Ulster and the Situation Confronting England
By Editor
PRECIPITATED by the home rule incident at Ulster, a very grave issue is confronting the government of England. When leading army officers took sides and threw down the challenge that they would not serve unless the government coincided with their ideas, they made the first advance toward a military despotism; and whenever conditions in a government assume the place where military dictators step in to direct the affairs of state, a very acute stage of danger has been reached. Leading papers in England recognize the gravity of the situation. The London Daily Chronicle asks, "Are the army officers to dictate to Parliament what bills shall pass?" The London Daily News raises the question as to "whether we are to be governed by Parliament or by the army," while the Manchester Guardian says, "Not only is there one law for the rich man in the army and one for the poor, but there is one standard for the Tory officers' loyalty and another for the private soldier with sympathies for the laboring man." England is without question one of the strongest and best governments in the world, but she has been maintaining a desperate struggle with her vast army of discontented and poverty-stricken men and women; and while this home rule affair has interjected some new elements, yet the very clamorings of the discontented are undermining the solid structure of government and preparing the way for the reign of anarchy and lawlessness. If England were the only country in the world where these conditions prevailed, the situation would not be alarming. But the individual is blind to ordinary fact who does not see that every nation on this earth is struggling with the same difficulties that confront England. To-day the situation may be acute in England, and we think it is worse there than anywhere else. But to-morrow the scene may shift to France, to Germany, to Russia, to Japan, to the United States, or to any other nation in the world, and everywhere is revealed the fact that a revolution is smoldering. These conditions are becoming so common that there is great danger of our developing an indifference that ends in ruin and destruction.