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to consider such problems as the types of craft best suited for work with the Cavalry, with Headquarters of the Army, and with Flanking Divisions; the type best adapted to the requirements of a battle squadron, of a low-flying armoured destroyer, of a scout flotilla, and possibly of transport convoy and repair craft. The forerunners of these fighting aircraft are already with us; weight-lifting aeroplanes and giant airships are flying to-day. Large as these machines may now appear, they will certainly be dwarfed by the aircraft of the future, for many desirable features are enhanced with increase of size.

The evolution of the most suitable types of aircraft is the phase in the struggle for air supremacy upon which we are now entering. In the matter of design and construction of aeroplanes, in personnel and in organisation, Great Britain undoubtedly leads. That lead can only be maintained by sustained and strenuous effort. There can be no question that, both from the military and the commercial point of view, aerial supremacy is within our reach. Will she but make the effort, England may be mistress of the air as she is of the seas. The provision of numbers must be faced. Vast issues are at stake; and it is surely unthinkable that the opportunity will be lost. In the sphere of aeronautics it is more difficult than in others to regain ground. The time is at hand when even feverish effort will not avail, but to-day we may take the lead with comparative ease, and once gained it should not be difficult to retain. The expenditure entailed would be very slight in comparison to the sums spent on those other types of national insurance, the Army and Navy. The entire vote for the Air Service for the current year would not purchase a single Dreadnought, yet there can be no doubt that the expenditure represents a better insurance return. From the point of view of national safety, a paramount air service is the most economical form of national insurance.

F. H. SYKES.

Art. 14.-THE HOME RULE CRISIS.

1. Correspondence relating to recent events in the Irish Command. (Cd 7318.)

2. Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, 1914.

3. Reports of Speeches by Ministers and Opposition Leaders, Jan.-April, 1914.

THE possibility of finding a way out of the Home Rule crisis by a national settlement was discussed in the January number of this Review. The conclusion then arrived at was that such a settlement could only be attained if the leaders of both parties could muster the courage to make an entirely fresh start, to summon a national convention selected on non-party lines, and to submit to that convention for discussion and decision not only the question of the creation of some system of provincial government in the United Kingdom, but also that of the reconstitution and reorganisation of our whole legislative machinery. It was felt that no attempt at a settlement could be really successful which ignored the intimate interaction of the Parliament Act upon the Home Rule situation. Even more strongly expressed was the conviction that the attempt to find a settlement in a compromise on some portion of the Home Rule Bill, and in particular with regard to the position of Ulster, was predestined to failure from the outset, and, even if temporarily successful, could afford no cure for the evils of the body politic and no guarantee against the speedy recurrence of the crisis. The discussion of the exclusion of Ulster, in any shape or form, was earnestly deprecated, not only as unsatisfactory in itself, but as furnishing the worst hope of peace, if the party leaders were really anxious for peace, and not merely manoeuvring for position and looking for opportunities to advertise their own extreme moderation and the unreasonableness and obstinacy of their opponents.

The course of events in the last three months has fully justified the apprehensions then expressed. The method of settlement on national lines and over the whole field of controversy seems to have been ruled out from the first by the Government, as inconsistent with its avowed resolve to place the present Home Rule Bill on the Statute Book under the Parliament Act. The

exclusion of Ulster has been the one subject of negotiation. And the only result, so far, of three months of private and public bargaining and disputation, is a complete deadlock over a proposal which is wholly unacceptable to Ulster and thoroughly distasteful to the Irish Nationalists, and which, if accepted, would mean years of administrative chaos in Ireland and of political chaos in the United Kingdom. And while the outstanding difference between the two parties over this proposal would seem, at the first glance, to be reduced to a very narrow margin, there has been not the slightest real approximation in the point of view, and the gulf remains as deep as ever.

Meanwhile the development of the crisis towards its culmination has been full of significant features and of dramatic interludes. The actual course of the 'conversations' which took place between the Prime Minister and Mr Bonar Law and Sir E. Carson during December and January last remains a secret. But the fact that they had not succeeded in coming to any agreement was a matter of general knowledge long before it was officially proclaimed in the King's Speech on February 10. That document referred to the crisis in terms of unprecedented seriousness and anxiety :

'In a matter in which the hopes and the fears of so many of My subjects are keenly concerned, and which, unless handled now with foresight, judgment, and in the spirit of mutual concession, threatens grave future difficulties, it is My most earnest wish that the good will and co-operation of men of all parties and creeds may heal dissension and lay the foundation of a lasting settlement.'

Language such as this might well have preluded a generous offer to deal with the whole problem on national and non-party lines. But, judging from the subsequent conduct of the Government, it is difficult to see with what object it was introduced into the King's Speech, except that of creating a conciliatory atmosphere in which it might be easier for the Government to gain time while in effect pushing ahead with its programme. Mr Asquith, in the debate on the Address, after allusions which indicated, with studied vagueness, that the exclusion of Ulster in some form or other might be in

contemplation, announced that the Government would take the responsibility of making positive suggestions at some early date after the necessary financial business of the year had been disposed of.

This piece of purely dilatory tactics was received with resentment and dismay not only by the official Opposition but in wide circles outside. Among detached students, as well as among active party men, the conviction spread that Mr Asquith's main object was not to secure agreement, but to keep down the political temperature in England so that any outbreak of resistance in Ulster against the impending menace of Home Rule should find England unprepared and unsympathetic, and that the task of coercing Ulster should, to that extent, be facilitated. The obvious corollary to that conclusion was the need for rousing public opinion in Great Britain to the essentially unconstitutional character of the whole Government policy and to the outrageous denial of political justice involved in the treatment of Ulster, and for making it clear to the Government that the policy of coercing Ulster would encounter the most formidable resistance, moral and if necessary even material, in Great Britain as well as in Ulster itself. It was not long before this view crystallised itself into definite action.

On March 3 a remarkable letter was published in the press appealing to the people of Great Britain to give the lie to the assertion of general apathy on the issue of Home Rule by joining in the following declaration.

'Being earnestly convinced that the claim of the Government to carry the Home Rule Bill into law, without submitting it to the judgment of the nation, is contrary to the spirit of our Constitution, we do hereby solemnly declare that, if that Bill is so passed, we shall hold ourselves justified in taking or sup porting any action that may be effective to prevent it being put into operation, and more particularly to prevent the armed forces of the Crown being used to deprive the people of Ulster of their rights as citizens of the United Kingdom.'

The object of this declaration, as the letter explained, was not to pledge the signatories to any particular action of which, at a given moment, their conscience and judg ment did not approve, but to strengthen in their own minds their 'fixed intention and resolve to do whatever

they individually can to prevent the disruption of the United Kingdom by unconstitutional methods, and the injustice and oppression which it would entail,' and to warn the Government of the consequences which must result not only in Ireland, but in Great Britain from persistence in their policy. To this letter was appended a list of twenty signatures, which included some of the most prominent leaders of thought and action in every department of our national life outside the sphere of ordinary party politics. Two names among them stood out as recalling the memory of the last great crisis in the fate of the British Empire, the name of Lord Roberts who saved South Africa on the field, and of Lord Milner who faced without flinching the issue of British or Dutch supremacy, and who, after the war, laid the foundations of a new South Africa on the ruins of the old.

The demonstration of April 4 showed that the Covenant movement has focussed public attention on the crisis, and has infused a sterner temper and a more national complexion into the Unionist opposition to the Home Rule Bill.

Meanwhile the obvious irritation, both inside and outside the House of Commons, at the policy of masterly silence, was not without its influence on Mr Asquith, and led to his acceptance of an offer from the Opposition to facilitate the passage of the necessary financial business if he would produce his proposals at an earlier date. On March 9 he produced, with his customary impressiveness, the following scheme: that there should be a referendum held in Ulster by counties and county boroughs on the question of exclusion from the Home Rule Bill, and that those areas which voted for exclusion should be provisionally excluded for a term of six years, after which they would be automatically included. As a means to a settlement the proposal was derisory; as a manœuvre for position it was by no means unskilful. The county basis for the proposed referendum is plausible enough for English platform purposes. It requires some knowledge of the distribution of the electorate in Ulster to realise that a referendum so arranged would exclude from the Ulster community not only the scattered outlying Unionist minorities in Donegal, Cavan, and

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