ry first moment of
their victory--if victory it could be called--the whole place had been
at the mercy of the mob.

"Again, they issued receipts in the name of the Irish Republic's
exchequer, but what financier would have honoured their bills? Could
they have even taken the gold from the banks they could not have got
credit or cash for any further transactions. They had assumed sole
authority over the people of Ireland, yet they could not have commanded
enough votes to secure a single constituency.

"These men, left to themselves, in fact, and treated with a sense of
humour, were on the highroad to the greatest political fiasco the world
had ever seen, and could only have made themselves ridiculous and
contemptible in the eyes of their own countrymen and others throughout
the world.

"They had appealed to Germany: very well; let them look to German help
for assistance, and in the meanwhile let them know that Casement had
been captured already, before the rising, and the phantom Prussian
armada had been sunk to the bottom of the sea.

"What could have happened? You say 'Pillage and murder.' They were not
out for that, in the first place, nor were they that type; and it may be
questioned whether, had they set about it with deliberate purpose, they
would have worked such havoc as the military and naval artillery wrought
in that fatal week."

The theory is certainly one which would have had no precedent to
recommend it, but to my mind it was just this that was its best
recommendation; in fact, what was most needed was to avoid a repetition
of the old fatal precedents which had turned so many futile revolts into
glorious outbursts of patriotism.

Just imagine the situation. England would first of all have told them
she wished for no bloodshed beyond the punishment of those who had
actually shot defenceless men or whose orders had led to these murders.
It would have redounded entirely to the credit of the Englishman.

England would then have asked the politicians and people alike if they
in any way sympathized with such a revolt, and let the penalties be
known--the immediate erasure of Home Rule from the Statute Book and the
cessation of land purchase, as well as the stoppage of all commercial or
financial transactions.

Finally, if these failed and the people of Ireland really wished for war
in its full reality, they could have it, but they must not ever
afterward appeal as constitutional partners in the Empire, bu