The Press WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 1918. The Irish Leadership.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16153, 6 March 1918, Page 6

The Press WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 1918. The Irish Leadership.

! Tho health of Mr "John Redmond has | fqr. So long been very indifferent that ; thfcre is probably C ood ground for tho

. belief that ho is likely to retire from ' tho leadership of the Irish Party, to i he succeeded hy Mr John Dillon. There ; was a time— and it is not so long ago, ; not longer ago than five yeans, or six ; at ipost—when a'change in the lcader- \ ship of the Nationalist Party could not but havo been of the highest importance. : Twelve years ago Mr Redmond stood in the House of Commons at tho head of a jferty which was confident of collecting the debts owed to it by the Liberals, then fresh from the moat overwhelming of political victories. Ho was . not strong enough i n follower*, fcowj over, to matter to the great Liberal jpnajority. hut big., opportunity came in J4910, when an appeal to the country 0 n i-Jho 1909 Budget and tho Lords' veto «> reduced the liberal majority that I tho Rationalists held tho balance of 'power. A sefcond election in 1910 conin their position not only the i ■ A

Liberals, but also tho Nationalists under Mr Redmond's leadership, and Mr Redmond then occupied a more powerful position than had ever previously been attained by any leader of Irish Nationalism. He saw a Ilome Rule Act placed upon the Statute Book, but the establishment of Home Rule, thus forccd by the Nationalists' strategical majority, was postponed liy the determination Ol Ulster to use the strategy of 6tark resistance to expulsion from the Union. The war broke into the Irish crisis, and swept Ireland for the time being into tho background of events. In the meantime the Sinn Fein movement had become a revolutionary movement, and

it was not only a revolt against tho Union, but a revolt against the regular Irish Party. Mr Redmond, like all ) Irish politicians occupying a leading position in the long and painful controversy —and it U nearly 40 years since he entered political life (as a Parnellite) —Mr Redmond has had to ehango his tone and his aims, and in i recent years he has aimed at extracting 1 Homo Rule from the necessities of the British Liberal Party. His failure in 1 this aim brought him into disfavour • with the more aggressive Nationalists, ■ and he has had to endure unending taunts from his fellow countrymen. ; When the Sinn Fein rebellion took place, he was amongst the first to condemn it, and there is no doubt that, at heart an enemy of bloody revolutions, he was as deeply shocked as dismayed. His declaration against the rebellion has never been forgiven by the Sinn Feiners, who are certainly in the majority in Ireland to-day. Nor have they forgiven his part in the abortive compact, arranged through Mr Lloyd George, for Home Rule on a basis of tho temporary exclusion of Ulster. His services to Ireland since ISSI, through many bitter campaigns and perilous crises, have been forgotten by tho pre-sent-day Irishman, or treated as nothing when weighed against the fact that his tactics have served British Radicalism far more than Irish Nationalism. Mr Dillon has never been restrained by such scruples as have influenced Mr Redmond's course on many an occasion of importance. He is far nearer to the Sinn Feiners than to his leader. Ho is more aggressive and extreme in the House of Commons than Mr Redmond permits himself to be, and his speeches often read as if only his duty to support iiis leader restrained him from embracing tho Sinn Fein doctrine entire. Mr Dillon's position, and the Sinn Fein view of it, can best be illustrated by a passage in a speech delivered by Mr de Yalera at Cork on I December Bth last. Mr do Yalera was condemning tho Convention, which Mr Dillon had said was "harmless." "Mr "Dillon," Mr do Valera added, "did "not go into it, and neither did they, " and ho was sure Mr Dillon, who, by " the way, now and then in tho House " of Commons, when lie liked, became " a Sinn Fciner, didn't go into the " Convention for pretty much tho same " reason as they didn't. Mr Dillon " apparently did not expect very much "from it, and neither did they. They "agreed ivith Mr Dillon's own words " that it 'was the device of a hard- " 'pressed Minister to gain time'.'' If Mr Redmond retires, and is succeeded by Mr Dillon, one of the forces working for conciliation will have gone, for amongst tho Homo Rulers in positions of authority, conciliation has in the last two years been little esteemed except by tho Irish leader, who, after a lifetime spent in the cause of Homo Rule, appears about to retire with his authority gone, and his services forgotten by ' tho new revolutionary Nationalism of \ Ireland.