The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-08-14
By SIR ROGER BASEMENT.

to the whole of Ireland, the govern ment that had already connived at the breach of public contract by the Gu hard company, intervenes in a steal thy manner to prohibit the call of the Hamburg-American line at the injur- ed Irish port and succeeds in pre- venting the establishment of a Ger man-Irish- American transport service.
 It was clear to me that the British government treated Ireland as a for eign state and often as a hostile state, and that, instead of advancing Irish interests abroad, the department of state we maintained for that purpose worked necessarily against the devel- opment of Irish interests with foreign countries, and intrigued against our external trade just as if we had been, indeed, part of the German empire instead of the alleged United King Gcm.
 Throughout the spring and early summer of 1914 the volunteer move nent in Ireland spread. In every county thousands of men were enroll ing and drilling and everywhere the cry was: 'When shall we get the rifles ?'
 1uUerV1cW W1In lteOmOnu.
 At personal interview with MT Redmond, May ', 1914, he stated to me that the last thing he desired was that rifles should be put in the hands of volunteers.
 had said that the first duty ct those controlling the volunteer move ment was to get arms, ,as had been done by the Ulster opponents Of Irish nationality, and MT. Redmond at once ir ter iected that rifles were the last thing to give 1henl."
 At the same meeting it became clear to Professor McNeil] and mysa,f that the Irish parliamentary party meant to capture the .olunteers and to use them as a sham army for po.itlcal purposes on English party platforms
 When it became clear that all ne- land was behind the volunteer upri- sal which others had called into exist ence despite the efforts of the Irish parliament party to check the nation al enthusiasm, MT. Redmond sought to lay hands upon it, so that it might be def1ected from it's original Irish purpose. A spontaneous national up- heaval of Irish patriotism, designed solely for the defense of Ireland was to be used for purposes of English political trickery to advance the in- terests of one English party with which Mr. Redmond had allied his political fortunes.
 Shipped Arms to Ireland.
 After making arrangements with a small band of Irish friends, whom l had gathered together in London on May 8, 1914, to get a first consign- ment of arms purchased on the conti- nent and landed in Ireland, I went to America in order to complete the work of obtaining the financial support of Irish Nationalists there to get arms, just as the Ulster movement had ob- tained it's armed support from the anti-Irish elements of England. left Ireland in the beginning of July, 1914 (when the war was not expect ed), and toward the end of that month addressed meetings of Irishmen in Norfolk, va., and in Philadelphia.
 The latter meeting synchronized with the successful landing at Howth of the rifles my friends had bought abroad and landed at the points on the Irish coast had arranged for be- fore sailing for merica-an act which led to the firing by the British garri- son upon the people of Dublin on that Sunday afternoon. Were further proof needed of the unchanged and unchanging determination of all Brit ish government to treat Ireland as a conquered province or hostile land held in subjection, this outrageous at- tack of July 26, 1914, on the inhabi- tants of Dublin furnished it.
 At our meeting at Philadelphia on Sunday, August 2, declared that if Irishmen did their dut. by their countrymen at home, this was the last time when any British government would ever dare to shoot down Irish men and women in the streets of an Irish city.
 Then came the war. On August the British government declared war on Germany, the pretext having been carefully arranged beforehand.