Page:Roger Casement - The crime against Ireland and how the war may right it.djvu/87

 Rh goodwill. I earnestly feel that the measure is as much in the interests of Great Britain as of Ireland."

Did we judge of Ireland only by many of the public utterances made in her name, then indeed, might we despair of a people who. having suffered so much and so valiantly resisted for so many centuries were now to be won to their oppressor's side by, perhaps, the most barefaced act of bribery ever attempted by a government against a people.

"Injured nations cannot so entireleyentirely [sic] forgive their enemies without losing something of their virility, and it grates upon me to hear leader after leader of the Parliamentary Party declaring without shame, that Home Rule when it is won for Ireland is to be used as a new weapon of offense in England's hands against the freedom of the world elsewhere."

Did the Irish Parliamentary Party indeed represent Ireland in this, Mr. Wilfrid Blunt's noble protest in his recent work "The Land War in Ireland," would stand for the contemptuous impeachment, not of a political party but of a nation.

Mr. Redmond, in his latest speech, shows how truly Mr. Blunt has depicted his party's aim: but to the credit of Ireland it is to be recorded that Mr. Redmond had to choose not Ireland, but England for its delivery. Speaking at the St. Patrick's Day dinner in London on March, 17, 1913, Mr. Redmond, to a non-Irish audience, thus hailed the future part his country is to play under the restoration of what he describes as a "National Parliament."

"We will, under Home Rule, devote our attention to education, reform of the poor law, and questions of that kind which are purely domestic, which are, if you like, hum-drum Irish questions, and the only way in which we will attempt to interfere in any imperial question will be by our representatives on the floor of the Imperial