IX.

Ireland is Entitled to the Right, Common to Nations and Persons, of Self-Preservation Against England's Policy

of Extermination.

From the middle of the 16th century when the bold policy of exterminating the whole Irish nation by the sword or by famine was commended to and graciously adopted by King Henry VIII of England, down to the present day, two fundamental questions for the Irish nation have been, first, whether it is entitled to selfpreservation; and, secondly, whether the country-Ireland-with all it comprises, belongs to the Irish nation or to the English Government. Though no Peace Congress, and no honest person could have any doubt as to the true answers to these elementary questions, to settle them has all that time been, and still is the cause of the perpetual war between the English government and the Irish nation. Throughout all that time England has adhered in practice to the policy of extermination, normally alternating between the sword and State-created famine; occasionally plying both concurrently. From the restoration of the Stuarts in 1660, State-produced famine has been the continuous normal policy, reaching its highest development within living memory in Queen Victoria's reign, and still in operation in the milder form of emigration forced by economic pressure. We shrink from stating more of the harrowing particulars of famine and eviction than will be found in the section on man-power, where the result of that policy is shown to be that of a race now numbering 30,000,000, only a remnant of about 4,000,000 remains in Ireland.

National as well as individual character is tested by suffering and proved by surmounting difficulties. What nation has been tested as Ireland has been? That there is an Irish nation in existence to-day, in spite of England, is a marvel of the age. We feel that the character also exists. That is the foundation of our hope. History tells of other victim countries. It also tells that a victim country which survives oppression, and retains sufficient vitality and vigor to demand independence, will make either an excellent member of the family of nations, or a dangerous country to exclude from that family and attempt to keep it in the position of a victim. Unprovoked tyranny stuns and terrifies; and sometimes escapes immediate punishment. Retribution may be postponed. "Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two; some century or two; but it is sure as life, it is as sure as death:" Carlyle. We have no desire to be the instrument of the just judgment upon

England; but a strong desire not to be; for that judgment must be terrible. Apart from whatever of voluntary good we may be able to do for others, our definite objects are Sinn Fein-Ourselves. The continuance of foreign despotism becomes unsafe when the victim nation's heart is wrung with the record of the destruction of all that is dearest to her. When she sees with her own eyes and knows with her own reason that she can escape the utter destruction to which her foreign oppressor has doomed her only by a supreme effort the moment her opportunity arises, to make that effort becomes the imperative duty of all who bear her name, making the gentle fierce, and even the timid brave. All foreign rule is unjust. The right to resist injustice is indestructible. All foreign rule is slavery. The duty of resisting foreign rule is incumbent on all who ought not to be enslaved. This is the test of character self-applied by each individual; English rule of Ireland being foreign. unjust, and slavery, is destructive as well, has destroyed, is destroying, and has doomed the Irish nation to utter destruction. That is its distinguishing note. The case is urgent in the last degree. Why need this be said, when the facts force the conviction upon whoever thinks at all?

According to international law, the right of self-preservation is the first law of nations as of persons. It is prior and paramount to even that of territorial inviolability; and where they conflict, international law justifies the maintenance of the former at the expense of the latter right. As a consequential part of this right of self-preservation, a nation's sovereign independence and her purpose to achieve or maintain it, as the case may be, should be constantly and publicly announced and firmly maintained before the world, on account of possible designs against it by any neighboring nation. No nation can ever have, or acquire. a right to destroy another nation either directly by the sword or by famine, or any other process, or to prescribe what means a nation so menaced shall or shall not employ, or when or how it shall employ them, for its self-preservation, or to require any account whatever of the nation's conduct or proposed conduct in this respect; and a nation so menacing another, and attempting any such restraint, or inquisition, is already guilty of the destruction of that nation, and the supreme transgression of international law. All means that do not affect the independence of other nations are lawful for a nation to employ for its self-preservation. In the case of a nation in bondage and menaced with destruction as Ireland premanently is, where the bondage and the destruction proceed from the same source. the struggle for self-preservation and for independence is the same. Independence, and nothing less, would be self-preservation. The inherent right of a nation to rebel against a destructive outside power is the natural expression of the right of self-preservation, and becomes a duty when the conditions afford a possibility of success. The enforcement of a policy of destruction is ample justification, in

morality as well as according to international law, for the adoption of any means necessary for self-defense and self-preservation, necessarily including rebellion as the most obvious means. The conditions of success may easily lurk incalculable in a combination of circumstances on both sides, such as the opportuneness of attack, the weakness or other occupation or temporary blunder of the foe, or the inscrutable decrees of Providence. Rebellion is always just when it has for its object the rescue of a nation from a destroying power; the reparation of a national wrong which by its nature continues and festers while that power lasts; the restoration of friendly relations with other States estranged by that power; the release of the faculties and resources of the nation from that power for its own people; and the establishment of security against future aggression by that power. All these conditions exist together in the case of Ireland. A nation whose country has been repeatedly ravaged by an outside power, and is, in the interest of that power, kept perpetually in a ravaged condition; and is, in the interests of that power, restrained from assuming any other condition; denied the exercise of her elements of progress in any direction whether on the national or the local scale; stripped of her resources mostly for foreign purposes antagonistic to her; denied control of the 43 administrative boards planted in her midst by England for England's purposes, and of her money spent on their maintenance; manifestly such a nation is being deliberately robbed and destroyed, and owes to herself the urgent duty of self-preservation. Ireland is so situated. Unvarying experience convinces us that continual misery and consequent decay and revolt are inseparable from foreign rule; and that rule itself, as a condition of its own maintenance, making national resuscitation impossible; and that the destruction of the nation or the destruction of the foreign rule over it are the only alternative remedies. Between forces so diametrically opposed, not temporarily, but permanently, where every pretence of adjustment and reconciliation has been used by England, as it is now being used, as a new trap for the increase of aggression and deception, reconciliation is quite impossible, and sovereign independence the only remedy. Either the power that is destroying Ireland must triumph and the Irish nation cease to exist, or that power must be eliminated from Ireland. The Irish nation is immortal and cannot cease to exist. A nation animated with that spirit is at once indestructible and irreconcilable with slavery. As the continuous policy of destruction has in the past made the duty of rebellion continuous, so the Irish people are determined it shall be until the destructive power is wholly expelled. To allow such an unequal and deadly contest to drift indefinitely, with its chronic toll of human misery and periodical toll of human life, would be to allow continuous turmoil and in effect to adopt the side of the strong party, contrary to the merits of the dispute. To put Ireland's right at the

very lowest, surely an international Congress of civilized States owes the common duty of justice and humanity to save an historic nation from an otherwise interminable policy of extermination.

X.

Ireland has Rightly Asserted Her Right in Armed

Insurrection in 1916.

People not sufficiently interested to give due consideration to the matter may suppose that a military failure cannot corroborate a right to the object for which the military effort had been made; and all worshippers of wealth and success, and despisers of failure, irrespective of merit, eagerly concur with them. The approval of this latter class we do not desire, because it would be prima facie evidence of some flaw. To the first-mentioned class we would observe that the matter is not quite so simple; that the greatest failure in history has been the greatest moral success; that there have been instances of a similar phenomenon in mundane affairs; that faith in a cause intrinsically good, proved by the courage to fight against overwhelming odds, even to the supreme sacrifice of life, commands universal admiration, may be admirable in the degree of probability of failure, and therefore strengthens the claim to the object of the effort. This sufficient reason has also the support of international precedent. Greece sustained a military defeat in her last rebellion against Turkey; and yet was, in consequence of that effort, recognized by England and other European States, and in virtue of that recognition obtained her independence. On the other hand, those who dispute the proposition of this section do so in the name of some law, forgetful of the fact which must always be remembered that it is not by law or justice or reason, but only by force and fraud, Ireland has been subdued and is kept in subjection. Since force and fraud can neither confer a right nor legalise a usurpation, those who employ them have no appeal to law or to anything but more force and more fraud; and that is precisely their situation in Ireland. As Burke says: "The use of force is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment, but it does not remove the necessity for subduing again, and a nation is not governed which is perpetually to be conquered."

Any government which is not responsible to the people governed, and in some way under their control, is unconstitutional and inevitably becomes a tyranny. At best, a condition of which we have no experience in Ireland, it must lead those conducting it into ignorance of the people's grievances, with the natural consequence of failure to remedy them. As Franklin wrote of American governors, "Their office makes them intolerant, their indolence makes them odious, and being conscious that they are hated, they become malicious. Their malice urges them to continual abuse of the in