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Show THE IRISH PROBLEM IF DAVID LLOYD-GEORGE can settle the Irish question more people will believe he can win the war against the Teutons and the .Turks. Of all British Brit-ish blundering, that with relation to Ireland since August, 1914, has been the worst. The government sacrificed Ireland to Sir Edward Carson. It surrendered surrender-ed to the Curragh revolt. The ministry postponed home rule indefinitely while it went to war with generals who had been guilty at the head of its armies. Then it expected the southern Irish to enlist in a war to secure justice for small nations, and when the Irish did not enlist, conscription was proposed. British professions as to Belgium and Serbia are a joke, when we consider how the Britons treat the Irish. When John Redmond pledged Irish, loyalty in the war, the response was the strangulation of home rule. Not only that, but the man who framed the Ulster covenant to rebel if home rule were adopted was invited into the ministry. No wonder the English keep many troops at home against the likelihood of another insurrection like that of Dublin. If the government gov-ernment does not deal fairly with Ireland, the colonies have no security. Ireland Ire-land makes for insecurity in Egypt and India, and its wrongs must weaken loyalty in Australia and Canada. Ireland will yet be the ruin of the British empire, if Ireland be not made a self-governing part thereof. Lloyd-George could do nothing that would more strengthen his country in the present war than to give Ireland its freedom. Then let Ulster, if it would, with Carson in the ministry's councils, go over to Germany. Lloyd-George and Carson, though ancient enemies, understand each other. They can and they may contrive a settlement of the home rule difficulty. dif-ficulty. They owe it to Redmond and his Irish who pledged their all in support sup-port of the war and were so miserably requited. They must do something, for we understand that conditions are hell in Ireland, that discontent and rebellion re-bellion seethe, that violence is imminent, and the executions of the Dublin rebels for doing what Carson was ready to do in 1914 has intensified hatred incalculably, but the censorship keeps the news from trickling into the outer world. Ireland is very nearly the first hard part of Lloyd-George's new job as premier. Ireland must be pacified before the Germans can bo surely defeated. Reedy's Mirror. |