THE SITUATION IN IRELAND

New Zealand Tablet, 28 September 1916, Page 43

THE SITUATION IN IRELAND

The following analysis of the situation in Ireland is taken from the London letter to the Dunedin Evening Star of September 22 A few days before the breakdown of Mr. Lloyd George’s Irish conciliation scheme was announced to a bewildered House of Commons I heard the opinion expressed that the Coalition Government might very possibly smash up with it. Events have not justified my friend’s prophecy, which failed, I think, to take into account the complete subservience of our present Parliament to the Cabinet. For good or for ill, the Cabinet has gradually succeeded in assuming almost dictatorial powers. Its indifference to parliamentary opinion, now that the coalition has put the party machine out of gear, is almost contemptuous. Parliament may assert itself again, and that before very long, for there is already the beginning of what I may call a ‘ patriotic opposition,’ under the alert leadership of Sir Edward Carson. Put one could scarcely wish for a clearer illustration of the actual weakness of Parliament than the helpless way in which it received the news that the Irish settlement had been wrecked. To put it quite baldly, the anti-liome Rule bigots, by threats of resignations in high places, have completely succeeded in their work of destruction. In fact, they have raised an issue of such vital importance that it is difficult to see how there can be any progress towards Home Rule till the war is over, unless the Government pluck up courage to dare the reactionaries to do their worst. For the present all hopes of a real settlement must apparently be abandoned, for the reactionaries refused to give their assent to the provisional settlement unless a clause were inserted reducing the number of Irish members entitled to sit at Westminster. It would be hard to imagine anything more unfair, or more cynically calculated to block the path of Irish reform. What Mr. Asquith referred to, after the rebellion was quelled, as a 'golden opportunity to settle the Irish question in a statesmanlike spirit has been wasted after all for lack of resolute statesmanship. Mr. Redmond and Sir Edward Carson had sunk their differences, and had brought their respective adherents to agree to partial Home Rule, the six counties of Ulster to be excluded till the time should arrive when they would be ready of their own free will to join hands with the rest of Ireland in a comprehensive independent constitution. It would indeed have been well, in the generous words of the Ulster leader, if he and Mr. Redmond ‘ had shaken hands on the floor of the House. But it was not to be, and the reason is not far to seek. The wreckers, including Lord Lansdowne and (it is said) Mr. Walter Long, would find few to support their tactics in the country, but their influence is great in the House of Lords. As you are aware, the life of the present House of Commons should normally end in September. That life has already been extended once, at the price of a Government surrender of principle. Once again the Upper Chamber is exacting its price, this time the surrender of Home Rule. So it is reasonable to assume that there will not be a general election, and that the conduct of the war will continue in the hands of the Coalition. To those who think, as I do, that the turning point of the war is no time for c swapping horses,’ there is some comfort in this, but it is small comfort, after all, when one thinks of the state of Ireland, and of what political courage might have done to cure it. Matters now stand in the status quo ante. Lord Wimborne has been re-appointed Lord Lieutenant, and Mr. Duke, a Unionist K.C., has been made Under-Secretary for Ireland, in place of the unfortunate Mr. Birrell. Thus Castle rule comes back to its own, under the shadow, it is true, of martial law under General Sir John Maxwell. How long martial law will last it is impossible," at the time of writing, to say.. The reactionaries who broke the settlement may be counted on to work for its continuance indefinitely, with an increasing measure of coercion, for these people argue that nothing was

wrong with 5* Castle’ government except its inefficiency —i.e., its lack of harshness. At the back of this argument is something like the doctrine' of original sin, a doctrine that has always been used by reactionaries to batter down democracy. It implies that the Irish people are incorrigible in a political sense, and that they are not, and presumably never will be, fit to govern themselves. However, the strong seed of settlement has been sown, and it is as certain as anything can be that sooner or later it will bear fruit. ' The ‘ golden opportunity ’ has been allowed to slip, that is all, and that is a sufficiently lamentable fact.