the future. The suggestion, or assertion, is beneath contempt, for the all-sufficient reason that the great bulk of the Irish Catholic laity to-day are neither fools nor rogues. 'lt is, however, on behalf of the bigots of Ulster, and how bigoted and stupid they are the utterances of their supporters the world over have made known, that Sir E. Carson and Lord C. Beresford are to raise the flag of rebellion. The part of peacemaker and rational adviser and law-abiding citizen is not for them. They demand swords and rifles and guns and blood ! Was there ever a rebellion based on so pitiful v an d pitiable a cause ? Whether Home Rule for Ireland will accomplish all that Mr. Redmond says it will, whether it be good or bad policy, and whether Mr. Asquith ought again to appeal to the country first (until the Unionists get a majority) are not germane to the issue. The supreme issue is whether a few men, or a political party, are justified in organising an armed revolt in opposition to the law of the land If they are, and the supposition that such resistance under certain conditions is justifiable is. not an incon-

ceivable on©, are these conceivable conditions present in the' proposal to grant Home Rule to Ireland? There is- only one answer to this question. To advocate a resort to armed resistance on behalf of Ulster bigotry in the Ireland of to-day is a crime against civilisation, and the Empire Overseas and the Republic of the United States will look to the Mother Land to free herself from the reproach of so dire a disgrace. .