England take account
of what all this is going to mean to her--that the young generation
will grow up with never-to-be-forgotten memories of these atrocities,
while the thousands of young men herded together in the internment
camps and convict prisons are being manufactured into life-long
enemies of the Empire? Might not Englishmen pause and ask themselves
whether it is worth it all, apart from other considerations, to
implant this legacy of bitter hatred in Irish breasts?

Let it be admitted that since the Government have been shamed into
dropping their denials of "reprisals" and taken them in hand
themselves the military destruction has at least been carried on with
some show of reluctance and humanity by the regular army, but it
cannot be too strongly emphasised that the disbandment and deportation
of "the Black and Tans" is the first condition of any return to
civilised warfare or to any respect for the good name of England or
her army.

If I were asked to state some of the essentials of peace I would say
it must depend first of all on the re-establishment of a belief in the
good faith of England. This belief, and for the reasons which I have
attempted to outline in the preceding chapters, has been shattered
into fragments. There is a strong feeling in Ireland that the Prime
Minister's recent peace "explorations" are not honestly meant--that
they are intended to rouse the "sane and moderate" elements in
opposition to Sinn Fein. Whilst this feeling exists no real headway
can be made by those who seek a genuine peace along rational and
reasoned lines. The Prime Minister must be aware that when he
professes his readiness to meet those who can "deliver the goods" he
is talking rhetorical rubbish. "Delivering the goods" is not a matter
for Irishmen, but for British politicians, who have spent the last
twenty years cheating Ireland of the "goods" of Home Rule, which they
had solemnly covenanted again and again to "deliver."

Mr Lloyd George's conditions for a meeting with "Dail Eireann" are so
impossible that one wonders he took the trouble to state them--viz.
(1) that "Dail Eireann" must give up to be tried (and we presume
hanged) a certain unspecified number of their own colleagues; (2) that
they must recant their Republicanism and proclaim their allegiance to
the Empire; (3) that negotiations must proceed on the basis of the
Partition Act and the surrender of one-fourth of their country to the
new Orange ascendancy