HOME RULE AND CONSCRIPTION

New Zealand Tablet, 15 August 1918, Page 18

HOME RULE AND CONSCRIPTION

♦ Mr. Austin Harrison, in his writings on the war (states Stead s lie-view') , has shown a far-sightedness that has been lamentably lacking in some of those entrusted with the guidance of the Empire in this great time of trial, and in the last number of the English Review he has some most pertinent things to say concerning Ireland. Imagine the Prime Minister of Great Britain introducing a Bill directly concerned with Ireland, and admitting in Parliament that he had not read the unanimous report against conscription of a committee of his own Convention, composed of three Unionists and two Nationalists, under the chairmanship of the Duke of Abercorn ! This committee reported that it would be impossible to impose a system of compulsory service in Ireland without the assent and co-operation of an Irish Parliament. Yet Mr. George professed not to have heard of it, just as the other day he professed not to know anything about Proportional Representation. No Irish leader was consulted. His own Convention tells him it' is impossible, yet such is Mr. George’s contempt for Parliament, that he airily dismisses that finding as of no account, and decrees that the thing shall be, because he has changed his mind.” The epitaph of the Convention was succinctly spoken by Mr. Tim Healy in Parliament, lie said: . The i esult of the Convention was a narrative of events signed by the chairman, a report amounting to a non possitmns signed by the Orangemen, and a report signed by 22 Nationalists asking for Colonial Home Rule. Therefore, Home Rule as a result of the Convention must be a blend of two negations and an objection. That is the truth. Carson has won. The Ulster Council have done what the Xorthern Whig told them to do last summer—consigned the Convention “to the waste-paper basket.” That should be clearly understood by all Englishmen who care to know the truth. Mr. Harrison points out that Mr, Lloyd George threw Loyalists and Nationalists in Ireland into the arms of Sinn Fein in a way that no Irishman considered possible, and continues; “If he attempts to enforce his Bill he will raise internecine war as Edward Carson attempted to do in 1914.” So far as conscription in Ireland is concerned, the loot point is the sanction of an Irish Parliament, and nothing less. No deal, no bribery, no trickery will avail. The whole of Ireland, including mamUlstermen, will regard conscription by Order in Council as a deliberate attempt to coerce and degrade Irishmen, and that with or without any Home Rule Bill. Only the sanction of an Irish Parliament can decree conscription in Ire.and. Any attempt to enforce it without such sanction will be resisted by guerilla warfare and every manner of resistance and evasion possible.” The tragedy of the thing, says Mr. Harrison, is its stupidity. "All Ireland would have fought for us in 1914 had we carried out our own law, the Home Rule Act, which Mr. George, then in his democratic pose, himself so ardently supported. But we failed m our pledge, failed even in our law. Instead of realising the world-significance of Ireland, imperially, morally, and racial. .Y- Mr. Asquith’s Government yielded to Carson, and Ireland was ‘ written out.’ Instead of setting up impartial recruiting offices, we set up political Unionist Protestant officers who deliberatey kept the Catholics out. Recruiting became a political hunting-ground tor placemen and anti-Cath-olics, with what results we are to-day witnessing. The country was estranged ajid irritated beyond measure. Our broken pledge revived all the old antagonisms, all the old racial feuds, and probably., was the direct cause of America long neutrality. It might have been so different. With any imagination, we could have won and bound Ireland to us for ever. But we did not oven try, and ever since Mr. George has been in power the

- I evil influences which have dragged him step by step into the present crisis have goaded him on to this plunge. Last summer they nearly succeeded in provoking an outburst.” _ Mr. Harrison ridicules the superficial attitude of those who say, “Well, let us have it out, if they won’t* fight,” and contemplate the creation of a new frontin Ireland with equanimity. We are fighting for the rights of little peoples, or, at any rate, entered the struggle in order to uphold them. “Can any man pretend that we are acting up to these noble principles if we virtually have to make war on Ireland who, after all, only claims the law we ourselves gave to her in 1914.” “Put on her honor, all Ireland would fight with us. Ireland is our test of statesmanship and civilisation. If we fail at home, we forfeit the right to speak for others. The whole Irish question is an international responsibility. As I have written again and again, it is the corner-stone of our British trust, morally and imperially. Discard that trust, and we declare bankrupt our moral cause, and America and (he world will condemn us. From the beginning 'of this world-struggle Ireland was our national and international key, the blood-stone of our Imperial attestation. It we break it, we will have lost our common justification, and if- may largely lose us the good willand hope— of America.”