dividual freedom.

We must remember that the men who would have the control of the new
Irish Government would be those who have spent the greater part of their
lives in violent conflict with the attempts of the Irish Courts to
secure respect for the elementary rights of property and of personal
freedom in Ireland. Power which has been won by the open violation of
every principle of English law, is not likely either to assert the
authority it has lived by defying to maintaining the independence of the
courts and institutions which have been its deadliest opponents. The
corruption of judicial authority and prestige in Ireland will be
accomplished by entrenching the Executive behind large and shadowy
discretionary powers, and also by manipulating the personnel and
jurisdiction of the judges and magistracy throughout the country. The
most deplorable movement in modern Nationalism is the attempt to
introduce into Irish politics the worst methods of American political
corruption. There have recently sprung into prominence in Ireland two
societies which are in some respects the most sinister, the most
immoral, and the most destructive of those which have corrupted and
infected public life in the country. These two--the Ancient Order of
Hibernians and the Irish Republican Brotherhood--have in common the
secrecy of their operations and the destructiveness of their aims. Their
influence is marked not only by despotic and tyrannical government, but,
what may be even more mischievous from the point of view of the
community, by the deliberate persecution and suppression of all
independent thought. Those who have watched the proceedings of the
Dublin Corporation have felt the increasing strength of an influence
proceeding from Belfast--an influence which is threatening to control
the whole course of Nationalist politics in Dublin and the south. The
forces of influence, combination, and intimidation which forced the
Budget on a reluctant Ireland and routed the Roman Catholic Hierarchy
over the Insurance Bill will not be disbanded under Home Rule. On the
contrary, they are now being exercised so as to enable the Board of Erin
to absorb the older organisations and to place in the hands of its
leaders--or rather in those of a single man--the nomination of most, if
not all, the representatives of the Nationalist party in Ireland. Mr.
Joseph Devlin, who seeks to build this vast power, is a politician of
American ideals and sympathies, and