ts upon Ireland to make good British deficiencies.
The Dominions are far off, and while they may give battleships they
take men. Ireland is close at hand--she gives all and takes nothing.
Men, mind, food and money--all these she has offered through the
centuries, and it is upon these and the unrestricted drain of these
four things from that rich mine of human fertility and wealth that
the British Empire has been founded and maintained. To secure to-day
the goodwill and active co-operation of the Irish race abroad as well
as in Ireland, and through that goodwill to secure the alliance and
support of the United States has become the guiding purpose of British
statesmanship.

The Home Rule Bill of the present Liberal Government is merely the
petty party expression of what all English statesmen recognize as
a national need. Were the present Liberal Government thrown out
to-morrow their Unionist successors would hasten to bind Ireland
(and America) to them by a measure that, if necessary, would go much
further. Every Unionist knows this. Ireland is always the key to the
situation.

I will quote two pronouncements, one English and one American, to show
that Home Rule has now become an imperial necessity for England.

Speaking in the House of Lords on the Home Rule Bill, Earl Grey, the
late Governor-General of Canada, said on January 27th, 1913:

"In the interests of the Empire I feel very strongly that it is
imperative that the Irish question should be settled on lines which
will satisfy the sentiment of the over-sea democracies, both in our
self-governing colonies and in the United States. Everyone, I think
will agree that it is most important and in the highest interests of
the empire that there should be the friendliest feelings of generous
affection and goodwill, not only between the self-governing Dominions
and the Motherland, but also between America and England.... I need
not elaborate this point. We are all agreed upon it. A heavy shadow
at present exists, and it arises from our treatment of Ireland....
If this be so is it not our duty to remove the obstacle that prevents
that relationship with America from being that which we all desire?"

The American utterance came from one equally representative of
American Imperial interests. It is that of Mr. Roosevelt, published in
the _Irish World_ of New York, Feb. 8th, 1913.

"I feel that the enactment into law of this measure ... bids fair to
establish goodwill among