geful feelings of Irish exiles. There may yet
come a time when the refusal of the Irish mouse to gnaw at a net spread
about the lion may bring about the downfall of the Empire. It cannot be
to the interest of Great Britain to have on its flank some millions of
people who, whenever Great Britain is engaged in a war which threatens
its existence, feel a thrill running through them, as prisoners do
hearing the guns sounding closer of an army which comes, as they think,
to liberate them. Nations denied essential freedom ever feel like that
when the power which dominates them is itself in peril. Who can doubt
but for the creation of Dominion Government in South Africa that the
present war would have found the Boers thirsty for revenge, and the
Home Government incapable of dealing with a distant people who taxed its
resources but a few years previously. I have no doubt that if Ireland
was granted the essential freedom and wholeness in its political life
it desires, its mood also would be turned. I have no feelings of race
hatred, no exultation in thought of the downfall of any race; but as a
close observer of the mood of millions in Ireland, I feel certain that
if their claim is not met they will brood and scheme and Wait to strike
a blow, though the dream may be handed on from them to their children
and their children's children, yet they will hope, sometime, to give the
last vengeful thrust of enmity at the stricken heart of the Empire.

14. Any measure which is not a settlement which leaves Ireland still
actively discontented is a waste of effort, and the sooner English
statesmen realize the futility of half measures the better. A man who
claims a debt he believes is due to him, who is offered half of it in
payment, is not going to be conciliated or to be one iota more friendly,
if he knows that the other is able to pay the full amount and it could
be yielded without detriment to the donor. Ireland will never be content
with a system of self-government which lessens its representation in the
Imperial Parliament, and still retains for that Parliament control over
all-important matters like taxation and trade policy. Whoever controls
these controls the character of an Irish civilization, and the demand
of Ireland is not merely for administrative powers, but the power to
fashion its own national policy, and to build up a civilization of
its own with an economic character in keeping by self-devised and
self-checked efforts. To