AN APPEAL TO THE NATIONALISTS. T HE Unionists of North-East Ulster
deserve well of their country. In spite of their fears, of their rights, and of the deep anxiety which oppresses them at the thought of being entangled in the meshes of Irish politics, and of clouding that simple plea for justice which is their safeguard, they have entered the Convention. That being so, we trust we shall not be misunderstood if we make an appeal to the Irish Nationalists of all kinds to answer Ulster's action in a spirit of generosity and unselfishness, and to show that they arc not hard-hearted political bargainers who ask merely for their pound of 1 sh, but men of insight and sincerity. We do not ask the Nationalists to show the sympathy of approbation for those who cling passionately to the connexion with Britain and desire not to be deprived of their birthright in the United Kingdom. What we ask of them is to show the sympathy of comprehension, and to look for a moment at the case of North-East Utter, not through Home Rule eyes or Roman Catholic eyes or Sinn Fein eyes or Celtic eyes, but through the eyes of the Ulsterman, proud of his position in the United Kingdom, of his Protestant faith, of his Ariglo-Saxon lineage, of his blood and breeding. If the Irish Nationalists could only do that, could only rise to the height of saying : " We have asked for liberty for ourselves and we are not going to make our first action a denial of liberty to others," they would have achieved a conquest over themselves and a conquest over political selfishness which would make them masters of the situation. They would have won a spiritual victory the consequences of which would echo not only round the Empire but round the world. Curiously enough, what we are appealing to the Nationalists to do on the highest grounds, and as an act of self-sacrifice due to the principles of freedom and of justice, would, as is so often the case, be the very best " polities "—would further the ultimate and essential aims and aspirations of the Nation- alists as nothing else in the world could further them. Let us imagine an Irish Cavour faced with a situation like that with which the Nationalist leaders are faced in the Convention ; that is, with the power to make any terms he liked for the twenty-six counties, as long as he did not ask his pound of flesh as regards the homogeneous area of North-East Ulster. Would not a true leader of men, the man with the statesman's instinct, in his very first speech in the Convention say something of this kind ?— " I want as a preliminary to our discussions to say a word to the representatives of that area of Ulster in which the local majority desire to remain under the Parliament at Westminster, and are determined to resist any attempt to force them under Dublin. I regret, I deplore beyond words, that they are such bad Irishmen, and have so little of the understanding of the greatness and nobility that are open to them. But let me tell them that we understand liberty too well, and have learned the hard lessons of oppression too lcng, to dream of ever coercing them against their will. Whateve: we may think of their action, let them realize from the begin- ning that we will have no unwilling guests at the feast of freedom. Nobody is going to compel them to conic in. That liberty which we have demanded, and which we have forced our foes to yield to us, is a bright, untarnished blade, and will remain so. It shall not turn in our hands into a dark and poisoned poignard. We will not deface the fairness, nay, the very life, of Liberty at the moment that she has shown us the glorious light of her eyes, and when her vesture is sweeping once more our echoing halls. But more than this. We are not criminals and hypocrites—men who do not know how to be true to their own ideals. Neither are we fools and blind. We realize that the task before us, the task of founding a free Irish commonwealth, is one full of difficulties, dangers, and anxieties. With such a task before us we want the intimacy of whole-hearted love for, and belief in, Ireland's future. No one but a fool would ask for, or even tolerate, the presence of hostile or unwilling men in the sanctuary in which our holy work is to be unwilling With such men at our side ' all would be doubt, hesitation, and pain.' Let them stand by while unrestrained we do the noblest work that has ever fallen to true Irishmen. Some day these men of the black North will know their mistake, and their sons will blush their fathers were our foes.' Let North-East Ulster, since such is the wish of the local majority, remain aloof, nut against our wishes but at our command."
Who can doubt that such a speech would give an assurance to the people of North-East Ulster which nothing else could give ? In any case, there would be a homogeneous Ireland. Though it would not be geographically all Ireland, there would be no cross-currents, no deeply injured men, no passionate sense of betrayal and oppression, no rift within the' lute, no crack in the vase which must inevitably bring it to ruin. Cannot the Nationalists rise to the height of the occasion, to the height of answering such an appeal as ours— the appeal to set a great and memorable example of political justice ? The opportunity is theirs. Will they throw it away and tell the British Empire that they care not for the gift of freedom for themselves unless there goes with it the right to put their fellows in chains ?
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