i6 
LAND & WATER 
July 20, 191 6 
except in a tongue wliirh no Irishman would dream of 
using in any part of the country if he had anything of 
the least importance to say to his fellow-countrymen. 
These fooleries and violences were carefully fostered 
by what was at first a small party of political irrecon- 
cilables, whose ideal was the complete severance of Ireland 
from the British Crown. By putting the Irish language 
idea in the forefront of their movement they gradually 
got control of the Gaelic League, and as the failure of the 
language propaganda to make a serious impression on 
the country became more manifest, instead of facing the 
real facts they turned the resentment of the enthusiasts 
against the imion with Great Britain. Only abolish 
that, and an " Irish Ireland " would automatically leap 
into being ! One of the ablest of the leaders of this 
section of the League was Patrick Pearse, Commandant 
of the Irish Volunteers and president of the Irish Re- 
public in peiio. He held for a considerable time the post 
of editor of the oiificial organ of the League, keeping 
it constantly on the borderline of sedition, and sometimes 
well over it. The Gaelic League must, by a recent resolu- 
tion relating to Dr. Kuno Meyer, be considered to have 
taken its stand formally as a poHtical institution. But 
for many years, in spite of the efforts of the more moderate 
and far-seeing of its governing body, it had been prac- 
tically made use of as an agency for the propagation of 
those ideas, which, under the influence of the war-fever, 
exploded so violently in Easter week. 
Fostering Nationality 
The action of the British Government in putting 
down the rising and doing stern justice on its organisers 
and leaders has been held up in various quarters as a 
flagrant contradiction of the claim of that Government 
to stand for the rights of small nationalities. As a 
matter of fact, short of cutting Ireland altogether loose 
from the Empire (which would be contrary to the 
expressed will of the whole representation of the country), 
the Imperial Parliament has for the past thirty or forty 
years acted amply in the spirit of its professions. 
While Germany, the " gallant Ally," invoked by the 
rebel proclamation, was spending huge sums and enacting 
the most drastic legislation in rooting out PoHsh peasants 
and persecuting the Polish language, the British Govern- 
ment was firmly establishing the Irish peasant as the 
owner of the soil, giving freedom of local government, 
and even granting large subsidies for the teaching of 
Gaelic in the national schools, because there seemed to be 
a general national demand for Government aid in that 
direction. No Government could possibly have recognised 
more fully and fostered more generously — with very small 
thanks for it — the claims of a small nationality included 
in a great Empire to live its own life and cherish its own 
traditions in all that pertains to its intellectual, civic and 
economic development. 
Some Irishmen, as Roger Casement's speech from the 
dock shows, seem to glory in representing themselves as 
slaves. They are nothing of the kind ; their chains are 
self-imposed or imaginary— the recollection of past 
generations of real servitude. They have only to rub 
their eyes in order to rid themselves of this nightmare of 
the past, and awaken to the consciousness of their free- 
dom. Or do they prefer the irresponsibility of slavery ? 
. . . It is true that Home Rule in the sense of a 
local legislature for Ireland has so far been withheld ; 
but, after all, is that not mainly because over a quarter 
of the Irish people are ready to die rather than submit 
to it ? Might not the Southern Irish candidly examine 
themselves as to the reason for this state of things, rather 
than cast all the blame on the British Government, which, 
for many years back, would probably have been only too 
willing to hand over Irish internal affairs, if Imperial 
interests were fully secured, and if there were a united 
Ireland ready to receive the gift. 
Intensely Disloyal 
At the present moment Irish opinion is intensely dis- 
loyal. That is the inevitable result of the military 
executions.* Further outbreaks, taking possibly the 
• Yet the rebels, who led off their insurrection by the brutal murder 
of a poor vanman, are currently believed to have shot by court martial 
at least one of their supporters, who refused, to join in their crazy 
project for an unaided insurrection. 
form of organised crime, may be looked for ; but in the 
end this wave of sentiment, now rurming so high through- 
out Celtic Ireland, will subside. 
Things will be seen in truer proportions ; the rebel 
leaders will probably never cease to be honoured as 
rnartyrs, but Irishmen will know in their hearts that 
living for Ireland would have been a better form ol 
patriotism than dying for Germany. 
The Future 
The future of Ireland will doubtless be with the Sinn 
Fein movement— taking that phrase in the wide sense 
already indicated —but only if it rises to its great oppor- 
ttinity. It will have some renunciations to make. It 
will have to abandon once for all what may be called 
the nonsensical side of the Gaelic propaganda — there 
is, of course, another very valuable side worthy of the 
widest support. It will have to abandon all that side 
of its political ideal which rests on mere cant, or 
theatricalty, or hereditary hatred. It will have to 
develop more sincerity, more fair-mindedness, a keener 
sense of realities, a wider culture, than the political 
forces which it aims at supplanting. And it will 
have to consider this most urgent question : What is 
its policy for Ulster ? 
Sinn Fein Ireland hates, and quite rightly, the par- 
tition of the country. Well, then, what does it propose 
to do about it ? Are British troops to be called in to 
overwhelm the Ulster resistance ? " Sinn Fein " is surely 
the \-ery last term which one would apply to such a pro- 
gramme as that ! Is Ulster, then, to be won over ? 
And if so, how ? The rising of Easter week was a very 
bad beginning. Will the new Ireland realise that while 
almost anything may be gained on the basis of Imperial 
imity, not a step towards a real Irish nationality can 
be made on the basis of separation r 
In this direction it may be hoped that patriotism 
will seek to guide the progress of the coimtry when the 
tragic events of the present hour have ceased to obliterate, 
as they now do, everything else on the political horizon of 
Ireland. 
JUST OUT 
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OEUQC'S 
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Second Phase 
Mr. Belloc's second volume deals 
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continues the story down to the 
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break through in West Flanders. The 
book is illustrated with many plans. 
It is a narrative written by a military 
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the delight and instruction of the 
civilian reader. 
Ai all Booksellers & Bookstalls. 
