A BRILLIANT NOTION

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8359, 20 February 1913, Page 6

A BRILLIANT NOTION

The squatters’ organ has got hold of a new, novel, and diverting idea. It is that “the Irish question could be honourably settled, and settled to the satisfaction of the Irish people, if it could be somehow got out of tho reach of the Radical party wire-pull-ers.” Those Radicals again! What a dreadful nuisance they are, to be suxel Of course, all would, bo plainsailing if they could only be “somehow” induced ■to disappear from the horizon of British politics. No doubt many other big questions could be just as safely “settled” if the progressive party would only remove itself off tho face of the earth. The settlement would consist in simply pushing the contentious matters to one side and—forgetting all about them. In, the same way the embarrassments and difficulties of the exasperated Tories in New Zealand might be swept away in one act if the forces of Liberalism would merely oblige by committing harikari. Laud scandals and other natural results of Conservative administration could proceed merrily, and never cause the Prime Minister a moment’s uneasiness (the amusement theory is altogether too thin), if only all political knowledge and power and authority oould somehow or another be taken completely away from the very troublesome Opposition and supporting newspapers. But to return to tho “Irish question” and tho comically erratic local organ of squatterdom. Its trouble seems to be that tho Liberals—or “Radicals,” as they are termed by this commentator—“uses” the Irish party as one of the “interacting oogs” in the English Radical game. We suppose that means that in return for the advocacy of Home Rule the Asquith Government receives the assistance of the Nationalists in other directions, such as social insurance, for instance. This is really very lamentable and obviously inconvenient for the aristocrats; but would not the simplest thing bo to give Ireland self-government and so cut out this annoying “interacting cog” ? Unless th© offending island is to have her own Parliament she must surely bo allowed' to send representatives to Westminster, and if they become practically so united as to form a cog in the big wheel • —well, why not? And what sort of “settlement” of the Irish question could be expected, anyhow, supposing the Tories to be given an entire monopoly of political control, as the squatters’ organ wishes? The Liberals were not always in office. Tho other side has had its turns over and over again. The Tories have enjoyed far nuye unrestricted opportunities of legislating for Ireland’s difficulties than have ever been vouchsafed to the Liberals, since the accession of a Conservative Government to office was always a prompt signal for the House of Lords to go fast asleep. We know that tho Tories gave Ireland a Coercion Act, but that did not “settle the Irish question,” or the New Zealand land monopolists’ gazette would not be now called upon to solve tho Home Rule problem. A sore point with this very disturbed journal is that Mr Asquith and Mr Redmond have made a “bargain.” Well, if they have done this atrocious thing, the contract appears to be panning out far more successfully than the bargain which self-styled Reform attempted to bring off, by “cajolery and flattery,” with Labour some fifteen months ago. No bargain between British Liberalism and Irish Nationalism that we know of carries tho slightest ground for censure of either side. Can the Masseyites say the same concerning the circumstances under which they reached the Treasury benches?. The Home Rule Bill now on the high road to the statute-book is the only solution of the Irish problem. The Tory alternative is to do nothing. That is exactly what would happen in respect of this and other questions of magnitude —“if” the Radicals could only be wiped out. “But there’s the rub.”