The Dominion. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1912. THE TROUBLE IN ULSTER.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1550, 20 September 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1912. THE TROUBLE IN ULSTER.

The members of the British Government will be men of altogether unusual courage and firmness if they aro able to watch without alarm I the development of the political tempest in Ulster. They can no longer doubt that the Ulster Unionists have been in earnest in their protestations of their intention never to come under a Dublin Parliament. Nor can even the, most optimistic Home Ruler or Unionist cherish any longer the hope that Home Rule, when or if it is established, will be accepted without any explosion of political or religious passion' in Ireland. Until quito lately Ministers ridiculed as "bluff" the warnings of the Unionist leaders that, rightly or wrongly, Ulster would resist Home Rule; and they abounded in assurances that everything would go off quite pleasantly and that there was no real religious or political bitterness of a deep-seated kind in any of the provinces. There have always been many evidences that the old antagonisms are still alive, but the first crushing .refutation of the optimistic theories of the Liberals during the present Home Rule campaign came at the end of June when a mob of Ancient Hibernians made an attack on Saturday night upon a Presbyterian Sunday School excursion party. The party, which was almost entirely composed of children, was carrying the Scriptural banners of the school and a Union Jack, and were savagely attacked by the Hibernians, who used pikes and bludgeons. The children were reinforced by some young men, and the police endeavoured to audi the riot, which lasted for quite half an hour. Tho affair was much discussed in the House of Commons, and it did much to set in train the series of outrages on both sides which reached a climax in the atrocious mf-Ice at the football match in Belfast described in the cable news this week. As we have said, bcjth sides in the quarrel are blameworthy: there is as little to be said in defence of the Orangemen as in defence of the Home Rulers. Nor is there much to be gained, as Mn. Bikkeix said on July 31 in the. House of Commons, when the outrages committed by the Orangemen in the shipyards were under discussion, by any attempt to discover "who began it." The only useful thing to do is to realise the deplorable, fact that already, two years before Home Rule could in any case come into operation, there is evidence of such violent religious and political passion in Ireland as we at this end of the world have happily never experienced and can only realise with difficulty. The Government, of course, has sought to fix upon (lie Unionist leaders in Parliament the responsibility.

for the current disorders and for whatever further disorders are in store. This is already, we believe, coming to bo regarded, even amongst good Liberal Home Rulers, as not quite fair. The Unionist leaders knew, before they began to warn the Government of Ulster's intentions, that they would be charged with inciting to disorder; and there was much courage and patriotism in their willingness to risk being misrepresented. Mr. Bonar Law recently summed up his attitude in a defence of his now famous declaration that "if the Government attempt under existing conditions to drive the people .of Ulster by force out of the protection of this House and of British law, I can imagine no means too strong for them to take to prevent it.'' He said, speaking in the House:

I ask the Prime Minister to realise that the people in the North-East of Ulster are > not bluffing—that they mean what they say, and that, so long as there is no evidence that the Government is supported by the people of this country, the Unionist party, which represents more than one-half of the people of Great Britain, are determined that this sbnll not be allowed to take place. It may be asked—"Even if you hold theso views, why is it necessary to express them now? There are two years before this calamity, as X consider it, can'happen." I will tell tho House why I think it necessary to express them now. Nothing seems to ma more certain than that the stato of tenr sion which now exists cannot continue for two years from this time. If this Home Rule Bill is carried through this House this autumn, and if, apparently, all that is necessary to make it law'is that 18 months should elapse, there will bo such a stute of feeling in Ireland that tho Government will find it impossible to cope with it. '

The Ulstercampaign which has opened at Enniskillen is something other and something far more serious than the cultivation of anti-Home Rule feeling. It is the formal beginning of arrangements to resist the law if Home Rule becomes law. Much can be said for the abstract right of Ulster to take its destiny into its own guidance, but we cannot bring ourselves to think that Ulster will be other than wrong to resist the law. To concede the claims of Sir Edward Carson is to affirm that even if everyone in the Kingdom outside Ulster came to support Home Rule for Ireland they conld not have their ,way. Let Us suppose that on appealing to the country the Government receives from England, Scotland, and' Wales, as well as Ireland, a thoroughly plain and quite overwhelming mandate to grant Home Rule, would Ulster's continued resistance amount to a moral veto? It could not be so considered, and at any cost of bloodshed Homo Rule would have to be established. The facts, happily for the peace of the Kingdom, are of a different colour. The Government has plainly lost the confidence of the nation, and it would drop Home Rule without delay were it independent of the Nationalist vote. It lacks the moral authority without which it cannot go on to the end, and the Ulster Unionists know this very well. Simply by persisting in their hostility, they can force the Government to leave Ulster out of the Bill, or drop the Bill, or grant UUt.ir a separate Parliament of its own. There have been many signs that the Government realises that something like this must be 'the inevitable end .of their strategy.