THE ORANGE-TORY PRESS AND THE LORD CHANCELLOR

New Zealand Tablet, 31 October 1918, Page 17

THE ORANGE-TORY PRESS AND THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The following extracts show with what sweet reasonableness the Orange-Tory press greeted the Lord Chancellor’s announcement that he favored Home Rule by consent: —

“Sir J. Campbell Rats” is the headline to the report of the Lord Chancellor’s speech in the Belfast Evening Telegraph. In a leading article that journal says—

“Like Colonel Lynch, Sir James has a past. The Colonel is presently engaged in making what atonement is possible for his former misdeeds, while the Lord Chancellor exults in what should be his shame. He has. qualified for a place at the next Round Table Conference on Conscription at the Dublin Mansion House ; he has subscribed to the de Valera demand for an united Ireland-presumably by force he has donned the white sheet, and with penitential taper in hand has uttered his mea culpa, and admitted that for fifty years he has been, politically, a fool, but is now clothed and in his right mind at the feet of John Dillon. • “It is the undoubted right of every man to alter his opinion upon any given question, provided always that he can give a fair and honest reason for the changed faith that is in him, and that his conduct squares with his alleged change of view. “The Lord Chancellor tells us that the first shot fired on the Belgian frontier by the Germans blew all his life-long convictions to pieces, and from that moment he was as resolute for conferring self-govern-ment upon Ireland as the OTlahilly or Roger Casement.

“The ostensible reason leaves one. rather bewildered, but it is the only explanation which the Lord Chancellor has offered. He declares that while the German guns were thundering against Namur and Liege, and the flames were licking the walls of Louvain, he shared the view of those ‘gallant Allies in Europe’ who wished ‘self-government for an united Ireland,’ though he doubtless shrank from the acts to which Pearse and Connolly put their hands. Sir James resolved, as he tells us, to repudiate all the commitments of the past, and turn his back upon ‘old political colleagues’ — but that, probably, caused him little concern. Galbraith’s bitter gibe in Fob Fog that ‘there never was treachery in Scotland but a Campbell was in it,’ would seem to have point in Ireland as well as Scotland.”

Having quoted some of Sir James Campbell’s “commitments of the past,” the Orangemen’s evening organ goes on—

“‘He cannot rid© off with a bald declaration that he recanted in 1914 and kept his constituents in the dark until 1918. He is entitled to change his views,

but'as a public man he is bound to" justify the change, and he has made no such effort. He was - offered the Irish Lord Chancellorship through the - influences of Mr. Bonar Law. He had the appointment, in fact, in his pocket, and was obliged to surrender it because of the Nationalist outcry. Why did he accept favors at the hands of a party to which,-on his own admission, he had turned traitor?” *

The Dublin, correspondent of the Morning Past writes: “Even worse than his Home Rule reference is his declaration that conscription would be ‘a danger and a disaster.’ By his declaration on Saturday he has shown himself to be completely at variance with those who are responsible for the peace and good government of Ireland on the most essential statements of their policy, and by making a public declaration of his disagreement with them he places himself in a position from which there in only one honorable way of escape, and that is by his immediate resignation.”

The Westminster Gazettej says: “As one might have expected, the speech which Sir James Campbell made on Saturday in Dublin has aroused fierce indignation in Belfast and in the columns of the Morning Post. That a Lord Chancellor of Ireland should profess himself in favor of self-government for a United Ireland is a crime in itself ; that the Lord Chancellor should have been nourished by . the principles of Unionism gives to his crime the savor of ‘apostacy and treachery,’ as the Belfast News-Letter is quick to proclaim. Of course, ‘Campbell must go . . Are - we to understand that any man who professes himself a Home Ruler must resign his place? And does Mr. Shortt, we might ask, agree with this definition of the policy of the Irish Executive The Globe, says; “Following the example set by certain eminent ‘Unionist’ leaders in this country, the Irish Lord Chancellor has gone over to Home Rule. He is hailed as ‘a notable convert’ by the Freeman’s Journal. That speaks for itself. We hope Mr. Ronar Law and his colleagues who are concerned in the pretty little game of turning their backs on their own party while still professing membership of it are satisfied with this latest development of their ratting policy. . . . We are becoming used, however, lo these inconsistencies nowadays. Sir James Campbell has thrown to the winds the principles in support of which he has identified himself throughout his political career. We hope the Nationalists value their convert at hi? true worth.”