The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-05-15

[ Moreover the severity that was marked in Ireland is subject to q suspicion that it is meant to encour- age others. That, in fine, England and Scotland and Ireland are in a ferment with economic revolt. Strikes, anti-war meetings and other acts which have in roundabout ways escaped the censor, suggest that the Prime Minister feels that desperate economic diseases require desperate political remedies and while he might be reluctant to try them upon the English or the Scotch, the Irish revolt gave him handy opportunity to try them upon the Irish. Now 1t is safe to point out that measures of this kind, severe and gross anc excessive, have never at any time resulted as it was intended they should result. On the contrary, they over-did themselves almost in, variably and the desperate remedies only made worse the desperate disease that threatened the body DO. litic.
 It is not going to have any such thing as a deterrent effect upon th- revolutionary radicalism that is spreading in England, Wales and Scotland, But it is going to be a warning to them that no opportunity can be allowed those who now con trol, to ever obtain such a position as they now hold over the Irish. It is going to SOW seeds of rancor and bitterness and hate in Irishmen who have heretofore been loyal enough i; it is going to unnerve the hands ot thousands of Irish soldiers who are now on the front. It is going to weld in the United States a tremend- ously powerful pro-German senti- ment that heretofore had not ob- tained. As terrible example it has i been a lamentable failure: a fine dis play of ill-judged severity, when le. niency and good sense were inter- changeable terms.
 It invariably takes liberal gov ernment and an uplifting Minister speaking in terms of grandiloquence and lofty motive, to do the wrong thing always as far as Ireland is con cerned
 Still it will not abash Asquitn
 He would not be premier of party of Pecksniffs if it did And when the type is growing obscure as to the news of these executions, he will reel off another yarn about his cham pionship of liberty, democracy and small nationalities.
 No good is got from excluding the facts of the Irish national aspira- tions on the part of British states manship Four-fifths of the mis- takes made in the administration of Irish affairs has been due to this stupid policy.
 It is a self evident proposition that the executions which have been lately carried out in Dublin and else where will not make the relations between the two countries any more endurable. Quite the contrary.
 It is fairly reasonable of course that Great Britain facing many ene- mics would have insisted upon pun ishing the leaders with some sever- ity; but the case would have been met just as well by Imprisonment Now every man who has been slain will be regarded as martyr whose memory is a legacy of hate in Ire land against all things British.
 The revolt in Ireland was foolish and vain and untimely. But the exceed it in folly and vanity and untimeliness. This was no time for such excessive severity, on the contrary after it had been | then was the time for a | practical leniency which instead of | exciting still further the people of Ireland and Irish people in any sec ion of the globe against Great Bri- ain, would rather have made the re- ations of the two countries more amicable and helped at least tu strengthen the bond between the .wo. And that was sorely needed, now above all times. As failure he Asquith administration has been