different nature. He touched and wakened Britain's sleeping tribal instincts with the insight of genius. War gave him his opportunity, but had he not known that tribal instincts lie deeply buried in man's emotional nature and are intertwined with his most primitive feeling he could not have known how to touch the ancient strings. Intellectual appeals had failed to stir the primitive and basal tribal impulses of the people.

The Problem of Ireland

There was one part of the country, however, where Lloyd George's appeal did not succeed in evoking British patriotism; it left the greater part of the people of Ireland not only apathetic but even more actively hostile than before. Yet their country formed an intrinsic part of these islands; their economic interests had much more to gain by the success of Britain than of Germany. History throws light on only part of this thorny problem; the real difficulty thus encountered dates back to prehistoric days—to the origin of the inherent, inherited, and deeply-rooted tribal instincts of the Irish people. The Irish spirit leapt up, as it had often done before, into a naming tribal antagonism directed against everything British. What then is a British statesman to do? We too have our tribal instincts, and their first impulse on being awakened is—as it was in ancient days—to meet force with force, even to extermination. That is the ancient tribal practice; but in these days we have entered another era in the world's history when intelligent effort must master and direct our inherited instincts. Statesmen know that forcible means, when applied to extinguish a national flame, only serve to feed it. Statecraft has never discovered, and I think it never will discover, a method of forcing or grafting a new national or tribal spirit on an old people. We have seen that a nation can colonize only when the force which drives its members to migrate arises spontaneously within the communities; a colonization initiated and conducted by a government always fails to hold. Nationalization is a similar process; the forces which control and guide it must arise within the hearts of the people; it cannot be imposed on them from above. All that a statesman can do is to provide conditions in which a favourable spirit is most likely to develop and mature. He must sow judiciously for years and wait patiently for his harvest—even if it be for generations. Ireland's friendship is a prize which is worth working for and waiting for, even if it costs Britain a weary century of patient courtship.