The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-06-30

guage of the land that tries me, but emitted in the language of an enemy land, so anticipated is the law that must be sought today to slay an Irish man whose offense iss that he puts Ire land first.
 Loyalty is sentiment, not a law. Il rests on love, not on restraint. The rests on restraint, not on law. and since it demands no love 1t can evoke no loyalty.
 This court. this jury, the public opinion of this country, England, can not but be prejudiced in varying de- grees against me, most of all, in time of war. I did not land in England; l landed in Ireland. It was to Ireland I came, to Ireland I wanted to come, and the last place I desired to land was England. But for the attorney general of England, there is no Ireland, there is only England. There is no Ireland, only the law of England; no right of Ireland. Yet for me, the Irish outlaw, there is a land of Ireland, right of Ireland, a charter for all Irishmen to appeal to in the resort. a charter that even the very statutes of England can not deprive me of, a charter that Eng lishmen themselves assert as funda- mental bond of law that connects the two kingdoms"
 Referring to the phrase of the indict- ment that he set an evil example to others, Sir Roger said:
 ITO Englishmen, I set no evil example. for I made no appeal to them. I asked Irishmen to fight for their rights. Place me before a jury of my own country men, be 1t Protestant or Catholic, union- ist or nationalist Sim Fein or Orange. and | shall accept the verdict and bow to the statute and all it's penalties.
 CROWN FEARS THE TEST
 It IS not 1 who am afraid of the yer dict of such a jury; it is the crown. If thls be not so, why fear the test? fear it not. 1 demand it as my right. 1t was not 1 who landed in England, but the crown dragged me here, away from my own country, to which l had away from my own countrymen whose loyalty is not in doubt, and safe from the judgment of my peers, whose judg- ment do not shrink from.
 That is the condemnation of English rule in Ireland of English made law, that it dare not rest on the will of the Irish people, but exists in defiance of their will; that it is rule derived, not from right, but from conquest. Conquest gives no title; it can exert no empire over mems reason and judgment and affec- tions. It is from this law of conquest without title to the reason, judgment and affections of my own eountrymen that I appeal
 Having finished this statement the pris- oner said:
 This much I penned in my prison Is days ago."
 He then continued, declaring that the national volunteers founded in Dublin in November, 1913 had no quarrel with the Ulster volunteers born year earlier, only with the men who sought ito per vert to English party use, to the mean purposes of their own bid for place and power the armed activities of the simple IriShmen.
 We aimed at winning the Ulster vol unteers, he went on, ito the cause of 8 United Ireland. It was not the Irish vol unteers who broke the law, but a Brit sh party government, who had permitted the Ulster party in it's hold on office, but to threaten that party through the lives and blood of Irishmen. The battle was to be fought in Ireland, that the political outs of today should be the ins Of tomorrow
 'In Great Britain law designed for the benefit of Ireland was to be met, not on the floor of Parliament, waere the fight had been won, but on the field with Irishmen staying each other for English party gain. And the British navy would be chartered transports bringing to our shores numerous as semblage of military and ex-military ex- perts in the congenial and profitable bus mess of holding down subject popula- tions abroad. That party was preaching a doctrine of hatred desired to bring civil war in Ireland, while the party in power took no steps to restrain it's pro- paganda, which was finding advocates in the army, navy, the privy council, in Parliament and state and church."