The Dominion. FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 1912. THE ULSTER PROBLEM.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1508, 2 August 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 1912. THE ULSTER PROBLEM.

So far as is possible to judge TTi° m r newspapers, the Ulster Unionists are in earnest in t their_ declaration that rather than submit to Home Rule they will risk*, becoming rebels. They are in no way checked in their determination by the failure of the Unionists in the House or Commons to amend the Home liule Bill by specifically excluding Ulster from its scope. The •Bill has still a long way to go l before it passes the Commons, and it is quite certain to be rejected by the iiotiso of Lords.' In the meantime the feeling against the Bill will increase in Ulster, and Mn. Asquith, ii he persists with the measure in its present form, will in the end find himself face to face with a graver situation than has ever confronted a British Prime Minister for over a hundred years. He may have to face civil war/ There are still signs that some Liberal quarters the sincerity ot the Ulster diehards is just open to doubt, but generally the Liberal press appears to have concluded, irom the unbroken unanimity of the voices of Ulster opinion, that Ulster really will fight. The Unionists of Ulster, that is to'say, will establish a i rovisional Government the moment the Home Ilule Bill becomes law, and will refuse to obey any law ■ or ordinance emanating from the !' j• 1 arhament. This will be in ltseli nothing more than passive resistance on the grand scale, but since passive resistance can only be met by active repression,_ and since any attempt at repression will he met bv armed resistance, the full enforcertient of authority will require the 'ifmcd police or troops. The soberest of all the Unionist journals, the Spectator—so sober and so fully aware of its responsibility that almost alone on that side it tought for, and secured, the Lords' acceptance of the Parliament Bill— is as quietly emphatic as the less restrained organs of the Unionists in declaring tliat to force North-East Ulster under a Dublin Parliament must inevitably lead to bloodshed not on a petty but on a great scale." So it appeals to moderate Liberals lo fit the Bill with a safetv-valvr by ultimately excluding Ulsler, and so avoid the horror that will oHicrwis-j surely come. A correspondent of the o/ii'.ulatitr, in a lc-lter written in exceedingly temperate language and bearing all over it the marks of sincerity, tells the facts of Ulster feeling. He himself, an Ulster Nonconformist minister, a democrat, and an anti-Home Ruler, will submit to Home Rule if it comes, but he knows that his co-religionists will not. "1 am speaking," he says, "from direct personal knowledge when I state that there are in Ulster over 200,000 wn —ministers, magistrates, merchants, lawyers, doctors, mechanics, fanners, in fact the Mower of Ulster Protestant manhood—under solemn oath to shed their blood rather than submit lo l.lie rule of a Roman (.'alhoiic Parliament in Dublin.'' Hr admits that many of these men may be ignorant or fanatical, but the insists that. they are lit any rate In earned. All the r.vi. cleaco available supports this reading.

of the situation, which is not mousl.y disputed by the (i<>v:m iim: n( 1 apologists. We in New Zealand ma reprobate (In: attitude of tin- Ulste diehards—fur ourselves wu do mi think that Iho circumslanees Ilia ga\u liirtli to the Home Rule Hill 'he chicanery of its origin, ran e.\ etiso. anything more than passive ri sistanee—but tliai: attitude is u tei tfj'iulii fad. The Government j K no in a position 1.0 sav that in its hear it- regards Home liule as a grea Messing and a thing tu he fongh tor in Uic interests of Ihe Knipin .■Hid thirt being the case, it can hard ly dare to take the responsibility' f 0 provoking Ulster into what we slioul call—and may possibly have, to cal in the futurn—a wild and wickei course. Tor if the. Government hai clean hands and a great case, i could safely go ahead regardless o .consequences. But as Jin. Boxa Law pointed out, in the hist issu the government will not be. in ; position to go ahead. If the Govern inent in the last resort used troop to shoot down the Ulster resisters then; was a possibility that 110 (Jab met Minister could go abroad ii London without the'risk of heim lynched. The more one reflects upoi this presentation of the logical cm of the Home liule Bill, the more rea sonable it appears. 111 point of fac it is unlikely that the (Jovernnien will press 011 with its Bill to t-\io von end. It dare not face thn conse qucnccs of making the Eill effectivi iu Ulster, and without. Ulster, Mr Redmond dues not want Home Rule The signs point, more strongly ever' day to the ultimate failure of tin Government to keep to the full itbargain with Mi;. Kedmond.