The Late Mr John Redmond.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16155, 8 March 1918, Page 6

The Late Mr John Redmond.

The report that Mr John Redmond was lilcoly to retire from the leaderi ship of the Irish Party has been fol- | lowed with shocking suddenness by the news of his death. The regret at the passing of this notable Irishman will be universal; he will bo mourned by all parties, for although the Irish controversy has been long and painful and transcendently bitter, John Redmond himself leaves no bitter memories, and no enemies behind him. Even the growth of the new separatist Nationalism, so full of scorn for the constitutional Nationalism of the Parliamentary Party, is too new to have made the Sinn Fein hostility to Mr Redmond a personal one. By the constitutional. Nationalists Mr Redmond has been worshipped, and amongst tho Unionists he had many fast porsonal friends, although he could not win the uncommonly affcctionato regard which his opponents had for his brother, the late Major "Willie" Redmond. Although at times, under the pressure of strategical necessity—and the Irish Party has always been dosperately hard to manage—he sometimes spoke almost with tho accents or the Separatist,, his Home Rulo viows were at bottom always united to tho idea of Ireland as a loyal and ardent unit of tho Empire. This came out in great crises. One such crisis was tho outbreak of war, when he threw in his lot with Britain; and to tho end he never wavered in his devotion to the Empire's cause in the war. His brother left tho House to fight and dio on the battlefield, and his son also left his political career to uphold the Redmond honour on tho fields of France. When the unhappy rebellion of 1916 tcolc place, the Irish leader condemned it promptly, and without qualification, and later, when Mr Lloyd George sought to build an agreement out of tho soberness and remorse that followed that sorrowful adventure, Mr Redmond staked his standing in Ireland on support of a compromise solution. But, while Redmond, with his preference for order • and peace, and his longing to end the hateful divisions over Ireland, was ready for compromise, tho cold irrceoncilables of Sinn Fein were determined that there "should bo no peaceful solution, and Redmond, faced again, as often before, with the choice between abandoning tho Home Rule movement for ever on tho one hand, and on tho other hand remaining with Irish opinion, chose the second course. Since that time his command of the Irish Nationalist movement has bcoomo ever more feeble and shadowy. He had tried and failed to build a bridge of peace between Unionism and Homo Rule, ■ and ho had to watch Ireland drifting away from him without possessing the means of winning it back to allegi- • anco to him and to his policy of constitutional agitation. He dies on tho very eve of the report of the Convention, which may lead to tho early realisation of tho liis life. Iho Irish question cannot bo solved unless tho ,B'pirit of concilation and compromise takes command, and if he had lived Mr Redmond would ■ assuredly hare been a strong pacific influence.