Members have returned to St. Stephen's refreshed by seven weeks' holiday,
and the Nationalists have been recruiting their energies, but unfortunately
nothing else, in Ireland. By way of signalising his restoration, after an
apology, Mr. Ginnell handed in thirty-nine questions--the fruits of his
enforced leisure. The woes of the interned Sinn Feiners who have been
condemned to sleep in a disused distillery at Frongoch have been duly
brought forward and the House invited to declare that "the system of
government at present maintained in Ireland is inconsistent with the
principles for which the Allies are fighting in Europe." The system of
administration in Ireland is, and always has been, inconsistent with any
settled principles whatsoever; but to propose such a motion now is
equivalent to affirming that Ireland is being treated by Great Britain as
Belgium and Poland and Serbia have been treated by Germany. Mr. Redmond
made no attempt to prove this absurd thesis, but when he demanded that
martial law should be withdrawn and the interned rebels let loose in a
Home-ruled Ireland--while the embers of the rebellion were still
dangerously smouldering--he asked too much even of that amicable and
trustful beast, the British Lion. Mr. Duke is not exactly a sparkling
orator, but he said one thing which needed saying, namely, that Irishmen
ought to work out a scheme of Home Rule for themselves, and lay it before
Parliament, instead of expecting Englishmen to do their work for them and
then complaining of the result. In the division-lobby the Nationalists
received the assistance of some forty or fifty British Members, who
supported the motion, Mr. Punch suspects, more out of hatred of the
Coalition than of love for Ireland. But they were easily out-voted by
British Home Rulers alone. The impression left by the debate was that the
Nationalist Members had a great deal more sympathy with the Sinn Feiners
than they had with the innocent victims of the rebellion.
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