But these things are of the past, and we would turn our thoughts to the present and the future.

The country, at the General Election of 1918, by a vote so overwhelming as to be practically unanimous, gave the guardianship of its national faith and honour into the keeping of Sinn Fein.  This is the dominant fact of the situation from the Irish standpoint.  Other considerations there are, but any which leave this out of account fail to grip the vital factor which must influence our march towards a just and durable Irish settlement.  Another fact that cannot be lost sight of is that there is a Home Rule Act on the Statute Book.  With this Southern Ireland will have nothing to do!  Unionists and Nationalists alike condemn it as a mockery of their national rights.  But the Orangeman of the Six Counties are first seriously going to work their regional autonomy—­they are going to set up their Parliament in Belfast.  And once set up it will be a new and vital complication of the situation preceding a settlement which will embrace the whole of Ireland.

So far as Ireland is concerned the public mind is occupied at the moment of my writing with the question of “reprisals.”  Various efforts have been made to bring about peace.  They have failed because, in my view, they have been reluctant to recognise and make allowance for certain essential facts.  The whole blame for the existing state of civil war—­for, repudiate it as the Government may, such it undoubtedly is—­is thrown on the shoulders of the Irish Republican Army by those who take their ethical standard from Sir Hamar Greenwood.  It is forgotten that for two or three years before the attacks on the Royal Irish Constabulary began there were no murders, no assassinations and no civil war in Ireland.  There was, however, a campaign of gross provocation by Dublin Castle for two reasons:  (1) by way of vengeance for their defeat on the Conscription issue; (2) as a retaliation on Sinn Fein, because it had succeeded in peacefully supplanting English rule by a system of Volunteer Police, Sinn Fein Courts, Sinn Fein Local Government, etc.  The only pretext on which this provocation was pursued was on account of a mythical “German plot,” which Lord Wimbourne never heard of, which Sir Bryan Mahon, Commander-in-Chief, told Lord French he flatly disbelieved in, and which, when, after more than two years, the documents are produced, proves to be a stale rehash of negotiations before the Easter Week Rising, with some sham “German Irish Society” in Berlin.  On this pretext the Sinn Fein leaders, Messrs de Valera and Griffith (whom there is not a shadow of proof to connect with the German plot), were arrested and deported, with many hundreds of the most responsible leaders.  Furthermore, an endless series of prosecutions were instituted and savage sentences imposed for the most paltry charges-such as drilling, wearing uniform, singing The Soldiers’ Song, having portraits of Rebel leaders, taking part in the Arbitration Courts