The Washington herald., 1921-09-11

~ liberty through the long agony Of her his. MS
~ - tory, venture to write an appeal to ths
Irish race throughout the world, not written coldly
but with the emotion which stirs and thousands of
other Englishmen in a poignant way at the thought
that the present truce between Ireland and England
MAJ give way to a renewed and more tragic conflict
] have only. this recommendation to make to the
Irish people
In so far as could help their claim for self
government as a writing and public speaker
did at times when such words dangerous
and unpopular, though in America by strange para
dox, Irish and and Irish sympathzers
howled down when spoke upholding their right to
life and liberty the extent if advocating the same
home rule which is offered them. -
1t is not a OF public influence, for have
that write this address the Irish race, but
ordinary Englishman with liberal ideas and
faith in the future of humanity and who hates war,
having the great massacre in France and
Flanders from first to last
In the first place feel that if after this offer of
dominion home rule with certain conditions that
capable of alteration the conference table Irish
leaders declare for rather than peace it will be
challenge not only to England but to all and
women OF good will in all parts of the world who
now, after the awful lessons of the great war and
the blunders of peace making trying demobilize
the standing hatreds well the standing armies
and to enlarge the boundaries of democratic liberty
by wider brotherhood of the human family.
At the present day after the dark years of peace
following the red years of there is for the first
time sign Of forward movement being made by
the leaders of the peoples of the world The ma
tional hatreds engendered by the war arc beginning
die down. @
Human charity as expressed in the relief given
the starving children OF Europe, and which offers
to aid the faminestrcken people of Russia, has relt
its lamps which shine above the heart of darkness.
= VEN of the old leaders who thrust cvili-
+ zation back to national selhshness and cynicism
have had change of heart change of policy and
under the pressure of world opinion which is gath
erng weight and momentum, have declared for
program Of international reconciliation, and .appease-
ment
feel therefore that the Irish people will be
the state of civilized relationship if they reject the
full reality OF liberty offered them for the sake of an
abstract ideal of liberties which arc not necessary to
their honor their souls They will be barking back
to medaevasm and not linking up with modern
progress in democratic liberty if they insist on sep
aration and isolated nationality, for that is mediae
val idea which has given place to larger views of
human duty and relationship
The world has moved since Ireland had sixty
kings and England heptarchy.
1t has moved on since the war between the
North and the South in the United States. 1t is
moving toward larger federation of free peoples as
within the British Empire to international code of
justice and it is the conviction of all leading minds
today, based not theory but plain and terrible
facts, that if Europe does not abandon the old evil
of national vcndettas and link up along closer lines in
similar federations Europe will be utterly ruined.
That is the large aspect of Ireland's claim for
separation and isolation and the that will go
with separation. But there other aspects
immediate and visible to ordinary Englishmen.
Ireland maintains her right to absolute separa-
ton a nation foreign to England in blood in
speech and in. history, But few Enplish,nen.