TOPICS OF THE DAY.

THE COERCION OF ULSTER.

THE interpretation of Mr. Asquith's speech which we gave last Saturday has turned out to be the true one. On Tuesday a chorus of Ministers, headed by the Lord Chancellor, declared that Mr. Asquith had not receded from his Ladybank speech, and that the door still stood open for conciliation or, as we should prefer to put it, the avoidance of civil war. The Lord Chancellor, indeed, issued what we can only call an invitation to Mr. Bonar Law to meet the Prime Minister and discuss the whole Situation frankly and freely. We most sincerely trust that this suggestion will be acted on, and that the Unionist leader will show that our party is not going to stand upon punctilios when it is a question of securing an object so vital as the avoidance of bloodshed. The Unionist Party are determined, and rightly determined, to stand by Ulster if any attempt is made to compel her by force of arms, without the consent of the people of the United Kingdom lusting been first sought and obtained for putting in operation such compulsion. But the Unionist Party are equally determined to seek no party advantage out of the vacilla- tions of the Government or even out of its attempts to make its own malfeasance an excuse for further wrongdoing. The Unionists will sacrifice all but essentials in order to help the Government to escape from the supreme crime of shedding the blood of the Ulstermen. That being so, not only no harm but great good may come from Mr. Bonar Law meeting Mr. Asquith face to face, and making it certain that the Prime Minister and his colleagues do not misunderstand the Unionist position. Except as a matter of politeness, and for the avoidance of the intervention of over-eager partisans on both sides, there is, in truth, not the slightest reason why Mr. Boner Law should not put the Unionist point of view quite publicly and for all men to bear. Since, however, the Government appear to prefer a private talk, unquestionably Mr. Bonar Law should acquiesce in their desire. In the last resort it is not a question with him of driving bargains or getting advantageous terms for his party. What he has got to do is to put himself in the position of the Government and then show them how, on their own premises, they can, and ought, to escape from the crime which they now in effect tell us they are bound to commit—the crime of depriving the homogeneous Protestant and Unionist Ulster of the right of being governed from Westminster and by the Westminster Parliament, and of forcing them under a Parliament in Dublin.

In order that our readers may understand what the situation really is, we will endeavour to point out what a man in Mr. Boner Law's position might, nay must, say to a man in Mr. Asquith's position in regard to the means of avoiding civil war—for we cannot repeat too often that this and nothing else is the problem with which we are now confronted. The question of a good Home Rule Bill or a bad Home Rule Bill has sunk into absolute insignificance compared with the question of the coercion of Ulster. In a conversation such as we have imagined Mr. Boner Law might begin by asking the question :—

"Are you determined to compel the Protestant anti- Home Rulers of Ulster by force of arms if they refuse to go under a Dublin Parliament established by statute " ?

To such a question we must assume that Mr. Asquith would say, "Yes, we are determined."

Mr. Boner Law's next point would be clear :—

"if that is so, you are bound, if you are true to your trust, to use that form of compulsion which will be most effective in avoiding civil war, and to keep bloodshed, if bloodshed must come, within the strictest and narrowest limits. You cannot use the rifle, the bayonet, and the machine gun till you have exhausted every other method of executing your will."

To that proposition Mr. Asquith must surely give assent.

Next Mr. Boner Law would point out that on these premises the easiest, the most effective, and the least bloody method of compulsion must be for the Government to obtain the endorsement of their policy by an appeal to the voters. And here he might renew his pledge that if,

when the people were appealed to, they endorsed Mr. Asquith's policy and kept the present Ministry in office, the Unionist Party would not only give no help ot encouragement to the Ulstermen to resist the putting into operation of the Home Rule Bill, but would do their best to induce the Ulstermen to acquiesce, or at any rate to abandon the idea of a resort to armed resistance, and to wait till they had been able to make the people of England and Scotland see the crime against the principle of govern- ment by consent of the governed to which they were committed by not excluding Ulster.

Mr. Asquith could not reply that Mr. Bonar Law had no right to ask for a general election, and that the will of the people had already been expressed in regard to the principle of Home Rule. If he did Mr. Boner Law would reply that it was not now a question of Home Rule, but of how to coerce Ulster with the least possible amount of bloodshed and without involving the whole nation in civil war.

" I will assume with you for the moment," he might say, "that the people of England and Scotland are heart and soul with you in the determination to compel Ulster, and that you will get a victory at the polls and remain in office. But that assumption helps my argument, not yours. The more confident you are that you are going to win, the more essential it is for you as a trustee for the just government of the nation to choose the line of least resistance for your compulsion rather than the line of greatest resistance. When a general election promises to make the task of compulsion enormously easier fot you, you are bound by your trust, the trust which exists for every ruler and governor, to choose that line. You must coerce in the cheapest, not the dearest, market. You cannot say that even if a general election is the line of easiest compulsion it is impossible, because it would. destroy other legislative schemes which are in your view of equal importance. You know that under the Parlia- ment Act, if you dissolve now and before Parliament meets again and win a, victory, the Welsh Bill, like the Home Rule Bill, and also the promised Plural Voting Bill, will be in exactly as good a position as they now are as far as Parliamentary technicalities are concerned. On other grounds they must, of course, be in a better position." Now let us imagine that at this point Mr. Asquith would put on a closure, or partial closure, and say: "I must ask- you once and for all to abandon this line of argument. Rightly or wrongly, I and my colleagues have decided that there shall be no general election, and we cannot therefore discuss the matter with you."

Would such a decision, if made, exhaust the whole field and render it necessary for Mr. Boner Law to close the conversation ? Certainly not. Mr. Boner Law might next say :— "It is my duty to point out to you that if you refuse to compel Ulster on the line of least coercion, the line that will most easily avoid civil war—i.e., by the tremendous force of that successful general election which it is essential to your whole case for you to assume—there is still a way left to you of avoiding civil war, a way consistent with that principle of Home Rule which you tell us is a sine qua' non with you—the establishment in Ireland of an Irish Parliament and Executive. I note that neither you nor any of your colleagues have ever gone so far as to say that your essential Parliament and Executive in „Ireland must be far all Ireland. Toerefore it is open to you to exclude a portion of Ireland from the purview of your Parliament and Executive, and to leave that portion under the Parlia- ment at Westminster. Further, it is not inconsistent, but in every way consistent, with your governing principle (i.e., that the will of the local majority ought to prevail in matters of domestic concern) to leave out that portion of Ireland in which the local majority is fiercely deter- mined against Home Rule. You cannot say : 'What would be the good of doing this, since the people of Ulster would still resist ? ' for though the people of Ulster no doubt say that they dislike the break-up of the Union, they have also said that they will never take up arms to prevent the south and west of Ireland from having the Parliament and Executive proposed for them under the Home Rule Bill. It is, further, an open secret that though the Ulstermen dislike intensely the idea of breaking up Ulster (inst as the Nationalistatell us they detest the idea of breaking up Ireland), if the area of exclusion were made to coincide not wit ii the geographical province of Ulster, but with the homogeneous Ulster of the Plantation, that is, those portions of Ulster in which the local majority is Protestant and anti-Home Rule, the Ulstermen would not attempt any appeal to force even though they might grumble. That being so, even if the Government will not use the instrument of a general election to coerce Ulster, they can still avoid 'civil war by applying justly and not unjustly the principle upon which their Home Rule Bill rests, i.e., by excluding homogeneous Ulster."

At this point in the conversation which we have imagined issue would clearly be joined. Mr. Asquith must either yield the point or else say, "You are mistaken in thinking that my declaration that there must be an Irish Parliament and an Irish Executive admits of the interpretation that it was a Parliament and Executive for

Ireland but not for all Ireland. It is for all Ireland that such a Parliament and Executive must be estab- lished."

In that case Mr. Bonar Law could say no more, for whether Houle Rule within Home Rule is a good thing or a bad thing per se, it is at any rate a thing which it is useless to suggest when the object is to avoid civil war, and once again we must insist that it is this and nothing else. Houle Rule within Home Rule might or might not be an improvement on the existing Bill, but it would not be accepted by the Ulstermen, and so would not prevent the appeal to force.

We have thus got down to bed-rock :—The Government can avoid civil war by taking one or other of two ways— either by obtaining an endorsement of their Bill and of their policy for the compulsion of Ulster by an appeal to their masters, the electors, or else by the exclusion of homogeneous Ulster. Now we say with absolute certainty that the nation would infinitely prefer the adoption of either of these two methods to the only other alternative —if we accept the Government case and do not challenge the merits of Home Rule—of simply passing the Bill next June and turning the soldiers loose in Ulster to enforce the new statute under the three "H's "—" ruthlessly, relentlessly, remorselessly." There is nobody, we ven- ture to say, who will not at heart admit that a general election or exclusion would be infinitely better than that.

This being so, surely there must be enough men of moderation left in the Liberal Party and in the country generally to persuade the Government by the weight of their opinion to adopt either compulsion through a general election or else exclusion. No doubt it is difficult for moderate men to act, for they have no organisation and lack opportunities for getting in touch with each other. Still they exist, they are a power, and if they use their power it must prevail. Surely they are not going to acquiesce in bloodshed, anarchy, and a civil war which, though it will begin in Ulster, is certain in the end to spread to England, without making a serious effort to prevent it. Is not this a case in which the leaders of the Churches should forget their party and their ecclesiastical differences and come together and tell the Prime Minister and his colleagues that either they must exclude Ulster, or, if they say they cannot and will not do that, they must use the powerful instrument of a general election to coerce Ulster before they use the coercion of the machine gun. Why could not the two Archbishops, supported by those Bishops who are known to be Liberals in their private politics, invite the chiefs of the Free Churches and the heads of the Roman Catholic Communion and such non- party men of light and leading as are available to meet together and respectfully but firmly tell the Ministry that the country will not tolerate recourse to armed force, with all its attendant horrors, until one or other of the two ways of avoiding compulsion by arms, i.e., compulsion through a general election or exclusion, has been tried. Once again, there must be some moderate men left in England But if there are they must insist that the policy of the Government shall not be the policy of "Hound, you mutiny!" but the policy which strives to avoid the causes that lead to mutiny. The Government must either offer a proof of power so great that all men must bow to it, such as a successful general election, or else must eliminate the grounds for rebellion.