world impossible.

The ultimate issue of this unequal debate, between a gagged nation and one in free possession of innumerable voices, was reached when those who transcended mere discussion interposed with their policy of “shoot: don’t argue.” The conscription of Irishmen is the logical conclusion to the secular denial by England of the claims of Irish nationality, a denial which has ceased even to be expressed in specific words, so comfortably has it sunk into the English sub-consciousness. This is the negation which underlies all political discussion between English and Irish, and has not a little to say in that futile debate already described. Since the Irishman’s premises are not accepted, all his conclusions seem unreasonable to his opponent. Similarly the arguments of the latter; for they rest upon a denial, or, at best, an academic recognition of the fact that Ireland is a nation, with religious, social and cultural traditions as unlike those of England as the economic conditions of the two countries are dissimilar. No agreement is likely when discussion is vitiated by so vital a misunderstanding. Hence the logic of the Imperialists who shoot but don’t argue. They know that Ireland is not a colony, and thinking imperially, they are unwilling to concede rights which they grant to their colonial fellow-citizens.

This differentiation between colonials, who are Britishers, and Irishmen who are not, does not lead to its corollary that Ireland is a nation, for it is not the Anglo-Saxon habit to admit unpleasant truths, unpleasant here, because the admission would weaken the “moral” case for conscription, so dear to the British heart. The brutal Hun may dispense with moral sanctions, he may admit his wrong-doing, when military necessity involves the invasion of neutral territory. The German sheep—for we are assured of his docility—may masquerade in the wolf’s clothing of intellectual honesty, his adversaries must have some law (of “angary”), or preferably, some text of Scripture, enjoining them to act as they have decided. Their wisdom is justified by the universal execration of Prussianism which, under other names, smells quite sweet. Unfortunately, Ireland, like other small neutrals, has failed to be impressed by the ingenious variety of the Imperialist technique, whose results are monotonously the same. In the particular instance of the proposal to apply conscription to Ireland, it is hard to say which attitude in the Englishman is the more preposterous from the Irish point of view: that of the virtuosi of Imperialism, who insist upon their moral “right” to conscript, or that of the soothsayers of liberalism, who think it “inexpedient” to impose upon the Irish colony a claim which they dared not impose on Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada. Both are obnoxious in so far as they rest upon the “great refusal,” the negation of Irish nationality.

It happens, however, that a corresponding divergence of opinion has expressed itself in Ireland to meet the conditions of British politics. Constitutional Nationalists and not wholly degraded Unionists have met the argument of inexpediency by adopting it, obeying the law of their parliamentary being, which demands cohesion with political friends in England. This section protests, therefore, against the attempt to enforce a theoretical right which was not exercised in the case of the British colonies. If logic were any part of a politician’s equipment this position would be untenable, since only the Unionists profess to regard themselves as Colonials. The Nationalists assert that Ireland is a nation, but they act as if she were a colony, thereby adding to the incongruity of their revolt against participation in a war which they have supported and declared to be just. But happily only their illogical opponents insist upon the logical weakness of the position, as is the practice in politics, where the beam in the eye of one party never interferes with its perception of the mote in the eye of the other. Their respective constituents are quite satisfied.

Sinn Féin, on the other hand, rejects contemptuously the theory of inexpediency (while admitting the fact), and prefers to deal with the Britisher in excelsis, whose proposal is felt to be a declaration of war by one nation against another. The failure of England to regard the Republican army of 1916 as military prisoners of war is not felt to be a weak link in the logic of this reasoning—a very human exhibition of that political blindness to which reference has been made. The Sinn Féin contention is that Ireland is under no obligation to take part in the European conflict, and that even a measure of Colonial Home Rule should not involve a departure from this attitude of neutrality. It is argued, simultaneously, that the war is no concern of the Irish people, and that Ireland is one of the most important strategic factors of the Anglo-German struggle, owing to her geographical position. In short, the destiny of Ireland is to be largely determined by the outcome of the present hostilities, but the country itself is to remain outside and above the battle—a sort of ideal war aim, suspended in vacuo, and knowing none of the evils which normally befall small countries when they lie across the path of great empires. The ingenuous egoism of this viewpoint is, of course, obvious, and perhaps irritating, to the unsympathetic outsider, but it is neither better nor worse than the logic of the various Powers, great and small, whose national egoisms have been touched by the war. Every country affected is convinced that its particular existence and ambitions must be assured, if the true purpose of the war is to be achieved. All see in the satisfaction of their respective aspirations a guarantee of the millenium, and the triumph of Freedom, Justice and Humanity.

The absurdity of appeals to reason, addressed to nations unbalanced by fear and desire, has never been more apparent than to-day. With the tissue of patriotic idealism worn threadbare, exposing ugly national greeds, self-complacent incompetence, and shameless commercialism, it would seem incredible that even the mob mind should not revolt. Yet, it is just at this supreme moment of disillusion, when the showing up of all belligerents is complete, that voices are heard clamouring for more soldiers to fight for Liberty, and the more incurable professors of Democracy—that blessed word—actually suggest that the true significance of the war should be explained to an ignorant Ireland. Once our darkness was lightened by the lords of propaganda we would take our places, not in the rear as become late-comers, but in the forefront of the great crusade, which is to restore to France her frontier of 1814, to allocate the Balkan States to various masters, to partition Turkey, and rearrange the economic and geographical map, to the greater glory of the Allied God. To say the least, the moment is not quite propitious to the cultivation of the necessary faith in people living, politically, in partibus infidelium. It is no wonder that the Irish nation, without introspection of motive, has united in opposition to the application of a law which could never have established itself, if it had been born into a world as sceptical as that of to-day. Illusion or panic must urge the duty of compulsory military service.

The ruthless Sinn Féin policy of the English in Ireland called forth an equivalent Irish retort. Sinn Féin with its programme of national economics, has its roots in the history of the commercial relations between the two countries. From 1663, when the Cattle and Navigation Acts laid the first avowed restrictions on Irish industry and