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THE Coal Strike is a dismal. topic because every detail of it is so deadly. Ireland is even more dismal, because every feature of the Irish question is humiliating. Indeed, the more it is talked about, the Dismal Topic further we recede, under the guidance of he so-called statesmen whose whole public life has been bound Cup with "Home Rule," in which the elder generation found lo salvation in the winter of 1885-86. It has been the chief Parliamentary topic ever since, and will remain for all time a standing monument of Parliamentary ineptitude. In other matters, excuses can usually be made for failurethus the blame for blunders in foreign affairs may be debited to the "unreasonableness" of some foreign Government, those of Imperial affairs to the obstinacy of Colonial Governments, and so on; but the Irish question is an exclusively domestic topic of which British statesmen have had a monopoly for more than a generation, besides being the one to which they have most constantly applied their minds and devoted their speeches, ever since Mr. Gladstone set the fatal example in the eighties of making it the pièce de résistance of Party politics. But at least he had the excuse of dealing with an issue on which depended the fate of Governments, which lay at the mercy of a compact and determined body of Irish Nationalists, under the masterful rule of Parnell. But to-day the Irish vote is negligible, while Irish representation has virtually ceased to exist. Nevertheless, our statesmen grow wilder and wilder in their utterances on the Irish question and ever more feeble in their actions. What is the explanation of this thusness? We wish we knew We have no idea. When we read the last utterance of Mr. Asquith, we hardly know where we are. When we turn to the constructive proposition of Viscount Grey, we Grey, we are equally are equally at sea. It is, however, something that these doctors should violently disagree and that each repudiates the crazy remedy of the other, though between the two there is little to choose. They equally forget what Ireland is and where she is when they calmly propose that we wash our hands of her as though she were situate in another planet. If this be the "powerful sanity.

VOL. LXXVI

21

which is Lord Morley's prescription for a disease he has had th no small hand in fomenting, we should prefer to see the the question entrusted to the decision of the inmates of Bedlam, who could hardly do worse than some of our great wise and eminent Front-Benchers.

Radical
Bankruptcy

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VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODON opened the ball by publishing a solution of the Irish impasse in the Westminster Gazette, prefaced by the promising remark that the of underlying cause was less the shortcomings of any particular Government than the dis sension among Irishmen. Therefore, "nothing in the way of a bargain between the British Government and one part of Ireland has any chance of success." This is a somewhat tardy discovery in statesmen who for thirty years have acted on the opposite principle, assuming that all that was necessary was to propitiate Nationalist Ireland. In his new mood, Viscount Grey opines that the Irish must be constrained to draw up their own plan, subject to the limitation that Great Britain and Ireland must always have "one foreign policy, one Army and one Navy Otherwise," Irishmen must be as free as the peoples of the great self-governing Dominions to settle for themselves how their country is to be governed." To promote his project, Viscount Grey would inform Ireland that the British Government will, in any event, clear out at the end of two years. We can see no merit in this solution save that it registers the bankruptcy of Radical statesman ship. This was accentuated by a letter in The Times from Viscount Grey's former leader, Mr. Asquith, criticizing hi quondam follower because "I cannot bring myself to con template, even as a counsel of ultimate despair, our fin abandonment as he seems to suggest-of the trust which history has imposed on us." After denouncing the Govern ment Bill as a " paltering compromise "as it certainly is the ex-Premier, in his ardour to "meet and satisfy Iris aspirations," declared for a policy of Dominion Home Ru for Ireland, beginning with "fiscal independence" including, apparently, naval and military autonomy,

2

and

egards which he does not share Lord Grey's apprehension. Trust the Irish " is nowadays the Asquithian catchword. sole tells us: "No Irish Government would be so insane as Fo mortgage its scanty margin of resources for such a ruitless and costly enterprise as the creation of an Irish Navy." But after Ireland's repudiation of all share in The National Debt-which would be her first act under Mr. Asquith's scheme she would be far from the poorest, member of the British Empire. Anyhow, few Englishmen hyould care to bank on Mr. Asquith's judgment as to probable olitical developments in Ireland, considering that all his revious calculations have miscarried. Nor are we reassured day his subsequent explanations, which indicate that his onstructive capacity-which was never his strongest point -is at a particularly low ebb.

eprisals

THE chaos to which Irish chaos has reduced the former Hladstonian Party had a salutary effect on our mercurial Prime Minister. Mr. Lloyd George is so constituted that when Liberals seem in a ole he becomes more Conservative, and vice versa. Not hat this makes him more dependable, because he abandons standpoint almost as soon as he takes it up. For the oment, however, he champions Law and Order, on which te discourses eloquently, and the Manchester Guardian gards its hero more in sorrow than in anger. Our esteemed ontemporary the Spectator detects "a marked strengthening the determination of the Government to prove their cognition of the fact that they can exist only by governing," hich it pronounces "a very

the Government, and aboveant point in the fortunes

all in the fortunes of Mr. loyd George himself." Indeed, it would be. None would joice more than ourselves should the Coalition turn over new leaf. If we remain sceptical, it is only because we ve heard this sort of thing so often before and have been variably "let down." The Prime Minister has certainly Joken more decidedly of late, and on domestic affairs has ld his head in the right direction. There is even an provement in Ireland, which is, exclusively due to the grim

fact of " reprisals," i.e. the refusal of the forces of the Crown to allow themselves to be butchered by organized bands of assassins, whose crimes are either connived at by si the country-side or the latter is terrorized. In either case a these horrors had to stop, and as there was no other remedy Coal soldiers and policemen necessarily took the law into the own hands. As Mr. Lloyd George lately reminded a Welsh I audience, 109 of the police had been murdered in Ireland a during the past year. At last the patience of the police had given way, and there had been some severe hitting back." After all, Sinn Fein boasts that it is war. "But if it really is a case of war, it should be war on both sides. Are the police to stand up to be shot like dogs without any attempt at defence?" "Yes," says Mr. Mr. Asquith and the Daily Herald. A thousand times No" says f everybody else. The efficacy of the hateful necessity of reprisals may be gathered from the chorus of howls and yowls of all Sinn Feiners and their friends.

THE delay in announcing Lord Chelmsford's successor in the Indian Viceroyalty is generally debited to political intrigue 66 Several "" careerists are understood to hav The Viceroy? marked down this splendid office for them selves, and their friends have been busy on their behalf in the Press. At one time Mr. Montagu, the Secretary State for India, was regarded as a dead certainty" who, it was argued, could be more suitable than a Secretary of State to carry through the great constructive". destructive-policy associated with his name? But h prospects were blighted by his demeanour during the Dy Debates. From that moment other colleagues have contem plated exiling themselves to India. There was mud spade-work put in on behalf of Lord Birkenhead-possib unbeknown to the Lord Chancellor enthusiasts averring that, could he resign himself to relinquishing his claims o the Premiership, he might be tempted to pass the Suez Cana Then Mr. Winston Churchill emerged into view as a poss bility. His position in the Coalition had uncomfortable. India offered an easy and dignified exit

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Whether Lord Beaverbrook was ever in the running we cannot say he is for most things-but Mr. Frederick Guest's claims were confidently canvassed, the Viceroyalty being regarded as no unworthy reward for his "services" theas a Whip. Lord Lee of Fareham, Lord Lytton among others for whom propaganda is being made. What we miss in such speculations is any recognition of the fact that a great public office is a great public trust, rather than the private perquisite of the pushful. India rightly resents being regarded as part of "the spoils " to be divided in the Whips' Room. It matters not a brass farthing whether the new Viceroy is a Tweedledum or a Tweedledee in our Home affairs, so long as he possesses the character and the capacity to govern India. There is all the less excuse for blundering because there is more than one good man, so to speak, on the ground" whose selection would be infinitely preferable to that of any party hacks. If we want a strong independent Viceroy we should look in the direction of such peers as Lord Ampthill, who was conspicuously successful during his all-too-brief tenure of that office. Lord Lovat is another man pre-eminently qualified for many great positions who would be thoroughly acceptable in any community lucky enough to get him.

I

An Unhappy

Book

MRS. ASQUITH, as we know from her Autobiography, is devoted to her husband. But had she wished to do him an injury she could have devised nothing more effectual than this unhappy publication. No censure that has so far appeared in print approaches the private condemnation heard on all hands from self-respecting people who, whatever their politics, regard as an outrage a book that, in some passages, is contra bonos mores. There is no partisanship in the criticism. Liberals are perhaps more angry than others, because they regard the performance as a reflection on their leader and another blow to a party already in tribulation. At first, there was a disposition among the author's friends to attenuate the affair on the ground that " no one will take it seriously," or, more familiarly, "it's only Margot."