Page:Ireland and England in the past and at present.djvu/480

 CHAPTER VII

CONCLUSION

Clearly there is no ground of settlement with Sinn Fein. Its policy is too extreme. . ..

The [London] Nation, January 11, 1919.

We are less children of this clime

Than of some nation yet unborn. . ..

George W. Russell.

N the autumn of 1918, while destiny and fortune were leaving the Germans at last, Irish affairs went steadily on to their worst. In October, Mr. Dillon said there was no longer any alliance between the Irish Party and the Liberals in Britain, that the Nationalists were as free now as before the union effected by Parnell, but that they were ready to join with any English party standing for true liberalism and Irish freedom. In the early part of the next month, when the collapse of the enemy was assured, he moved a resolution in the Commons that the British government take no part in the approaching Peace Conference until the Irish question had been settled in accord with the self-determination proclaimed by President Wilson. Mr. O'Connor said it would be a real test of Britain's sincerity, if after helping to liberate the Czechs and the Jugo-Slavs, she gave liberty to Ireland; and Mr. Asquith urged 462