RIVAL MEMORIES. T HE attraction of the MacDonnell correspondence seems irresistible.
, First of all we had Mr. Long going out of his way to ask a political conundrum, and then imploring his hearers not to trouble their heads about the answer. His hearers naturally did trouble them very much. They insisted on being told more of the delightful puzzle of which Mr. Long had refused to give any explana- tion. Sir Antony MacDonnell next came on the stage. There is a correspondence, it seems. It is no mare's-nest that Mr. Long has discovered. More than this, it is an important correspondence,—so important that Sir Antony MacDonnell thinks that it ought not yet to be given to the Press. This naturally sets Mr. Long upon demanding its publication. If Sir Antony wishes it kept back, it must be because there is something in it that will benefit the Unionist cause. When things had gone as far as this, it was not to be expected that Mr. Wyndham should not add. his mite to the general muddle. His contribution, indeed, is by far the most remarkable that has been made. Mr. Long speaks and writes with an air of conscious innocence. There have been very black things, he tells us, done in the recent past. Though he does not wish them to be inquired into any further, he is not at all anxious that they should be forgotten. On the contrary, they are to be looked back to with profound dissatisfaction, grave mistrust, bitter indignation. But Mr. Long can safely recommend the cherishing of these disturbing emotions. He has had no part in exciting them. As soon as he became Chief Secretary, peace, and as much goodwill as is ordinarily to be found in Ireland, were at once restored. Mr. Wyndham can claim no such immunity from criticism. If there be any sins to which he wishes to call attention, they must be his own. The garb of innocence is for Mr. Long. Is there anything left for Mr. Wyndham save the -white sheet of penance ? Mr. Wyndham thinks that a great deal is left. He does not accept this description of his position. If he had to accept it, he admits that he would have but a poor defence. But the whole case against him is a "huge delusion." That case is that he is, or was, in favour of some scheme of Devolution hardly to be distinguished from the "half- baked compromise" upon which the present Government are, he thinks, intending to embark. That would be, he admits, "a very good argument if it could be substan- tiated." When Mr. Bryce brings forward his measures, nothing could suit his purpose better than to be able to say to Mr. Wyndham: "I am only doing what you your- self either approved or contemplated." What a good card to hold ! says Mr. Wyndham, if you hold it. But before it can be held it must exist ; and this is just where the case breaks down. "That c.tird does not exist."
And then, warmed by his own confident assurances, Mr. Wyndham makes a clean breast of it. He will meet the attack in the most straightforward way. He will not parody it, lie will not travesty it. The charges are four :—That Mr. Wyndham appointed. Sir Antony Ma,cDonnell ; that he appointed him to carry out a new and mysterious policy ; that this policy included the policy of Devolution ; that Mr. Balfour approved of the appointment, and. therefore approved of Devolution. On this fourth charge we shall not touch, as Mr. Balfour has not yet spoken. Of these four counts in the indictment —a Unionist indictment, be it remembered—Mr. Wyndham pleads guilty only to one. He did appoint Sir Antony MacDonnell. The second count he dismisses at once. It " is simply untrue." He never "approved of the scheme of Devolution published in September, 1904, or of any other scheme of Devolution, or of Devolution in any shape at any time." The third count demands from him some- thing more of narrative. If the policy of 1902—the policy to carry out which Mr. Wyndham sought the aid of Sir Antony MacDonnell—was not Devolution, what was it? Just nothing at all,—at least, nothing that was either new or mysterious. But though this misunderstood and mis- described policy was neither new nor mysterious, it did include seven "projects." They were, however, only old pro- jects. They bad been part of the Unionist heritage all along. Every Prime Minister and Chief Secretary, Tory, Con- servative, and Unionist, has been eager to maintain law and order, to promote land purchase, to give Irishmen the advantages of higher education in an acceptable form, to co-ordinate the numerous Departments of the Irish Govern- ment, to make efforts towards conciliation, to develop Irish transit, and to give relief to some of the more heavily rated districts of the country. These seven projects make up Mr. Wyndham's conception of Unionist policy in Ireland, and upon every one of them, he tells us, he had been engaged "for months in all cases, for years in some," when the vacancy occurred in the Under-Secretaryship. We have not a word to say against Mr. Wyndham's occupation during this time, except to remark that without more motive-power than the Prime Minister was inclined to give him, not much was likely to come of it. An Irish policy which is left "an open question, decided freely in the House of Commons, and not in accordance with the dictates of the Government Whip," may come to the birth, but there will not be strength to survive. Party government means something more than the setting up of political Aunt Sallys for friend or foe alike to have a fling at. But what is left unexplained is why a vacancy in this particular office should. have seemed to Mr. Wyndham a reason for suddenly forcing the pace. It would have been possible, one would. have thought, to find one Irish Unionist willing to co-operate in carrying out the tradi- tional policy of the Government. It was not so, however. There was only one man, seemingly, who could. help Mr. Wyndham in giving effect to ideas that had recommended themselves to Mr. Disraeli and Lord Mayo, and to "every Tory, Conservative, and Unionist Prime Minister and Chief Secretary" from their days down to the present, and he was a Roman Catholic, a Liberal, and a Home-ruler. We find no fault with Mr. Wyndham for taking the man he thought best fitted for the work without reference to his religion or his politics, but it is impossible to suppress speculation as to what it was in that work that necessitated so exceptional an appointment. .Perhaps even Mr. Wynd- ham was not so much alive to its really commonplace character when he cyphered to the Prime Minister the purport of Sir Antony's letter as he is now. Are the appointments of Under-Secretaries always made the occasion of despatches in cypher? But, however this may be, something—we may even say a good deal—remains unaccounted for. How did Sir Antony arrive at the con- clusion that in all he did he was only carrying out the wishes of the Government ? Mr. Long is quite satisfied that this was his honest belief ; and even without Mr. Long's con- firmation, the statement of so eminent a Civil servant with so distinguished an Indian record behind him is quite enough to carry conviction with it. Indeed, all the circum- stances of the appointment confirm this view. What the controversy really turns on is the nature of Sir Antony's position. Was it that of an ordinary subordinate, or was there something exceptional about it ? In his speech on Monday Mr. Wyndham draws a distinction which seems wide of the mark. Sir Antony came, he says, in an excep: tional, but still in a subordinate, capacity. That certainly we have never doubted. It never occurred to us that he came as Prime Minister, or even as Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant. Nor does the statement that he caine to carry out Mr. Wyndham's policy, not his own, greatly help us. If it had been his own policy, Sir Antony would very soon have found. himself faced by impossibilities. The interesting question is, What did he think of Mr. Wyndham's policy ? By what process of reasoning did he arrive at the conclusion that it so closely resembled his own that in carrying out the one he was really carrying out the other ? Mr. Wyndham is now convinced, not.only that Devolution as it appeared to Sir Antony MacDonnell, but Devolution in any shape, is inconsistent with the main- tenance of the Union. Sentiments of this comprehensive character do not always spring into life at once. They are the result of long and. careful examination of the questions involved. We do not doubt for a moment that this is Mr. Wyndham's view of Devolution in Sep- tember, 1906. But was it equally his view in November, 1902? Again, we do not doubt that Mr. Wyndham believes that it was ; but men do sometimes so completely forget their former selves that their assurance that they have not changed in the least degree cannot be taken as more than the expression of their own belief,—a belief which, confident as it is, may yet prove to be mistaken.
The question has no political interest now ; but it has a personal interest. It touches the reputation for accuracy of recollection of a prominent politician and a promi- nent public servant. It is hard to see how Mr. Wyndham and Sir Antony can both be right as to what passed between them, and the public are interested in knowing which of their memories is the more correct. All the materials for clearing up this point must exist—in Sir Antony's possession, if nowhere else—and we do not think that he would. resist an application, in which all parties joined, to give that material to the world. We trust, therefore, that Sir Antony will accede to the impassioned appeal for publication by anybody and every- body who has had anything to do with the letters which was made by Mr. Long at Londonderry on Wednesday. " If . anybody in the land," said Mr. Long, "I do not care who they are, have in their possession letters which they think bear upon the situation it is their business not to talk about those letters, but to produce them."
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