the Legislative Union provides the best system of government for Ireland, cannot fairly be said to have agreed to the principle of Home Rule.

The Sinn Feiners were asked to take part in the Convention, but declined. It cannot be said that the position they adopted was illogical. Mr Asquith stated emphatically in his speech in Dublin that Ireland is a nation-not two nations, but one. A public man, making a carefully-prepared speech on an important occasion, must be taken to have used words in the sense which his audience would understand them; and this was practically

an

admission that Ireland occupies the same position as that which the Southern States of America claimed to occupy in 1861. If Ireland is really a nation, it is not unfair to demand that a plebiscitum should be held asking the people what form of government they desire, and that their decision should be aeted on - whether they desire Monarchy or a Republic, and whether they wish to be united to another nation or not. This is what the Sinn Feiners demanded; and they refused to take part in the Convention on any other terms.

It is an arguable point whether Sinn Fein should be regarded as a separate party or merely a section of the Nationalists, now temporarily separated, as the Parnellites and anti-Parnellites once were. But for the present purpose the point is immaterial. Tak ing one view, the largest

political party in Ireland were not at the Convention at all; taking the ether, the Nationalists who were there only represented a section of the party, and there is no reason to believe that the larger section would have agreed to the recommendations contained in the Report.

The Labour party does not hold the same independent position in Ireland that it does in Australia or elsewhere. The great strike of some years ago showed that a large part of it in Dublin is as much under clerical influence as any other section of the Nationalists; the Citizen Army has practically united with the Republican Army; and some of the Labour party at Belfast are quite as ardent Unionists as Sir E. Carson himself.

So, then, Sir H. Plunkett's /much - vaunted measure of agreement only amounts to an agreement between two or three sections of the Nationalist party after all.

But if the recommendations of the Convention are thus deprived of much of their moral weight, they are very valuable as showing what the smallest measure of Home Rule is that will satisfy what is called the moderate section of the Nationalist party. As Mr Devlin said, when speaking at Belfast on October 13, 1918: "The demand we make is clear and unequivocal. It is for an Irish Parliament for the whole of Ireland, with full control over all purely Irish affairs, and with full fiscal, legislative, and executive power. The Home

Rule Act of 1914 makes provision for extended fiscal authority for Ireland under certain conditions which have since arisen, and the time has therefore come for Ireland to demand full control of the imposition, collection, and disposal of Irish taxation. With less than this she will not be satisfied."

The Report was presented in a peculiar form. It was prepared in such a hurry that there was not time to draw up a document of the usual type, containing an introduction, a statement of facts and arguments, and winding up with a series of formal Resolutions. In order to understand what conclusions the Convention really did come to it is necessary, therefore, not merely to read the Report itself and the disingenuous letter whieh Sir Horace Plunkett forwarded with it, but to study the whole volume, including the Reports of Committees and Sub-Committees which were subsequently ratified by the majority of the Convention, An instance showing how easily a careless reader may be misled is supplied by Lord Brassey's letter to 'The Times.' He says that the Report shows that the Convention decided that the supreme power and authority of the Parliament of the United Kingdom shall remain unaffected and undiminished over all persons and things in Ireland, and therefore argues that conscription is a matter belonging to that Parliament and not the Dublin one. Had he studied the volume carefully

he would have found that the Dublin Parliament is to be nominally subordinate but really supreme, as the incident about conscription shows; for the Convention had accepted the view that it was a direct consequence of the creation of an Irish Parliament that any measure of this character must be submitted to the Irish Parliament before it could be enforced in Ireland.

That Ireland should not pay anything towards the existing National Debt was taken for granted by the Convention. It was also specially stated in the Note added by the majority of the Nationalists.

The Convention expressed a pious opinion that in future Ireland should pay a contribution towards Imperial services. But no sum was fixed; it was to be left to the Irish Parliament to say what they would like to pay. A minority of the Nationalists suggested as a concession to Ulster that a sum should be fixed, but the suggestion was not adopted. It may be mentioned that the only sums proposed were very small. And the term "Imperial expenditure" is to include money given for financing the Irish Congested District Board, and the expense of the Irish local Territorial Force. Hence it may be safely said that not one penny will ever leave Ireland for Imperial services; the total cost of the Army (including those regiments which are still to bear Irish names), the Navy, and the Consular services must be borne by Great Britain.

letter.

But even if the people of Great Britain are quite prepared to bear the whole burden of the National Debt (including the cost of the war) and of the future maintenance of the Army and Navy, the question still remains, Do they realise what enforcing the recommendations of the Convention will entail?

Some of the Nationalist members have dwelt on the fact that the terms of reference given to the Convention contained the single limitation that the Constitution must be within the Empire, and have accordingly assumed that it is to be like those of the selfgoverning Dominions. That is the basis on which the Report is founded. It is obvious that in that case Ireland, even if it remains part of the Empire, will cease to be a part of the United Kingdom. Sir H. Plunkett has recently said in his letters to the papers of last July, that Mr Lloyd George in his letter of the 25th February accepted generally the agreement already reached by the majority of the Convention. But as Mr Lloyd George in that letter said that the Irish Legislature must preserve the wellbeing of the Empire and the fundamental unity of the United Kingdom, it can hardly be supposed that he realised what the Agreement reached by the Convention involved. As a matter of fact, he did not receive the Report until months

In the first place, there is the Ulster difficulty. That Ulster will not voluntarily come under the Nationalist Government is certain. Sir H. Plunkett, in his letters already quoted, assumes that if Home Rule is brought into force during the war, Ulster will submit tamely, rather than act in a manner disloyal to the Empire and the troops at the Front. The fact that Ulster went on sending recruits, although Mr Asquith broke his pledge in August 1914, would at first sight appear to be an argument in favour of this. But the two cases are not parallel. The Ulstermen fully realise that the overwhelming majority of the Dublin Parliament will be Republican, and that the step towards complete independence will be short and swift. What loyalty do they owe Empire from which they have been cast out? If they cannot remain a part of the Empire, they would rather form a Republic of their own, which would be ruled more in accordance with modern ideas than the Dublin Republic ever will be. It may be mentioned in passing that the guarantees

offered by the Convention are illusory. If (as is no doubt will be the case) there is a solid Republican majority in the Dublin Parliament, what does it matter whether that majority is twenty or forty? Probably, one of the first things the Parliament will do will be to pass an Aot forbidding any one to teach except in the Irish language. In that way it oan shut up the Belfast University and all the schools in Ulster.

But Ulster may be coerced. It is true that doing so would involve breaking breaking a solemn pledge; but the Government have already done that twice, so there is no improbability of their doing it again. The Nationalists are anxious that they should; Mr Stephen Gwynn has used his position in conneotion with the present reoruiting movement 88 an opportunity for going about the country saying in his speeches that if Ulster will not come in voluntarily Ulster must be coerced. A Nationalist writer in the Contemporary Review' has argued that as Ulster consented in 1916 to give up two counties, its claims as to the remaining six should be disregarded. In one sense it would be easy enough, as so many of Ulster's stalwart sons have fallen, fighting for the Empire. The only difficulty will be, Who will do it? The attempt to force the British Army and Navy to do so in 1914 did not lead to very

happy results; and the soldiers and sailors are not likely to be more willing now, since they have been insulted and stoned in the streets by the Nationalists throughout the war. To be sure, there is the Republican Army, which is said to number 200,000; but their quality has not been tested; and it would seem rather ridiculous for the Government to release release the leaders from prison to enable them to make war on Ulster.

But supposing that difficulty to be got over, will the people of England regard with satisfaction the prospect of a Parliament meeting in Dublin, the large majority of which will undoubtedly be Republican, and which will probably commence its labours by passing a Resolution in favour of separation?

The

It seems to be the dream of some people in England that if the Ulstermen are forced under the Dublin Parliament, they will form a pro-English party in it which will be a check to Republicanism. There is not a chance of anything of the kind taking place. best of the Ulstermen will emigrate; most of those who have to remain will hold aloof from politics; the few who may possibly take part will probably join with an extreme section in the hope of making the Irish Republic free from clerical influence; but all will realise that separation is inevitable.

VOL. CCIV.-NO. MCCXXXVIII,

3 G

ON a day towards the end of April the colonel and I, riding well ahead of the brigade, passed through deserted Amiens and stopped when we came upon some fifty horses, nose-bags on, halted under the trees along a boulevard in the eastern outskirts of the city. Officers in groups stood beneath, or leaned against, the high wall of a large civil hospital that flanked the roadway.

Reinforced in guns and personnel, and rested after the excitements and hazards of the March thrust-back, our two brigades of Divisional Field Artillery, and the D.A.C., were bound again for the front. These waiting officers formed the advance billeting parties.

"We've been obeying Sir Douglas Haig's Order of the Day-getting our backs to backs to the wall-growled the adjutant to me, after he had sprung up and saluted the colonel. "The staff captain met us two hours ago at -; but they were shelling the place, and he said it wouldn't be safe for waggon lines; so we came on here. He's inside the building now seeing if he can put the whole Divisional Artillery there. . . .

"I'll bet we shan't be ready for the batteries when they come in," he went on gloom

I.

ily-and then added, like the good soldier that he is, "My groom will show you where the horses can water."

A long-range shell, passing high overhead and exploding among the houses a long way behind us, showed that Amiens was no health resort. But horse lines were allotted, and in due course the long corridors of the evacuated building resounded with the clatterolatter of gunners and drivers marched in to deposit their kits. kits. "You've got a big piece of chalk this morning, haven't you?" grumbled the adjutant to the adjutant of our companion brigade, complaining that they were portioning off more rooms than they were entitled to. Still he W88 pleased to find that the room he and I shared contained a wardrobe, and that inside the door was pinned a grotesque, jolly-looking placard of Harry Tate-moustache and all-in "Box o' Tricks." The discovery that a currant cake, about as large as London, sent a few days before from England, had disappeared from our Headquarters' mess - cart during the day's march, led to a tirade on the shortcomings of New Army servants. But he became sympathetic when I explained that the caretakers, two sad-eyed