TOPICS OF THE DAY.
EXCLUSION OR CIVIL WAR?
ALL Unionists—all who desire to avoid the appalling disaster of civil war towards which the country is drifting—must be grateful for Mr. Austen Chamberlain's bold and clear speech at Skipton, reported in last Satur- day's newspapers. It is a lead on what should be our attitude towards Exclusion, and will, we trust, have the solid support of the Unionist Party. Mr. Chamberlain declared that this is not the time for finessing. " It was the time when the Government should lay down their cards on the table and say what they are ready to do to avert civil war." But Mr. Chamberlain was not, like so many party politicians, willing to ask for plainness and sincerity of utterance from the other side, but unwilling to practise it himself. He went on to do what we have always desired and hoped the Unionist leaders would do —put their own cards down on the table. "There is," he declared, " no concession worth talking about, that will avert the dangers that now threaten, that does not provide for the exclusion of Ulster from the sphere of a Dublin Parliainent." For a Unionist to say this does not mean, of course, that he regards exclusion as a good policy in itself, or that he wants exclusion for itself. What Unionists want, and know will be by far the best for both countries, is the maintenance in full of the incorporating legislative and administrative Union which we now possess. If, however, the otatus quo must be changed, then we say : " In heaven's name let it be changed in a way which will prevent bloodshed." We cannot have Dome Rule in any form by consent, because Unionists cannot consent to that which they believe to be a thoroughly bad system of regulating the relations between the two islands. What they can do, however, and what they are willing to do, though it means making great sacrifices and giving up a great party advantage, is to agree to the avoidance of civil war. That consent they are willing to give. What they are not willing to agree to—they would, in truth, be mad to agree to it—is some complicated compromise which would be a sacrifice of abstract principle on their• part for no purpose, which would not avoid civil war, but provoke the resistance of Ulster quite as much as does the Home Rule Bill as it stands. That is a point which must never be forgotten by moderate men here who are seeking for some way out of the difficulty. It is quite easy to make paper schemes which have a superficially fair look because both sides seem to have sacrificed a good deal of what they regard as the proper principles for settling the Irish question. But these mutual sacrifices are utterly worthless unless they can achieve the essential, practical, immediate end of preventing civil war. That is the object on which our eyes must be fixed, and which alone makes it worth while for the Unionist Party to have any dealings in the matter.
To achieve that end there is hardly any sacrifice which is too great. What Unionists cannot and will not do is, as we have said, to make sacrifices which will not attain it. And here we may incidentally point out, as we have pointed out on previous occasions, that Unionists must entirely forgo the temptation, which it is clear Mr. Austen Chamberlain has forgone, of taking up even for a moment the attitude that the Government have got themselves into a tight place and must get out of it as best they can—in other words, that it is always the busi- ness of the Opposition to oppose and never to help the Government out of a mess. We are enough of party men to agree that in ordinary circumstances this is the fair and reasonable attitude for the Opposition to take up. Their business is to upset the Government which they think is governing badly on general principles, and there- fore cannot be supported by them. But this good old party rule must give way absolutely in a crisis so terrible as that with which we are now faced. In order to avoid civil war it is the duty of the Unionist Opposition to help the Government out of their difficulties, even if that help should give "this incapable and guilty Administration" a new lease of life. The notion of manufacturing party capital or of giving the Government rope enough to hang themselves is unthinkable when the fate of our
fellow-citizens in North Ireland, and, further, the discipline and solidarity of the armed forces of the nation, are involved.
Cromwell once declared that he had been "the drudge of the Army "• for national purposes. If necessary the Opposition must be the drudge of the Government to avoid civil war.
But though the Opposition can be called upon, and are called upon, by all patriotic men to help the Government
to avoid civil war, they are not called upon to make any sacrifice which will not avoid it. Their duty is strictly limited to the point in question. To be specific, they must test every proposal by this touchstone : " Will it save us
from civil war ?" Remember that the Government, except by consent of the Opposition, cannot amend or improve their
Bill by a single line. But that consent can be demanded for only one purpose. For no other alterations except those excluding Ulster, with the consequential amendments, can Unionists take any responsibility in legislation so dangerous, so foolish, and so futile as that involved in the present Home Rule Bill. It may seem absurd to some of our readers for us to labour this point so hard, but a little reflection will show that it requires to be firmly stated and acted on. There is a marked tendency amongst many Liberals to take the line that it is the duty of the Opposi- tion to come to a series of mutual concessions with the Government, and then to force those concessions upon the people of Ulster whether they like it or not. The Ulstermen, we are told, must not be allowed to dictate to the Unionists what they are to do. This is a proposition which will not bear examination. It is no good to discuss whether the Unionists ought to coerce the Ulstermen into agreeing to some " give-and-take " compromise. Right or wrong, it is quite certain that the Ulstermen will not allow themselves so to be coerced. They have a perfectly plain and perfectly intelligible standpoint, and from that they will not budge. They are determined not to go under a Dublin Parliament or a Dublin Executive. They will not entrust their lives and liberties to a Dublin Parliament in the matter of what is not mere local government, but the making of the laws which affect their lives and liberties on absolutely vital points, any more than the people of England would place themselves in the matter of law- making under some community which was alien to them in blood, and alien also in religion and political tradition. The Ulstermen have told us again and again that nothing but Exclusion will satisfy them. They do not want to see the Union dissolved any more than we do. Yet they declare they would never dream of resorting to armed resistance to prevent the people of the South and West having what they want. The Ulstermen no more desire to fight than the people of Lincolnshire. They dread, indeed, action which must in any case be deeply injurious to their material interests. They will not, therefore, move a finger to prevent Home Rule in those provinces where the local majority desire it. But in spite of this keen desire to be saved from the horrors of civil strife, they will resist, and to the death, the attempt to force them under a rule they distrust so utterly as the rule of Mr. Redmond and Mr. Devlin. Whether they are right or wrong we are not going to discuss on the present occasion. What we are dealing with now are facts and not theories. The great fact of the situation is that we can avoid civil war by Exclusion, and we can avoid it in no other way. That is the pass to which things have came. To argue that this is a very unreasonable position for the Ulster people to have taken up, or to say that they ought to be ashamed of themselves for being so recalci- trant, and that their business as a minority in the United Kingdom is to submit without a murmur, may be sound or unsound, but it is perfectly useless and irrele- vant when the object is to avoid bloodshed. Here, however, we may say incidentally that, though we are not going to argue the matter on the merits, we must be care- ful not to misunderstand the Ulster position, or confuse it with that of the resistance of a minority to some ordinary positive enactment. Ulster could not and would not dream of resistance by arms to a law passed by the Imperial Parliament which affected all British citizens alike—required them to pay, for example, this or that tax or to perform this or that duty. They might think it unfair, as no doubt they thought the special taxation of the national drink of Ireland (the tax on whisky) unfair, but they would make no claim to resist it. Again, they, have had no sort of notion of resisting the Insurance Act, though probably the majority of them dislike it. The present case is widely different. They admit the full right of the Imperial Parliament to legislate even against their wishes. What they say, however, to the Westminster Parliament is: "You must make the laws, yourselves. What you cannot do is to hand us over to another body who are armed with the power of law-making, a power which touches us in the most vital points. Here, if any- where, holds good the principle of Delegates non delegare. You may rule us yourselves, but you must not pass on the duty without our consent to someone else. Directly you alter the status quo in a matter so vital as law-making (there is and always must be a real distinction between law-making and mere local government and administration) our fundamental right to be masters of our own destiny emerges. A homogeneous local majority with a special racial and religious history cannot be treated on the principle of ' Do as you are bid and don't answer back unless you want to have your head punched.' Our pro- posed resistance to being forced under a Dublin Parliament has nothing in it comparable to the schemes of ' passive resisters' either over the Education Act or the Insurance Act. What we claim is a fundamental right—one which enforces the meaning of the old rhetorical phrase 'the sacred right of insurrection.' Unless people are prepared to argue that no man enjoys the right to protect his liberties by physical force, and that he must bow like an Oriental slave to whatever the legal' despot says, this very rare and exceptional, but none the less clear, right of resistance must be admitted. It could not arise with better excuse than in an attempt to transfer a homogeneous community against its will from the sphere of one Legisla- ture to that of another."
This, however, is by the way. Once more, our argument is that it is no use to offer Ulster "Home Rule within Home Rule," or this or that fantastic form of veto over Dublin Acts of Parliament. These things will not save us from civil war. Exclusion, and only Exclusion, will do that. This is the point that the Unionists must during the coming Session bring before the country in season and out of season—the point which they must, at all costs, get the people of England and Scotland to understand.
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