The Dominion. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1912, THE CRISIS IN ULSTER.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1559, 1 October 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1912, THE CRISIS IN ULSTER.

The most extraordinary of all the cable messages of the past two days relating to the Ulster Covenant is that which recorded the statement by Mr. William Redmond, in New York, that "it was absurd to think that the Ulster trouble would affect the passage of the Home Rule Bill," and that "the talk of civil war was 'the merest bosh.' " Such language as that can do no good, and can do 'much harm, for it became clear long ago to the Liberal 'leaders that Ulster does "moan business." We have always felt and said that those of the Unionist leaders who have been courageous enough to risk, the odium of entreating Mr. Asquith to believe Ulster to l)c in earnest have acted as good citizens. At the same time we have always felt and said that if Ulster actually rebels against the authority of the.Kino, Ulster will be wrong. Rebellion against the Crown or against the law is a thing bad in itself, no matter though the Ulstermen can cite. in their support such grave authorities as Gladstone and Abraham Lincoln. It was Gladstone who said, in 1884, that "if no instructions had ever been addressed in political crises to the people of this country excopt to remember to hate violence and love order and exercise patience, the liberties of this country would never have been attained." It was Lincoln who asked what was "the special sacredness of a State""what mysterious right to play tyrant is conferred on a district or country, with its people, by merely calling it a State 1 We may also note that it was Gladstone who said on November 9, 1895, during the Midlothian campaign, that "it will be a vital danger to the country and to the Empire, if at a time when a demand from Ireland for larger powers of self-government is to bB dealt with, there is not in Parliament a party totally independent of the Irish vote." In his Life of Gladstone Lord Morley insists upon the great wisdom of this view. This endanferment of the Kingdom and the Impire is precisely what Mit. Asquith has undertaken. One can almost imagine- that Gladstone had foreseen 1912 in a flash of insight. That the Liberal leaders are preparing to hedgo has been growing steadily more clear. We not only have the remarkable public letters of Dr. Chapple, who has become the spokesman, on this question, of a powerful section of the Liberal party, but we have Sir Edward Grey's and Mr. Asquith's statements that some means must be found to ..satisfy Ulster. Then there has ''been Mr. Churchill's acceptance of the logic of Ulstor's claim tor special and separate treatment; and now we have the Solicitor-General recommending Liberals to give their due weight to the Ulster demonstrations, and promising "every safeguard that reason and caution can suggest." Mr. John Redmond has become ominously silent; he knows, as Mr. William O'Brien knows, that there is no "bosh" or bluff about the Ulstermcn. Whether Ulster's fear of oppression at the hands of Dublin is well-found-ed or whether it is ill-founded, no outside observer would say who feels responsible for what he says; but Mr. O'Brien, as his cable message to Canada makes clear, is as firmly convinced that Ulster is in earnest as he. is that it is in error. The strange and impressive ceremonies in Belfast last Saturday are obviously riot a piece of elaborate political "bluff men do not behave like that who are not starkly determined to slough their twentieth-century skins and fight. It is a striking fact that Mr. Balfour has thrown his great weight upon Ulster's side. "Let me not be told," so ho wrote" to the Ulstermcn, "that a British Government can be found sufficiently wicked or a | House of Commons sufficiently subservient to say to Ulster, 'Leave us, or we will shoot you down.' " Mr. Balfour's declaration, under such circumstances, will impress British Liberals more deeply even than .fifty Ulster demonstrations might do. - In politics, and, especially in ,British politics, it is always unsafe to speculate, ■ but the one speculative point, viz., whether Ulster has been in earnest, is ' probably now settled for the Liberal leaders and for the bulk of the Liberal rank and file. In that case the Government will back down —choosing, of course, the most advantageous time for doing so—and the return of the Unionists to office will be assured, and, with it, the restarting of the work of Irish land settlement which the Balfour Government set going and which the Liberals practically brought to an end. A section of the British Unionists fear that the Government may get its way by passing the Bill and winking at any passive resistance by Ulster. That is why they suppm't Ulster's determination to offer active i resistance. If they are sure _ that Ulster will really rebel, the Liberal leaders will retreat, because they could not, the circumstances being what they are, face what would be •their plain duty of suppressing the rebellion by shooting and the rebels. That certainly would be their duty: since no circumstances could make Ulster's rebellion. either good or lawful. But a ■rebellion, or a fully guaranteed threat of rebellion, can have good results, as Gladstone's statement implies; still the law, whatever it is, must be upheld. In the present case the Ulster attitude will probably have the good ultimate fruit of an Ireland honestly regenerated, and made happy not through political, but through economic means, and through . the agency,'not of opportunist Radicals, but of Unionists.