nullify the Parliament Act. This intention is openly admitted by Unionist leaders like Mr. F. E. Smith. In judging the situation it is right to remember that the Liberal Government has appealed to the country three times in the last eight years, two elections being forced by the House of Lords. That House had its powers curtailed by the Parliament Act, and the party long accustomed to power even in opposition has sought other means of effecting its will. Flectere si nequeo Superos, Acheronta movebo-if we cannot use the Upper House, we'll try a little treason that might be their motto. The attempts to incite the Crown to use the veto need only be mentioned. Their second method was the appeal to force, the success of which cannot yet be judged. For this purpose no rebellion was necessary. The first step was to encourage Ulster to form an armed force strong enough to overpower the police. The next was to insist that the army must not be used in Ulster. If this end could be secured, Ulster would be able to dictate terms, however ragged its battalions. The appeal to the army is two-fold. It is suggested that officers and men should refuse to march against Ulster. Undoubtedly officers have the right to resign their commissions, though their men have no corresponding privileges. It yet remains to be seen how widespread the disaffection in the army is. One can at least feel more respect for men who are disinclined to use force against their countrymen than for those who exploit that reluctance for party purposes. The second project-it is no more as yet-is to have the Army Annual Bill rejected, or so amended by the Lords as to exclude Ulster from its operation. The Government would thus have either to dissolve or yield to the force majeure of Ulster, for there would be no legal army or an army which could not be used where needed. This proposal is worth examining, for it illustrates the real irresponsibility of the Unionist party; and it is not a remote possibility, as other wild-cat schemes which the Die-Hards have foisted on their leaders amply prove. A difficulty which occupies the wiseacres of the party is how to draft an amendment which will (1) keep the army established, (2) forbid its employment against the troops of Sir Edward Carson, (3) allow of its being used against Nationalist rioters, say, in Belfast, (4) permit it to repress labour troubles anywhere at all. That men could even think of such a proposal is a strange proof of their indifference to the real situation in the

country. Labour leaders have been imprisoned for inciting soldiers not to obey orders during strikes. Unionist papers have tumbled over each other to express their approval of General Botha's use of force against Labour in South Africa. There is grave reason to fear that future British Governments may have most serious difficulties with organized Labour, yet the 'party of the constitution' has shown that the most frivolous partisanship determines its use of force. To judge by the utterances of Unionist papers during the last few months, coercion may be used in its extreme form

by Protestants, property-owners, an army or the Army acting in their interests,

upon Nationalists, Labour, and a Liberal Government; coercion in no form may be used

by Labour or by Liberals.

upon propertied interests or Unionists, however naked

ly the latter appeal to force.

This is the class war stated in a form which a great mass of fools will readily accept, for it gives vent to the irritation, the sense of uneasiness and impotence that the change in England's political complexion has aroused in many comfortable people. But they of all men have most to lose from such a doctrine. Nationalists will have an exact precedent for using force against the Government some day to be headed by Mr. Bonar Law, and an unanswerable claim to tamper with the obedience of Irish soldiers; more serious still, Syndicalism, which has hitherto not taken deep root in England, can contend against responsible Labour leaders that the Unionists have appealed to force, and Labour is entitled to use force also. When M. Clemenceau called out the reserves during the great strikes in the north of France in order to place the strikers under military discipline and so suppress a national danger, there was general approval in Unionist papers. But what moral claim have you, if you advocate the right of soldiers themselves to strike?

The issue raised by this appeal of Unionists to the army far transcends the Ulster crisis in importance. We need not laugh at the impotence of the Reichstag over Zabern if the inclinations of the Army are to control policy. It is impossible to discern from the cables what precisely is happening in Great

Britain, but it seems to the writer that a Constitutional party which appeals to force will find reason in the end bitterly to regret the example it set, while a Liberal Government which yields to the Army sacrifices its prestige and the Constitution as well.

Later. The debate on 'Gough's Treaty' sheds some light on transactions which will probably not be known in full till the next generation. It has openly been said by some men in all parties, that the King himself was responsible for certain paragraphs in the document given to the Curragh officers. Apart from Mr. Asquith's assertion that the King had nothing outside the duty of a constitutional monarch, it is evident that such an abuse of prerogative could not be attributed to him by any loyal subject. For on the supposition that the Crown intervened in person, the following results are already manifest:

It may be that

(1). The Cabinet was almost overthrown. this is no bad thing, but can even the most ardent advocate of the Crown's prerogative feel easy about the indirect use of royal power which shook the government, not by direct veto, but by modifying the considered conclusion of the Cabinet? On this incredible supposition, the government is in danger for acts not its own, acts contrary to its intent, acts of which it knew nothing, yet for which it is held constitutionally responsible.

(2). The government decisively repudiated the additions and laid down a doctrines contradicting them. Is it not inconceivable that the Crown laid itself open to such a snub?

(3). As a constitutional king's acts are those of his servants, some one must be scape-goat for him, if this wild supposition were true. Thus the War Office would be left responsible for a pledge the government never gave. The immediate result is that the country is threatened with the loss of some most distinguished soldiers, who signed the compact in perfect good faith, believing that the government had sanctioned it. As for the War Minister, on this hypothesis he was persuaded to assent to concessions which were inconsistent with his colleagues' decision.

(4). The officers at the Curragh, so far from being helped, are made to look foolish in public; the guards of honour, the

cheering, the hints of 'help in the highest quarters' have all meant nothing.

No loyal subject, we believe, would care to boast that the King acted so. Here is a working model of the use of that Royal prerogative for which so many politicians have clamcured. As it is, the bare supposition that the Crown had possibly taken the initiative aroused great passion in the House of Commons. But imagine a government forced to dissolve by royal prerogative, imagine an election fought on that issue and none other would count; can anyone believe that the result, whichever way it went, would not be a serious blow to the Crown ?

The crisis seems to have arisen through the unwisdom of a young minister who sought guarantees he had no right to ask, from officers at the Curragh. This precipitated an already strong feeling, and then, inexplicably, the minister who had demanded guarantees actually gave them. It is amazing that Colonel Seely did not see that any parleying with the Army, even to make sure, was bringing the Army into politics. The turmoil of the last week will not be wasted if it shows the folly of dragging even the name of the King or the Army into political manoeuvres. But unfortunately the passions roused on both sides now make an atmosphere far from favourable to Mr. Asquith's proposals for compromise.

A. S. FERGUSON.

CANADA.

Railway Politics.

For over sixty years, railways and railway questions have dominated Canadian politics. From the time early in the fifties that the provinces discovered their length of credit abroad, that politicians discovered how parliamentary influence could be converted into negotiable charters, and that contractors discovered the possibilities of construction company manipulation, publicly and secretly the railways have been very much in politics. In the fifties the Grand Trunk, in the sixties the Intercolonial, in the seventies the lesser Ontario roads and the Allan Pacific scheme, in the eighties the Canadian Pacific, in the nineties the Drummond County and Yukon

roads, and since then the Grand Trunk Pacific and Canadian Northern have provided electoral issues, made and unmade cabinets and reputations, in a fashion unparalleled elsewhere in the world.

This has been so, not merely because railways were essential for our material development. Still more it has been because they were essential for national unity. Railways have been our politics not only because we were materialists but because we were idealists. We were determined that in spite of geography and diplomacy, in spite of Rocky Mountains and Lake Superior wildernesses, Laurentian plateaus and Maine intrusions, this Canada should be made one and independent. Often this national spirit has been manipulated to serve the most sordid ends, in railway as in tariff matters; the flag has covered a multitude of sinners; throughout, the burden of taxes has been thrust on the shoulders least able to bear it. Yet whether it was the Grand Trunk or the Intercolonial, the Canadian Pacific or the Grand Trunk Pacific, the national purpose has been strong and must fairly be set on the assets side of the balance sheet when the reckoning comes.

The application of the Canadian Northern for further aid and the report of the National Transcontinental commissioners have once more thrust all other questions into the background. The newspaper and parliamentary vocabulary has shifted from Dreadnoughts and submarines, fleet units and torpedo-tubes, to box-cars and momentum grades, fixed charges and overbreak. It may be helpful in reviewing the question to consider the two newer transcontinentals together.

The Need of Railways.

Was either road, or were both roads, needed? There was no question of the need of new roads in the northern sections of the prairie provinces. With millions of new acres opened in the west, the need followed of increased outlet, first toward the Atlantic, later toward the Pacific. Between the fertile prairies and the settled east stretched a thousand miles of wilderness; economy urged utilizing the Canadian Pacific link through this Lake Superior territory. But the mineral and farming possibilities of Northern Ontario and Quebec and the