chief sufferers from England's insatiable greed, and were treated by their employers as receivers of stolen goods. When in the time of Charles II., the sea was infested with pirates, and the Colonial Parliament voted a perpetual grant for the support of a navy to protect their commerce, England would not permit the money to be so applied; misappropriated it; and took pains to make it known that any suggestion of an Irish navy would be regarded as treasonable. A fine illustration of confidence in her offspring, and an exhibition of consciousness that she was not treating that offspring justly. She compelled her Irish Parliament to contribute £36,000 a year (equal to nearly ten times as much now), when Ireland could ill afford it, towards English shipping, and £62,000 in addition towards the maintenance of Tangier. Ireland must defend Tangier but dare not defend itself. The Irish nation, as distinct from the colony, unconscious of having given any cause for England's implacable hatred, and seeing no cause for it but the wellknown one, that a criminal rarely forgives his victim, generally attribute it to a malignant nature or a disease. The real motive of the hatred, however, is this: The English commercial mind is incapable of conceiving power as other than a product and accompaniment of wealth, as it has been in England's case. She knows well, better than the Irish themselves know, the natural wealth, actual and latent, of Ireland. It was not the poverty, but the wealth of Ireland, that attracted English adventurers and excited their cupidity and jealousy. The more favored a country is by nature the more attractive to the covetous-and the greater the crime of destroying it. As a murderer dislikes being confronted by a person who has escaped his knife, so England in her guilt, dislikes the nation towards which she stands in the position of murderer and especially dislikes being confronted by that nation before an international tribunal. Having partially failed to exterminate the Irish nation, the English statesmen and press constantly disseminate the slander in foreign countries that Ireland could not support herself as a separate State, knowing from their own experience that it is a slander. They have, as we have seen, long since found Ireland to be a natural mine of wealth, and have abstracted and appropriated to themselves more from it for years than is expended in maintaining some proud States in Europe. That explains why England is so wealthy, and Ireland so apparently poor, because impoverished by England's extortion. England knows that an independent Irish State would rapidly become wealthy and powerful in modern Europe. Therefore the true and only cure for England's malignancy is the destruction of her power in Ireland. It is knowledge of this and not counterhate, which has been forced upon us by unvarying experience as our motive and our only safety. The partial and temporary revival of Irish industries from 1779 till 1800 was limited to the scope and duration of the instalment of liberty of that period. With sovereign independence alone is a nation limited only by her ability and virtue, and enabled to put forth her best efforts and reap the reward. An international Peace Congress, one of whose purposes is to establish a durable peace among nations, cannot fail to take account of the chief dispositions and forces hostile to peace, and to take effective precautions against future misconduct of any State addicted to indulge in such misconduct. There is special necessity for this in the case of a State which has indulged in any grave species of misconduct toward a subject nation by continuous policy, as distinguished from severity arising out of specific cause; has practiced such a policy to the degree of treating the subject nation as a victim; and holds its conduct to be an exclusively domestic concern. International law does not recognize, and civilized states cannot afford to allow, that any State has or can have or acquire a right to torture and destroy a subject nation. Not even in war, still less as a settled form of government, can such treatment be allowed. France, England, Russie and America have already in several instances, with universal approval, treated such abuse of power as tyranny, a breach of international law, a public danger, and a forfeiture by the offending State of any right to rule such subject nation; released the nations from such subjection, and established and maintained their independence. In none of those instances, in no case of which there is record, has abuse of power been so bad or so long continued, as in the treatment of Ireland by England, comprising as it does: 1. The policy of defamation of Irish character, still being pursued; 2. The policy of destruction of civilization in Ireland, still being pursued; 3. The policy of exterminating the Irish nation, still being pursued; 4. The policy of destruction and prevention of Irish industries and trade, still being pursued; 5. The policy of prevention of legitimate intercourse with other nations, still being pursued; 6. The policy of financial exhaustion of Ireland for England's purposes, still being pursued; 7. The policy of infidelity to public engagements with Ireland, still being pursued; 8. The policy of general victimization of Ireland, still being pursued; 9. The policy of infringing the international Convention of The Hague, 1907, still being pursued; and 10. The policy of dominating international commerce, still being pursued. Therefore we have to add to Ireland's numerous irresistible titles to sovereign independence the right of release from a tyranny which international law and all civilized states condemn, which no right of sovereignty, and no duty of allegiance could survive. England having made herself the personification of iniquity, must be relieved of position and power so selfishly abused. XIV. Ireland Claims Recognition and Intervention by the Peace and an International Guarantee for Every nation that is not wholly absorbed in animal grossness has a spiritual personality; and its own past, when worthy, is the surest foundation of its claim for restoration and recognition as a State, and for its future when restored. Basing upon all the foregoing general and special titles and grounds of claim of a nation old in centuries but replete with the generous hope and high purpose of youth; scornfully rejecting the suggestion that she is destined always to be the slave and drudge of an inferior people; animated by the indomitable spirit and courage of self-sacrifice to proceed, in any event, to the goal of independence; Ireland appeals specially to every state that respects the virtues and qualities essential to civilization, that inherits gratitude to Ireland for any past service, or that cares for the permament interests of justice and peace. She appeals to the Peace Congress as a whole on all these grounds to receive and hear her represntatives; and deal worthily with the case they present for restoration to the society of Sovereign States of one which in her long career never inflicted wrong upon any nation. It behooves the Congress as well as Ireland to remember England's desire to stifle our voice, stronger today than in 1599, when Queen Elizabeth's Deputy, Lord Essex, said: ""Twere as well for our credit that we alone had the exposition of our quarrel with this people, and not they also." No question of the identity of the Irish nation can honestly be raised. 'But knowing our opponent, we desire to forestall a possible allegation that the Irish nation of today is not identical with that of the independent Ireland of the past; and we invite the Congress : 1. To require the State challenging Ireland in this respect to produce, as a condition of being heard on that subject, a verification of its own identity with the England of the centuries of Ireland's independence. 2. To consider whether any other European State of the present day is identical with its own past in so many essential respects as Ireland is with hers; and 3. To consider the following statement on historical identity by the English constitutional lawyer, Phillimore: "The vital principle of international law is a necessary and prin cipal consequence flowing from the doctrine of moral personality and actual intercommunion of States. The legion, the Roman jurist said, is the same, though the members of it are changed; the ship is the same, though the planks of it are renewed; the individual is the same, though the particles of his body may not be the same in his youth as in his old age; and so 'Populum eundem hoc tempore putari qui abhine centum annis fuisset!'" The Entente Allies and all who have expressed concurrence in their war aims have, in accordance with a principle of international law universally recognized, specially emphasized the equality of right among nations, whether big or little, in all matters, but especially for the purpose of determining the rule under which they would live. In a Federal State, such as North America and Switzerland, the constituent states have equal representation in the Federal Senate, irrespective of their size or population. The principle of international law to which this conforms is thus expressed by Oppenheim: "Since the law of nations is based on the common consent of the States as Sovereign communities, the member-states of the family of nations are equal to each other as subjects of international law," irrespective of any difference among them as regards area, population, power, etc. "This is a consequence of their sovereignty and of the fact that the law of nations is a law between, not above states." Sir F. E. Smith, Attorney General of England, in his book on the subject, thus expresses it: "States are units of international law, and that law recognizes mutual equality among them." Therefore President Wilson's declaration of equality of right among nations, big and little, adopted by the Allies, is but a re-affirmation of a principle long established, and its application to submerged nations equally with those that are independent. In accordance with this principle Ireland claims in the Peace Congress equal representation with that of other nations to be affected by the decisions of the Congress. Her claim for recognition of her status as a Sovereign State is, and has been shown in this statement to be, so well founded that she believes herself entitled to enforce it whenever and however she can. She desires to avail of this Congress as one of the possible methods. Her claim may be regarded from either of two standpoints: that of Ireland claiming a measure of simple justice due to her historically, due to her merits, her inherent right, essential to her continued existence, which she is qualified and able to assume with safety and credit, and which she is for all these reasons determined to have; and from the standpoint of the Congress, either allowing the claim and thus settling an inveterate dispute, or taking the responsibility of refusing recognition. The former course would put the Congress in possession of the facts and merits of the case. The latter course would amount to an adverse decision in disregard of the facts and merits; which facts and merits the civilized world could not then be restrained from discussing and deciding |