The Irish standard., 1919-11-01

quenceswill make you understand it
and no eloquence VIII make you sym.
!! pathetic.
we have, therefore, to start off by
principle which we have to ask Won
to assume as an axiom. You. the de.
clarers, the signers of your own
Declaration of independence, had to
assume 1t as an axiom, they took it
as self-evident, they did not have to
prove it, they didn't wait to prove it,
they didn't think it was necessary to
be proyed-that one of the inalienable
rights of man is the right to life. to
liberty, and to the pursuit of hapni.
ness. (Applause).
II you grant these as inalienable
rights, if you grant that as an axiom.
then you must grant that Ireland has
right to be free and that England
mas no right to hold ireland against
the Will of the Irish people. CAD.
Splause). If you grant that, YOU have
granted everything we have come here
to ask you to grant-to admit that
the Irish people alone are the people
who are to determine how ireland
should be governed and what relations
ireland should have to other countries.
1t Is unnecessary to prove any more.
But what happens in this: That
you own ordinary, natural sentiments
which enable you to sympathize with
those who look for liberty, that these
are hidden away and smothered up by
the fact that England has gone and
mlsrepresented this position in Ire
land, taken what is a national fight. a
hight OF one nation against another
1mperialistic nation that wants to use
Ireland for her own imperial purposes
and transform that in such way that
even we can scarcely recognize it.
what l always like and feel that T
would like to have come in meetings
OF this sort, is that should be asked
questions by the audience, because If
were asked questions, then I would
know what points the audience wanted
to be enlightened upon. For instance
some of you, if you were allowed to
ask some questions Of me, might say:
Isn't this question all an Irish ones.
t1on, question of religious differences
IN lreland?" Mr.. Boland has dealt
with that and pointed out to you that
fundamentally it is a political ques-
ton, or, rather, should say, funda-
mentally it is political question and
an external question 1t is a question
between Ireland and England. AS far
as we internally are concerned, it is
political question, too-a majority
VINO want independence and minor
lty of the people who are in favor of
union with Britain. Remember there
is up to this time no Union. We are
not part of Britain's dominions. We
never were and, please God, never will
be- Applause and cheers). That is
not mere assertion. Irish history
history proves it, proves, as Mr.. Bo.
land told you, that after enjoying sov-
ereign statehood for thousand years,
the English invader came in. We strug-
gled with him-and, mind you, the
culture which he brought in was an
1mperialistic culture, and he succeed
ed, by superior military organization,
In destroying a beautiful, pastoral civil
lzation such as the people are groping
after today and have been for num-
Der OF centuries. That beautiful cul-
ture was destroyed, and yet so much
did the people love it, so much were
the people attached to their own civil
ization, that, without military organiza-
tions such as the enemy had, they
fought 1t in arms not for four years but
for four long centuries, and almost
beat it at the end, until, after four
centuries of struggle, the portion that
the enemy occupied was reduced to a
small part around Dublin, called the
Pale at the time, and beyond it the
laws Of England did not operate: be-
yond it you had the great Irish ma
tion, and here you had small outpost
held by the invader.
After that, three or four centuries
more elapsed, and in these three or
four centuries you have the history of
continuous struggle, sometimes in
arms, sometimes by other means, but
always struggle that indicated that
the people were not subdued in will;
that they had not given up their will;
that they were not content to relin-
quish their nationhood and become a
part Of the invaders empire.
Let us come down to that what is
called the Union with England. You
hear in connection with our movement
the claim, the statement that we are
trying to secede from Britain, that we
are divorcfng ourselves from Britain.
These terms "secede" and divorce"
and even the word separate" are al