s, and
for a great and valuable recruiting area, we shall be forced to rely on
a government whose future is wrapped in the deepest obscurity, and which
at the best is hardly likely to give us enthusiastic support.

Our whole military organisation is becoming more decentralised and more
dependent on voluntary effort; it is devolving more and more upon
Territorial Associations and local bodies of all kinds. We do not
possess the reserves of horses and transport which continental nations
hold ready for use on mobilisation, and, as a substitute, we have had to
fall back on a system of registration which demands care, zeal, and
energy on the part of these civilian bodies. How will an Irish
Government and its officials fulfil a duty which will be distorted by
every Nationalist into an attempt to employ the national resources for
the sole benefit of England?

War is a stern taskmaster, demanding long years of preparation and
combination of effort for one end. The political separation of the two
countries does not alter the fact that they are, in the military sense,
one area of operations and of supply, and, at a time like the present,
when the mutual dependence of all parts of the Empire is gradually being
realised; when the dominions are building navies, and all our
dependencies are co-operating in one scheme of defence for the whole;
when the elaboration of the details of this scheme are the pressing need
of the hour, the dissolution of the Union binding together the very
heart of the Empire, is a strategic mistake, the disastrous significance
of which it is impossible to exaggerate. For it must be remembered that
here is no analogy to a federation of semi-independent provinces as in
Canada, where national defence is equally the interest of the whole.
Ireland has never recognised this community of interest with England.
Quebec, it is true, stands aloof and indifferent to the ideals of the
sister provinces; but there is no bitter religious hatred, no fierce,
anti-national aims fostered by ancient traditions, life-long feuds and
unscrupulous agitation, and every Canadian knows that Quebec would fight
to the last against American aggression, if only to preserve her
religious independence. There is no such bond here--or, at least, the
Irish Nationalist has refused to acknowledge it.

The year 1912 has opened amid signs of unrest and change, the meaning or
the end of which no man can know. In the Far East and the Near East
pol