The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 1913. HOME RULE BY CONSENT.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1690, 5 March 1913, Page 6

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 1913. HOME RULE BY CONSENT.

It is greatly to be wished that the "All-for-Irelancl" League will suc- , cecd in forcing the settlement of the Irish question by consent. As our readers arc aware, we have frequently condemned the method by which the British Government has sought to grant Hoir.e Rule to Ireland, and have repeatedly expressed the view that a settlement that would be accepted by a vast majority in Ireland and by a still more decisive majority outside Ireland could be arrived at by a "round table conference of the right kind, such as enabled the Balfour Government to pass the great land measure which has done so much for ' the Irish nation. Those who share our .view will have read with much hopefulness and pleasure thp cable message in yesterday's issue, announcing that the All-for-Ireland League had adopted a resolution, moved by Lord Dunraven, seconded by Mr. William O'Brien, and supported by Mr, Tim Healy, "declaring that it was the Government's duty to convene a conference of all parties in the United Kingdom to effect a settlement of the question of selfgovernment for Ireland by consent." Mr. _ O'Brien and Mn. Healy are passionate advocates of Irish selfgovernment, and are abler advocates than Mr. Kedhond. Throughout the discussion of the Bill in the House of Commons they strove unremittingly to have amendments inserted which would have made the Bill more generous to Ireland and more satisfactoryfrom the Nationalist point of view. Mr. Healy's ■ very last speech on the measure was a vigorous denunciation of what he called the Government's trickery in providing that a year shall elapse between th-s final passage of the measure and tho establishment of tho Irish Parliament.

AVe understand that, when we last dealt with the unfortunate fact that the Government had woven the Irish question into the mere Radical party game, some reckless and ill-informei critics derided this as a "Tory" and anti-Irish .view. It is worth while quoting from Mb. William O'Brien's speech on- the Bill on January 15 last. He referred to Mb. Redjiond's "injudicious" words, addressed to Mr. Asquith at tho meeting in Nottingham some months-ago. "On every single item of the Liberal programme," Me. Redmond had said, "apart from Home Rule altogether, you will find just as sincere and enthusiastic support as you will find from members of your ' own party." As Mn. O'Brien observed, that was not a judicious way to recommend Home Rule to Great Britain, for much of the Liberal programme would be condemned by Irishmen. Me. Redmond's position was not Parnell's, and it is not Mrs. O'Brien's. "Their position," jic said, "was that the Irish national cause should be kept outside and abovo all English party politics, Liberal and Tory. Their best hope for Ireland was not merely in Parliamentary manoeuvring or bargaining, although these were important enough, but in trying to combine both the great British parties in lifting the Irish question above the heat and passion of mere party politics." Mr, Redmond knows well enough that ths Lloyd-George wing of the British Radicals cares nothing really for Ireland, but cares a great deal for the Irish question as one which has enabled them to play their political game very easily. Mr. Redmond may dislike this (for it is too' humiliating a thing for any Irishman to like being the servant of British Radicalism—even the well-paid servant), but he is afraid to rebel against his real masters, Messes. Dillon and Devlin, whoswant Home Rule by hook or by crook, regardless, of the cost in bitterness and distrust.

In the specch fron; which we are quoting, Mr. O'Brien propounded the idea of a conference, and incidentally paid to Sir Edward Carson a tribute which will- surprise nobody who knows the realities in Ireland, but "which will stagger those innocent folk who only know Sir Edavard Carson as he is pictured in the halfpenny-Radical press of England.

If (said Mr. (yßnen) they could get together in ono room,the Chief Secretaries and Under-Secretaries for Ireland of both parties, and add three representative Irishmen he could name, lie wagered his life that before they left they would have come to ft measure of agreement which would content all rational men in Ireland, and content and gladden the whole impure. To show that Ireland was not bankrupt of men who could, if they would, furnish the material for a successful conference on this subject he would, though without the slightest authority, mention tlio names of Lord Duuraven, the lion, and learned member for Waterford (Mr. Redmond), and the senior member for the University of Dublin (Sir E. Carson), whose absence, and tlio reason , for it, ho regretted, and who had proved himself in the course of these debates the very type of Irishman which mado Parnell exclaim that Ireland oould not afford to lose a single man of them. And as a comment upon the nonsense of the talk about the unbridgeable gulf between Irishmen he would add his conviction that the ri|ht hon. gentleman j (Sir Edward Carson) would only have to say the word himself to be the Priipe Minister, even the first Prime Minister, of' an Irish Parliament, and with 110 other programme except ono of national peace.

Mr. O'Brien has the authority of experience for his expectations of an honourable and peaceful settlement by conference, for it was by such a conference that the Land Act of 1908, so fruitful of happiness and progress, was arranged. The secret of the miracle wrought by that conference, as Mr. O'Brien pointed out in his well-known article in the Nineteenth Century of March, 1910, was that the party spirit had been for the first time exorcised in the dealings of both the great British parties with_ Ireland, and of both Irish political parties amongst themselves. It was their exclusion from Captain Shawe-Tayt.or's original list of invitations to this conference that implanted in certain of the Nationalist leaders that bitterness which has expressed itself in their war-cries of ."No Compromise with our Hereditary Enemies" an,'l "No Transaction with English Rule." It is not too late even now for an honourable and peaceful settlement. The miracle of 1902 can be worked again : tho British character and the Irish character and British and Irish statesmanship are equal to it.