The Dominion. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY, 15, 1910. THE NATIONALISTS AND THE GOVERNMENT.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 742, 15 February 1910, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY, 15, 1910. THE NATIONALISTS AND THE GOVERNMENT.

i * > The" .position of the':. Nationalists in relation to the British Govcrn- " 'ment; daily,'becomes more interesting.' ■' Nothing more : doarly ; indicates ; the poignancy of the ." Government's i anxiety. concerning the Nationalists ( than the-news, which we printed yesterday, that the Daily i Chronicle and other Liberal journals have | .been' "assuring"; Mb.. Redmond that "Cabinet' is absolutely unanimous ■■ for limiting the Lords' power of I veto." The fact that the Minister- [ ialist newspapers have,-., offered this : assurance rather than the more peri tinent guarantee that Cabinet is united upon the.'questibri .of Home • Rule shows . that the Liberals understand not only the substance of Me. Redmond's menacing Dublin speech, but the thoughts also of the Nationalist leader. ;It is realised, obviously,, that Me. Redmond's demand for priority for thfr. attack on the Lords, proceeds, not from impatience : for "the kill," 1 but : . from a very na- : tural. distrust of the Liberal party's professions. 'Even, if he had not said so, it would have been clear to everybodythat: if he really ;trusted Me. Asquith's '. promise, he' would be ; willing to wait, not only until tho Liberals had tackled the Peers and ' done , their :'- test . with :.the Budget, but for.-one,: or..two, or even three,- •' sessions. But there cannot be a-sin- : glo fchoiighfcful'Nationalist' who 'doegnot feel that Home Rule cannot expect anything from'tho hearts' of :the Liberals : .for.'twenty years : Ire-' land has-been: realising.' that nothing ' but a ; certain- set of' circumstances, will, enableit:to wring, from the Liberals:.: the policy : that: it' desires. That set of circumstances has arranged itself, and it would be credit- ' irig Ms. ;Redj[ond with an extreme simplicity to believe him capable of being satisfied with' such' 1 assurances as have so far been '/made ' public.' There. is! no' mistaking, the •. tone of. his speech at Dundalk on January 2, in which he referred to the present position as "the greatest crisis for the fortunes of Ireland that. had arisen in,, the,lifetime of' the oldest man."; "If Ireland;" lie said, "acted in. this crisis with common prudence :and .common sense,; .witli ; unity and patriptism,; this crisis would; eventuato in Home Rule for Ireland." -.Me.; Redmond . has accepted Me. , As.quith's statement ; in" .his - Albert Hall speech last December -.. as; a "pledge" of "full Home Rule in the Gladstonian meaning of fee term." This passage of Me. : As- : quith's speech is worth recalling.-. Speaking, "on behalf of hiscol- . leagues, and, he believed, ofhis party," he said:, • The solution, of tlio .problem can be ■ found in-only , one way-Horiea of "Home • llule"; and. loud '] cheers)—by" a.' policy, which, while ! explicitly safeguarding' the • supremnoy; of, indefeasible authority of - the Imperial Parliament, will Set up in ; Ireland a system of fall self-government- i in- regard to' purely Irish .affairs. For reasons .which I believe to have been adequate, .the present. Parliament was ' disabled in advance from proposing any, ' such solution. But. in-, the new . House I of Commons the hands of a Liberal Gov- , eminent and of: a majority will , in l this ■ matter be entirely froo. ' The ' National Directory of the i United Irish League lost no time in- ; sealing this pledge, at a meeting: i presided over by Me. Redmond, with! 1 a long and militant resolution, of; ! which the followinjg is a.'part: ; j ■ ■ ,r We have , read with great satisfaction' i tho statement made by . the Prime Hin- ( ister , that full, self-government for.-Ire! land' in all Irish' to the''- policy ' of the Liberal -party, and that the Lib- 1 eraT party claims a mandate from the < electorate to - deal with; Irish questions i ou these lines as soon as the veto of. the ■Lords is cleared out of the,road. . . .r

In a speech at Swinford on December 28, Mr. John Diimn was still more emphatic in .his .interpretation of the "pledge." His exact words are thus reported in an Irish joui! rial: ' ■ ..'j— We; hare obtained a declaration m fi; vonr of selt-government for! Ireland, il adopt these words deliberately, bocanso I really think they oonvey more than the expression Home Rule. Home Rule .is tho formnla for.'- 1 which we, have been fighting for 25 yoars, but-self-government is more' dofinite, becauso self-government means the .right to control. all Irish .affairs withiu tho seas of Ireland. Homo Jililo is a more -'indefinite expression. l Now that is the primary object for which the National party, was first concentrated .or formed 25 years ago.

.Unionists as :well as -Nationalists drew this conclusion from Mr. Asquith's speech, and it must have been with a shock that the: friends of Home' Rule read Mr. Piee Puse's repudiation, apparently in his official capacity of_ Whip, of the idea , that the' Primo-'Ministor-jhad-pledged himself to Home Rule. Al,.thou.eh it oreated a violent' storm,

of feeling and discussion, Me. Pike Pease's statement has never yet been referred to by Mk. Asquith.: The course threatened by Mr. Redmond is the easier for him to pursue from the Nationalist objections to the Budget, and, indeed, to' the general policy of the Liberals. In this connection we may recall the fact that the votes for Unionist candidates exceeded tho votes for Liberal candidates, m the contested seats, by some hundreds of thousands.' We are obliged to a Southern contemporary for. extending our figures to cover the whole kingdom by allotting the votes in the uncontested seats on a pro rata basis. It finds that the Unionist vote would be 3,360,438 and the Liberal vote 2,955,227. The Nationalist leaders are .no. whit inferior to the Liberals or Unionists in their understanding of the/ political game, and they know.- perfectly well; that the "adequate reasons" for the inability of tho. Government in. tho late Parliament to bring in a Home Rule Bill are contained in- the fact that, as the London Times puts it, at the 1906 elections the Liberals were reasonably confident that they were about to obtain a majority which would make them relatively independent of Nationalist, support, whereas during the late election they had no such confidence. In the circumstances, it is certain that Mr. Redmond will withhold his support from the Government unless he receives an extreme pledge to bring in. an extreme, measure of Home Rule. But it- is very hard to believe that, oven if ho can pr.oinise tho neoessary measure,- Me. Asquith can give that promise with the extraordinary guarantee of the .neoessity for which the Nationalists -have twenty years of. bitter experience -to teach, them. Mb. W. O'Bkien, in his anti-REDMONB speech in Cork on January, 4,'.fa,iled to understand the astuteness of Mr. Redmond's course of action, but he certainly expressed the feeling of great many people, when he said that'.'the pretence, that Asquith intended to give. Home Rule to Ireland was 'bosK'."