The Latest "Jena"

and he has consistently played Germany's game ever since. All his solicitude is reserved for our enemies, all his pinpricks for our friends. The first thing he would do, should he appeal to the country on an anti-Sinn Fein platform and get a majority for keeping Ireland within the Empire, would be to adopt a pro-Sinn Fein policy and shatter the last link uniting Ireland to England; nor should we be surprised if he threw Ulster to the wolves in the interests of "Irish unity." The extent to which the Coalition is counted upon by Little Englanders, Separatists and Disruptionists and Disloyalists to do the dirty work over which these have failed for nearly forty years, may be gathered from the ecstasies of the Nation-so-called on the lucus a non lucendo principle, as it is “agin” everything calculated to consolidate the British nation, its nationalist sympathies being reserved for any hostile community. We commend its tribute to the Prime Minister (see "A London Diary" in the Nation of September 3rd) to those "Unionists" who have put Mr. Lloyd George in a position to win "a Jena" at the expense of Unionism:

Unlike any of his British predecessors, Mr. George, offering the goods that Ireland wants, can DELIVER THEM. How? First, he has an absolutely acquiescent Opposition. Labour and Liberalism are practically solid for the terms, for their leaders know well that they could never make such an offer with a hope of realizing it intact. Some part or other, probably some vital member, must be whittled away in the haggling of Parliament. Now this all-but-Tory Cabinet stands pledged to the independence of Ireland. Say that there is a dissident or two, or a factionist. Nevertheless, the word has gone forth, and in substance it is the charter of a nation. Its author is the most successful politician of our times; he is also the man who, for good or for evil, has destroyed the system that made an Anglo-Irish settlement impossible. He might conceivably go down before a powerful Tory Cave, leaving confusion. But there is no Cave. The Georgian luck holds, not merely because the Prime Minister is a spell-binder of unusual accomplishment, but because this time Fate has dealt him one of her winning numbers. It is his Jena year, and he will try not to miss it.

ALTHOUGH the Prime Minister has been allowed to drag his Coalition at the heels of "President" De Valera-who is in his turn following his gunmen-during many "President" and Prime Minister weary weeks, at the moment of writing there is nothing. positive to record. But our optimists live on hope, as they have done since the

un

"negotiations," or, as we prefer to call them, the Surrender began. They would have us believe that we are on the eve of the Millennium, when the British Cabinet will be able literally as well as figuratively to fall into the arms of Dail Eireann. If Mr. Lloyd George has learnt anything from this painful and humiliating episode, it must be the old, old lesson that it is easier to start a stampede than to stop one. Apparently, Ministers ingenuously conceived that the murder gang would respond to their "overtures by meeting them half-way and throwing over their wild men, thus saving face" for the Coalition and enabling a Conference to assemble on the comfortable basis of Dominion Government. How could "President " De Valera refuse what General Smuts, as an expert on rebellions and rebels, strongly advised him to accept? It was thinkable." The possibility of Dail Eireann scorning the "noble sacrifice" which the Marquis Curzon and other spurious Unionists had reconciled themselves to making at the expense of other people never crossed the Ministerial mentality. They forgot-Bourbons usually forget something that by hoisting the white flag to undefeated rebels they effectually confessed themselves beaten, and made "President" De Valera master of the situation. It was not for our white flaggers to impose terms, but to accept terms from the victors. Indeed, Ministers have been "getting it in the neck ever since, receiving so little consideration from Sinn Fein that Mr. Lloyd George is said to seriously contemplate appealing to the British electorate to pull him out of the ghastly Irish bog, to which the Coalition are devoting the Autumn Recess. It were a waste of time to analyse the stream of notes that have flowed backwards and forwards between "President " and Prime Minister-communication being complicated by Mr. Lloyd George's withdrawal to a remote spot in the Highlands, whither he periodically summons his Cabinet of Ciphers in the intervals of consorting with Coalition Dukes. The physical atmosphere is evidently as damp and depressing as the usual environment in which Ministers move and live and have their being-the appeals, arguments,

"De

exhortations and covert threats addressed to "the President" being couched in a very minor key and being received accordingly by that Potentate.

Ir would be vastly entertaining were there less at stake, and could we look upon the whole business as a pantomime put on to enliven the dead season. Consistent But unhappily this miserable Coalition is for the time being the British Government, and represents Great Britain in the eyes of the world, while the democratic doctrine that " every people have the Government they deserve makes it impossible for any of us to remain mere spectators of the farce or tragedy. We are all involved. The Coalition ignominy is our ignominy. When it crawls before criminals we do ditto. When it eats dirt we enjoy the same diet. The policy of the Coalition is Conference at any price. Mr. Lloyd George has a mania for Conference, at which his friends tell him he excels. Therefore he invited "President" De Valera to confer, but the "President" fancies himself in other directions, and his strength lies elsewhere, being, moreover, convinced that he had only to stand out in order to get whatever he wanted from a Government of Scuttlers. Loathe Sinn Fein and all its works as we do whole-heartedly, we must admit that it has consistently stood for one thing and one thing only, on which it has never shown the least disposition to compromise. "President" De Valera personifies that principle, which, without stultifying himself and committing suicide, if not inviting murder, he cannot abandon, nor is he tempted to do so in order to help Mr. Lloyd George out of an impossible hole, in which "the President" hopes to bury him. This principle is "Ireland a nation," i.e. an independent Sovereign State, no less independent, no less Sovereign, than Spain, Switzerland or Sweden. Therefore, when, with the approval of his Cipher Cabinet and amid the plaudits of the Downing Street and "dope" Press, the Prime Minister formally invited Dail Eireann to a conference at Inverness, he received the answer that should have been anticipated, and for which this at least must be said,

VOL. LXXVIII

12

viz. that "the President" declined to assist Mr. Lloyd George either in humbugging himself or in throwing dust in the eyes of the British people concerning the aims of the Rebellion.

IN these days we have to be thankful for the smallest mercies, and are grateful for a declaration so clear and

Small
Mercies

categorical that even a Cabinet Minister can understand it, while no Cabinet Minister can explain it away. Conference, yes, said "President" De Valera, but

"In this final Note we deem it our duty to reaffirm that our position is, and only can be, as we have defined it throughout this correspondence. Our nation has formally declared its independence, and recognizes itself as a Sovereign State. It is only as the representatives of that State, and as its chosen guardians, that we have any authority or powers to act on behalf of our people."-Mansion House, Dublin, September 12th.

Mr. Lloyd George, whose right hand must be losing its cunning, disclosed the fact, in his reply, that he had privately made a futile attempt to obscure the issue, and had actually "offered to regard the letter as undelivered to me in order that you (De Valera) might have time to reconsider it. Despite this intimation, you have now published the letter in its original form." As a punishment the Prime Minister hereby cancelled the Conference advertised for Inverness the following week. Mr. Lloyd George feebly added that he "must consult my colleagues on the course of action which the new situation necessitates "-as though ciphers counted -after which he valiantly declared "His Majesty's Government cannot reconsider the position which I have stated to you or accept conference on terms tantamount to "an official recognition by His Majesty's Government of the severance of Ireland from the Empire and of its existence as an independent Republic." He was pathetic over the failure of "the great concessions made by the Coalition to secure

"a single step " in response from "the President," who had "merely reiterated in phrases of emphatic challenge the letter and spirit of your original claim." In other words, Dail Eireann had steadily stuck to its guns-and its gunmen-an unpardonable offence in the eyes of all " tical politicians " and their newspapers, and one that no self-respecting Coalitioner could ever contemplate. There were more notes and even telegrams. In one communication Mr. Lloyd George went to the length of declaring:

prac

66 'My colleagues and I cannot meet your delegates as representatives of a Sovereign and independent State without disloyalty on our part to the Throne and Empire."

Such brave words alarm us, because we have observed that with the regularity of clockwork every valorous demonstration by our chicken-hearted Coalition has invariably preceded some ghastly header into the mud. Ministers are ominously rumoured to be seeking some "formula" which will solve all difficulties. We all know what that means. 66 As "the President" refused to save face" for the Prime Minister, the latter may try and 'save face" for the former. All our Defeatists demand that the Conference be held without any restriction and deplore the possibility of a rupture over a mere phrase." Will the Coalition once again come to heel or seek escape via a Dissolution? Our readers will know more about it than we do. Something has been gained. The murder gang stands for implacable independence. Dominion Government would therefore settle nothing. It would merely be a lever to secure the full claim. We are fortified in the opinion we expressed last month, that an Independent Irish Republic would be preferable to an Irish Dominion as being less dangerous, because less insidious, from the British point of view. Ulster could always be defended from the sea if Dublin and Cork were foreign towns. All Southern Loyalists who preferred to remain within the Empire would necessarily receive full reparation for disturbance.