The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-09-09


 with a foreign government which they have never accepted and can not trust.
 To-day MT. Lloyd George tells us than her dead patriots ever hoped to get. Perhaps this is true. In the early stages Of the conflict between America and England, our own pa In 177t, Washington said that any enc who thought we were setting up eur independence had ter the battle of Bunker Hill, he opposed independence. In March, 1775, Benjamin Franklin said, 'No American. drunk or sober, thought same year, Jefferson wrote: we have not raised armies with designs of separating from Great Br1ain and establishing independent states. Ne cessity has not driven us into that desperate measure"
 But just as it has driven Ireland, necessity did drive us to that deSper- ate measure, though we were not ex- plotted, not oppressed, not starved, wre neither confiscated nor drench- ed in the blood of our children. We were the best governed and least governed colonies in the world. But roads and had to chuose between Lih0gSy and continuing 8, colony in an empire whose colonial policy was. in the words of it's Prime Minister, Col onies are only settlements made in distant parts of the world for the ln- provement of trade,' they did not hesitate in their choice. England's long delayed concessions were reject ed-her offers of representation seen to be a, sham. Through our struggle with an English king and his Tory ministry. Americans had grown to know the value of liberty. Adversity had bought us to the threshold of freedom and as a Hberty-loving peo- pie. we. like the Irish, could not turn back.
 The Prime Minister of England has sought to draw a comparison be- tween Ireland'S wars for indepen- denco and the attempted secession of our Southern States. Surely MT. Lloyd George should know better.
 The South tried to secede to ex- tend slavery throughout this conti- nent
 Ireland is seeking independence to bring liberty to her own little island.
 The Southerners. moreover, men and women of our own race, had en- tered freely into compact of fed eration.
 The Irish, a race separate and dis tinct from he English, have never accepted English rule, and have fought against it for seven centuries. seeded, would have dominated Am erica, ruling our domestic and for eign policy alige.
 A free Ireland carries no such men sndanger England, but give her a friendly neighbor in exchange for a wronged and irreconcilable enemy within her dominions.
 MT. Lloyd George informs the Irish people that his offer embodies sub stantial liberty. Let us see if this is true Does it free. Ireland from un- willing partnership in England's s 4Sa1 her armament and wars, on which, under the offer, Ireland would have no appreciab1e vote?
 Does it absolve Ireland from shar- ing in the oppression of weager peo- pies aspiring to a promised liberty, as Ireland aspires to liberty denied ? Does it free the Irish coast from investment by British navies, her land from the recruiting and main tenance of British armies and the air above her from domination by British aerial fleets? Does the Irish nation, under the offer, escape responsibility for British secret diplomacy, and the cost in money. life, happiness that follow in it's train?
 This is, we conceive, 1reland'S case for freedom. It is a case based upon let us banish from our minds. There is but one proposition on which Am erica. and all liberty-loving nations should focus their attention. Here
 
 to make endless sacrifices for a great and noble ideal. They are demanding liberty, even as our forefatherS de- manded it-not as a gift, but as the sacred, inaliepable right of men and women. Shall we stand with or against the Irish people on this great question:
 Meantime. let us not forget that the misdeeds of England in Ireland are by no means to be laid to the door of the English people. They are the curse of a government which rarely, until too late, listens to the foreign policy. It was the English people headed by Pitt, Burke and Fox that opposed the English gov | eramcnt's prosecution of the war working classes that, against e .iifa,sn fheir own interests. and in defiance of the 1 ministry of Lord Russell, denounc- ed the English Governments lean- ipgs toward slavery and prevented its proposed recognition of the Confed- eracy and the probable triumph of We owe Q great debt to the people l of England. for their traditions ot | liberty. their literature, their contri- 1 buttons to science and art that are | the common inheritance of all of us 1 And for this reason every American who hopes for frieodly relations be- | tween these two great countries 1 should OenCunCe LiOyO GeOrgeS de- | nial of Irish liberty-a denial thai
 thoughtful men know must create 2 l breach between America and Eng I land.
 To-day we know neither what the
 Irish people nor the British Govern.
 lnent will do. It seems unlikely tha;
 Lloyd George will venture upon wal
 with Ireland, with its certain affron | to America. at least until the British Government has completed It's ar
 engagements for postponing payment of its war debt to us by refunding f But this refunding once finished, ant
 Ireland still holding out for liberty
 nothing but a fully aroused public opinion in this country may then save Ireland from another and more ter i rible armed invasion. In that un
 happy event, which. God grant, ma! not come, Ireland will be blockoded A curtain of silence will be drawr
 around her. And. while civilization shudders. a punishment more terribl, than that the Belsiums will be agaiI meted to Irish men and Irish wome1 t-becauso their love of liberty com YII