Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 6.djvu/273

JOHN E. REDMOND by the accused, packed by the accused, a tribunal with a majority of Britishers on it, appointed by the accused person, and when the verdict is brought in in favor of Ireland that verdict is thrown in the waste-paper basket, and the English Empire proceeds complacently along, piling up year after year the taxes of this country, until to-day it is absolutely true that Ireland's contribution toward the expenses of the empire have been since that commission sat increased by almost £2,000,000 a year. We pay for the navy, and we have no commerce for the navy to protect; we pay for the army, and we loathe and execrate the work upon which it has been engaged. And we hear English statesmen asking us why Ireland is not loyal. Lord Rosebery, the other day, declared that if Ireland were only loyal he would be willing to confer upon her a colonial constitution. Loyal—loyal to what? Why, there is no race in the world which, I believe, by instinct is more inclined to sentiments of loyalty than the Irish. Why do not these English statesmen give us something to be loyal to? What claim has such a system as that to loyalty? Grattan said that loyalty without liberty was corruption. What public liberty exists in Ireland to-day? The Constitution is suspended. The most trusted and honored men throughout the length and breadth of Ireland are being sent as common criminals to English jails on vague charges of conspiracy, sent there by degraded tribunals 263