Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



471 



THE POLITICAL BATTLE OF 1912. 

 The Home Rule Problem. 



Mr. Francis Macdermot writes in the Dnhlin 

 Rnitw for October on the fiscal powers of an Irish 

 Parliament. As against the devolutionist or the 

 Gladstonian Home Rule, he prefers the Colonial, and 

 he thus summarily disposes of the scare liiat an Irish 

 Parliament might even tax imports from Great Britain, 

 as when Parnell declared himself in favour of fostering 

 infant industries by shutting out British competition. 

 The writer says that this plea^was advanced only as a 

 bit of bluff in bargaining : — 



Bui if Parnell meant wliat he said when he spoke of taxing 

 British goods, he was wrong ; and if he was wrong then, he 

 would be ten times more wrong now. The English market is 

 incomparably more important to Ireland than the Irish market 

 is to England. So long as England was bound hand and foot 

 to Free Trade, it might have been urged more or less plausibly 

 that Ireland could tax her products with impunity. All this 

 has been changed by the fiscal controversies of the last few 

 years, and the development in Ei gland of ihe idea of Retalia- 

 tion. The logic of the situation is so clear that no Irish Ga\-ern- 

 ment could fail to realise it. 



Lord Dunraven's Advice to his Party. 



Lord Dunraven makes, in the Nineteait/i Century 

 for November, another appeal to Conservatives to 

 consider sympathetically the (juestion of Home Rule 

 and devolution. He says Federal Home Rule will 

 not only preserve the dignity of the Crown, but it will 

 settle the Second Chamber (question, reduce the 

 representation of Ireland to its jjroper limits, and 

 remove the Irish grievance of English control and the 

 English grievance of Irish control. Thus the way 

 will be cleared towards Imperial unity, and a better 

 understanding between all portions of the English- 

 speaking world will be the result. Devolution is 

 absolutely essential for reconstruction of the Con- 

 stitution. 



Lord Dunraven deplores the attitude of the Tory 

 Party towards Home Rule : — 



"1 he non-possumus atlilude which Unionists seem disposed 

 to adopt," he writes, " and the strenuous campaign against 

 Home Rule undertaken by Sir Edward Carson and his sub- 

 ordinary war lords, are deeply to be regretted. . . . 



" It cannot be denied that the Conservative Party has-and 

 not for Ihe first time in its history — shown a disposition to 

 negotiate the Home Rule fence. The party may scramble over 

 or be dragged through it, but somehow or other it must land on 

 the oiher side if it is to be of any future service lo the Stale. 

 Unionists must either modify their conceptions of Unionism, 

 or must abandon the fight for a Constitution, for Constitutional 

 reaction without devolution on Federal lines will be found to 

 l)e impracticable. 



" I,et as have done with all the nonsense about .eparation. 

 Home Rule ibe equivalent of Rome rule, the persecution of a 

 minority, and all the contentions derived from imagination, and 

 serving only to obscure sound judgment and inflame the 

 passions of men. Sir Edward Carson preaches open rebellion 

 against all authority. He appeals to arms against the will of 

 the people." 



In conclusion, he makes the following suggestion : — 



Why cannot mo<lerate nun of (he great parties meet, and liy 

 to sec whether, in view of Ihe extreme gravity of the silualion, 

 concession and compromise on mallets whicli, however impor- 

 tant in themselves, arc subsidiary to the vit.d issue arc not 



demanded of them in order to save the State ? The question 

 focussed to a point is this. Are we to be governed under a 

 Single Chamber or a Double Chamber system ? Ii lies iii the 

 lap of moderate men to decide — of men who, differing widely 

 on matters hitherto deemed incapable of adjustment, are united 

 in fierce insistence on a balanced bi-cameral Constitution. By 

 making great concessions, by great self-sacrifice, and by that 

 alone, they can prevail. 



If Single Chamber government means in any circumstances 

 "death and damnation," surely the unchecked rule of a House 

 of Commons constituled as is ours at present means double 

 death, and worse than damnation. To save the nation from 

 such a fate is a noble mission. The sacrifice of opinions on 

 smaller matters is both justified and demanded under the 

 pressure of an issue so vital — the force majiure of a necessity so 

 (jvcrwlielmingly great. 



Mr. Rei>mond a Unionist Home Ruler. 



In a little article on Mr. John Redmond, which 

 his nephew, Mr. L. G. Redmond-Howard, has written 

 for tl e Xovember number of Naslis Magazine, the 

 Irish leader is described as a Unionist Home 

 Ruler :— 



Redmond is not a "Separatist"; but neither is he a 

 " Unionist." He is merely the Irish embodiment of the most 

 English of principles — government by representative consent". 

 Unionism has nothing to do with unity (which is an English 

 word). It is an Irish term which is synonymous, not with the 

 solidarity of an Empire, but with the concrete ascendency of a 

 class and the intolerance of a creed. 



Like a second Botha, Mr. Redmond admits hi,s 

 race have been bitter enemies, but he now calls for 

 a cessation of the hundred years' war in English 

 politics. He asks for the same terms as the South 

 African Premier, and he promises the same alle- 

 giance. 



The Spoilt Child of Parliameni. 

 Writing in the A'inetienth Coitiuy for November, 

 Mr. J. A. R. Marriott, discussing the problem of 

 Federal Home Rule, maintains that during the last 

 thirty years Ireland has become the spoilt child of 

 the Imperial Parliament. There was reparation to be 

 made, and it has been made in no niggardly spirit. 

 If Home Rule, therefore, has not actually been killed 

 by kindness, the economic grievances which accen- 

 tuated political discontent have been largely amended. 

 Would Home Rule arrest this progress .' With few 

 exceptions the best brains in Ireland believe that it 

 would, he replies. The Loyalists in Ireland, and 

 especially Ulster, arc called upon to resist a move- 

 ment fraught with grave risk to the rising economic 

 prosperity of Ireland and to the political solidarity 

 of the Empire. 



A writer in Iha B(u/miii/i>ii Miik^aziii<;dX the close 

 of a charmingly illustrated article on "Sea and Water 

 Birds," remarks : 



We idly turn the pages of magazines and illustrated news- 

 papers, enjoying the treats of animal and above all bird life 

 there set forth, but do we sufticicntly realise the hours, nay, 

 days and weeks of palient toil and (lujet endurance that such 

 illustrations have cost \ If it be birils, as these are, first there 

 is the finding of the nesls, then the waiting till the rggs arc laid, 

 the patient discovery of the times when the hen bird is clT, for 

 if too often scared she will deiiert it ; back again lo photograph 

 the young, or, iiiost difficult of all, thc_biid herself sitting. 



