[7] Sir Edward Carson.
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FOUR
One of the first queries put to a Briton by an American after the pair have achieved a certain degree of intimacy, is: "Why can't you people settle the Irish Question?"
The form of the query varies in intensity. Earnest well-wishers say: "I don't profess to understand the ins and outs of the matter, but wouldn't it save a deal of trouble all round if you were to give them Home Rule and have done with it?" Candid friends say, quite simply: "If you English can't run Ireland yourselves, why not let the Irish have a try?" (Here again we may note that England, not Great Britain, gets the blame.) Finally, a well-meaning but ferocious lady wrote to me the other day from the Middle West, to enquire: "How does England dare to pose as the champion of Belgium, when all the while she is grinding poor Ireland under her heel?"
All this is very illuminating, and at the same time distressing, to the stay-at-home Briton, who had always imagined that his domestic troubles were his own property, and were not causing concern to other people. But it is an undoubted fact, and cannot be too strongly impressed upon the English people, that the failure of Great Britain to settle the so-called Irish Question is a distinct bar to a complete entente cordiale with America, and, to a certain extent, with the British Dominions overseas.