as done great things,
and had it not largely perished in Ireland, separatist sentiment, the
offspring, not of Irish nationality, but of Irish political nationalism,
could hardly have survived until to-day.

But undoubtedly we strike here on a danger to the Gaelic movement, so
far at least as that movement is bound up with the future of the Gaelic
League; a danger which cannot be left out of account in any estimate of
this new force in Irish life. The continuance of the League as a
beneficent force, or indeed a force at all, seems to me, as in the case
of the co-operative organisation to which I have compared it, to be
vitally dependent on a scrupulous observance of that part of its
constitution which keeps the door open to Irishmen of every creed or
political party. Only thus can the League remain a truly national body,
and attract from all classes Irishmen who are capable of forwarding its
true policy. I do not think there is much danger of a spirit of
sectarian exclusiveness developing itself in a body mainly composed of
Roman Catholics whose President is a Protestant. But it cannot be denied
that there has been an occasional tendency to interpret the 'no
politics' clause of the constitution in a manner which seems hardly fair
to Unionists or even to constitutional Home Rulers who may have joined
the organisation on the strength of its declaration of political
neutrality. If this is not a mere transitory phenomenon its effect will
be serious. As a political body the League would immediately sink into
insignificance and probably disappear amid a crowd of contending
factions. It would certainly cease to fulfil its great function of
creating a nationality of the thought and spirit, in which all Irishmen
who wish to be anything else than English colonists might aspire to
share. Its early successes in bringing together men of different
political views were remarkable. At the very outset of its career it
enlisted the support of so militant a politician as the late Rev. R.R.
Kane, who declared that though a Unionist and an Orangeman he had no
desire to forget that he was an O'Cahan. On this basis it is difficult
to set a limit to the fruitfulness of the work which this organisation
might do for Ireland, and I cannot regard any who would depart from the
letter and spirit of its constitution as sincere, or if sincere as wise,
friends of the movement with which they are associated.

Of minor importance are certain extravagance