Ireland.

Part of Orders of the Day — Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill. – in the House of Commons at on 3 August 1922.

Alert me about debates like this

Lieut.-Colonel WARD:

Never mind about that. I hold the same opinion to-day, and I think the thing ought to have been carried to its logical conclusion, but, as I was saying, when you begin to find that those who are interested in the policy that you are putting into execution, those whose interests you believe you are defending by that policy, begin to attack you and to make it impossible for you to succeed, then naturally you are obliged to bow to the inevit- able under circumstances like those. The Government were opposed. The most terrific opposition, the sort of opposition that you cannot get over, was that which came from those who had first of all suggested the policy to them. Let there be no error about that. You got into a condition when a compromise had to be made. I think that under the circumstances that prevailed, with the hostility of the Southern Unionists, led by Lord Midleton, to the continuance of that policy, the Government had no alternative but to do what they did. Now that the Treaty is made, and this House has sanctioned it and ratified it, and it has also been ratified by the other House, we may take it for granted that general Unionist opinion both in this House and the other House has, as it were, given sanction to the policy of the Government.

Now there is a party of extremists in Ireland who will not allow any reason to prevail, just the same as there is a party represented by my right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) in this House. In Ireland you have the extremist, the single-minded man, the man who takes up a stand and sticks there, no matter what comes up against him, who never forgets anything, and who never remembers anything, the man in whose political mind there seems to be one idea, that he had better hold to that stiffly, because there is not room for another. You get those men, both at this end and in Ireland. You have got a great contest how between those who have made terms with the Government and those who still go out for an absolutely independent Republican Ireland, and the Government say that, under the circumstances of this internal turmoil in Ireland, they must render all the assistance they can to the party with whom they have made a contract, which has been sanctioned by this House. Are they not entitled to do so? They cannot be responsible for the inability at the moment of the Free State Government to maintain law and authority, but they at least have this in their favour, that, so far as the replies to questions in this House are concerned, one can see that, within reason, they are doing all that they can to maintain the Government which, by the Treaty, was set up in Ireland. In this transition period there naturally must be a considerable amount of trouble, violence, and arson, and all things that naturally take place when law and authority are disputed by anybody in any country. That is inevitable under the circumstances. I think that the House and country would like to know whether the old Diehard party are of the opinion of the two hon. Gentlemen opposite, that what we ought to do is to scrap this Treaty, send an army and reconquer Ireland. I believe you would find not 10 per cent. of Britishers in favour of such a policy.