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EDlTED BY EOlN MAC NEILL. Vol. 2.
No. 25.
(New series.)
SATURD~Y, MAY ~9, 1915. '
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The end of the Liberal Government pledged to Home Rule for all Ireland. and to no Home Rule for part of Ireland is now announced. The " H ome R ule Government " has come to an end and Home Rule has not come to a beginning. We are now under ·a UnionistLiberal coalit_ion, and a ' Unionist-Liberal roalition I)1eans .for Ireland. a Unionist government, nothing else. · Never ·m ind. We still have the British D eroocrncy to fall back on .
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On the subject of broken pledges, I am now reduced to silence. Not only are the pledges now broken, but the brnken bits of them are burppd. . Home. Rule is on the Sta:tµte. Book, and not a single one of England's Statesmen is now boun?: to. Home Rule. The Liberal Cabinet was pledged iri the lump to Home Rule, and broke the pledge. T he pledge that could not bind them in .ho11our altoget.J1er is not binding on the indiyidual members. We ·know , the Irish l'arliameritary leaders know too well , th.at, e\·e~ while the H9nl.e. Rule ' Bill was the Ministerial poli~y',. it ,had bad· £riend'.s . in the Cabinet. Now · a:I\_ is in the melting pot once more, and nothing will come out of that pot .in
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· · This ·outcome ·I' foretold months ago · when I 1• s~w · the first announcement of the · <sdfcori.stituted inner committee of the Committee of · Imperial Defence .. I lay ,claim to no gift of prophecy. I.only claim to have faced! the facts when other and more responsible people refu11ed to .face them, and to have used common se~1s~ on them ·when other people were using: uncommon nonsense, and to have told the I rish public the truth when other people did not dare tell it. T hose other people have either . ordin~fy : politi2al 'sagacity\ or they 'have not. If they have not, th~y are unfit for their trust. · 1f they h~ve ordinary political sagacity, they have forecast this outcome and done what the'y . t.'Ould to tbe . Irish public in ·· the dark. , Peop,le will draw their own co!1dµsions. Mr.
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1'. P. · O'Corinor; broker-in-Chief · to the-' Li beral wing of the lmpe;ial Oligarchy, sa):s that, 116 matter ·what M~. · Redmorid doe~ now, he ;~ i ll have the stipport of the Irish pubiic. The Irish public will be proud ·of the character. It must be "time now for another round of YOtes of confidence . ;(·
The dep ths of childlike and bland irony on this subject are reached by the Unionist "Irish T imes ." The "Irish Times" insists that Mr. Redmond's duty is to join the new" ~ational " M.ir1ist:ry . Why? B ccau~e "Mr. Asquith ba s . . r . . given a solemn pledge "·--·solen1H pledges n re burstin~ over us like shrapnel' in these days" Mr. Asquith has given a ·solemn pledge, a n<l Mr. Bonar Law has endorsed it, that the new
The Chancellor of the Exchequer Qn May 4th, gave the following interesting 'figures: Cost of war for 8 months. ~360,000,000 Loans to Colonies and Allies (inctuded in this) £52,000,000 National Debt increased by £458~000,000 Bringing ' it up to ·tile" total · . .. £ 1;165,000,0QO Estimated cost of war . on Mar. 31 , 1916 £1,136,434,000 Estimated deficit at same time ... £862,322,000 Government is bein.g formed solely for the purposes ot'the war, and that , when the war is over, rhe course of domes tic politics will be resumed at tl;ie point where it stopped in the August of last year. Mr. Redmond's doubts on the subject seem to us to ~ unworthy of himself and of his party. H is contin ued adhesion to 'the unbroken tradition ' "-the quotation marks, if ironical, · belong to the original article---" is from his own stai1dpoin t illogical, for a Home R uie Act is on the Statute Book, and he has said a thousand ·times in tne last . two years ·,,_·~:mce every sixteen hours-" tl~at the triumph of the. Home ·Rule policy is secure." The " I rish Times" does not mean to be unp leasant .
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There are pledges that men can keep if they are viilling and honourable. Th~re are other p ledges that are better .never given, unless to entrap fools, for their fu lfilment is impossible. If we ass ume the ,best of good-will on the part of Messrs. Asquith and Bonar · Law, all the power· that both together could command wou ld be powerl.ess t6 resume the couFse ·of domestic pol itics at the point where it stopped in August . I do not say that what has Bappened up to August has gone foi· nothing. But I do say that an entirely new situation · wi'll ·face the J rish people at the end of the' war, and that anything short of the fnost thorough . prep~ra tion is likely to leave us in a weaker and worse position than . ever. Whiggery triillnphant, a crush ing burderi of taxes, a people distracted and dishea.rtened,_...:these will be the ·rewards of any policy of. drifting irresolution . There is not, I regret to see, a: .sign of anything . better in the pronouncements of our Nathanal Press on this unexampled eris1s and op1:iort unity. Mr. Devlin's Belfast organ, like · the " Iri sh Times,'' would have its readers 0 bel~e\1e that .Mr. · Asquith's latest pledge will rule the course of fut ure British politi cs. They won;t believe it.
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It-. must have been a prolonged: agony for some ·of our " .Nationalist " guides to sup pres!; their true and genuine ~entirnents d uring all these years in deference to olclhfashioned and vulgar notions of patriotism. , F rom the " J rish Daily Independent,'' after two columns disc cuss ing the "political crisis," 've learn that the real danger threatening. Ireland at the moment is the susp~nsion of horse-racing . Nevertheless there is comfort. ""The meeting of the ltish T urf Club will not be regarded: with anxiety by lrishm~i1 . The Stewards, · Mr. Percy . La T ouche; Lord Enniskillen, ai1d .Lord Decies, know too much of what · is necessary and are too sound patriots to err on an·y side ." . When the same''paper, on the same ·day, finds only · "weakness and iheptitude " ·in..:the Statesmen of the Liberal Government, Ireland mu~t be· proud . to know that her destiny is safe in ·the : hands . of her thNe infallible patriots : · : ·
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