and the general disappearance of the old South. An American to-day is an English Liberal ... only more so. He combines the anti-social commercialism of the industrial early nineteenth century with the empty, verbal radicalism of the Cocoa Press tear-squeezers. Needless to say he has shown, on the whole, a more ferocious intolerance of minorities and individuals than any other belligerent in the present war. His hatred is more bestial; his patriotic zeal more inquisitorial. The slowly mounting tide of perverted Puritan legislation has broken over America, swollen by the tributaries of war lust, until the country is a vast wilderness of freak prohibitions aimed at the destruction of freedom. In these circumstances it is not surprising to find American journals occasionally protesting against the excessive zeal of the Administration in suppressing opinions and harassing individuals, because of pro-Irish sympathies which have been granted expression even in England. The New York Nation, a respectable and orthodox journal, written by and for intellectually anæmic college professors, sighs in vain for such toleration in Irish affairs as that of the Manchester Guardian. A striking tribute to the decadent anglicization of the Benighted States!

At no time remarkable for the suppression of the national ego, America has now abandoned all pretence of respecting the egoism of other nations which have dared to display the instinct of self-preservation, in opposition to the ukases of absolutists of international virtue. Thus, we find the great minds of the Anglo-Saxon world with but a single thought, although forward-lookers in England still comfort their depressed followers with gallant attempts to extract hope from the rhetorical felicities of President Wilson, whose verbal harmonies are contrasted with the discordant defiance of ministerial utterances at home. Just as in America, progressive Radicals compare the autocracy of Washington with the democracy of London, and complain that Americans are deprived of the blessings of liberty and efficiency which the English enjoy. The great advantage of a numerous Alliance may be appreciated by all who observe the reciprocal illusions of the Allied peoples, of whom each believes that all is well with the others. An idea, or a reputation, exploded in London, will linger peacefully in more distant regions, until the circuit of disillusionment has been completed. By that time it may start afresh in some new guise, on the principle that you can pass as a statesman of genius with all the Allies some of the time, if not with some of them all the time, as certain idols of the market place would seem to indicate.

When the collapsible German “plot” was landed in Ireland, and a number of arrests was made in the better-organized ranks of the anti-conscriptionists, it was doubtless the intention to prove Irish Nationalism synonymous with pro-Germanism, but the result has been to make it so, rather than to prove that it was so. This unexpected achievement has been pointed out—the Censor permitting—in various journals, and there has been a consequent recrudescence of activity to persuade Ireland that she is isolating herself from the world by turning towards Germany. With a tranquility in accepting the possibility as strange as the disinclination to remove its motives, Englishmen have set themselves to argue against the desirability of an Irish-German alliance. That being a highly conjectural and theoretical matter, it at once appeals to the Liberal British mind as a more suitable theme for discussion than the actual question at issue between England and Ireland. The Celt, whose preference for the dream over the reality is proverbial in non-Celtic circles, has been superseded by the theorists of freedom, who would much sooner argue academic points than face real political problems. They enjoy the task of setting forth the dire consequences of a Central European combination, with Ireland annexed, and contrasting this with the federation of free peoples, in which everyone is happy.

Unfortunately, the future does not present itself to the Irish mind in any such simplified terms, and some Irishmen, too, offer the will for the deed of participation, but their reception is the most unfavourable. They are accused of supporting a war in which they refuse to fight. There is to be no reciprocity in this exchange. The pro-Ally Irishman is to give his life at once, but no instalment is forthcoming of the common ideal he has been invited to achieve. The democratic millenium to which the Milners, Curzons, and Carsons are leading, under the special patronage of Lord Northcliffe, is apparently so certain, that only the rudeness of parochial and provincial minds could prompt a demand for the commonplace realizations of here and now. So it comes, as the war progresses, that the number of Ireland’s grievances is increased simultaneously with the demands upon her honour, her credulity and her patience. Consequently, as is the way of human nature, her egoism is exasperated, and becomes more firmly concentrated upon her own welfare. Precisely at that moment of exasperation an appeal is made for the voluntary surrender of that which was witheld even under threat of force. Since it is only the tactless Hun who is lacking in psychological subtlety, this strange phenomenon must be otherwise explicable.

The truth is that our sacred egoism, strong and exacerbated as it is, has not yet touched the sublime heights of British selfishness and self-complacency. England refuses absolutely to be convinced, by the painful and reiterated facts of our history, that this country is not merely a turbulent province! Therefore, it ought to be possible to break our resistance, or to cajole us, as was done in England when the various Military Service Acts were passed. The men of the country were split up into antagonistic groups; the married against the single, the middle-aged against the young, trade against trade. Each wanted to escape at the cost of the other. In Ireland, of course, no such division can be created, for the simple reason that we have never refused to fight for our own country. Our detestation of pacifists equals even that of the English gutter-press, and our incredible indifference to personal, as distinct from national, convictions makes Ireland a paradise for militarists. But they must be militarists of our own creation. Sinn Féin fosters the development of native industries, and supports home products, often with an embarrassing disregard for the consequences. The Irish anti-militarist is, therefore, rarely a pacifist, and his objections are of a very different order from those which are surmounted or crushed by the advocates of military service in Great Britain. But it does not seem as if this elementary fact will be recognized, for to recognize it would be for England to admit that Ireland is a nation. To the denial and obscuration of that enduring truth centuries of English policy have gone, and in Ireland everything has been sacrificed to its assertion and reiteration. It lies at the back of the whole Anglo-Irish controversy, and sums up the essence of innumerable volumes which have attempted to state the case for Irish freedom. Until the fact of Irish Nationality is accepted by England, and acted upon, it will be the task of Sinn Féin to proclaim the sacred egoism of a nation that will not die.