Is Ulster Right?

by Anonymous

By a striking coincidence, two meetings have recently been held on the same day-the 16th of May 1913-which form an apt illustration of the position adopted by the two parties. The first was a great demonstration of Unionists at Belfast, organised in order to make a further protest against the Bill and to perfect the organisation for opposing it by force, if the necessity arises; the second was a large meeting of the United Irish League at Mullingar. The Chairman, Mr. Ginnell, M.P. (who has gained prominence and popularity by his skill in arranging cattle-drives), said that the chief cause of the pressure last session was to get the Home Rule Bill through its first stage. It was still called a Home Rule Bill, though differing widely from what most of them always understood by Home Rule. Deeply though he regretted the Bill's defects and limitations, still he thought almost any Parliament in Ireland was worth accepting-first, because it was in some sense a recognition of the right to govern themselves; and secondly, because even a crippled Parliament would give them fresh leverage for complete freedom. No one could be silly enough to suppose that an intelligent Ireland, having any sort of a Parliament of its own, would be prevented by any promise given now by place-hunters, from using that Parliament for true national purposes.

That no army which the Ulstermen can form will be able to stand against British troops supported by cavalry and artillery is evident; but it seems almost past belief that England should be ready to plunge the country into civil war; or that British troops should march out-with bands playing "Bloody England, we hate you still," or some other inspiring Nationalist air-to shoot down Ulstermen who will come to meet them waving the Union Jack and shouting "God save the King." And if they do-what then? Lord Wolseley, when Commander-in-Chief in Ireland in 1893, pointed out the probable effect on the British Army in a letter to the Duke of Cambridge:-

"If ever our troops are brought into collision with the loyalists of Ulster, and blood is shed, it will shake the whole foundations upon which our army rests to such an extent that I feel that our Army will never be the same again. Many officers will resign to join Ulster, and there will be such a host of retired officers in the Ulster ranks that men who would stand by the Government no matter what it did, will be worse than half-hearted in all they do. No army could stand such a strain upon it."

And then England, having crushed her natural allies in Ulster, will hand over the Government of Ireland to a party whose avowed object is to break up the Empire and form a separate Republic. Dangers and difficulties arose even when the independent legislature of Ireland was in the hands of men who were loyal and patriotic in the noblest sense of the term, and when there were in every district a certain number of educated gentlemen of position who (as we have seen) were always ready to risk their lives and fortunes for the defence of the realm; what will happen when the loyal minority have been shot down, driven out of the country, or forced into bitter hostility to the Government who have betrayed and deserted them? As Lecky wrote years ago:-

"It is scarcely possible to over-estimate the danger that would arise if the vast moral legislative, and even administrative powers which every separate legislature must necessarily possess, were exercised in any near and vital part of the British Empire, by men who were disloyal to its interests. To place the government of a country by a voluntary and deliberate act in the hands of dishonest and disloyal men, is perhaps the greatest crime that a public man can commit: a crime which, in proportion to the strength and soundness of national morality, must consign those who are guilty of it to undying infamy."

If English people are so blind that they cannot perceive this, foreigners, whose vision is clearer, have warned them. Bismarck said that England, by granting Home Rule to Ireland, would dig its own grave; and Admiral Mahan has recently written:-

"It is impossible for a military man or a statesman to look at the map and not perceive that the ambition of the Irish separatists, if realised, would be even more threatening to the national life of Great Britain than the secession of the South was to the American Union.

"The legislative supremacy of the British Parliament against the assertion of which the American Colonists revolted and which to-day would be found intolerable in Canada and Australia cannot be yielded in the case of an island, where independent action might very well be attended with fatal consequences to its partner. The instrument for such action, in the shape of an independent Parliament, could not be safely trusted even to avowed friends."

So then, having reviewed the evidence as calmly and dispassionately as I can, I answer the two questions which I propounded at the outset of the enquiry-That the real objects of the Nationalists are the total separation of Ireland from England and the establishment of an Independent Republic; and that the men of Ulster in resisting them to the uttermost are not merely justified on the ground of self-preservation, but are in reality fighting for the cause of the Empire.