invasion, or of harmful miscegenation, is by no means insoluble. It would be satisfactorily solved within half a dozen years, were it the good fortune of these regions to be controlled by a body of British administrators possessed of Indian or African experience, instead of by politicians dependent on the votes of ignorant and prejudiced city masses. Areas of low-lying fertile lands could be defined and proclaimed open for tropical cultivation. Planters of these lands would be allowed to import coloured labour from certain specified countries, preferably from India and Java, under engagement to work for fixed periods on reasonable terms. Government inspection and supervision would check abuses and forbid the growth of servile conditions. Coloured aliens would not be allowed to live outside the areas assigned to them, or to engage in any other occupation there, except agriculture, without special permission. There would seem to be no reasonable objection to allowing a certain number of Indians of good character to bring their wives and families to Australia and settle in certain tracts reserved for their use after they had worked for some years for white employers. The prospect of a small grant of land after, say, five years' service would be a strong incentive to industry and good behaviour; and the establishment of a few colonies of industrious and inoffensive Asiatics, British subjects by birth, on its northern coasts could hardly menace the safety of Australia. Rather, by expediting the real and effective occupation of a portion of the continent which, for want of population, is now exposed to foreign invasion, the security of the Commonwealth would be enhanced by the adoption of some such system. The wealth produced in the planting districts would yield revenues which would enable the Government to maintain the land, sea, and air forces necessary for the protection of the whole tropical littoral. It would be better for Australia voluntarily to admit coloured aliens now as friends and servants than to be compelled hereafter to admit them as enemies and masters.

In the course of the foregoing observations the problem of the Northern Territory and tropical Australia in general has been treated exclusively as an Australian problem. But it really and vitally concerns the whole

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DE Empire. It is an Imperial problem of the first magnitude; and Great Britain, the Dominions of Canada, South Africa and New Zealand, and India, are all interested in its successful solution. They have, therefore, an incontestable right to be consulted; and the whole question of tropical settlement and coloured immigration might well be discussed at the next Imperial Conference. Inasmuch as there is grave reason to fear that the blight of Commonwealth racial legislation may at an early date be extended to the former German territories lately assigned, under mandate, to Australia, the matter is one of special urgency. A common reand sponsibility connotes a common policy. It were preposterous that the autonomous powers possessed by a single Dominion should include the right to take provocative action of a kind that might involve the whole Empire in most perilous controversies. Great Britain as the predominant partner in the Empire has a special right to be consulted, seeing that she maintains the Navy which alone ensures the inviolability of Australia.

The Australian Monroe Doctrine interpreted, as now, in an extreme sense, is the expression rather of a dangerous political superstition than of a wise and practicable policy. It is a perpetual challenge to the multitudinous coloured races of Asia, and conflicts, not merely with their legitimate aspirations and material interests, but, what is far worse, with their self-respect. Affronts to national pride are always resented more deeply by sensitive peoples than material injuries; and a doctrine which lays down that the yellow or brown man is not, in any circumstances, fit to associate with the white man may be democratic but is scarcely wise. Nor is it easy to justify on moral grounds the assertion, on the part of 5,500,000 people of European origin, of an exclusive right of occupancy of a continent some 3,000,000 square miles in extent, while hundreds of millions of Asiatics in over-crowded countries close by suffer the miseries of chronic famine. Selfishness is no more excusable in nations than in individuals. And when claims, as immoral as they are arrogant, are based on impotence, they are apt to provoke, not merely indignation, but the far more dangerous feeling of contempt.

F. A. W. GISBORNE.

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Art. 13.-IRELAND.

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WHEN the Articles of Agreement' between Great Britain and Ireland were signed in London on Dec. 6 of last year, it was hoped that they would be welcomed by the Irish people as a generous settlement of an ancient quarrel. They went much further in the way of concession to national aspirations than had ever been contemplated by the Irish leaders of the past; and it was recognised at once by our Colonies and by the United States that an Irish grievance no longer existed. happily, the extremist Republican section of Ireland was sufficiently powerful to retard an acceptance of the Treaty,' and to create and stimulate distrust of Mr de Valera's 'plenipotentiaries' who had signed it. The debates in Dail Eireann' during the month of December were a melancholy exhibition of the political inexperience of its members; and many observers thought that they provided a demonstration of the incapacity of the Irish people for self-government, so violent was the language used, so inconsequent the argument, and so irregular the procedure. Such a judgment may be too severe, and, in any case, the decision of Parliament to concede a large measure of independence to Ireland is not likely to be reversed. But it remains true that the attitude of Dail Eireann during the past six months has been a main cause of the present confusion and disorder. Attempts were made to show that Mr Griffith and Mr Collins had gone beyond their instructions in accepting the Treaty'; and one of the men who had signed it, Mr R. Barton, while honouring his signature so far as to vote for its acceptance in the Dail, did not scruple to suggest that it was signed in London under duress and that it would be wise to reject it. In the end, after much wearisome recrimination, Dail Eireann accepted the Treaty, on Jan. 7, by 64 votes to 57; and the elected members of the Southern Irish Parliament, as legally constituted, ratified the acceptance a week later.

The Southern Parliament was speedily adjourned, and the government of the country was assumed by 'provisional' ministers who had been appointed, not by any legally authorised body but by Dail Eireann, an

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illegal organisation of which each member was obliged to declare his allegiance to the ideals of an Irish Republic. These ministers were, however, recognised by the British Gres Government, it being taken for granted that all of them i had taken the oath, involving faithfulness to the King, which was prescribed by the Treaty. They began at once to exercise authority in various directions, and after a short delay their authority was confirmed by the British Parliament. The various public departments -the Post Office, Education, the Local Government Board, the police-were formally handed over to them; British troops were gradually withdrawn from Southern Ireland; famous Irish regiments, the Dublin Fusiliers, the Munster Fusiliers, the Connaught Rangers, and others were disbanded; and for the last three months the authority of Mr Michael Collins and his colleagues has been as complete as British goodwill and British legislation could make it. It was naturally expected, both in England and Ireland, that a draft Constitution would be speedily prepared and placed before the country, and also-now that British intervention was a memory of the past, and that obedience to law was no longer to be identified with loyalty to 'foreign' rule -that the Provisional Government would regard it as their first duty to suppress disorder and to punish crime. These expectations were sadly disappointed; and, whatever reasons may be assigned for it, the fact is that life and property have been less secure in Ireland during the period that has elapsed since the Provisional Government assumed responsibility, than they have been in living memory.

It is right to remember the difficult position in which the Irish Government found itself in the spring. No Government can preserve public order without the support of armed forces who can be counted on to act, when necessary, in accordance with the directions of the executive. But the Irish Provisional Government have never enjoyed the full confidence of the 'Irish Republican Army.' As their self-assumed title imports, the members of this army were enlisted to force Great Britain to recognise Ireland as a Republic. For years they engaged in guerilla warfare against British troops with this end in view. However unscrupulous their

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methods, and however barbarous their actions, there is no doubt that they were sincere in their desire to 'win Irish freedom,' as they were accustomed to say. Most of them were youths under twenty-five years of age, and many of them under twenty. They had never done any useful work; and for some years they had been accustomed to no rule except the rule of the revolver. Some of them had been hanged for assassination; their memory was venerated as if they had been martyrs in a holy If Ireland were to accept the Treaty,' and to settle down as an orderly and peaceful state within the British Empire, their occupation would be gone, and their ideals-however fatuous and mistaken-would become incapable of realisation. Furthermore, they were encouraged to a policy of intransigeance by Mr de Valera and his supporters. Dail Eireann had, indeed, by a small majority, accepted the Treaty'; but many of them were not disposed to obey its dictates, if they seemed to conflict with Republican ideals. And so the army' was divided, in policy at least. The larger part was willing to follow the advice of Mr Griffith; but a substantial minority preferred to follow Mr de Valera. Thus the Government were not in a position, in every country district, to command the aid of their own armed forces; and they acquiesced in this absurd situation, lest by appealing to the 'loyal' troops to subdue the mutineers, they should set brother against brother and provoke bloodshed. Such, at least, was their excuse, and it may be added that it was not by any means certain that an order to the troops to suppress military indiscipline would have been obeyed. The members of the Irish Republican Army were agreed among themselves that they would not fight with each other, and it is likely that Mr Michael Collins, who had been so prominent in the guerilla warfare of 1920-21, sympathised with this attitude of his former companions.

At any rate, wherever the fault and whatever the reason, the sanctions of law and the penalties of crime disappeared from a large part of Ireland during last winter. The mutinous soldiery, who were not in every case paid by the Government, seized public buildings which might serve as barracks, robbed banks in order to get money for their needs, looted shops to procure food, and did all