ppy country if we cannot
arrive at some moral agreement, as necessary as a political agreement.
Partition is no settlement, because there is no geographical limitation
of these passions. There is scarce a locality in Ireland where
antagonisms do not gather about the thought of Ireland as in the
caduceus of Mercury the twin serpents writhe about the sceptre of the
god. I ask our national extremists in what mood do they propose to meet
those who return, men of temper as stern as their own? Will these endure
being termed traitors to Ireland? Will their friends endure it? Will
those who mourn their dead endure to hear scornful speech of those they
loved? That way is for us a path to Hell. The unimaginative who see only
a majority in their own locality, or, perhaps, in the nation, do not
realize what a powerful factor in national life are those who differ
from them, and how they are upheld by a neighboring nation which, for
all its present travail, is more powerful by far than Ireland even if
its people were united in purpose as the fingers of one hand. Nor can
those who hold to, and are upheld by, the Empire hope to coerce to a
uniformity of feeling with themselves the millions clinging to Irish
nationality. Seven centuries of repression have left that spirit
unshaken, nor can it be destroyed save by the destruction of the Irish
people, because it springs from biological necessity. As well might a
foolish gardener trust that his apple-tree would bring forth grapes as
to dream that there could be uniformity of character and civilization
between Irishmen and Englishmen. It would be a crime against life if it
could be brought about and diversities of culture and civilization made
impossible. We may live at peace with our neighbors when it is agreed
that we must be different, and no peace is possible in the world between
nations except on this understanding. But I am not now thinking of that,
but of the more urgent problem how we are to live at peace with each
other. I am convinced Irish enmities are perpetuated because we live by
memory more than by hope, and that even now on the facts of character
there is no justification for these enmities.

We have been told that there are two nations in Ireland. That may have
been so in the past, but it is not true today. The union of Norman and
Dane and Saxon and Celt which has been going on through the centuries is
now completed, and there is but one powerful Irish character--not Celtic